United States presidential election, 1792

The United States presidential election of 1792 was the 2nd quadrennial first presidential election, Washington is considered to have run unopposed. Electoral rules of the time, however, required each presidential elector to cast two votes without distinguishing which was for president and which for vice president. The recipient of the most votes would then become president, and the runner-up vice president. Incumbent Vice President John Adams received 77 votes and was also re-elected (Washington received 132 votes, or one from each elector).

This election was the first in which each of the original 13 states appointed electors (in addition to newly added states of Kentucky and Vermont). It was also the only presidential election that was not held exactly four years after the previous election, although part of the previous election was technically held four years prior. The second inauguration was on March 4, 1793 at the Senate Chamber Congress Hall in Philadelphia.

Candidates

In 1792, the President of the United States was still elected by the original method set in place by the U.S. Constitution, which would remain in place until 1804. Under this system, each presidential elector was to vote for two individuals for president. As today, the person who received the greatest number of votes became president. The vice presidency, however, was given to the candidate who received the second-greatest total of votes. Thus, it is difficult to apply modern-day definitions of presidential candidates to this election. Washington is generally held by historians to have run unopposed. Indeed, the incumbent president enjoyed bipartisan support and received the first vote of every elector. The parties were not as united over how to cast their second vote, which would effectively be for vice president, there being no question that Washington would win the top spot. Federalist electors threw their support behind incumbent Vice President John Adams, a hero of the American Revolution. Their Democratic-Republican opponents supported New York Governor George Clinton, who had received a handful of votes in the 1788-89 Election. Adams and Clinton were technically candidates for president running against Washington, as the Constitution did not distinguish between the two for electoral purposes. However, as it was generally acknowledged that Washington was the choice of both parties for president, the election quickly became a competition for second-place.

Federalist candidates

• Virginia
• John Adams, Vice President of the United States from Massachusetts

• George Washington

• John Adams

Democratic-Republican candidates

• Virginia
• New York

• George Washington

• George Clinton

Born out of the Anti-Federalist faction that had opposed the Constitution in 1788, the Democratic-Republican Party (sometimes simply called "Republicans", although there was no connection to the modern-day Republican Party) was the main opposition to the agenda of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. They had no chance of unseating Washington, but hoped to win the vice presidency by defeating the incumbent, Adams. The Republicans would have preferred to nominate Thomas Jefferson, their ideological leader and Washington's Secretary of State, however this would have cost them the state of Virginia, as electors were not permitted to vote for two candidates from their home state and Washington was also a Virginian. Instead, they settled on Governor George Clinton, though Jefferson would receive the votes of four Kentucky electors.

Campaign

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. Madison was at first a Federalist until he opposed the establishment of Hamilton's First Bank of the United States in 1791. He formed the Democratic-Republican Party along with Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson in 1792.

The elections of 1792 were the first ones in the United States to be contested on anything resembling a partisan basis. In most states, the congressional elections were recognized in some sense as a "struggle between the Treasury department and the republican interest," to use the words of Jefferson strategist George Clinton, who was allied with Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans.

Although Washington had been considering retiring, both sides encouraged him to remain in office to bridge factional differences. Washington was supported by practically all sides throughout his Presidency and gained more popularity with the passage of the Aaron Burr – Adams easily secured re-election.

Results

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of yellow are for the Federalists and shades of blue are for Anti-Federalists.

At the time, there were 15 states in the United States: the 13 original states and the two recently admitted states of Vermont (March 1791) and Kentucky (June 1792). The Electoral College consisted of 132 electors, with each elector having two votes.

The Electoral College chose Washington unanimously. Thomas Jefferson won the votes of Kentucky, newly separated from Jefferson's home state of Virginia. A single South Carolina elector voted for Aaron Burr. All five of these candidates would eventually win election to the offices of President or Vice President.

Only two states, Pennsylvania and Maryland, cast popular votes. Overall there were 28,579 popular votes cast for presidential electors, a record low turnout for a United States presidential election.

Popular vote

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

^(a) Only 6 of the 15 states chose electors by any form of popular vote.
^(b) About 0.88% of the population voted: the 1790 Census counted a total United States population of 3.9 million with 3.2 million free population and 700 thousand slaves
^(c) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.

Electoral vote

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

^(a) Popular vote figures are suspect because (1) only 6 of the 15 states chose electors by any form of popular vote, (2) pre-Twelfth Amendment electoral vote rules obscure the intentions of the voters, and (3) those states that did choose electors by popular vote often restricted the vote via property requirements.
^(b) Two electors from Maryland and one elector from Vermont did not cast votes.

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:^[1]

See also

• First Party System
• History of the United States (1789–1849)
• United States House election, 1792

References

• Berg-Andersson, Richard (September 17, 2000). "A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College". The Green Papers. Retrieved March 20, 2005. 
• Elkins, Stanley; McKitrick, Eric (1995). The Age of Federalism. Oxford University Press. 
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825

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