Among the last acts of that thin wraith, the Continental Congress, was a decree that Presidential Electors should be chosen on the first Wednesday of January, 1789; that they should vote for President on the first Wednesday in February, and that the new Congress should meet on the first Wednesday in March.

The State of New York, where Anti-Federalists swarmed, did not follow the decree--with the result that that State, which had been behindhand in signing the Declaration of Independence, failed through the intrigues of the Anti-Federalists to choose electors, and so had no part in the choice of Washington as President of the United States.

The other ten States performed their duty on time.

They elected Washington President by a unanimous vote of sixty-nine out of sixty-nine votes cast.
The Vice-Presidential contest was perplexing, there being many candidates who received only a few votes each.

Many persons thought that it would be fitting that Samuel Adams, the father of the Revolution, should be chosen to serve with Washington, the father of his country; but too many remembered that he had been hostile to the Federalists until almost the end of the preliminary canvass and so they did not think that he ought to be chosen.