In many ways, the election of 1792 was a replay of the election of 1789. George Washington was the resounding choice of the U.S. people, but he was reluctant to be seen as interested in the election. As in 1789, then, the real contest was over the vice presidency, although in this case the challenge to John Adams was more centered on one candidate. Moreover, unlike in 1789, the incipient development of political parties had some impact on the election's outcome.

Congress altered the voting procedure for the election in March 1792, requiring that the electors be chosen in the month preceding the first Wednesday in December. On that day the electors were to meet in their individual states and vote for two individuals, with no preference indicating whom they wanted for president and vice president. This procedure was a concession to the expanding nature of the nation, which now included--in addition to the 10 states that participated in the first presidential election--New York, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and two new states, Vermont and Kentucky. The states would then send a certificate indicating their electoral vote to the presiding officer of the Senate before the first Wednesday of the New Year, and the votes were to be counted on the first Wednesday in February in Congress. The means of choosing electors, who were not pledged to support any candidate, were left to the states and remained a hodgepodge of popular election and state legislative selection.

The first issue concerning the election was whether or not Washington would serve a second term. Personally, he was tired of public office and had become disconcerted with the political wrangling in Congress and within his own cabinet. Washington even prevailed upon James Madison to begin to drafting a Farewell Address, which Alexander Hamilton would revise four years later, to serve as Washington's parting advice to his country. All of Washington's advisers urged him to serve another term, especially considering the severe challenges the United States confronted abroad and at home. Indeed, the one thing that rivals Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson could agree on was how indispensable Washington was as chief executive; they even suggested that he could resign once the political and diplomatic situation had stabilized. When Washington did not announce his retirement by November 1792, everyone concluded he would agree to serve again. The electoral college rewarded him with its unanimous approval by giving him all 132 electoral votes--the maximum available to any one candidate.

The nascent Federalist Party supported Adams as vice president. Even Hamilton wrote of Adams's impartial service to the nation and considered him "to be honest firm, faithful, and independent" and "a sincere lover of his country." Adams, of course, did no campaigning but awaited the outcome with some anticipation. The Democratic-Republican Party initially rallied around George Clinton, although some flirted with the idea of supporting Senator Aaron Burr. The Burr movement, however, never got much traction, and the final voting had Adams reelected with 77 electoral votes, with Clinton winning 50 votes. Jefferson picked up four votes and Burr one. The breakdown of this balloting, however, revealed some regional trends that would play out further as the first political party system developed over the next four years. Except for Rhode Island, which went for Jefferson as vice president, New England was solidly in Adams's camp. New York and Virginia, however, supported Clinton, as did North Carolina and Georgia. Although Kentucky voted for Adams, and he picked up most of the electoral votes in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, a pattern had begun to emerge where New England would identify with the Federalist Party, the South and West would become Democratic-Republican, and the Middle Atlantic states would remain contested ground.

Bibliography:

Marcus Cunliffe, "Elections of 1789 and 1792," in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1971), 3-58.

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on American Revolution at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to American Revolution and other relevant topics.