1792 United States presidential election

The 1792 United States presidential election was the second presidential election in the United States. Sitting President George Washington was elected to a second term by getting the entire vote from the electoral college, while John Adams was reelected as vice president. Washington was essentially unopposed, but Adams was challenged re-election against Governor George Clinton of New York.

Based off of the rules at the time, electoral voters could vote for two candidates, without saying which one was for president or vice president. The person with the most votes became president, while the second-place candidate became vice president. The Democratic-Republican Party, which had been made to oppose Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, supported Clinton for the position of vice president. Adams, meanwhile, was backed by the Federalist Party for another term. No party had fully organized, and political divide had not become a big deal.

Washington received 132 electoral votes, one from each elector. Adams won 77 electoral votes, enough to win re-election. Clinton got third place with 50 electoral votes, winning his home state of New York as well as three Southern states. Two other candidates won five votes. This election was the first that all original 13 states took part in, along with the newly added states of Kentucky and Vermont.

In 1792, presidential elections were still carried out using the original method that the U.S. Constitution created. Under this system, each elector made two votes: the candidate who received the highest number of votes (unless the didn't win the majority) became president, while the runner-up became vice president. The Twelfth Amendment would eventually replace this system, requiring electors to cast one vote for president and one vote for vice president, but this change did not take effect until 1804. Because of this, it is hard to look at the relationships between all the candidates from a modern view.

Most historians agree that Washington was unopposed. Both parties praised him, and he would get a vote from every single elector. The choice for vice president was more divisive. The Federalist Party supported the sitting vice president, John Adams of Massachusetts, while the Democratic-Republican Party supported New York Governor George Clinton. Since everyone knew Washington would get the highest number of votes, Adams and Clinton were basically running for the vice presidency, but they were technically running against Washington according to the law.

• George Washington, President of the United States (1789–1797)
• John Adams, Vice President of the United States (1789–1797)

• Vice President
  John Adams
  from Massachusetts
• President
  George Washington
  from Virginia

• George Clinton, Governor of New York (1777–1795, 1801–1804)
• George Washington, President of the United States (1789–1797)

Originating from the Anti-Federalists who opposed the Constitution in 1788, the Democratic-Republican Party opposed the policies of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. They had no chance of beating Washington, but hoped to win the vice presidency by defeating the Adams. Many Democratic-Republicans wanted Thomas Jefferson to run, since he was a leader of the party and Washington's Secretary of State. However, this would have cost them the state of Virginia; both Washington and Jefferson were from Virginia, and electors could not vote for two people from their home state. Clinton, the Governor of New York and a former anti-Federalist leader, became the party's candidate after both Jefferson and James Madison said they would support him. Clinton was from an important swing state, and he convinced party leaders that he would be a stronger candidate than Senator Aaron Burr who was also from New York.^[2] A group of Democratic-Republican leaders met in Philadelphia in October 1792 and chose Clinton as the party's vice presidential candidate.^[3]

• Governor
  George Clinton
  of New York
• President
  George Washington
  from Virginia

By 1792, division had started in the country, with Federalists led by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who wanted a stronger government with a leading role in the economy, and the Democratic-Republicans led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Representative James Madison from Virginia, who wanted more rights for the states and opposed Hamilton's economic program. Madison was at first a Federalist until he opposed 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 with divide. In most states, the congressional elections were seen as a "struggle between the Treasury department and the republican interest," according to Jefferson strategist John Beckley. In New York, the race for governor was fought along these lines. The candidates were Chief Justice John Jay, a Hamiltonian, and sitting governor George Clinton, the party's vice presidential candidate.

Although Washington considered retiring, both sides wanted him to stay so he could mediate differences. Almost everyone supported him throughout his presidency, and he gained even more popularity with the passage of the Bill of Rights. However, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists fought for the vice-presidency, with incumbent John Adams as the Federalist nominee and George Clinton as the Democratic-Republican nominee. Federalists attacked Clinton for his past association with the anti-Federalists.^[2] Adams easily secured re-election.

