The 1800 Presidential Election is the first one that we can look back on and recognize as being a lot like the ones that are held in modern times. In other words there was a lot of mud-slinging and bitterness.

President John Adams would be challenged by his Vice-President Thomas Jefferson. They did not belong to the same political party. Adams from Massachusetts was a Federalist, Jefferson from Virginia was a Democratic-Republican. This would be the only time a Vice-President would take on the President he was serving under. It would also be the first re-match. Adams had beaten Jefferson in the 1796 election. In 1800 President Adams was 65, Vice-President Jefferson was 57.

John Adams term as POTUS was a mixed bag. He is without doubt one of the great Founding Fathers of the United States. But he wasn’t a great president. A big black mark on otherwise stellar career in serving his country was the Alien-Sedition Act of 1798. The Alien-Sedition Act would be a major issue in this election in 1800. Under the Alien-Sedition Act- you could be arrested and fined or thrown in jail for saying things critical of the U.S. government or the President.

Thomas Jefferson as Vice Daddy under Adams wisely kept his distance from Adams and the decisions he made. That way he could just sit back and shake his head at what Adams had done and not be associated with it.

 

 

Going into this election [remember there was no popular vote by the people yet that wouldn’t come until 1824] the Democratic-Republicans were united against Adams and for their man Jefferson. The Federalists were divided. Adams and the other Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton hated one another. The Federalist weren’t wild about Adams but he was the man they had and they had to go with it.

The 1796 election/campaign was a quick affair. 100 days and it was done with. The 1800 campaign began over a year in advance [imagine that!}  This campaign would end up being one of the dirtiest campaigns in American history. None of the recent campaigns can compare. We tend to think things are negative now. They didn’t have the mass media we have today but in 1800 they still got their negative messages out. Also if you think Democrats and Republicans dislike each other today, this is nothing compared to the feelings of hatered the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans held for each other at the turn of the 19th century.

The Federalist were pro-British, the Democratic-Republicans were pro-French. The Federalist were for a strong national goverment, the Democratic-Republicans were for state’s rights.

 

 

During the campaign some of dirt that was thrown out there about Jefferson included, that he had swindled his legal clieents, that he was an athiest, they even put out a rumour that he was dead!  They said if Jefferson was elected president that you would have to hide your Bibles. They said that when he was at his home in Monticello that he slept with his slaves. The last charge, Jefferson wisely never answered that change, he just ignored it. They said that Jefferson was a coward during the Revolutionary War.

The Democratic-Republicans threw their share of dirt out about Adams also. The funniest charge was that Adams’ Vice Presidential candidate Charles Pinckney had imported four mistresses from England for he and Adams to share. When Adams heard this charge he laughed and said ” I do declare upon my honor if this is true General Pinckney has kept them all for himself and cheated me out of my two”

They also called Adams a ‘fool, hypocrite, criminal and tyrant. They spread a story that Adams planned to marry his son John Quincy off to the daughter of King George III’s of England and start an American dynasty.

 

 

The Vice-President was still the man who received the second highest amount of votes from the Electoral College. The Presidential candidates had running mates though even though they were not tied to their leader like they are today. Adams had the brother of his 1796 running mate as his Vice Daddy- General  Charles Colesworth Pinckney. Jefferson’s Vice -Daddy candidate would once again be New York’s Aaron Burr.

Election Day was on December 3rd and all the electors met in the state capitals to vote. Remember each had 2 votes. The plan was for one of the Democratic-Republicans to leave Aaron Burr off their list so Jefferson would win. When they voted though everyone who voted for Jefferson voted for Burr. The results were not to be announced until Congress met again in the new year but of course the results leaked out.

When Congress did gather on February 11th. They counted the electoral votes and Vice-President Thomas Jefferson announced there was a tie at the top seventy-three for Jefferson, seventy-three for Burr, John Adams had 65, General Pinckney had 64 and John Jay had 1.

 

 

The election would be decided by the House of Representitives, that had a Federalist majority. Each state would have a vote, there were 16 states. To win the candidate had to have 9. After thirty-six ballots the results were Jefferson 8, Burr 6 and 2 undecided.

What happened next is up for debate. Some believe that Alexander Hamilton who disliked both Jefferson and Burr used his influence to throw the election to Jefferson. Hamilton believed that Jefferson was not so dangerous a man as Burr. There is also a belief that Thomas Jefferson may have made a deal with the Federalists to give him the election.After he became president, Jefferson did keep certain Federalists in office, kept the Bank of the United States which Hamilton had set up and financing a national debt.

Finally on February 17th the deadlock was broken. Some votes were changed and Jefferson came out on top with 10 of the 16 states voting for him. Aaron Burr, who went into the election as the Vice-Presidential candidate but didn’t back off when he saw there was a tie, would be the Vice-President. Obviously Jefferson and Burr would not be the best of friends after this incident.

 

 

There had to be something done to avoid this mess again, and they came up with the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution to separate the President and Vice-Presidential votes in the Electoral College. This would avoid a tie like this election was and also there would be no more of opposing parties holding the top two offices. The 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804.

Even with all the mudslinging and the electorial mess, this was an important election in American history. One political party handed over the power to another party peacefully. At his inauguration Jefferson would say “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists”

Was John Adams a poor loser? He left town and didn’t attend the Jefferson Inauguration. Only one other president since has done this. John Quincy Adams in 1828 left town before Andrew Jackson’s inauguration.

Aaron Burr would serve out his 4 years as Vice Daddy. He was not on friendly terms with President Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton after the 1800 election would retire from politics. In 1804 Burr and Hamilton would have the most famous duel in American history. Burr killed Hamilton. That was pretty much it for Burr, after that he was dead politically.

below Aaron Burr

 

After their careers were over, Adams and Jefferson became close friends again and wrote a series of famous letters back and forth to one another. They would die on the same day, July 4th, 1826 on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams last words were “Thomas Jefferson lives” little did he know that earlier that day Thomas Jefferson had died. John Adams had lived long enough [90] to see his son John Quincy elected POTUS.