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The former General and Commander in Chief of the Continental Army served two terms as president, holding the office from 1789 to 1797.
On June 1, 1789, President George Washington signed the country’s first Act of Congress, concerning the administration of oaths. In 1791, President Washington presided over the Nation’s first recorded Cabinet meeting, which included Alexander Hamilton as the United States’ first Secretary of the Treasury and Thomas Jefferson as the first Secretary of State.
President Washington himself laid the cornerstone for the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 1793.
Washington also laid the groundwork for the United States’ earliest foreign policy stance when he issued his Declaration of Neutrality in 1793, a direct response to the emerging conflict between England and France.