1796 George Washington - Public Service Pay

When George Washington was elected in 1789 to be President, the first United States Congress voted to pay Washington a salary of $25,000 a year.  That was a very large sum in 1789, equal to about $340,000 in 2015 dollars.   Washington initially declined the salary, but finally accepted it at the urging of congress partly because he wanted to avoid setting a precedent whereby the office of the president would be limited to independently wealthy individuals who would be willing to serve without any salary.

With this mind set, we must read a letter written to James Madison from the chief clerk in the Office of Foreign Affairs.    In his letter, Mr. Taylor wrote "let every Gentleman who has a family, appeal to his own daily and necessary expenses. He will doubtless find them enormous, and may perhaps, upon reflection, wonder how any one can subsist on the small and inadequate salaries allowed to Clerks".  He continued, "The fact is, however, that few, if any, can afford themselves even the common comforts of life."   Mr. Taylor recognized that congress in 1795 had provided some temporary relief, but he lamented that if Congress did not take up the matter now, it "it appears morally impossible for any Man to continue under the present exorbitant rates of living."

So, in his final state of the union address, Washington urged Congress to take up the matter with these words:

"The compensation to the officers of the United States in various instances, and in none more than in respect to the most important stations, appear to call for legislative revision. The consequences of a defective provision are of serious import to the Government. If private wealth is to supply the defect of public retribution, it will greatly contract the sphere within which the selection of character for office is to be made, and will proportionally diminish the probability of a choice of men able as well as upright. Besides that, it should be repugnant to the vital principles of our Government virtually to exclude from public trusts talents and virtue unless accompanied by wealth."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29438
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-16-02-0124
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Mount_Vernon_E-000910-20111019.jpg