The election of George Washington, who subsequently became the first president of the United States under the newly ratified Constitution, involved little suspense and held no surprises. Despite serious divisions resulting from the animated debate over ratification, almost all major political factions and interests considered Washington of Virginia the inevitable and only reasonable choice to serve as the nation’s first true chief executive. By and large, Washington was, by personal choice, unaffiliated with any faction or party, but his ideas and attitudes about politics were in effect Federalist, at least for the most part. Even so, his sensibilities prevented him from regarding unqualified political allegiance with anything but cool indifference. He had his loyalties, but they were attached to persons more than they were to any specific political doctrine other than a keen and abiding commitment to republican government and the principled liberty that it secured. He enjoyed the ardent loyalties of many supporters, but his interest in drawing from those loyalties the support needed to obtain for himself the kind of political life that comes with republican governance was slight. After having scrupulously fulfilled his duty throughout the revolution as commander of the Continental army and later having served in the important role of presiding officer at the Constitutional Convention of 1789, Washington, at age fifty-seven, now preferred to embrace and enjoy the pleasures of private life warmly ensconced within his plantation at Mount Vernon, Virginia. The office of the presidency, Washington observed in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette posted in April 1788, “has no enticing charms, and no fascinating allurements,” and he said that the increasing “infirmities of nature and the growing love of retirement” did not permit any happy commitment to any occupation other than “living and dying an honest man on my own farm.” And yet, recognizing the novelty of the Constitution and the sober care needed to successfully implement its various components combined with the serious circumstances under which it was ratified, Washington reluctantly, quietly agreed to serve as the first president if elected. Knowing this, supporters of Washington enthusiastically sang his praises throughout the summer and fall of 1788, unabashedly lauding him as the “New Cincinnatus,” the “Great Washington,” and the “Savior of America.” Washington’s old friend and comrade Alexander Hamilton in particular pressed hard for Washington’s service in this capacity, writing to Washington in August and September 1788 to advise that his full participation in the new republic’s “first operations” was no less than “indispensable,” and that a “citizen of so much consequence” was “essential” to the “prosperity of [the] newly instituted government.” Hamilton was not the only correspondent imploring Washington to accept the presidency. Mount Vernon was peppered with letters written by a broad variety of supporters encouraging Washington to respond again to the call of duty. While Washington remained demure, for the most part, he accepted this unwelcome conscription as one that he could neither too quickly embrace nor too deftly evade and still maintain his good name, so meticulously won for himself on the strength of his renowned virtues. His approach to the whole issue was marked by a nuanced admission of his duty to serve and a tempered insistence on remaining aloof to the prospect. A further complication added to the sensitivity of Washington’s response; if his name was to be offered for the office, it needed to be so without dissent. It appears that Washington, while sincerely not desiring the office, simultaneously did not welcome the prospect of being challenged for the office or of having to engage in unseemly competition for political power, but rather to assume his duties without contest or self-promotion. Washington’s lifelong care for reputation would not allow such a result. Hence, in a sense, the first presidential campaign was more about tactfully persuading the great statesman in a way that would defer to his sense of honor, which would not allow even the slightest hint of grasping for office. Owing to these sensibilities, Washington did not put forward a platform or publicly campaign for the presidency. He relied on that personal indispensability of which Hamilton spoke, all the while carefully sustaining a position that would neither invite accusations of unseemly ambition nor preclude his assumption of the post.
Washington succeeded in his efforts to avoid a campaign for the presidency, but the first presidential election was not without a contest—in this case, it involved the vice presidency, a position that at that time did not carry nearly the same degree of import that it does for us today. As Washington was from the South—and indeed, from the southern state that held the most electoral votes—deference to sectional interests drove the selection of a Northerner for the vice presidency, and it was to Massachusetts and New York that politicians turned. Governor George Clinton seemed a likely choice early, particularly from the old Anti-Federalists (those who had been critical of the new Constitution during the debates over its ratification), but his candidacy was thwarted by turmoil in the New York legislature over the method of selecting electors. Massachusetts was an incubator of notable statesmen, the most prominent being John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Henry Knox, Benjamin Lincoln (no relation to the future sixteenth president) and the erudite John Adams. Hancock drew some initial attention, but in the end it was John Adams, a seasoned, capable, and learned public servant, who commanded the most support. Hamilton, ever Washington’s closest ally, was initially skeptical of Adams, suspecting him of being less than amenable to Washington and thus causing him to worry over the possibility that Adams might not exhibit the loyalty needed to strengthen a Federalist presidency. But in the end, Adams seemed to be nearly as inevitable as Washington, a fact that caused Hamilton to focus on ensuring that Adams did not receive the same kind of unanimity that was guaranteed to Washington, secretly working to ensure that only Washington would emerge unchallenged, a machination that, once Adams became aware of it in later years, drove an unhappy wedge between these two giants of the founding era.
