United States presidential election, 1788–1789

United States presidential election, 1789

December 15, 1788 - January 10, 1789
→ 1792

 
Nominee George Washington
Party Nonpartisan
Home state Virginia
Electoral vote 69
States carried 10
Popular vote 38,818
Percentage 100%

Presidential election results map. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. (Note: North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the Constitution, the New York legislature was deadlocked, and Vermont was operating as a de facto unrecognized state.)

President before election

None

Elected President

George Washington
Independent

The United States presidential election of 1789 was the first presidential election in the United States of America and the only election to ever take place in a year that is not a multiple of four. The election took place following the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788. In this election, George Washington was elected for the first of his two terms as president, and John Adams became the first vice-president.

Before this election, the United States had no chief executive.[1] Under the previous system agreed to under Articles of Confederation, the national government was headed by the Confederation Congress, which had a ceremonial presiding officer and several executive departments, but no independent executive branch.[2]

In this election, the enormously popular Washington essentially ran unopposed. The only real issue to be decided was who would be chosen as vice-president. Under the system then in place, each elector cast two votes; if a person received a vote from a majority of the electors, that person became president, and the runner-up became vice-president. All 69 electors cast one vote each for Washington. Their other votes were divided among eleven other candidates; John Adams received the most, becoming vice-president. The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, would change this procedure, requiring each elector to cast distinct votes for president and vice-president.

Contents

[hide]

Presidential candidates

Vice Presidential candidates

Federalist candidates

Candidates gallery

Anti-Federalist candidates

Candidates gallery

General election

In the absence of conventions, there was no formal nomination process. The framers of the Constitution had presumed that Washington would be the first president, and once he agreed to come out of retirement to accept the office, there was no opposition to him. Individual states chose their electors, who voted all together for Washington when they met.

Electors used their second vote to cast a scattering of votes, many voting for someone besides Adams (a carefully organized scheme originating with Alexander Hamilton) less out of opposition to him than to prevent Adams from matching Washington's total.

Only ten states out of the original thirteen cast electoral votes in this election. North Carolina and Rhode Island were ineligible to participate as they had not yet ratified the United States Constitution. New York failed to appoint its allotment of eight electors because of a deadlock in the state legislature.

Results

Popular vote

Popular Vote(a), (b), (c)
Count Percentage
Federalist electors 35,866 92.4%
Anti-Federalist electors 2,952 7.6%
Total 38,818 100.0%

Source: U.S. President National Vote. Our Campaigns. (February 11, 2006).

(a) Only 6 of the 10 states casting electoral votes chose electors by any form of popular vote.
(b) Less than 1.3% of the population voted: the 1790 Census would count a total population of 3.0 million with a free population of 2.4 million and 600,000 slaves in those states casting electoral votes in this election.
(c) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.

Electoral vote

Presidential Candidate Party Home State Popular Vote(a), (b), (c) Electoral Vote(d), (e), (f)
Count Percentage
George Washington None Virginia 38,818 100.0% 69
John Adams Federalist Massachusetts 34
John Jay Federalist New York 9
Robert H. Harrison Federalist Maryland 6
John Rutledge Federalist South Carolina 6
John Hancock Federalist Massachusetts 4
George Clinton Anti-Federalist New York 3
Samuel Huntington Federalist Connecticut 2
John Milton Federalist Georgia 2
James Armstrong(g) Federalist Georgia(g) 1
Benjamin Lincoln Federalist Massachusetts 1
Edward Telfair Anti-Federalist Georgia 1
Total 38,818 100.0% 138
Needed to win 35

Source: Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 30, 2005).

(a) Only 6 of the 10 states casting electoral votes chose electors by any form of popular vote.
(b) Less than 1.3% of the population voted: the 1790 Census would count a total population of 3.0 million with a free population of 2.4 million and 600,000 slaves in those states casting electoral votes in this election.
(c) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.
(d) The New York legislature failed to appoint its allotted 8 electors in time, so there were no voting electors from New York.
(e) Two electors from Maryland did not vote.
(f) One elector from Virginia did not vote and another elector from Virginia was not chosen because an election district failed to submit returns.
(g) The identity of this candidate comes from The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections (Gordon DenBoer (ed.), University of Wisconsin Press, 1984, p. 441). Several respected sources, including the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and the Political Graveyard, instead show this individual to be James Armstrong of Pennsylvania. However, primary sources, such as the Senate Journal, list only Armstrong's name, not his state. Skeptics observe that Armstrong received his single vote from a Georgia elector. They find this improbable because Armstrong of Pennsylvania was not nationally famous—his public service to that date consisted of being a medical officer during the American Revolution and, at most, a single year as a Pennsylvania judge.

Electoral college selection

The Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, provided that the state legislatures should decide the manner in which their Electors were chosen. Different state legislatures chose different methods:[3]

Method of choosing Electors State(s)
each elector appointed by the state legislature Connecticut
Georgia
New Jersey
New York (a)
South Carolina
  • two electors appointed by state legislature
  • each remaining elector chosen by state legislature from list of top two vote-getters in each congressional district
Massachusetts
each elector chosen by voters statewide; however, if no candidate wins majority, state legislature appoints elector from top two candidates New Hampshire
state is divided into electoral districts, with one elector chosen per district by the voters of that district Virginia (b)
Delaware
electors chosen at large by voters Maryland
Pennsylvania
state had not yet ratified the Constitution, so was not eligible to choose electors North Carolina
Rhode Island

(a) New York's legislature deadlocked, so no electors were chosen.
(b) One electoral district failed to choose an elector.

See also

Notes

References

Navigation

External links