1800

United States presidential election, 1800
Presidential election results map. Green denotes states won by Jefferson, Red denotes states won by Adams. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent John Adams Federalist	Successor Thomas Jefferson Democratic-Republican

In the United States presidential election of 1800, sometimes referred to as the “Revolution of 1800”, Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams. The election was a realigning election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican Party rule and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party.

The election exposed one of the flaws in the original Constitution. People in the Electoral College could only vote for president; the vice president was the person who had the second largest number of votes during the election. The Democratic-Republican plan to have one elector vote for Jefferson and not Aaron Burr was bungled, resulting in a tie in the electoral vote between Jefferson and Burr. The election was then put into the hands of the outgoing Federalist Party House of Representatives. Most Federalists voted for Burr in order to block Jefferson from the presidency, and the result was a week of deadlock. Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who detested both but preferred Jefferson to Burr, intervened on Jefferson's behalf, which allowed Jefferson to ascend to the presidency. Hamilton's actions were one cause of his duel with Burr,^{[citation needed]} which resulted in Hamilton's death in 1804.

Jefferson's victory ended America's most acrimonious presidential campaign to date.^{[citation needed]} The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, was added to the United States Constitution. It required electors to make a distinct choice between their selections for president and vice president.

Contents [hide] 1 General election 1.1 The Candidates 1.2 Campaign 1.2.1 Selection method changes 1.3 Voting 1.4 Disputes 1.4.1 Defective certificates 1.5 Results 2 Notes 3 Bibliography 4 External links 5 Navigation

[edit] General election

Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson

Federalist John Adams

[edit] The Candidates

• John Adams, President of the United States from Massachusetts
• Aaron Burr, former U.S. senator from New York
• John Jay, Governor of New York
• Thomas Jefferson, Vice President of the United States from Virginia
• Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, former U.S. Minister to France from South Carolina

[edit] Campaign

The 1800 election was a rematch of the 1796 election. The campaign was bitter and characterized by slander and personal attacks on both sides. Federalists spread rumors that the Democratic-Republicans were radicals who would murder their opponents, burn churches, and destroy the country (based on the Democratic-Republican preference for France over Britain. At the time, the rather violent French revolution was in full swing). In 1798,George Washington (who had no political party) had complained "that you could as soon scrub the blackamoor white, as to change the principles of a profest[sic] Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country.”^[1] Meanwhile, the Democratic-Republicans accused Federalists of destroying republican values with the Alien and Sedition Acts; they also accused Federalists of favoring Britain in order to promote aristocratic, anti-republican values. ^[2]

Adams was attacked by both the opposition Democratic-Republicans and by "High Federalists" in his own Federalist Party who were aligned with Hamilton. The Democratic-Republicans felt that Adams' foreign policy was too favorable toward Britain, feared that the new army called up for the Quasi-War would oppress the people, opposed Adam's new taxes, and attacked his Alien and Sedition Acts as violations of states' rights. A faction of “High Federalists” considered Adams too moderate. Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton schemed to elect vice presidential candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to the presidency. One of Hamilton's letters attacking Adams became public, embarrassing Adams and damaging Hamilton's efforts on behalf of Pinckney.^[3]

[edit] Selection method changes

Partisans on both sides sought any advantage they could find. In several states, this included changing the method of selection to ensure the desired result. In Georgia, Democratic-Republican legislators replaced the popular vote with selection by the state legislature. Federalist legislators did the same in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. (This may have had some unintended consequences in Massachusetts, where the delegation to the federal House of Representatives was changed from 12–2 Federalist to 8–6 Federalist by irate voters.) Pennsylvania also switched to legislative choice, but this resulted in an almost evenly split set of electors. Virginia switched from electoral districts to winner-take-all, a move that probably switched one or two votes from the Federalist column to the Democratic-Republican column.

