President George Washington, once again careful not to seem too eager for power and hoping with raised yearning to return to private life at Mount Vernon, agreed after considerable soul searching to serve a second term as president of the young republic, but not before nearly leaving office after just one term. Washington’s physical health had deteriorated, but at the age of sixty, he remained keen enough of mind and resolved in his sense of duty to carry forward, however reluctantly, as the nation’s leading executive. Had he done so, it would have been difficult for Washington to justify his resignation; the country faced serious internal divisions, particularly between the northern and southern sections, and a firm, moderating hand was needed to pilot the country through intersectional turbulence. Additionally, the young (and comparatively weak) country was in danger of being pulled into the entanglements that arise from conflict between great powers, in this case Britain and France. Again, it was unlikely to find anyone at this time who could apply the reasoned caution that was necessary in steering clear of the crossfire between these two ambitious, expansive, and exceedingly powerful European nations.
Washington’s administration was more than capable in facing these prospects, as it included some of the finest minds of the day (or of any day, for that matter). Among their number were the brilliant Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury, who had grown close to Washington and served as his closest adviser; his intellectual equal and ideological rival Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state; the capable Edmund Randolph as attorney general, who was often seen as the counterpoise balancing the disparate views of Hamilton and Jefferson; and the self-made, multitalented war hero and comrade of Washington, Henry Knox, as secretary of war. It does indeed seem from our perspective to have been a golden age of political leadership, but this extraordinarily talented administration was not immune from the divisiveness and factionalism that Washington had always considered inimical to the government of a unified republic.
Hamilton’s extensive economic and financial policies—the more controversial measures involving federal assumption of state debts and the institution of a national bank—along with a rapidly widening schism within the administration between “Federalists” (led by Hamilton) and “Republicans” (led by Jefferson and not to be confused with our modern Republican Party), had drawn abundant criticism. Along with Hamilton, the Federalists numbered among their members such notable figures as John Adams (the incumbent vice president), John Jay and Gouverneur Morris of New York, John Marshall and Bushrod Washington of Virginia, James Wilson and Tench Coxe of Pennsylvania, and Paul Revere and Fisher Ames of Massachusetts. While the Anti-Federalists had earlier won the debate over the inclusion of the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments having been quickly ratified during Washington’s first term as president—their initial concerns about the potential for a large, centralized, and “consolidated” government under the new constitution were raised anew. The Republicans, following Jefferson and his friend and fellow Virginian James Madison, who was Hamilton’s erstwhile ratification ally, along with other notable statesmen such as George Clinton of New York, Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania (later to settle in New York), and Virginians James Monroe, John Taylor, and (at least for the moment) Roanoke’s colorful John Randolph, for the most part embraced the Anti-Federalist mantle by advocating states’ rights against the expansion of the power of the national government while also favoring the supremacy of the legislative branch. These Republicans (sometimes referred to as Jeffersonian Republicans or, referring specifically to the Southern wing, the “Old Republicans”) focused their attacks on Hamilton and his policies, fervently opposing the national bank that had been approved by Congress in 1791. Not only did Jefferson set himself against Hamilton, but so did Randolph, who, even though he tried hard to remain neutral with regard to the Hamilton-Jefferson rivalry, considered the national bank an unconstitutional measure. Washington, while personally and philosophically close to Hamilton, deliberately did what he could to remain above the fray and maintain a cool distance from the more unseemly aspects of political infighting and doctrinal division. His ability to succeed in this effort further strengthened his reputation, fortifying his already solid and broad popularity and securing his legacy as a singularly unifying figure unlike any other in American history.
Perturbed by these divisions in his administration and longing to return again to his private life at Mount Vernon, Washington was seeking an honorable way out. As the election approached, he consulted with several eminent individuals—among them Hamilton, Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, Madison, and Knox (curiously, there is no evidence that he consulted his vice president, John Adams)—for advice on the best way to announce his decision not to stand for reelection to the presidency. But the advice offered from all quarters was to serve for a second term; even those who had fallen into bitter rivalry mutually agreed that, given the potential dangers ahead, Washington needed to remain at the head of the executive. Both Jefferson and Hamilton urged Washington to stay on; Randolph went as far as to warn Washington of the possibility of “civil war” as a result of the divisions that were beset upon them, and argued that Washington would be invaluable in the prevention of such an eventuality. It was clear to everyone that Washington was indeed indispensable after all.
