The 1788–1789 United States presidential election was the first quadrennial presidential election. George Washington was unanimously elected for the first of his two terms as president, and John Adams became the first vice president. This was the only U.S. presidential election that spanned two calendar years.
About 1788–89 United States presidential election in brief
The 1788–1789 United States presidential election was the first quadrennial presidential election. George Washington was unanimously elected for the first of his two terms as president, and John Adams became the first vice president. This was the only U.S. presidential election that spanned two calendar years. The Constitution established an Electoral College, based on each state’s Congressional representation, in which each elector would cast two votes for two candidates. The remaining 35 electoral votes were split among 10 candidates, including John Jay, who finished second with nine electoral votes. Washington was inaugurated in New York City on April 30, 1789, 57 days after the First Congress convened. John Adams received 34 electoral votes, one short of a majority – because the Constitution did not require an outright majority in the Electoral College prior to ratification of the Twelfth Amendment. Thomas Jefferson wrote that he considered John Adams and John Hancock, both from Massachusetts, to be the top contenders for the post of post of vice president, but Adams was elected to the post.
Because many assumed that electors would choose a vice president from a northern state, many assumed Adams would be chosen as the runner-up in the Presidential election. In fact, Adams was the top vote-getter in the 1788 election, and he was elected as vice president in 1789 as well, with John Jay finishing second with 9 electoral votes and John Quincy Adams third with 8 electoral votes in 1788. In 1788, there were no formal political parties, though an informally organized consistent difference of opinion had already manifested between Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The framers of the Constitution presumed that Washington would be elected unopposed. For example, Alexander Hamilton spoke for national opinion when in a letter to Washington attempting to persuade him to leave retirement on his farm in Mount Vernon to serve as the first President, he wrote that “the point of light in which you stand at home and abroad will make an infinite difference in the respectability in which the government will begin its operations”
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