CLEP U.S. History I 039: Launching the Federal Government and the Bill of Rights

CLEP U.S. History I 039: Launching the Federal Government and the Bill of Rights

U.S. History to 1877 | Chapter 8 | Lesson 8.1

The first Congress and President George Washington had to make the new framework govern. Congress created the Departments of State, Treasury, and War and provided for an attorney general. A central practical question concerned removal: could the president dismiss executive officers without Senate approval? Congress accepted a strong presidential removal power, helping make department heads responsible to the president. Washington then gathered leading officers for advice. The Constitution never names a presidential cabinet, but this informal practice became durable. The Judiciary Act of 1789 supplied another missing structure by creating district and circuit courts beneath the Supreme Court and defining federal jurisdiction. The act did not settle every question about federal and state judicial power, but it made Article III operational.

Washington understood that conduct could define the office. He used the title “President of the United States,” delivered messages to Congress, toured the states, and generally avoided the ceremonial display of a monarch. He served two terms and then retired, establishing a precedent that lasted until the twentieth century. At the same time, the presidency was not modest in every respect: Washington asserted executive authority in administration, diplomacy, and enforcement. Precedent therefore meant translating broad constitutional grants into repeated practice, not simply limiting the office.

Ratification had left a political debt. Many Americans feared that the Constitution did not protect individual liberty explicitly enough. Representative James Madison drafted amendments from state proposals. Ten were ratified in 1791. The Bill of Rights protects religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, criminal-procedure rights, and other liberties. The Ninth warns that listing rights does not deny others retained by the people, while the Tenth reserves undelegated powers to the states or the people. At first these restrictions applied to the federal government, not the states. That distinction matters when interpreting early controversies.

Watch, then test the claim

This US National Archives lesson supplies a second explanation of the same period. Note where chronology, cause, and perspective connect.

Video: The Bill of Rights and the First Federal Congress, US National Archives.

Check your understanding

  1. Which action most clearly established an unwritten presidential precedent?
    1. Congress’s creation of executive departments
    2. Washington’s consultation with department heads as a cabinet
    3. Congress’s establishment of lower federal courts
    4. The Senate’s approval of negotiated treaties
    5. State legislatures’ selection of United States senators
  2. The Judiciary Act of 1789 primarily
    1. abolished state courts
    2. allowed popular election of judges
    3. made the Supreme Court superior to Congress
    4. created lower federal courts
    5. incorporated the Bill of Rights against the states
  3. Deep Practice: select all that apply. Which were features of the federal government by 1791?
    1. executive departments
    2. a national cabinet practice
    3. lower federal courts
    4. ten ratified rights amendments
    5. direct popular election of senators
  4. Deep Practice: open response. In two or three sentences, distinguish a constitutional rule from a Washington-era precedent.

    Write a brief response using a named fact from the lesson.

Open the answers and reasoning
8.1-1. B. Washington’s regular consultation with department heads created the unwritten cabinet practice, so B is correct. Congress established the departments in A and the courts in C by statute. Senate consent to treaties in D and legislative election of senators in E followed written constitutional rules rather than presidential precedent.
8.1-2. D. D now contains creation of lower federal courts, the act’s central institutional work. A would destroy rather than implement federalism. B and E came much later. C wrongly assigns judicial organization to election.
8.1-3. A, B, C, D. A-D were operating by 1791: departments, cabinet consultation, lower federal courts, and ten amendments. E is excluded because senators were selected by state legislatures until the Seventeenth Amendment.
8.1-4. rubric. Minimum complete: identify one written rule, such as Senate consent, and one practice, such as cabinet consultation. Explicitly state that the latter arose through precedent.

Independent preparation. CLEP is a registered trademark of the College Board, which does not endorse this lesson.

Effortless Math Team

Effortless Math Team

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