President of The Continental Congress - Relationship To The US Presidency

Relationship To The US Presidency

The office of President of Congress foreshadowed the current office of President of the United States and was similar in terms of its name, social, and diplomatic precedence, but different in terms of its executive powers. Historian Edmund Burnett wrote:

he President of the United States is scarcely in any sense the successor of the presidents of the old Congress. The presidents of Congress were almost solely presiding officers, possessing scarcely a shred of executive or administrative functions; whereas the President of the United States is almost solely an executive officer, with no presiding duties at all. Barring a likeness in social and diplomatic precedence, the two offices are identical only in the possession of the same title.

Because John Hanson was the first president elected under the terms of the Articles of Confederation, his grandson promoted him as the "first President of the United States" and waged a successful campaign to have Hanson's statue placed in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, even though Hanson was not really one of Maryland's foremost leaders of the Revolutionary era.