<P> None (Office created by the U.S. Constitution) </P> <P> George Washington Nonpartisan </P> <P> The United States presidential election of 1788--89 was the first quadrennial presidential election . It was held from Monday, December 15, 1788, to Saturday, January 10, 1789 . It was conducted under the new United States Constitution, which had been ratified earlier in 1788 . In the election, George Washington was unanimously elected for the first of his two terms as president, and John Adams became the first vice president . </P> <P> Under the first federal Constitution ratified in 1781, known as the Articles of Confederation, the United States had no ceremonial head of state and the executive branch of government was part of the Congress, as it is in countries that use parliamentary systems of government . All federal power was reserved to the Congress of the Confederation, whose "President of the United States in Congress Assembled" was also chair of the de facto cabinet, called the Committee of the States . The United States Constitution created the offices of President of the United States and Vice President of the United States, and established that these offices would be elected separately from Congress . The Constitution established an Electoral College in which each elector would cast two votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president; this procedure would be modified in 1804 through the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment . The different states had varying methods for choosing presidential electors . Many states held a popular vote, but in other states, the state legislature appointed the electors . </P>

The first presidential election in the united states