Contested 1st U.S. Election?

In Chat Xerex made a good post:
The USA was lucky to have George Washington who everyone rallied behind. You could just as easily have had each state having favorite son candidates and the whole thing devolving into someone winning with 10%.

How contested could a first election be and what would it mean for the country going forward?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Well, what's the POD? If Washington refused to come out of retirement in 1787, or if he died before that, then the Constitution either wouldn't have been written, or would have been written very differently, or wouldn't have been ratified.
 

ben0628

Banned
Have a war hero even more popular than Washington who is well respected and has slightly different beliefs
 
I don't have a specific POD in mind.
Was Washington really that important the Constitution might not have been written or ratified without him?
 
Well what if Washington, who I understand died by accident in otl, dies just after the Constitution is ratified but before the election
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Was Washington really that important the Constitution might not have been written or ratified without him?

Yes, he was. It was obvious when the delegates assembled that Washington would be the first chief executive, which played a major role in the granting of so much power to the President. More importantly, had Washington been dead or had refused to come, the Convention would have lacked credibility and would 1) not have had the guts to go as far as it did, and 2) would not have produced anything the people would have felt comfortable with.
 
Was Washington really that important the Constitution might not have been written or ratified without him?
He was an important part of the Constitutional Convention, though it still might happen without him. But the presidency was created specifically with the intention for Washington to be the first person to hold it. Without a major, uncontroversial figure like him around, the chief executive would be a lot less powerful and/or divided between different people.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
I don't have a specific POD in mind.
Was Washington really that important the Constitution might not have been written or ratified without him?

Indeed. Washington was one of the few individuals that both sides had respect for and generally agreed had the best interests of the country at heart.

I mean, he was offered the crown at one point and refused!

If Washington doesn't show up, and this doesn't turn the Philly Convention into a wash like the Annapolis Convention, then it's entirely possible that the Presidency ends up much weaker right out of the gate.
 
There was also some debate over how many people should hold the executive office. There were proposals to have three people share executive power. Eventually it was decided to have just one President, probably influenced by the knowledge that Washington would hold that position.
 
That seems really short sighted, even if they expected him to hold the job for life eventually somebody else would get the office.

Two words; establishing precedent.

The position of President was going to be a new one, in a new political system, over an essentially new nation. The framers of the Constitution bickered a lot about the theoretical powers of the president (Which, if you read the Constitution straight are actually pretty limited; it wasen't until Jackson that their veto took on its modern form, and most everything they were explicently authorized to do required congressional approval), but there was no information of how exactly the office would play out in the field, and what powers would need to be expanded or restricted for the nation's well-being.

By getting someone widely liked and who was trusted to wield power fairly, like Washington, the framers bought time to get the basic aspects of the new government down without everything being about partisan bickering. By the time somebody else fills the office, they'd have examples to work off and the rest of the government s clearer limits of what they ought and ought not be doing.
 
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