Despite this shared monarchical heritage, the initial rejection of kings did lead both new republics briefly to eschew a powerful executive. In the U.S., Washington himself resisted attempts to grant him a crown, and at the end of the War of Independence ostentatiously resigned his commission in the Continental Army and returned to private life—to the relief of convinced republicans like John Adams, who had feared the rise of an American Caesar. At one point, Adams had even warned against “the superstitious veneration which is paid to General Washington,” and compared it to the worship of a graven idol. The United States emerged from the war a weak confederation of quasi-independent states. In France, during the Reign of Terror of 1793–94, some radical Jacobins urged Maximilien Robespierre to assume dictatorial powers, but the fussy, moralistic “Incorruptible” made a poor subject for a cult of personality. And in any case, in July 1794 rivals fearful of the guillotine overthrew and executed him. They then wrote a new constitution that divided executive functions among five “Directors,” the better to prevent any single man from assuming monarchical power.
But in neither case did this anti-monarchical interlude last long. As the Articles of Confederation proved increasingly unwieldy, George Washington himself urged a tighter union of the states, and agreed to preside over a constitutional convention. Its members designed a relatively powerful presidency, believing that the country needed a figure of real executive authority who could also, symbolically, put human flesh on the abstract bones of constitutional principle. They overcame worries about dictatorship because of the promise that Washington—who had by then proven his devotion to republican principles beyond doubt—would himself initially occupy the office and set the tone for his successors. In 1789, he won the first presidential election almost by acclamation.
In France, between 1795 and 1799, the “directorial” regime turned dangerously unstable, with three coups d’état in less than two years, even as the revolutionary wars turned against France and placed the Republic’s very survival in jeopardy. Under these conditions, a French Caesar seemed more of a savior than a threat, and the obvious candidate for the role was Napoleon Bonaparte, who at age thirty was already the most successful general in French history. In late 1799 he returned to France from his conquest of Egypt, and within a month had seized power, becoming First Consul. He then wrote a new constitution that accorded him enormous executive powers, while casting him as the guarantor of national unity after a decade of revolutionary turmoil.