Washington Returns.

At age sixty, weary of the political disputes between Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and their respective supporters in Congress, President George Washington looked forward to retirement. The only point that Hamilton and Jefferson could agree on was that national harmony depended on Washington's reelection. Neither Federalists nor Republicans were ready for the permanent division of the United States into two opposing political parties. As in the election of 1788, there were no nominations, party labels, or campaign speeches by presidential candidates in 1792. Electors from fifteen states now in the Union unanimously cast 132 electoral votes for George Washington. This apparent unanimity and nonpartisanship is, however, somewhat misleading. The selections of a vice president and members of Congress showed unmistakable though rudimentary signs of party politics. In this sense the elections of 1792 were a transitional phase...