While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The results of the 1792 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table. Two months passed after the election before the votes were counted and Washington was notified that he had been elected president. READ MORE: Why Was the Electoral College Created? All Rights Reserved. Adams received 77 votes as Washington's running mate on the Federalist ticket to 50 for Democratic-Republican George Clinton, 4 for Thomas Jefferson, and 1 for Aaron Burr. The distribution of the electoral vote between the four runners-up showed a high degree of party discipline, with only two electors voting contrary to the majority in their state. However, Clinton received only three electoral votes. Wiki User 2009-03-12 02:59:52 Study now See answer (1) Copy For all intents and purposes, the enormously popular Washington ran unopposed in both the. Spend the day with us! The results of the 1789 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table. One month after President Washingtonleft Mount Vernon, Martha Washington set out on her own triumphant trip to the seat of the new government in New York. Discover the Home of George and Martha Washington. He, too, was present for the signing of the Treaty of Paris and a leading figure during the creation of the Declaration of Independence. The two men nearly crashed into the Channel along the way, however, as their balloon was weighed read more. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association has been maintaining the Mount Vernon Estate since they acquired it from the Washington family in 1858. (a) New York's legislature did not choose electors on time. (Two electors from Maryland and one from Vermont were absent and did not vote.) (d) As the New York legislature failed to appoint its allotted eight electors in time, there were no voting electors from New York. The Campaign and Election of 1796: Throughout Washington's presidency, Vice President Adams regarded himself as the heir apparent. Michaelsen, William B. Need help with homework? Today political parties usually nominate their slate of electors at their state conventions or by a vote of the partys central state committee, with party loyalists often being picked for the job. Suffering from diminished physical abilities, Pres. Elected President. Print. The inaugural ceremony was performed on Wall Street, near the spot now marked by John Quincy Adams Wards statue of Washington. Historically, over 99 percent of all electors have cast their ballots in line with the voters. They find this improbable because Armstrong of Pennsylvania was not nationally famoushis 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. There he enlisted in a unit formed by Irish Loyalists to fight the American colonials and General Washingtons Continental Army. "A New Matrix for National Politics." Adams won 77 electoral votes, enough to win re-election. 1st quadrennial U.S. presidential election, 17881789 United States presidential election, New York had ratified the Constitution but its, See "Alternative methods for choosing electors" under, "17881789 United States presidential election", Learn how and when to remove this template message, National Archives and Records Administration, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Electoral College Count for the Presidential Election of 1789", 178889 United States House of Representatives elections, "National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present", "A Saturday Session in the First Congress | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives", "The Electoral Count for the Presidential Election of 1789", United States presidential election, 1789, Presidential Election of 1789: A Resource Guide, A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 17871825, "A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College", Initiated, co-wrote, 1769 Virginia Association, 178889 United States presidential election, Longfellow HouseWashington's Headquarters National Historic Site, George Washington and the Revolutionary War Door, General George Washington Resigning His Commission, Washington and Jefferson National Forests, WashingtonRochambeau Revolutionary Route, Chairman of the Marine Committee, 1775-1779, United States presidential election 17881789, Massachusetts Historical Society holdings, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Family home and John Quincy Adams birthplace, Co-founder and second president, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, elections in which the winner lost the popular vote, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=17881789_United_States_presidential_election&oldid=1141583738, Articles needing additional references from April 2017, All articles needing additional references, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using bar box without float left or float right, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, each elector chosen by voters statewide; however, if no candidate wins majority, state legislature appoints electors from top ten candidates, state divided into electoral districts, with one elector chosen per district by the voters of that district, state had not yet ratified the Constitution, two electors appointed by state legislature, each remaining elector chosen by state legislature from the two most popular candidates in each U.S. House district. In 1792, presidential elections were still conducted according to the original method established under the U.S. Constitution. (b) Less than 1.8% 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. (g) The identity of this candidate comes from The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections (Gordon DenBoer (ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1792. (a) Only six of the 11 states eligible to cast electoral votes chose electors by any form of popular vote. