In 1788, the Congress of the Confederation authorized the first national election and declared New York City the temporary national capital. In 1788, the United States stood at a historic turning point. The American Revolution had ended, the Articles of Confederation had proved inadequate for governing the new nation, and the Constitution was moving toward implementation. After New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788, Congress received the news on July 2 and began preparing for the transition to the new federal government. In September, the Congress of the Confederation established the framework for the first federal elections and selected New York City as the temporary seat of the new government. These decisions helped transform the United States from a loose confederation into a constitutional republic with an elected president and Congress.
The decision was especially significant because the Constitution created an entirely new national political system. Under the Articles of Confederation, there was no separate executive president elected by a national electoral process. The Constitution instead established a president, a vice president, a Senate, and a House of Representatives. Once the required nine states had ratified the Constitution, the Confederation Congress had to organize the transition. On September 13, 1788, it adopted a resolution establishing the timetable for choosing presidential electors and voting for the nation's first president. The resolution also set March 4, 1789, as the date for the new government to begin operating.
The first national election was unlike modern American elections in several important ways. Voters did not directly choose the president through a nationwide popular vote. Instead, the Constitution created an Electoral College system in which states selected electors according to procedures determined by each state. The electors then cast votes for candidates. The first presidential election took place during the period from December 1788 into January 1789, while congressional elections were organized separately by the states. The system ultimately produced a unanimous electoral victory for George Washington, while John Adams received the second-highest number of electoral votes and therefore became the first vice president.
New York City’s selection as the temporary national capital was another major development of 1788. At the time, New York was already an important political and commercial center, and Congress had been meeting there since 1785. The Confederation Congress ultimately decided that the incoming federal government would begin its work in New York City rather than immediately establishing a permanent capital elsewhere. The Library of Congress notes that Congress prepared for the new government in New York after the ninth state ratified the Constitution. The decision gave the emerging federal government a practical location while the much more contentious question of a permanent capital remained unresolved.
