usy but peaceful electioneering.
That remarkable body, the Continental Congress, in putting an end to its
troubled existence, decreed that presidential electors should be chosen
on the first Wednesday of January, 1789, that the electors should meet
and cast their votes for president on the first Wednesday in February,
and that the Senate and House of Representatives should assemble on the
first Wednesday in March. This latter day fell, in 1789, on the 4th of
the month, and accordingly, three years afterward, Congress took it for
a precedent, and decreed that thereafter each new administration should
begin on the 4th of March. It was further decided, after some warm
debate, that until the site for the proposed federal city could be
selected and built upon, the seat of the new government should be the
city of New York.

[Sidenote: First presidential election, Jan. 7, 1789.]

In accordance with these decrees, presidential elections were held on
the first Wednesday in January. The Antifederalists were still potent
for mischief in New York, with the result that, just as that state had
not joined in the Declaration of Independence until after it had been
proclaimed to the world, and just as she refused to adopt the Federal
Constitution until after more than the requisite number of states had
ratified it, so now she failed to choose electors, and had nothing to do
with the vote that made Washington our first president. The other ten
states that had ratified the Constitution all chose electors. But things
moved slowly and cumbrously at this first assembling of the new
government. The House of Representatives did not succeed in getting a
quorum together until the 1st of April. On the 6th, the Senate chose
John Langdon for its president, and the two houses in concert counted
the electoral votes. There were 69 in all, and every one of the 69 was
found to be for George Washington of Virginia. For the second name on
the list there was nothing like such unanimity. It was to be expected
that the other name would be that of a citizen of Massachusetts, as the
other leading state in the Union. The two foremost citizens of
Massachusetts bore the same name, and were cousins. There would have
been most striking poetic justice in coupling with the name of
Washington that of Samuel Adams, since these two men had been
indisputably foremost in the work of achieving the independence of the
United States. But for the hesitancy of Samuel Adams in