What Happened to Jefferson in the Election of 1800

The presidential election of 1800 was an angry, muddy, crisis-ridden contest that seemed to threaten the nation's very survival. A bitter partisan boxing between Federalist John Adams and Republican Thomas Jefferson produced a necktie between Jefferson and his Republican running mate, Aaron Burr. The unfolding of this crisis tested the new nation'southward durability.

Nasty political mud-slinging. Campaign attacks and counterattacks. Personal insults. Outrageous newspaper invective. Dire predictions of warfare and national plummet. Innovative new forms of politicking capitalizing on a growing technology. Every bit much as this seems to draw our present-day presidential contests, it really describes an election more than than two hundred years past.

The presidential election of 1800 was an angry, dingy, crisis-ridden contest that seemed to threaten the nation's very survival. A bitter partisan boxing between Federalist John Adams and Republican Thomas Jefferson, information technology produced a tie between Jefferson and his Republican running mate, Aaron Burr; a deadlock in the House where the tie had to be broken; an outburst of intrigue and suspicion as Federalists struggled to determine a form of action; Jefferson'south election; and Burr's eventual downfall. The unfolding of this crisis tested the new nation's durability. The deadlock in the House revealed a constitutional defect. It besides pushed partisan rivalry to an extreme, inspiring a host of artistic and far-reaching electoral ploys. Every bit a sense of crunch built, there was even talk of disunion and civil state of war, and indeed, two states began to organize their militias to seize the government if Jefferson did not prevail.

Oddly plenty, this pivotal election has received relatively niggling scholarly attending. Much of it is contempo, possibly inspired by the presidential election of 2000. One recent study—Adams vs. Jefferson, by John Ferling—does an splendid task of tracing the contest'southward many twists and turns. (Judging from its championship, Jefferson's 2nd Revolution, by Susan Dunn, to be released in September 2004, promises to practise the same.) A recent collection of articles, The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Democracy, edited by James Horn, Jan Ellen Lewis, and Peter South. Onuf, offers an first-class survey of dissimilar historical approaches to the ballot, such as the report of constitutional realities, political civilisation, or the influence of slavery. Garry Wills'due south Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power focuses on the influence of slavery on Jefferson'south politics, including his election as president. And yours truly examines the ballot as a prime case of the menstruum'due south political civilization in the final chapter of Affairs of Award: National Politics in the New Republic. Older studies that hash out the election include Noble Eastward. Cunningham Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Arrangement, 1789–1801 (1957); Daniel Sisson, The American Revolution of 1800 (1974); Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1993); and James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (1993).

Why so little scholarship? In office, because of our tendency to view the election of 1800 equally a victory for our modern two-political party system—the first such victory in American national politics. Every bit the nation'south constitutional framework dictated, Federalist Adams handed the presidency to Republican Jefferson, a new regime took control, and the nation endured. Viewed in this low-cal—every bit a cracking and tidy stepping-stone to modern party politics—the election doesn't seem to merit further analysis.

This is not to say that the at-home transferal of power from one regime to some other is not noteworthy. It was certainly a powerful endorsement of our Constitution. Merely envisioning the election every bit the birth of our modernistic political system masks the many ways in which it was distinctly not modern. In fact, in 1800, in that location was no modern party system. The Republicans and Federalists were not parties as we now understand them. An institutionalized two-party system would non be accepted for decades to come up. And events were far more than uncertain and crunch-ridden than the idea of a "arrangement" allows; there was no telling what would happen or why. Similarly, participants operated according to ideas and assumptions very different from our own. In brusk, the election of 1800 transpired in a earth with its ain civilisation and contingencies.

To recapture the contingency of this historical moment, we have to look through the eyes of our historical subjects and understand them in the context of their own world. In 1800, the American Constitution had been in effect for only eleven years. The national government was still a piece of work-in-progress, a political experiment with no model of comparison in the modern world. A republic was supposedly superior to its Quondam World predecessors, but this assumption had yet to be tested. Political parties were non an accepted part of this picture: instead they were viewed as illicit groups of self-interested men intent on winning power and position in the next election. The stability and long-term practicability of a republic was likewise a question, every political crisis raising fears of disunion and civil war. This tense, tenuous political surround produced anxiety, bitterness, and high emotion for good reason.

