None of the States had made any preparation for an election, and the only practical method for choosing electors was by the Legislatures, as the Constitution provided then, as it does now, that each State shall appoint Presidential electors “in such manner as its Legislature may direct.” Attempts were made to hold popular elections in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, but even in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, after elections had been held after a fashion, the Legislatures of those States finally chose the electors. There were next to no votes cast in Pennsylvania,[1] Maryland, and Virginia, as there was no contest, the election of Washington being conceded by all; and whatever votes were cast in the States have never found their way into the political statistics of the country. Rhode Island and North Carolina had not ratified the Constitution and did not choose electors, and in New York a bitter contest arose in the Legislature between the friends and opponents of the Constitution, resulting in a disagreement between the Senate and House that was not adjusted in time for the Legislature to choose electors. Thus, New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina gave no votes for President in the Electoral College of 1789.
There had been no formal nomination of Washington for President and Adams for Vice-President in any part of the country. In later Presidential elections it was common for Legislatures and mass-meetings to present candidates for President, but I cannot find a record of any formal presentation of either the name of Washington or Adams as candidates at the first Presidential election. Washington was accepted as the logical ruler of the Republic, whose sword had won its independence, and Massachusetts, the State of Lexington and Bunker Hill, was conceded the second place on the ticket by general assent. Both were pronounced Federalists, and Washington was much more positive in his partisanship than is now generally believed. He was consulted about the choice of a Vice-President, and he answered that while he took it for granted that “a true Federalist” would be elected to the Vice-Presidency, he was unwilling to indicate any preference; but it was generally known that he and his immediate friends preferred John Adams, who had been one of the committee with Jefferson to prepare the Declaration of Independence, and who had written a very vigorous pamphlet in favor of the adoption of the Constitution.
It is now generally assumed that there was no shade of opposition to Washington’s election to the Presidency, but the anti-Federalists, many of whom were opposed to the Constitution, made several ineffectual efforts to defeat him. It is known that Franklin was approached on the question of being Washington’s competitor, but there is little doubt that he peremptorily refused. At that time the Presidential electors did not vote directly for President and Vice-President as they do now. Each elector voted for two men for President, both of whom could not be a resident of the same State, and the candidate receiving the largest vote, if a majority, was chosen President, and the candidate receiving the second largest vote for President became Vice-President. Several movements were made, without ever attaining the dignity of importance, to have votes quietly taken from Washington and given to Adams, and other movements were made to defeat Adams for Vice-President, but all of them were signal failures. It is understood that Hamilton, the closest friend of Washington, was not friendly to Adams. There is some reason to believe that he would have seconded the movement of the anti-Federalists to make George Clinton Vice-President had it given any promise of success.
The electoral colleges met on the first Wednesday of February, 1789, and elected Washington President, he receiving 69 votes, being the full number of electors, and John Adams received 34 votes for President, which made him Vice-President, although he did not receive a majority of the electoral votes. The following table shows the vote in detail as cast by the Electoral College, all of the men having been voted for only as Presidential candidates:
| STATES. | George Washington. | John Adams. | Samuel Huntington. | John Jay. | John Hancock. | Robert H. Harrison. | George Clinton. | John Rutledge. | John Milton. | James Armstrong. | Edward Telfair. | Benjamin Lincoln. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 5 | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Massachusetts | 10 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Connecticut | 7 | 5 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| New Jersey | 6 | 1 | — | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pennsylvania | 10 | 8 | — | — | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Delaware | 3 | — | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Maryland | 6 | — | — | — | — | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Virginia | 10 | 5 | — | 1 | 1 | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | — |
| South Carolina | 7 | — | — | — | 1 | — | — | 6 | — | — | — | — |
| Georgia | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 69 | 34 | 2 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
The Congress of the Confederation had provided that the new Congress chosen under the Constitution should meet in New York on the first Wednesday of March to declare the result of the Presidential election and inaugurate the new Republic, but a quorum of the Senate did not appear until the 6th of April, and on that day the electoral vote was counted in the presence of the two Houses, and Washington and Adams declared elected. They were notified of their election as speedily as possible, but it was not until the 30th of April that they were inaugurated.
Washington’s second election was quite as unanimous as the first, both at the polls and in the electoral colleges. No opposition electoral tickets were formed in any of the States, as the re-election of Washington and Adams was universally accepted. The Presidential electors of that day were appointed in accordance with the obvious spirit of the Constitution, that meant to provide an entirely dispassionate and independent tribunal in the Electoral College to exercise the soundest discretion in the choice of a President and Vice-President. No pledges were asked or given by any one named as an elector, and each one was free to vote according to the dictates of his own judgment. Had there been opposition electoral tickets, they would have logically run on opposing lines with distinct obligations on the part of each side as to how their votes would be cast, but no such question arose until the first battle between Adams and Jefferson in 1796.
There was no organized opposition to the administration of Washington at the close of his first term, but the Democratic sentiment, so ardently cherished by Jefferson, had been steadily growing, and with two such able and aggressive opposing partisans as Jefferson and Hamilton in the Washington Cabinet, it was only natural that opposition to the Federal policy would gradually take shape to be effective when the overshadowing personality of Washington became eliminated from the politics of the country. Jefferson and Hamilton often had serious differences in the Cabinet, and Washington uniformly sided with Hamilton. Washington had little personal and no political sympathy whatever with Jefferson, and only one of Jefferson’s rare tact and sagacity could have remained in the Washington Cabinet and fashioned the great opposition party that carried him triumphantly into the Presidential chair four years after Washington’s retirement. As opposition to the re-election of Washington and Adams would have been entirely fruitless, it was wisely not attempted, and the election passed off in almost as perfunctory a manner as did the first election in 1789.
Rhode Island and North Carolina had ratified the Constitution, and Vermont became a State on the 4th of March, 1791, and Kentucky on the 1st of June, 1792, giving fifteen States to participate in the second Presidential election. In nine of the States Presidential electors were chosen by the Legislatures, and by popular vote in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, but there were very few votes polled, and what were cast indicated nothing politically, as there were no opposing electoral tickets.