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Scholar Sues To Recognize 'Presidents' Before Washington

Tribune photo by ANDY JONES

History scholar Stanley Klos says the 10 men who served as president under the Articles of Confederation are America's 'Forgotten Founders.'

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 7, 2008

TAMPA – Any schoolchild knows that George Washington was the first president of the United States.

That's a problem for Palm Harbor resident Stanley L. Klos, 54, a scholar of rare historical documents who is on a quest for recognition of the 10 men he says were president before Washington took the oath of office in 1789.

Klos wants people to know about Samuel Huntington of Connecticut. Klos says Huntington was elected under the Continental Congress but ascended to the presidency under the Constitution of 1777, also known as the Articles of Confederation, on March 2, 1781.

Then there are Thomas McKean, John Hanson, Elias Boudinot, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, John Hancock, Nathanial Gorham, Arthur St. Clair and Cyrus Griffin, who left office two months before Washington became president. All these men signed documents as president of the United States. They were leaders of this country's national government known as the United States in Congress Assembled.

"They actually enacted treaties, laws, proclamations and resolutions as presidents of the United States," Klos says. It doesn't bother Klos that historians say he's off base and dismiss his claims as silly. As far as he's concerned, they have it all wrong, and he has the documents to prove it.

"If you go into the national archive, the first thing that greets you is the Treaty of Paris proclamation signed under the great seal of the United States of America by our president, Thomas Mifflin," Klos says. "It ended the war with Great Britain."

Klos has written a book on the subject and formed a corporation called Forgotten Founders Inc. He had an exhibit at the 2004 Republican convention and plans another at this year's Republican convention.

And now he has brought his case to federal court. He is suing Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, trying to force the government to include his 10 presidents on coins. The suit cites the "Presidential Coin Act," which directs the Treasury secretary to issue $1 coins emblematic of the Presidents of the United States, and to mint the coins until each president has been honored.

Klos claims in the lawsuit that failing to recognize these men harms his children and all students in America by misleading them about "the existence and identity of the earliest founders and the presidents of the United States."

Klos said U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday, who has been assigned the case, "has a chance to right history. If he does it, it'll finally correct the textbooks."

To Klos, the law is clear. It makes no exception for Samuel Huntington and Thomas Mifflin.

The men signed documents as president of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, or president of the United States of America and President of the United States, Klos said. "It's very confusing," he conceded.

Several historians contacted by The Tampa Tribune chuckled when asked about Klos' ideas.

Jack Rakove at Stanford University, for one, called Klos' arguments "historically zany." Howard B. Rock at Florida International University dismissed the concept as nothing more than "a Jeopardy question" and "a ridiculous argument."

Men like Huntington and Mifflin served in a post that was not comparable to the presidency held by George Washington, the historians say.

They weren't commander in chief; they did not have any decision-making powers and couldn't veto legislation.

"These were important political leaders in the country," said Harry Rubenstein, chair of the Division of Politics and Reform at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. "They did help shape our nation in its formative years, but they're not the same" as presidents since George Washington.

Mifflin might have signed the Treaty of Paris, but he had no power himself over whether it was enacted, Rakove said. If he tried to scuttle the treaty, he would have been promptly removed from office, Rakove said.

"It's an interesting bit of American history that these people, this office, had a similar title to a current office," Rubenstein said. "If you're the president of the Rotary Club, you're not the president of the United States, even though you're both presidents."

Klos had another comparison. "Let's just take Queen Elizabeth I, one of the most powerful women ever in the history of the world," he said. "She has now been followed by Queen Elizabeth II, who has almost no power compared to Elizabeth I. Is she not queen of England? Just because the duties have changed, does not mean she is not queen?"

In some ways, Klos argues, Mifflin, Huntington and their colleagues had even more power than the present-day executive "because it was a unicameral government," so the president was, in effect, the leader of both the House and the Senate. And, Klos added, when there were disputes among states, the body would turn into the Supreme Court, and the president would act as chief justice.

Gleaves Whitney, director of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, was as dismissive of Klos' claims as the other historians. But he welcomed the inquiry.

"Technically, this is an historic debate worth having because it forces us to think what the founders at the constitutional convention were arguing about," Whitney said. "The Articles of Confederation set up a very weak executive, but there was a person who presided over the Confederated Congress. Some historians have said that that series of individuals who presided over the Confederated Congress amounted to our first our presidents."

But Whitney said that idea isn't really a matter of controversy. "The reason the framers of the Constitution of 1787 provided for a much stronger executive than the people who had presided over the Articles of Confederation was that they knew George Washington would be our first president and they trusted George Washington because George Washington had the one quality that reassured them he could walk away from power — he didn't need the power.

None of the men on Klos' list had "the quality that George Washington possessed in spades," Whitney added. "That was the greatest reputation in the young United States. That's true power."

"We love the debate because it gets kids interested," Whitney said. "This is great stuff. It's fun, and we're approaching Memorial Day, Flag Day, the Fourth of July. Why not?"

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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