Lindsay Chervinsky on Presidencies (Part of The Revolution Is News)

The JCB recently hosted a conversation between Lindsay Chervinsky, presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library as part of the series "The Revolution Is News." Karin Wulf shares her reflections on their exchange.

The American presidency as outlined in the Constitution was not an expected outcome of the revolution. Having fought against executive power, Americans first imagined a national government (in the Articles of Confederation) without much of one.

Lindsay Chervinsky has spent her career studying the early presidency and how it developed through such very different figures from George Washington and John Adams through Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monrore, and John Quincy Adams. She shared with us key moments and lessons from the early presidency, including Washington’s consciousness of setting precedents, Adams grappling with being the president but not being Washington, and Jefferson becoming the president from a different party for the first time.

Each of these contemporary implications and lessons of course. But each also has a complex history that needs to be teased out to understand and appreciate and Lindsay is an expert analyst and guide. I also hope you’ll stay for fun about Timothy Pickering!