The bizarre election of George Washington

These days, we take for granted the organized chaos that accompanies the U.S. presidential election every four years, from the lengthy nominating cycles and raucous party conventions to the relentless media coverage that analyzes the candidates’ every word and gesture. By that standard, the 1789 election that made George Washington the first American president was far quieter, but in some ways it was even stranger.

America’s first election looked very different from today’s presidential races: There were no official political parties and campaigning, and nearly everyone wanted the same candidate to win. The election of 1789 served as a blueprint for how presidents would be picked in the United States — though many rules have changed since then. Here’s a look at this bizarre and historic experiment in democracy.

We can thank this election for the electoral college

The origins of America’s first presidential election were the passionate discussions held by the delegates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Until that point in the nation's brief history, the Articles of Confederation had proven inadequate as the basis for a unified central government, which lacked the power to levy taxes, regulate commerce, or enact foreign policies. As such, the convention delegates haggled over the details of a new system. "Federalists," including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, were eager to imbue the central government with a raft of powers, while "anti-Federalists," such George Mason, were leery of diminishing the rights of the individual states.

Although the participants came to agree on the creation of an office for the head of government, one major point of contention was just how this chief executive would be selected. Given the prevailing belief in the separation of powers, it was determined that a parliamentary system in which the legislature voted for an executive leader (like in Great Britain) was a bad idea. The convention’s delegates also reasoned that it wasn’t feasible to leave the vote directly up to the people, who harbored diverse interests and were likely to put forth an array of provincial candidates in lieu of a unifying national figure.

The delegates ultimately settled on a system of “electors,” now known as the Electoral College, to be appointed by each state according to a process of its choosing. The number of electors was equal to the state's number of congressional representatives (ranging from three in Delaware to 12 in Virginia), for a total of 69 electors in all. As eventually stated in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, each of these electors was to vote for two people — at least one of them from another state — after which the leading vote-getter would become president and the runner-up would be vice president. If two candidates tied, or if anyone failed to accumulate a majority, the winner would be determined by the House of Representatives.

Only 10 states participated

Adhering to the language of the Constitution, each state determined its own method for naming electors, which had to be chosen by January 7, 1789. In Connecticut, Georgia, and South Carolina, electors were appointed by the state legislatures, while in New Jersey, the governor and a privy council did the deed. In New Hampshire, residents voted on a list of candidates, and the legislature selected five of the top 10 finalists; in Massachusetts, the legislature chose one of the two candidates who received the most votes by residents in each of eight districts and appointed two additional electors at large.

Elsewhere, the populace largely determined the winning electors, with various regional wrinkles. Pennsylvania and Maryland both had statewide ballots, although the latter instituted a rule in which the majority of electors had to come from the western shore and the rest from the eastern shore. Delaware’s electors were determined by the winners of three districts, while Virginia split the votes among 12 electoral districts that were distinct from its 10 congressional districts.

Noticeably absent from this list are North Carolina and Rhode Island, the two commonwealths that had not yet ratified the Constitution and as such were not formally part of the United States. New York was a member of the union by then, but its legislature failed to agree on a process for determining electors by the January 7 deadline, rendering the state ineligible to participate in the election.

Washington was basically the only serious candidate

So who were the candidates to lead the nation from this brand-new office? The overwhelming favorite was George Washington, the Revolutionary War hero who had also presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The only question was whether he would accept the job. The former general, who was in his mid-50s at the time, had expressed a preference for “living and dying a private citizen on my own farm,” although he seemed resigned to the likelihood of a return to public service.

John Adams, the former Massachusetts delegate and U.S. minister to Great Britain, emerged as a likely choice for vice president, in part because his Northern roots would provide a balance to the Southern sensibilities of the Virginia-born Washington. Meanwhile, anti-Federalists who had lingering misgivings about the Constitution coalesced around New York Governor George Clinton, who was a prominent advocate for states’ rights and a limited central government.

While support for Washington was strong, some of the Founding Fathers were concerned about a process that failed to distinguish between votes cast for president or vice president. Worried that anti-Federalist electors would siphon votes away from Washington and inadvertently tip the election to Adams, a Federalist faction led by Alexander Hamilton privately pressured select electors to name someone besides Adams as the second name on their ballots.

He was swept into office with a unanimous vote

Ultimately, the concerns about an unfavorable outcome ended up being overblown. When the votes were counted on April 6, 1789, Washington had appeared on all 69 electoral ballots to become unanimously selected as the first U.S. president. Adams collected 34 votes, causing him to finish second and become the first vice president. However, he was upset by what he considered a relatively meager total, and reportedly held a grudge against Hamilton after learning of the back-channel plot to limit his support. The remaining votes were spread among 11 names, with John Jay (9), Robert H. Harrison (6), John Rutledge (6), and John Hancock (4) all surpassing the three votes cast for Clinton. 

Shortly after receiving news that a life of leisure would have to wait, Washington undertook the weeklong journey from Virginia to New York to take the oath of office at Manhattan’s Federal Hall on April 30, 1789. The inauguration being held in New York City was just one of many elements of the U.S. presidential election that later changed, along with the formation of political parties, the 1804 ratification of the 12th Amendment that separated voting for the president and vice president, and the emergence of a national identity spawned by the success of this once-novel system of government.