[edit] Voting

Because each state could choose its own election day, voting lasted from April to October. In April, Burr succeeded in reversing the Federalist majority and getting a Democratic-Republican majority in New York's state legislature. With the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans tied 65–65 in the Electoral College, the last state to vote, South Carolina, chose eight Democratic-Republicans, giving the election to Jefferson and Burr.

Under the United States Constitution, each presidential elector cast two votes, without distinction as to which was for president or vice president. The recipient of a majority of votes was elected president, while the vice presidency went to the recipient of the second greatest number of votes. The Federalists therefore had one of their electors vote for John Jay rather than for vice presidential candidate Pinckney. The Democratic-Republicans had a similar plan to have one of their electors cast a vote for another candidate instead of Burr, but, by a misadventure, failed to execute it. As a result, the Democratic-Republican electors each cast their two votes for Jefferson and Burr, giving each of them 73 votes. A contingent election had to be held in the House of Representatives (the old House elected in 1798).^[4]

[edit] Disputes

[edit] Defective certificates

When the electoral ballots were opened and counted on February 11, 1801, it turned out that the certificate of election from Georgia was defective; while it was clear that the electors had cast their votes for Jefferson and Burr, the certificate did not take the Constitutionally mandated form of a "List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each." Jefferson, who was counting the votes in his role as president of the senate, immediately counted the votes from Georgia as votes for Jefferson and Burr. No objections were raised. The total number of votes for Jefferson and Burr was 73, a majority.

[edit] Results

Jefferson and Burr tied for first place, so the election was thrown into the House of Representatives.

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote(a), (b), (c)		Electoral Vote
			Count	Percentage
Thomas Jefferson	Democratic-Republican	Virginia	41,330	61.4%	73
Aaron Burr	Democratic-Republican	New York	—	—	73
John Adams	Federalist	Massachusetts	25,952	38.6%	65
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	Federalist	South Carolina	—	—	64
John Jay	Federalist	New York	—	—	1
Total			67,282	100.0%	276
Needed to win					70

Source (Popular Vote): U.S. President National Vote. Our Campaigns. (February 10, 2006).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 30, 2005).

^(a) Votes for Federalist electors have been assigned to John Adams and votes for Republican electors have been assigned to Thomas Jefferson.
^(b) Only 6 of the 16 states chose electors by any form of popular vote.
^(c) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Mintz, S. (2003). Gilder Lehrman Document Number: GLC 581. Digital History. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.
2. ^ Buel (1972)
3. ^ Ferling (2004)
4. ^ Ferling (2004)

[edit] Bibliography

• (1999) in Doron Ben-Atar and Barbara B. Oberg, eds.: Federalists Reconsidered.
• (2004) in Jeffrey L. Pasley, et al., eds.: Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic.
• Beard, Charles A. (1915). The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy.
• Bowling, Kenneth R.; Donald R. Kennon (2005). Establishing Congress : The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800.
• Buel, Richard (1972). Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815.
• Chambers, William Nisbet (1963). Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776–1809.
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. (1965). The Making of the American Party System 1789 to 1809.
• Dunn, Susan (2004). The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism.
• Elkins, Stanley; Eric McKitrick (1995). The Age of Federalism.
• Ferling, John (2004). Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800.
• Fischer, David Hackett (1965). The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy.
• Freeman, Joanne B. (1999). "The election of 1800: a study in the logic of political change". Yale Law Journal 108 (8): 1959-1994.
• Goodman, Paul (1967). "The First American Party System", in William Nisbet Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, eds.: The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, 56–89.
• Hofstadter, Richard (1970). The Idea of a Party System.
• Horn, James P. P.; Jan Ellen Lewis, Peter S. Onuf (2002). The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic.
• Miller, John C. (1959). Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox.
• Schachner, Nathan (1961). Aaron Burr: A Biography.
• Sharp, James Roger (1993). American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis.

[edit] External links

• Documentary Timeline Lesson plans from NEH
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825

[edit] Navigation