It is important to note the context behind Hamilton’s anxieties over Adams. Prior to the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment, the Constitution, as it was originally established, required that each elector cast two votes for president. The candidate with the highest number of votes became president. The candidate with the second-highest number of votes became vice president. Given the way in which Article II of the Constitution was originally designed, it was possible for a candidate who was intended for the vice presidency to actually win the most total votes and thus, by legal default, be elected president if a majority was obtained, even against the initial wishes of everyone involved. Although Washington constituted the consensus choice for president, rendering such a scenario unlikely, Adams, without additional challengers in the field, could possibly—at least in Hamilton’s mind—inadvertently prevent Washington’s unopposed election. For both Hamilton and Washington, the presidency should be assumed only with the kind of unanimity that Washington felt would preserve his reputation and establish the right kind of precedent for an office requiring dignity above public competition. That said, it was not simply the influence of Hamilton that prevented Adams from enjoying a similar acclamation, but also the presence of a number of candidates who managed to receive some degree of modest support. Adams was widely respected, but not universally as was Washington. Hence, Hamilton’s concerns were largely ungrounded.
On the first Wednesday in January 1789, state legislatures selected the first members of the new Electoral College, in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution. (In the early years of the republic, the members of the Electoral College were selected by state legislatures in some states and the general voters in others, always under the advice and direction of prominent state and local figures. And while to this day, it is still the Electoral College and not the general public that technically elects the president, electors are currently chosen by the voters from a pool of candidates nominated by their respective parties and, for the most part, committed to vote accordingly.) Due to a delay in assembling a congressional quorum to count the ballots, the votes of the electors remained unopened until early April. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not select electors, because of their abiding hesitancy to ratify the Constitution. Because of the impasse between factions within its state legislature, New York also missed an opportunity to select electors for the 1789 presidential election. All the same, Washington’s election was unanimous, winning all sixty-nine electoral votes that were cast, a unanimous total from among all participating electors. Owing to the impasse in New York and the ineligibility of North Carolina and Rhode Island, twenty-four electoral votes were not cast. Additionally, Maryland and Virginia were also shy two votes each. Hence, technically, Washington received around 85 percent of all possible Electoral College votes, and 100 percent of all votes cast by participating electors. His election was nonetheless unanimous, even with this qualification.
Adams, as anticipated, did win the vice presidency without any serious challenger, but enough alternative candidates received the votes needed to render a final count considerably smaller than Washington’s, thus allaying Hamilton’s concern. Most notable among these alternative candidates were Hancock and New York’s John Jay, who received four and nine electoral votes, respectively (Jay’s nine being third only to Washington’s and Adams’s); South Carolina’s John Rutledge, who received six votes; Clinton, who received just three votes; and Lincoln, who received the support of one elector. Twelve electoral votes were distributed among figures less familiar to us today: Washington’s close associate Robert H. Harrison of Maryland (6); governor of Connecticut and former president of the Continental Congress Samuel Huntington (2); and three favorite sons from Georgia, John Milton (2), James Armstrong (1), and Edward Telfair (1). In the end, Adams received thirty-four electoral votes for the vice presidency, just under half but still appreciably larger than even the closest challenger (Jay).
Thus the Campaign of 1789 ended in unanimity for Washington, but it masked deeper ideological and regional differences. The Federalists and Anti-Federalists held markedly different views regarding the structure of the new government and the respective powers of the federal and state governments. Southern states were sharply opposed to northern states on issues such as foreign policy and tariffs. The effort to fashion a North-South ticket provided a precedent that would become an important feature of the presidential contest. And while the support for Washington was from all quarters, his administration would not be immune from the strains of the factionalism against which he had famously warned. Washington, ever committed to his duty, rode to New York to become inaugurated as the first and one of the greatest presidents in American history, but he did so with an unshakable sense of reluctance mixed with apprehension. Musing on these feelings, he admitted, “I feel very much like a man who is condemned to death does when the time of his execution draws nigh.”
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