After the Constitution was signed and approved by delegates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it had to be ratified by the States. And while the new Constitution was written in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, ‘That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government’, its acceptance was hardly a foregone conclusion. Washington, in a letter to his friend Henry Knox, wrote:
The Constitution is now before the judgment-seat. It has, as was expected, its adversaries and supporters … the former more than probably will be most active, as the major part of them will … be governed by sinister and self-important motives.
In addition to State-ratifying conventions, debates took the form of a public conversation in taverns, streets, and particularly in newspaper editorials and pamphlets. Those objecting to the Constitution became known as Anti-Federalists, with those supporting it known as Federalists. Washington took no active part in the debate but did arrange, at his own expense, to have the Federalist Papers reprinted in Richmond. One central issue for Anti-Federalists was whether it would be possible to unite the thirteen individual States into one huge nation in such a way that they could not, in time, be eliminated. Federalists responded with assurances that while new government would strengthen the national government, each State was guaranteed certain powers and responsibilities. For nearly ten months writers from both sides tried to persuade the public that their recently won liberty and self-government were potentially endangered by the other. By mid-1788, a required nine States had ratified the Constitution, thus making it the supreme law of the land. The Federalists had prevailed.
Washington taking the oath of office
In February 1789, members of the Electoral College met in their respective States to vote for their national president and dispatch their results to Congress for the official count in March 1789. In the event, the official count was postponed until April due to bad weather and the poor road conditions throughout the country. Fortunately for Washington, this was an election in which he never had to deliver a stump speech – public speaking was not his strength, and when in front of a large audience, he tended to speak slowly with his voice being weak and barely audible. Washington was unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States – having demonstrated his statesmanship as president of the Constitutional Convention, his integrity, republican virtue, and calm amid chaos.