Did you know that the first form of government for the United States had no KIng, no Executive Branch and therefore no President ?.
The new government waged a war to rid themselves of a King, and the government they created gave all the governance power to the States, not the central goverment. - This brand new country called it's ruling body the Continent Congress, which was divided into a House of Senate and a House of Representatiove,
And it's White Paper was called the Articles of the Confederation.
This was the unifying rules of the alliance between the 13 colonies, now 13 states.
This document didn't create an Executive Branch of government, because the colonists hated centralization of power. They fought one King and they were not going to willingly create another.
Yes, as shocking as it may seem, the first version of the United States had no Executive Branch, only a President of the Senate, in a bicameral Congress Senate and House of Representatives.
So from 1776 to 1789 the 13 colonies who won their freedom from the British Crown by blood, refused to swear alliegence to another King like figure, so there was no President or executive branch for 13 years.
This document, called the Articles of the Confederation, was the sole agreement which linked the 13 colonies together into the Confederated States of America.
It gave the majority of governance power to the Continental Congress , which represented each State and shared power equally.
This body alone met to decide most issues of governance.
This was by design, as the Founding Fathers considered the Central Authority of the King to be an anathema, insulting to the natural rights of Free Born Men.
In some ways this suggests that the Founding Fathers of the United States were the first proponents of decentralization of power, as they distributed it to the 13 colonies or original 13 states, and specifically said what power is not specifically delegated to the Federal Government shall remain with the states, and very few powers were given to the federall government.
If you have studied the governance model for decentralized distributed networks made famous by cryptocurrency called DAOs or decentralized autonomous organization. You see the amazing parrallels between the original government of the United States of America and a DAO.
Wow! So the original United States government was almost a decentralized autonomous organization.
The end of decentralization
Ironically, the 13 colonies rewrote their unifying documents in 1789 and created an Executive Branch of government, which included a President, because centralization has it's advantages in terms of speed and accountability.
Furthermore , the first President of the United States George Washingtonm was asked to be the King. But he insisted on the title of President, because the colonies had already had 7 Senate Presidents and knew that they wre elected servants, not Kings, they didn't serve for life, and they were not at all powerful.
Oh my God...
Humans and their short attention spans and short memmories. The colonists had just fought a war to win their freedome from a king, and 13 years later they almost named George Washingtom the first king of the United States.
Any way..getting back to decentralization.
So were the Founding Fathers of the USA the first decentralization afficionados?
Perhaps they would have embraced Bitcoin?
In my opinion they would, because there were no central banks, and currency was an IOU for gold and silver, and control over money lay completely with the holder of the gold, silver or the currency. Our currency actually evolved over time into a Gold Certificate or Silver Certificate, which you cold exchange for gold or silver at anytime. I suspect they would be appalled at our current currency, which is backed not by gold or silver, but by faith in our government. Plus it is printed at will, diluting it's value and stealing the buying power and thus stored value of people's labor. Perhaps they would want to return control of money to the people, and take it away from the banks and the government.
Did the Founding Fathers of the United States create the first DAO?