While opposition to the activities of Washington’s administration, or at least the Hamiltonian element within it, grew in both quantity and intensity, the president himself remained comparatively immune from public attack. This secured his universal support for reelection, and once again, by virtue of his character alone, Washington easily rode into a second term without a challenger to oppose him, receiving a unanimous 132 electoral votes from among those that were cast from 15 states, Vermont and Kentucky having been added since the last election. Additionally, this was also the first election in which the electoral votes were recorded from New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, given assorted reasons that had thwarted their participation in the previous election. Three electors did not cast their votes: two from Maryland and one from Vermont (thus Washington’s unanimity was drawn from all votes cast, not from all electors available). State legislatures selected the electors in nine states, and the remaining states made use of the popular vote in district and statewide elections. As in the previous election, the real contest for the executive in 1792 shifted to the vice presidency.
Much like the first presidential campaign, the selection process in 1792 lacked any of the features commonly associated with modern presidential campaigns, but campaigning for other offices was vigorous. Throughout the campaign season, the battle lines were sharply drawn. To a large degree, Republicans and Federalists relied upon friendly newspapers to attack their opponents. Philadelphia’s National Gazette, a pro-Jeffersonian (Republican) newspaper, launched broadside after broadside against the Federalists. The Gazette of the United States trumpeted the successes of the Washington administration and the Federalist philosophy. Insult freely flowed from both the Federalist and Republican press. The Federalist press accused the Jefferson faction of Jacobinism (a name for the radical and violent wing within the French Revolution), and the Republican press countered with allegations, based on his public writings and his alleged personal affinities, that Vice President Adams sought to establish a monarchy. The charge of monarchism against Adams was a serious one and would not easily be deflated, as he was admittedly a proponent of strong executive government and suspicious of the more volatile and demagogic aspects of democratic politics. But in this Adams was not alone, as many of the statesmen at the time, on both sides of the debate, harbored genuine reservations about pure democracy. Many who criticized Adams as a monarchist were forced to admit that they had not carefully read his extensive and erudite writings on his somewhat complex theories of politics and government, but rather only aped what they heard secondhand about these theories, or what they had read in excerpts cynically quoted in newspapers without context. Nonetheless, the charge of Adams as monarchist dogged his reputation and remained a sore point in his bid to remain Washington’s vice president. These kinds of allegations were not confined to Adams. Republicans by and large accused Federalists of being elitists. As political scientists Marty Cohen, John Zaller, et al. report, James Madison, in a 1792 article titled “The Candid State of Parties,” referred to the Federalists as the party of the “opulent class,” in stark contrast to the Republicans, who “trusted the wisdom of the people.” Further, Cohen, Karol, et al. related the decidedly exaggerated pose of the other side as well, citing statements from William Cobbett of the Porcupine Gazette (out of Philadelphia) wherein he described the Jeffersonians as the “refuse of nations,” tools of “baboons,” “vile old” wretches, and “frog-eating, man-eating, blood-drinking cannibals.”
Mutual mudslinging aside, the facts indicate that these tactics were not needed by the Federalists, at least at this time, as support for Adams was for the most part strong. As expected, he was popular throughout New England, but he also commanded loyalty from key individuals throughout the Union. Jefferson—who was both a friend and a rival, sometimes more one than the other—simply assumed that Adams would remain in office, attesting to Adams’s “personal worth” and admitting this to be more important than the “demerits of his political creed.” Most leading Federalists backed Adams, and, significantly, Hamilton also continued his support of Adams, even though he continued to harbor reservations; Even so, those reservations would soon evaporate once it became clear whom the Republicans were preparing to support. Adams was not without controversy even within his own party, but in spite of his inability to foster an appealing popular image, he sustained the broad admiration needed to retain elected office.