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1796. (The previous two were the presidential elections of 1789 and 1792, in which George Washington ran without serious opposition.) This election was the first in which each of the original 13 states appointed electors, as did the newly added states of Kentucky and Vermont. Who ran against George Washington in the first election? This was the only U.S. presidential election that spanned two calendar years without a contingent election and the first national presidential election in American history. George Washington was the first President of the United States. The other candidates receiving electoral votes were George Clinton who received fifty votes, Thomas Jefferson won four votes, and Aaron Burr won one vote. [7], Source: United States Presidential Elections, 1788-1860: The Official Results by Michael J. Dubin[8]. He was also one of the anonymous writers responsible for the Federalist Papers in the lead-up to the creation of the United States Constitution. By 1792, a party division had emerged between Federalists led by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who desired a stronger federal government with a leading role in the economy, and the Democratic-Republicans led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Representative James Madison of Virginia, who favored states' rights and opposed Hamilton's economic program. This was the only U.S. presidential election that spanned two calendar years without a contingent election and the first national presidential election in American history. Many were convinced by his role in politics up to that point. Thomas Jefferson resigned his post as Secretary of State in 1792, while James Madison organized an anti-administration front in the Congress. Washington received 132 electoral votes, one from each elector. New York, however, failed to field a slate of electors. United States presidential election of 1789, American presidential election held on Feb. 4, 1789, in which George Washington was unanimously chosen as the first president of the United States by electors from 10 of the 13 extant states. McDonald, Forrest. Of the 69 participating electors, each cast one vote for Washington, who was elected president. ", D. Jason BerggrenGeorgia Southwestern State University. 1. The result is interesting, considering Clintons poor showing in the first presidential election. Voter turnout comprised a low single-digit percentage of the adult population. 19. level 2. Defenders of Washingtons policies would become the Federalist Party. The choice for vice president was more divisive. Greenstein, Fred I. Discover the Home of George and Martha Washington. 2023 Mount Vernon Ladies Association. All of his notes in this volume appear alongside the text of the Constitution, where he drew neat brackets to highlight passages of particular interest. Although Washington had been considering retiring, both sides encouraged him to remain in office to bridge factional differences. On November 5, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a third term in officean unprecedented act that would be barred by a constitutional amendment a decade later. Under this system, each elector cast two votes: the candidate who received the greatest number of votes (so long as they won a majority) became president, while the runner-up became vice president. Voting in Revolutionary America: A Study of Elections in the Original Thirteen States, 17761789. Please select which sections you would like to print: John M. Cunningham graduated from Kalamazoo College in 2000 with a B.A. Regional and partisan divisions were evident in the vote distribution. Adams received votes from 77 electors and Clinton 50; the four electors from Kentucky voted for Thomas Jefferson, and one South Carolina elector voted for Aaron Burr. The Iowa Journal of History and Politics 2 (1904): 3-33. America's first presidential election is held. On April 30, 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as the first president. Though he's repeatedly (and falsely) claimed that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, Donald Trump believes he could have won a race . No other president since has come into office with a universal mandate to lead. A student of pop culture and the arts, he wrote about popular (and semipopular) Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. 2023 Mount Vernon Ladies Association. From the mansion to lush gardens and grounds, intriguing museum galleries, immersive programs, and the distillery and gristmill. Washington was essentially unopposed, but Adams faced a competitive re-election against Governor George Clinton of New York. For example, in Maryland, a state with a statewide popular vote, unofficial parties campaigned locally, advertising. John Adams and George Clinton both played a part in each election. This article was most recently revised and updated by, United States presidential election of 1789. In order to win the presidency, a candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes out of a possible 538. He made the comments to Washington Post journalists in an . But Washington himself did absolutely no public campaigning, and even cast doubt on whether he would take the job if elected. After a private meeting at Mount Vernon, Madison prepared a drastically more concise address whichleft more open to Congress's discretion. All Rights Reserved. Illustration by Joe Ciardiello. After winning the Revolutionary War and helping set up the new government for his country at the Constitutional Convention, George Washington'sthoughts turned away from battlefields and assembly halls to a much more modest arena-- his home at his Mount Vernon estate -- and the opportunity of "living and dying a private citizen on my own farm.". George Washington had wished to retire at the end of his first term in office. The Constitution stipulated that the position would be awarded to the runner-up in the Presidential election. 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