ived the next
highest, even if less than a majority, was elected Vice President. In
1789 this man was John Adams of Massachusetts.

[Illustration: Federal Hall, New York[1]]

[Footnote 1: From an old print made in 1797.]

[Illustration: G Washington]

%184. The First Inauguration.%--As soon as Washington received the
news of his election, he left Mount Vernon and started for New York. His
journey was one continuous triumphal march. The population of every town
through which he passed turned out to meet him. Men, women, and children
stood for hours by the roadside waiting for him to go by. At New York
his reception was most imposing, and there, on April 30, 1789, standing
on the balcony in front of Federal Hall (p. 171), he took the oath of
office in the presence of Congress and a great multitude of people that
filled the streets, and crowded the windows, and sat on the roofs of the
neighboring houses.[1]

[Footnote 1: Full accounts of the inauguration of Washington may be
found in _Harper's Magazine_, and also in the _Century Magazine_, for
April, 1889.]

SUMMARY

1. When independence was about decided on, Congress appointed a
committee to draft a general plan of federal government.

2. This plan, called Articles of Confederation, Maryland absolutely
refused to ratify till the states claiming land west of the Alleghany
Mountains ceded their claims to Congress.

3. New York and Virginia having ceded their claims, Maryland ratified in
March, 1781.

4. These cessions were followed by others from Massachusetts and
Connecticut; and from them all, Congress formed the public domain to be
sold to pay the debt.

5. The sale of this land led to the land ordinance of 1785 and the
ordinance of 1787, for the government of the domain and the new
political organism called the territory.

6. The defects of the Articles made revision necessary, and produced
such distress that two conventions were called to consider the state of
the country. That at Annapolis attempted nothing. That at Philadelphia
framed the Constitution of the United States.

7. The Constitution was then passed to the Continental Congress, which
sent it to the legislatures of the states to be by them referred to
conventions elected by the people for acceptance or rejection.

8. Eleven having ratified, Congress in 1788 fixed a day in 1789 (which
happened to be March 4), when the First Congress under the Constitution
was to assemble.

9. The date o