That said, the Republican faction sought a challenger. Benjamin Rush and John Beckley in Pennsylvania, and Madison and Monroe in Virginia, emerged as important players in the Republican decision to challenge Adams. From the start, New York governor George Clinton, an old enemy of Hamilton, served as the logical choice to lead the Republican charge for the second spot. Strenuously opposed to Clinton, visible horror was stirred in Hamilton at the prospect of a challenge from his fateful nemesis, another New Yorker, the flamboyant junior senator Aaron Burr. Burr was highly regarded as a promising and fresh leader, one who provided an effective antidote to, as Rush phrased it, “the monarchical rubbish of our government,” no doubt a direct slur against Adams (and quite possibly Hamilton). With the young Burr’s name sent into currency along with Clinton’s, a tristate axis involving politicians in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia briefly formed around the issue of displacing the incumbent vice president. But while Burr was a captivating prospect for some, the Virginians led by Madison and Monroe threw in their support behind the more mature Clinton; and independently, Pennsylvania Republicans would also decide for Clinton rather than Burr. Even though Burr’s brief candidacy seemed to have fizzled out, Hamilton remained worried enough to continue his efforts against Burr. As much as Hamilton disliked Clinton, his antipathy to Burr was unrelenting: he considered him to be nothing less than a threat to the survival of the nation. Hamilton also suspected that the Clinton and Burr candidacies could be a diversion concealing Jefferson’s own ambitions for the presidency, a suspicion that proved to be unfounded, and one that Hamilton was able to overcome once it became clear that support for Burr had dissipated. With Burr removed from the picture and his suspicions about Jefferson allayed, Hamilton directed his efforts against Clinton, this time working without thought to Washington’s inevitable unanimity in order to ensure that Adams commanded a considerable number of votes, predicting that Adams would receive a “nearly unanimous vote” in New England and a high number throughout the Union, a public position in contrast to his more private attitude held in the previous election. Given his disdain for Clinton, Hamilton could not hide his newly found enthusiasm for Adams. “The success of the Vice President [in retaining office],” Hamilton wrote to Jay, “is as great a source of satisfaction as that of Mr. Clinton would have been of mortification & pain to me.”
Even though Adams faced more opposition in a more divisive political climate than in 1789, the final tally of seventy-seven electoral votes was a larger percentage (just over 58%) of second-place votes than he had received in 1789. As Hamilton predicted, New England fell in behind Adams, delivering thirty-four votes (44% of his total count). Adams also finished strong in Pennsylvania (which delivered fourteen of its fifteen electoral votes), New Jersey, and in the border and southern states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and South Carolina. It was still far below Washington’s unanimous 132 but nonetheless a strong showing that crossed regions, and more than sufficient to achieve reelection to the vice presidency, leaving him politically well positioned for 1796. Clinton received fifty votes, which represented a considerably more respectable third-place showing, in absolute numbers, compared to Jay’s third-place tally (a meager nine votes) in the 1789 election. Jefferson received four votes from Rhode Island’s electors (the state that spoiled Adams’s unanimity in New England), and one elector from South Carolina cast his vote for Burr.
Significantly, Virginia, which with its twenty-one electoral votes was the giant of the Electoral College at the time, threw all of its support behind Clinton (thus accounting for just over 40% of Clinton’s final tally). New York (Clinton’s home state) and North Carolina, two other influential states with twelve electoral votes each, also fell in unanimously behind the Republican faction, to be joined by Georgia, which delivered a unanimous four votes for Clinton. New York’s support of its native son was to be expected, but Clinton’s strong showing in the South foreshadowed later developments in the establishment of the Jeffersonian base.
The real meaning of the election of 1792 is in what it portends. The factional divisions and growing rancor between the major figures that characterized the contest for vice president in 1792 serve as a foretaste of both 1796 and, even more importantly, 1800. Additionally, the sectional implications were becoming clearer, and they would become increasingly more evident through the divisive political controversies that would sharpen in the following decade, leading up to the War of 1812. The political battle lines were becoming clearer, and the trenches were rapidly deepening; the landscape of American presidential politics was being prepared for the full combat of two American titans.
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