Given America'due south survival for more than than two hundred years, it is easy to forget this central political reality of the early Republic: The United States was new, delicate, shaky, and probable to collapse, a prevailing anxiety that could non help only have an enormous impact on the period's politics. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the two driving forces backside the Constitution, went to their deaths with the Union's vulnerability on their minds. Both men wrote final pleas for its preservation on the eve of their demise, Madison composing a memorandum entitled "Communication to My Country," and Hamilton writing i last alphabetic character on the dark earlier his duel with Aaron Burr, urging a friend to fight against the "Dismemberment of our Empire."[1] Indeed, Hamilton fought the duel in part to preserve his reputation for that time to come time when the Republic would collapse and his leadership would exist in demand.[2] Virginian Henry Lee's offhand comment in a 1790 alphabetic character to James Madison is a blunt reminder of the tenuous nature of the national Union: "If the government should go along to exist . . . ," Madison wrote in passing, offering evidence of a mindset that is difficult to recapture.[3]

Witness the period's political chronology. In 1790, the controversy over the location of the national capital and Alexander Hamilton's fiscal plan convinced many that the Union was not long for this world. In 1792, partisan conflict exploded into the newspapers, threatening, as George Washington put it, to "tare the [federal] Car asunder."[4] In 1793, the inflammatory activities of "Citizen" Edmond Genet threatened to spread French revolutionary fervor to American shores, prompting fifty-fifty Francophile Republicans to abandon his cause. In 1794, when western Pennsylvania farmers refused to pay a national whiskey taxation, President George Washington chosen an armed force of 15,000 soldiers to the field.[5] In 1795, the lackluster Jay Treaty with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland provoked aroused public protests around the nation; thousands of people gathered in New York City alone, a scattering of them reputedly throwing rocks at Alexander Hamilton'due south head. In 1796, with George Washington's retirement, the nation had its first real presidential ballot, Washington's departure lonely prompting many to fear the nation'due south imminent collapse. The 1797–1798 XYZ Thing (prompted past a French try to become bribe money from American diplomats), the Quasi-War with France (stemming from French seizure of American ships and the XYZ Thing), the 1798 Conflicting and Sedition Acts (wartime measures to comport threatening aliens and silence attacks on the government), the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (recommending that land governments interpose their authority over the Conflicting and Sedition Acts), Fries's Rebellion (a defection against wartime taxes), and finally, the presidential election of 1800—these are only the most prominent of the period's many crises, each 1 raising serious questions about the survival and grapheme of the national government and its relationship to the torso politic.

Fifty-fifty the Constitution itself was uncertain—a work-in-progress with serious pattern flaws. The election ultimately centered on i of these flaws—a cardinal constitutional defect in the presidential and vice presidential voting process. As originally drafted, the Constitution did not differentiate between presidential and vice presidential candidates. Each presidential elector cast 2 votes, and regardless of political amalgamation, the man who received the nigh votes became president and the runner-upwardly became vice president; any candidate could win either office. When two candidates were tied, the ballot was thrown into the House, where each land had ane vote, to be decided by a majority of the delegation. In 1796, this produced a Federalist president (John Adams) and a Republican vice president (Thomas Jefferson). In 1800, it created a tied election in which both candidates were entitled to claim the presidency, and fifty-fifty the backup procedure of deciding the election in the House almost failed; it took six days and thirty-half-dozen ballots to break the deadlock. This defect was resolved by the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, which provided separate balloting for president and vice president.

And then the dire predictions and overwrought rhetoric that characterized the election were not mere campaign excess; people really feared disunion. They were also nervous about party loyalties. Rather than intense party unity, there was a jumble of suspicions and conflicting loyalties—personal, ideological, and regional, as well as partisan—at the center of the election. For example, Northerners and Southerners deeply distrusted each other—Federalists and Republicans alike. Enlightened of this potential problem, both alliances held a congressional caucus earlier the election, during which Northerners and Southerners personally vowed to support the candidate from the other region. These vows ultimately proved necessary, for regional loyalties came to the fore throughout the election, prompting a string of nervous demands for reassurance. After hearing a rumor that Virginia Republicans were going to drop votes for Burr to ensure Jefferson's victory, Burr's friend David Gelston sent two broken-hearted letters to Madison, reminding him that personal honor was at stake. "I am not willing to believe information technology possible that such measures [as dropping votes for Burr] can exist contemplated," he wrote, suggesting just the reverse. "We know that the honour of the Gentlemen of Virgina, and N.Y. was pledged at the adjournment of Congress," and to violate such an agreement would be "a sacrilege."[6] A letter of the alphabet from Madison to Jefferson reveals that Gelston's fears were well founded. Gelston "expresses much anxiety & betrays some jealousy with respect to the integrity of the Southern States," Madison wrote. "I hope the result will skreen all the parties, particularly Virginia[,] from any imputation on this subject area; tho' I am non without fears, that the requisite concert may not sufficiently pervade the several States." Such fears eventually compelled Jefferson himself, as he afterwards explained, to take "some measures" to ensure Burr Virginia'due south unanimous vote.[7]

