Man sues for recognition of 1st presidents

PALM BEACH, Fla., May 7 (UPI) -- A Florida man has sued the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, seeking recognition of 10 men he says served as president before George Washington.

Samuel Klos of Palm Beach argues that the men who headed the government under the Constitution of 1777, or the Articles of Confederation, deserve the same attention as Washington and his successors, the Tampa Tribune reported.

"If you go into the national archive, the first thing that greets you is the Treaty of Paris proclamation signed under the great seal of the United States of America by our president, Thomas Mifflin," Klos says. "It ended the war with Great Britain."

The reason for Klos's suit against Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is the Presidential Coin Act, which decreed the minting of a series of $1 coins bearing the portraits of every president. Klos argues that the series should begin with Samuel Huntington of Connecticut, who became president when the Continental Congress adopted the 1777 Constitution.

To historians who say that Huntington, Mifflin and the other pre-1789 presidents did not have the power of the later ones, Klos says that in some ways they had more. They were heads of a unicameral government.