Aug. 31, 1852 July 7, 1874 HOW INAUGURATION DAY WAS FIXED. As an important matter of history it may be stated, that the constitutional convention of 1787 reported, on the 17th day of September, 1787, the (then new) constitution to the congress of the confederation, with the recommendations that such constitution should "be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification; and that each convention assenting to and ratifying the same should give notice thereof to the United States in congress assembled; .. that as soon as the conventions of nine states shall have ratified this constitution, the United States in congress assembled should fix a day on which electors should be appointed by the states which shall have ratified the same, and a day on which the electors should assemble to vote for the president, and the time and place for commencing proceedings under this constitution; that after such publication, the electors should be appointed, and the senators and representatives elected; that the electors should meet on the day fixed for the election of president, and should transmit their votes to the secretary of the United States in congress assembled." And pursuant to such recommendation, the congress, on the 28th day of September, 1787, unanimously resolved that the "report of the convention, with the constitution, and the resolutions accompanying the same, be transmitted to the several legislatures in order to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof." Such state conventions were duly called. The requisite number of states having ratified the constitution, the old congress, (or congress of the confederation,) on the 13th day of September, 1788, then in session in New York, by resolution designated the first Wednesday in January, 1789, as the day for choosing presidential electors, the first Wednesday in February as the day on which the electors should meet in the several states to give their votes, and the first Wednesday in March as the day on which the constitution should go into operation, and the city of New York as the place for commencing proceedings thereunder. These several preliminary steps were duly taken. The "first Wednesday" in March, 1789, was the fourth day of the month, and it was in this manner that the presidential term, and the terms of senators and representatives in congress, commenced on the 4th day of March, and so continues. |