John Hancock Sends a Presidential Elector to Vote for George Washington and John Adams

Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution provided for the election of a president, and the selection of electors. It reads, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…”  It was silent as to the details of presidential elections, but contained a mechanism to fill those in, adding “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

The first presidential election took place in February 1789, just months after ratification of the Constitution. In this election, George Washington was elected as President of the United States, and John Adams became the first Vice President. The result was a foregone conclusion, and not all states participated fully in the election. Back then each state could choose its own election day, and New York failed to choose electors on time. Moreover, some delegates from Virginia and Maryland were delayed by weather and absent, and Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution and did not participate.

But to promote uniformity and efficiency and avoid complication and confusion, in the act of March 1, 1792 Congress codified the presidential election process. It set the date for the first formalized election as 1792, confirmed the term as four years, and required that electors for the present and all future elections be appointed within 34 days of the first Wednesday in December, thus implicitly mandating that presidential elections he held the first week in November to offer sufficient time to comply. Holding elections in November made good sense in an agrarian society, as the harvest would have been concluded, and the harshest winter weather would not have arrived, which was a consideration for those who had to travel to a polling place. The act also stated “That the Electors shall meet and give their votes on the said first Wednesday in December, at such place in each state as shall be directed by the authority thereof…” Thus, all electoral votes nationwide for the 1792 election would be cast on Wednesday, December 5.

The presidential election of 1792 would be the first in which each of the original 13 states appointed electors, and the first in which new states (in this case Kentucky and Vermont) did so as well. It would also be the only presidential election that was not held four years after the previous election.

In June 1792, the Massachusetts legislature ordered its electors for that year’s presidential election to meet and cast their ballots at 10 AM on Wednesday, December 5. The election in Massachusetts took place on November 2, which met both state and federal requirements. One of the electors selected was Daniel Cony.

The sealed ballots were to be forwarded to Congress before the first Wednesday in January and counted on the second Wednesday in February. All 132 votes cast from the 15 states for President were for George Washington; he was reelected unanimously. Of the 132 votes cast for Vice President, John Adams led with 77 of the 132 votes, and was reelected Vice President. All 16 Massachusetts electors voted for Washington and Adams. One of those electors was Daniel Cony.

Cony served in the Revolutionary War as adjutant of an infantry regiment under General Horatio Gates, and he witnessed Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. In 1778, he moved to what is now Maine (which was part of Massachusetts until 1820). He was a representative to the Massachusetts General Court (general assembly), where he served as a member of its Executive Council. Cony was a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, then judge of probate for Kennebec County. In 1815, he sat for a portrait by Gilbert Stuart. When Maine became its own state in 1820, Cony was named Augusta's delegate to Maine's Constitutional Convention, and then became Judge of Probate under the new Maine state constitution. He left an important legacy as founder of the Cony Female Academy in 1816, a pioneering institution in female education that provided free schooling to poor girls and orphans.

Document signed, Boston, November 17, 1792, being Cony’s original certification of election, and his instructions, as a presidential elector. “I hereby certify that you have been chosen an Elector of President & Vice President of the United States agreeable to law, and by a resolution of the General Court of the thirtieth of June last you are directed to meet on the first Wednesday of December next at the State House in Boston at ten oClock in the forenoon for the purpose of executing the business of your appointment.” It continues, “Given under my hand and the seal of the Commonwealth this seventeenth day of November AD 1792, and in the seventeenth year of the Independence of the Unites States of America.” John Avery has countersigned the document.

Pursuant to this certification, in the Electoral College, Cony voted for George Washington and John Adams for President and Vice President. Washington received all 132 votes cast, while some electors did not vote for Adams, which under the system then in place was necessary lest Washington and Adams end up in a tie.

This is an extraordinary memento of George Washington’s election as President, and an extremely rare one. We do not recall seeing another elector certification for either of Washington’s elections, and our research of public sale records shows that, aside from this, only one other has come up for sale in the past 40 years, and that was in the 1990s.