Their bond if sorely tested had never frayed and

Their bond, if sorely tested, had never frayed, and Washington seemed relieved to
unburden himself about his future. Hamilton knew that the new republic would be
on trial in the first administration, and he dreaded having a mediocrity at the top.
If the first government miscarried, he warned Washington, “the blame will in all
probability be laid on the system itself. And the framers of it will have to encounter
the disrepute of having brought about a revolution in government without substi-
tuting anything that was worthy of the effort. They pulled down one Utopia, it will
be said, to build up another.” 3
Far from bristling, Washington thanked Hamilton for his openness, which en-
abled him to assess the presidency without betraying unseemly ambition. In a con-
fessional mode, Washington said that at the thought of being president he “always
felt a kind of gloom” settle upon his mind and noted that if he became president,
“the acceptance would be attended with more diffidence and reluctance than ever I
experienced before in my life.” 4 Sensing Washington’s need for gentle prodding,
Hamilton stressed that America’s glorious destiny demanded him as president and
that “no other man can sufficiently unite the public opinion or can give the requi-
site weight to the office in the commencement of the government.” 5 Hearing this
from others as well, Washington finally overcame his misgivings and agreed to
stand for president.
While Hamilton endeared himself to Washington in this first election, he also
antagonized John Adams, a man with an encyclopedic memory for slights. Return-
ing from Europe in June 1788, Adams decided that any post less than vice president
was “beneath himself,” as wife Abigail phrased it. 6 As a favorite son of the New En-
gland states, with their hefty bloc of votes, Adams agreed to run for vice president.
This created a ticklish predicament. Under the Constitution, the presidential elec-
tors cast two votes apiece, but they did not vote separately for president and vice
president. Whoever garnered the most electoral votes became president and the
runner-up vice president. The peril was manifest: there could be a tie vote, forcing

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the contest into the House of Representatives. Still worse, a vice presidential candi-
date might accidentally walk off with the presidency. “Everybody is aware of that
defect in the constitution, which renders it possible the man intended for vice pres-
ident may, in fact, turn up president,” Hamilton told Pennsylvania federalist James
Wilson in early 1789. If Adams received a unanimous vote and a few votes were “in-
sidiously withheld” from Washington, Hamilton said, Adams might edge out Wash-
ington for the presidency. 7 Hamilton doubted that the sometimes irascible Adams
could unite a divided country or give the new government its best chance of suc-
cess. For Hamilton, the whole American experiment hinged upon having Washing-
ton as president. His worries were only compounded by the improbable presidential