After the elections had taken place, a general persuasion prevailed that the public will, respecting the chief magistrate of the union, had been too unequivocally manifested not to be certainly obeyed; and several applications were made to General Washington for those offices in the respective states, which would be in the gift of the president of the United States. As marking the frame of mind with which he came into the government, the following extract is given from one of the many letters written to persons whose pretensions he was disposed to favour. "Should it become absolutely necessary for me to occupy the station in which your letter presupposes me, I have determined to go into it, perfectly free from all engagements of every nature whatsoever.--A conduct in conformity to this resolution, would enable me, in balancing the various pretensions of different candidates for appointments, to act with a sole reference to justice and the public good. This is, in substance, the answer that I have given to all applications (and they are not few) which have already been made. Among the places sought after in these applications, I must not conceal that the office to which you particularly allude is comprehended. This fact I tell you merely as matter of information. My general manner of thinking, as to the propriety of holding myself totally disengaged, will apologize for my not enlarging farther on the subject. "Though I am sensible that the public suffrage which places a man in office, should prevent him from being swayed, in the execution of it, by his private inclinations, yet he may assuredly, without violating his duty, be indulged in the continuance of his former attachments." [Sidenote: Meeting of the first congress.] The impotence of the late government, added to the dilatoriness inseparable from its perplexed mode of proceeding on the public business, and to its continued session, had produced among the members of congress such an habitual disregard of punctuality in their attendance on that body, that, although the new government was to commence its operations on the 4th of March, 1789, a house of representatives was not formed until the first, nor a senate until the 6th day of April. At length, the votes for the president and vice president of the United States were opened and counted in the senate. Neither the animosity of parties, nor the preponderance of the enemies of the new government in some of the states, could deprive General Washington of a single vote. By the unanimous voice of an immense continent, he was called to the chief magistracy of the nation. The second number of votes was given to Mr. John Adams. George Washington and John Adams were therefore declared to be duly elected president and vice president of the United States, to serve for four years from the 4th of March, 1789.[41]