History 101: Past Presidents in Health Emergencies, Crises, and Pandemics

Yellow Fever Outbreak in 1793

(Geo. Washington was President)

A lesson worth remembering at this time in our Nation's history while asking: What did our past presidents do in national health emergencies and crises and pandemics? An excellent lookback is here from NBC’s Think page (an excellent site to bookmark BTW):

Short review: The nation's founders understood that government is necessary to “promote the general welfare” by facilitating collective responses to general problems.

That is even included in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. 

Also, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 23: “It would be an absurdity to entrust to government the direction of the most essential national concerns, but then not entrust it with the authority that is indispensable to their proper and efficient management.”

So, what did our political and military leaders do to combat diseases from smallpox to yellow fever in the past? 

(Book extracts from historian Ron Chernow & my input to fit the blog).

George Washington as the Commander during the Revolutionary War and later as the first president of the brand new United States of America: “Diligently quarantined soldiers who exhibited the first signs of smallpox.” 

When the threat grew acute near Boston during the winter of 1777, Washington then ordered doctors to inoculate every soldier who had not yet been exposed to the disease and that early decision was as important as any military measure Washington adopted during the war.

Later, as president, Washington had to cope when the young nation’s capital, then-Philadelphia, was overtaken with yellow fever in 1793.

Believing that the illness was contagious (it is actually spread by mosquitoes), he ordered the residents of America’s then-largest city to adopt many of the same measures that have become our own new normal we see today: (1) covering their faces in public, (2) avoiding crowds, (3) closing schools and businesses, and (4) staying home.

Washington then instructed his Secretary of War, Henry Knox, to essentially work remotely as he wrote: “I think it would not be prudent either for you or the clerks in your office, or the office itself, to be too much exposed to the malignant fever.” 

Later he decided to work from home himself, at Mount Vernon, telling a friend that he “…could not think of hazarding his wife and children by staying in Philadelphia.”

My 2 cents: Now, who says history does not repeat itself – right, Mr. Trump. 

Sorry, but a weak “oops” on your part won’t suffice or be enough to cover your many crisis shortfalls and missteps, or your and raggedy ass as you focus on reelection and not “promoted the general welfare of the public” our founders said was paramount and part of your oath of office.

Sorry to be so harsh with my lingo, but that is the honest truth.

Thanks for stopping by.