Clearly, this was no election of unproblematic party politics. Nor did it represent a sudden acceptance of a "modern" politics. The Federalist and Republican congressional caucuses of May 1800 suggest as much. Led astray by the word "conclave," many scholars pinpoint these meetings as a modern innovation. But in truth, they were something quite unlike. Participants sometimes referred to them equally "caucuses," simply they also chosen them "the agreement," "the hope," "the compromise," and "the pledge," to which they would be "faithful" and "true."[8] Clearly, these caucuses involved negotiation and compromise between men of different views, rather than the elementary confirmation of a presidential ticket. Nor was the event of these compromises—electoral tickets featuring a northerner and a southerner—a foregone decision, regardless of how obvious such a strategy seems to us. For national politicians, a cross-regional ticket was risky, for it required a high degree of national partisan loyalty and mutual trust between North and S. The national caucuses were attempts to create national party unity, non expressions of it. Indeed, every bit suggested by words such as "pledge" and "hope," national political party loyalty was so weak that information technology had to be supplemented by personal vows. To compel politicians to stay the grade, they had to commit themselves past pledging their word of honor and their reputations; the only way to unite Northerners and Southerners was to appeal to them equally gentlemen who would be dishonored if they abandoned their allies. These honor-pledging ceremonies were not party caucuses as we sympathize them today.

The ballot was ultimately decided past a Federalist who abased his political loyalties, putting his loyalty to his abode country above all else; James Bayard, the lone representative from Delaware, had an entire state's vote in his power during the deadlock in the House. A letter of the alphabet to Hamilton written shortly after the tie was appear reveals Bayard's dilemma. First and foremost, he considered himself a Federalist who would require "the almost undoubting confidence" before he separated himself from his Federalist friends. He too thought of himself as a Northerner whose intense dislike of Virginia seemed to make Burr the preferable pick for president. Under normal circumstances, these two perspectives would have been in accord, for the Federalists were largely a Northern political party with a particular hatred of Virginia, the heart of their Republican opposition. Bayard'due south problems arose when he perceived a conflict between Federalist concerns and the welfare of his dwelling house state. New England Federalists seemed willing to sacrifice the Matrimony rather than install Jefferson as president. And if the Union collapsed, the tiny state of Delaware would probably exist swallowed past some other country or a foreign power. As Bayard explained afterwards the ballot, "Representing the smallest State in the Union, without resource which could furnish the ways of self protection, I was compelled by the obligation of a sacred duty so to act as not to hazard the constitution upon which the political being of the State depends."[9] Compelled to decide between loyalty to Federalism and to his home country, Bayard abased Federalism.

In all of these ways, the election of 1800 cannot exist summed up equally a stepping-stone to modern party politics. Of course, there are exceptions to all rules, and non surprisingly, Aaron Burr offers i exception. Inspired by the prevailing sense of crunch (besides every bit past his sheer enjoyment of the political game), Burr pushed political innovation to an farthermost. Anxieties were certainly at an farthermost in the spring of 1800, for New York City was the near crucial contest of the campaign, capable of deciding the election. The challenge of the moment spurred Burr to new heights of political creativity. For case, he personalized his entrada to an extraordinary caste, purportedly compiling a roster with the name of every New York City voter, accompanied by a detailed description of his political leanings, temperament, and financial standing. His plan was to portion the listing out to his cadre of young supporters, who would literally electioneer door-to-door; in the procedure, he was politically organizing the citizenry—not his goal, but the logical issue. Similarly, rather than selecting potential electors based on their rank and reputation, he selected the men "about likely to run well," canvassing voters to test the waters. Perhaps his most striking innovations concerned his advance preparations for the metropolis'south three polling days. Equally ane contemporary described information technology, Burr "kept open house for nearly two months, and Committees were in session day and night during that whole time at his house. Refreshments were e'er on the table and mattresses for temporary repose in the rooms. Reporters were hourly received from sub-committees, and in brusk, no ways left unemployed."[ten] In essence, Burr created an early version of a campaign headquarters.

