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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.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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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.
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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.
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.
Presidential Candidate | Party | Home State | Popular Vote(a), (b), (c) | Electoral Vote(d), (e), (f) | |
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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.
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) |
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each elector appointed by the state legislature | Connecticut Georgia New Jersey New York (a) South Carolina |
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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.
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