But in time they, too, came in,
Rhode Island last of all, and not for fully a year after the first
President had been chosen, and the government organised.
The new government required that there should be a Congress to look
after the affairs of the nation, with two houses, something after
the fashion of the British Parliament. It also required that there
should be a President at the head of everything.
There was little doubt as to who should fill that place. George
Washington, the man who had led the army to victory, was the man
chosen to be first President of the United States.
Other people were indeed voted for, but Washington had more than
twice as many votes as John Adams, who came next to him. The others
were simply nowhere. So Washington was made President and Adams
vice-president.
But Washington had no wish to be President. He was too old, he said
(he was only fifty-seven) and besides he was not even a statesman
but a soldier. The people, however, would not listen to him. "We
cannot do without you," they said. "There is no use framing a new
government if the best man is to be left out of it."
So to the entreaties of his friends Washington yielded. But it was
with a heavy heart, for he greatly doubted his own powers.
"In confidence I tell you," he wrote to an old friend, "that my
movement to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings
not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his
execution.
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