Indeed, as a whole, the ballot featured a number of electoral innovations. Newspapers were used with particular effectiveness, partly the result of artistic politicking, and partly the result of the always-spreading power of the printing—a growing technology. Also, some elite politicians spent more fourth dimension electioneering amid voters than they had earlier; for case, both Burr and Hamilton pledged "to come forward, and address the people" during the course of the ballot. During New York City'due south three days of voting, both men scurried from polling place to polling identify, addressing the crowds. Equally Burr supporter Matthew Davis noted, this Burr had "never done at whatever former ballot."[eleven] The partisan presses recognized the novelty of such a gesture. How could a "would be Vice President . . . stoop so low equally to visit every corner in search of voters?" asked the Federalist Daily Advertiser. The Commercial Advertiser as well commented on the "astonished" electorate that greeted Hamilton'due south efforts.[12]

The tone of politics was slowly shifting. Only such changes do not signal a simple credence of a "modern" form of politics. In the crisis-ridden election of 1800, the many prevailing anxieties about the fate of the Union pushed people to change by habits. Of course, people did not accept such change in a blind rush. Rather, they forged a gradual, intricate serial of compromises between "shoulds" and "should-nots," negotiating between by standards and the demands of the moment. For the political aristocracy, this involved new levels of advice with the populace. Examined closely, this blazon of compromise reveals the complex dynamic of political change. The nature of politics inverse slowly, one conclusion at a fourth dimension.

[i] James Madison, "Advice to My Country," 1834, in Irving Brant, James Madison, Commander in Chief, 1812–1836 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), 530–31; Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, July x, 1804, Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 27 vols. (New York: Columbia University Printing, 1961–87), 26:309.

[2] See Alexander Hamilton, [Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr], [June 28–July ten, 1804], The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 26:278, 280.

[3] Henry Lee to James Madison, Apr iii, 1790, Robert Rutland and J. C. A. Stagg, eds., The Papers of James Madison, 17 vols. to date (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1962– ), 13:136.

[4] George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, August 26, 1792, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 12:276.

[v] See Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Printing, 1993), 481. This book offers a detailed give-and-take of the many crises of the 1790s.

[6] David Gelston to James Madison, Oct viii and November 21, 1800, The Papers of James Madison, 17:418–19, 438; James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 21, 1800, ibid., 17:425–26.

[seven] Jefferson, memorandum, January 26, 1804, in Franklin B. Sawvel, ed., The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Round Tabular array Printing, 1903), 224–28.

[viii] See, for example, James Monroe to James Madison, October 21, 1800, George Jackson to Madison, February 5, 1801, The Papers of James Madison, 17:426, 460–61; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to James McHenry, June 10, 1800, Bernard C. Steiner, ed., The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1907), 459–60; Robert Troup to Rufus Rex, December 4, 1800, Fisher Ames to Rufus Rex, Baronial 26, 1800, Charles R. King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 6 vols. (New York: Putnam's, 1897), 3:295–97, 340–41; John Rutledge, Jr. to Alexander Hamilton, July 17, 1800, and George Cabot to Alexander Hamilton, August 21, 1800, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 25: thirty–38, 74–75; David Gelston to Madison, October viii and November 21, 1800, The Papers of James Madison, 17:418–xix, 438.

[9] James Bayard to Alexander Hamilton, January 7, 1801, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 25:199–203; James Bayard to John Adams, Feb nineteen, 1801, "Papers of James A. Bayard, 1796–1815," Annual Written report of the American Historical Association 2 (1913): 129–30.

[10] Diary of Benjamin Betterton Howell, in Milton Lomask, Aaron Burr, two vols. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), ane:244; Matthew Davis to Albert Gallatin, March 29, 1800, Albert Gallatin Papers, New-York Historical Society; [New York] Daily Advertiser, April 2, 1800, in Lomask, Aaron Burr, 1:244; [New York] General Advertiser, April 3, 1800, ibid.

[11] Matthew Davis to Albert Gallatin, March 29, 1800, Albert Gallatin Papers, New-York Historical Society.

[12] [New York] Daily Advertiser, April two, 1800, in Lomask, Aaron Burr, i:244; [New York] General Advertiser, Apr iii, 1800, ibid.

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Joanne B. Freeman, Professor of History at Yale University, is the author of Affairs of Laurels: National Politics in the New Democracy (2001), which explores the logic and culture of national politics in the early American democracy, and the editor of Alexander Hamilton: Writings (2001).

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Source: https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/essay/presidential-election-1800-story-crisis-controversy-and-change

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