Washington was re-elected, receiving one vote from all of the 132 participating electors. Adams got votes from 77 electors and Clinton got 50; the four electors from Kentucky voted for Thomas Jefferson, and one South Carolina elector voted for Aaron Burr. The vote between the four runners-up showed much party loyalty, with only two electors voting against the majority in their state. Adams got support in New England, South Carolina, and the Mid-Atlantic states (besides New York), while Clinton carried New York and most of the South. Adams as the second-place finisher remained vice president, serving until he was elected president in 1797. His three rivals would all become vice president themselves; Jefferson from 1797 to 1801 (afterwards he was elected president), Burr from 1801 to 1805, and Clinton from 1805 until his death in 1812.^[4]

Nine of the fifteen states that could choose electors for the electoral college voted on them by their state legislature; the other six decided them by popular vote in some way.. Of these six states, complete records from Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania still exist. Records from Virginia are incomplete, and records from Kentucky are not known to exist. Of the states with surviving records, Pennsylvania was the only one that had true competition. The Federalist electors would vote for Washington and Adams, but one of them voted for Washington and Clinton. At the time, party organizations were still forming, and the party loyalty of candidates was not as known. Because of this, no one knows if the elector who voted for Washington and Clinton went against the popular vote or if he was elected to do so.^[5][6]

^(a) Only 6 of the 15 states chose electors by any form of popular vote. The original system made it hard to know each elector's actual intentions. States that had popular votes had strict voting requirements, such as property ownership.
^(b) Two electors from Maryland and one elector from Vermont did not vote.

Source (Popular Vote): A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825^[7]

^(a) Only 6 of the 15 states chose electors by any form of popular vote.
^(b) The original system made it hard to know each elector's actual intentions.
^(c) States that had popular votes had strict voting requirements, such as property ownership.
^(d) Records for many states are incomplete.

Elections in this period were very different than elections today. The actual candidates were rarely mentioned on tickets. Voters were voting for electors who were pledged to a specific candidate. Sometimes, it was hard to say who an elector would actually vote for. Results are reported as the highest result for an elector for a faction. For example, if three Federalist electors got 100, 50, and 25 votes, Federalist electors would be recorded as having 100 votes. Confusion about this system led to differences between vote counts of all the states compared to the entire nation.

In Massachusetts, the best performing elector candidate for the Eastern District, Thomas Rice, was not selected by the Massachusetts General Court to be an elector.^[8] Rice was a Federalist^[9] and his records have been put into the state total below instead of the second best performing elector candidate.

The totals for Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia appear to be incomplete. In several states candidates of unknown affiliation received votes.

The states chose 135 electors in total, and 132 of them voted. (Two electors from Maryland and one from Vermont were absent and did not vote.) Because of the original Constitution's rules, each elector gave two votes for president, with a majority of the total votes needed to elect a president. Every elector cast one vote for Washington, who was elected president. The electors were split on their second choice: Adams got 77 votes to Clinton's 50, enough to secure a second-place finish behind Washington and the vice presidency.

Source: A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825^[15]

• Map of presidential election results by county, shaded according to the vote share of the highest result for an elector of any given party
• Map of presidential election results by electoral district, shaded according to the vote share of the highest result for an elector of any given party. Electoral boundaries for Kentucky, North Carolina, and data for Massachusetts could not be found

The Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, gave state legislatures the power to decide how electors were chosen. Different state legislatures chose different methods:^[16]

• First Party System
• History of the United States (1789–1849)
• Presidency of George Washington
• 1792–93 United States House of Representatives elections
• 1792–93 United States Senate elections
• List of 1792 United States presidential electors
• List of George Washington articles

• 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

• Presidential Election of 1792: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Election of 1792 in Counting the Votes Archived September 26, 2019, at the Wayback Machine