This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we return to our American stories and our series about us,

The Story of America series with Hillsdale College Professor

Bill McLeigh, author of Land of Hope. Let's get into the story. Take it away, Bill.

George Washington was our first president and the logical man, the inevitable man, the indispensable man.

But the funny thing about this man is that he wasn't a politician.

He was a military man.

So Washington had a different set of criteria, more like what a general might have, perhaps, than a typical politician.

Of course, nobody had been president of the United States before.

He chose his cabinet on the basis of who were the most competent people in his view,

who were the most skillful, most intelligent, most experienced, most far-seeing.

He didn't play favorites according to politics or party.

There were no parties.

So he chose his cabinet from all over.

He did not show any loyalty to region.

He was a loyal Virginian, but he didn't appoint all Virginians.

His top cabinet picks were Alexander Hamilton of New York, who we did know very well as his former aide, to the Treasury Department.

He was Secretary of the Treasury, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Secretary of State,

and Henry Knox of Massachusetts, who would be the Secretary of War. That's a pretty nice distribution.

This was a very unique approach because he wasn't look at, for example, did Hamilton have a different view of the Constitution than Jefferson,

which it actually turns out they were fiercely opposed, but that didn't matter to Washington.

He was interested in what they brought to the table in terms of fulfilling the particular function

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