1800 United States presidential election

1800 United States presidential election

← 1796 October 31 – December 3, 1800 1804 →
138 members of the Electoral College 70 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	32.3%[1] 12.2 pp
Nominee Thomas Jefferson John Adams Party Democratic-Republican Federalist Home state Virginia Massachusetts Running mate Aaron Burr Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Electoral vote 73[a] 65 States carried 9 7 Popular vote 45,511[b] 29,621[b] Percentage 60.6% 39.4%
Presidential election results map. Green denotes states won by Jefferson and Salmon denotes states won by Adams. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes cast by each state.
President before election John Adams Federalist Elected President Thomas Jefferson Democratic-Republican
1801 contingent U.S. presidential election
February 17, 1801 (36th ballot)
16 state delegations of the House of Representatives 9 state votes needed to win
Candidate Thomas Jefferson Aaron Burr Party Democratic-Republican Democratic-Republican States carried 10 4 Percentage 62.5% 25.0%
1801 Contingent Election Results. Green denotes states voting for Jefferson and blue denotes states voting for Burr. States in grey cast blank ballots.

Presidential elections were held in the United States from October 31 to December 3, 1800. In what is sometimes called the "Revolution of 1800",^[2] the Democratic-Republican Party candidate, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, defeated the Federalist Party candidate and incumbent, President John Adams in the second peaceful transfer of power in the history of the United States, creating a political realignment that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican leadership. This was the first presidential election in American history to be a rematch, and the first election where an incumbent president lost re-election.

Adams had narrowly defeated Jefferson in the

The chief political issues revolved around the fallout from the French Revolution and the Quasi-War. The Federalists favored a strong central government and close relations with Great Britain. The Democratic-Republicans favored decentralization to the state governments, and the party attacked the taxes the Federalists imposed. The Democratic-Republicans also denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts, which the Federalists had passed to make it harder for immigrants to become citizens and to restrict statements critical of the federal government. The Democratic-Republicans were well organized at the state and local levels, while the Federalists were disorganized and suffered a bitter split between their two major leaders, Adams and Alexander Hamilton. According to historian John Ferling, the jockeying for electoral votes, regional divisions, and the propaganda smear campaigns created by both parties made the election recognizably modern.^[3]

At the end of a long and bitter campaign, Jefferson and Burr each won 73 electoral votes, Adams won 65, and Pinckney won 64. The Federalists swept

• 
  President
  John Adams
  from Massachusetts
• 
  Former
  Minister to France
  Charles C.
  Pinckney
  from South Carolina

• 
  Vice President
  Thomas Jefferson
  from Virginia
• 
  Former
  U.S. Senator
  Aaron Burr
  from New York

While the 1800 election was a re-match of the 1796 election, it ushered in a new type of American politics, a two-party republic and acrimonious campaigning behind the scenes and through the press. On top of this, the election pitted the "larger than life" Adams and Jefferson, who were formerly close allies turned political enemies.^[6]

The campaign was bitter and characterized by slander and personal attacks on both sides. Federalists spread rumors that the Democratic-Republicans were radical atheists^[7] who would ruin the country (based on the Democratic-Republican support for the French Revolution). In 1798, George Washington had complained "that you could as soon scrub the blackamoor white, as to change the principles of a professed Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country".^[8] Meanwhile, the Democratic-Republicans accused Federalists of subverting republican principles with the Alien and Sedition Acts, some of which were later declared unconstitutional after their expiration by the Supreme Court, and relying for their support on foreign immigrants^{[clarification needed]}; they also accused Federalists of favoring Britain and the other coalition countries in their war with France in order to promote aristocratic, anti-democratic values.^[9]

Adams was attacked by both the opposition Democratic-Republicans and a group of so-called "High Federalists" aligned with Alexander Hamilton. The Democratic-Republicans felt that the Adams foreign policy was too favorable toward Britain; feared that the new army called up for the Quasi-War would oppress the people; opposed new taxes to pay for war; and attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts as violations of states' rights and the Constitution. "High Federalists" considered Adams too moderate and would have preferred the leadership of Alexander Hamilton instead.^[10]

Hamilton had apparently grown impatient with Adams and wanted a new president who was more receptive to his goals. During Washington's presidency, Hamilton had been able to influence the federal response to the Whiskey Rebellion (which threatened the government's power to tax citizens). When Washington announced that he would not seek a third term, the Federalists and Adams regarded himself as next-in-line.^[11]

Hamilton appears to have hoped in 1796 that his influence within an Adams administration would be as great as or greater than in Washington's. By 1800, Hamilton had come to realize that Adams was too independent and thought the Federalist vice presidential candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, more suited to serving Hamilton's interests. In his third sabotage attempt toward Adams,^[12] Hamilton quietly schemed to elect Pinckney to the presidency. Given Pinckney's lack of political experience, he would have been expected to be open to Hamilton's influence. However, Hamilton's plan backfired and hurt the Federalist party, particularly after one of his letters, a scathing criticism of Adams that was fifty-four pages long,^[13] fell into the hands of a Democratic-Republican and soon after became public. It embarrassed Adams and damaged Hamilton's efforts on behalf of Pinckney,^[3] not to mention speeding Hamilton's own political decline.^[13]

The contemporarily unorthodox public campaigning methods employed in 1800 were first employed by Jefferson's running mate and campaign manager, Aaron Burr, who is credited by some historians with inventing the modern electioneering process.^[14] Yet, throughout this entire process, the candidates themselves were conspicuously missing from the campaigning, at least publicly, due to fears that they may otherwise be tagged as "demagogues". Even a visit John Adams made to Washington was made into a public point of contention.^[15]

Partisans on both sides sought any advantage they could find. In several states, this included changing the process of selecting electors to ensure the desired result. In Georgia, Democratic-Republican legislators replaced the popular vote with selection by the state legislature.^[16] In Virginia, the Democratic-Republican-controlled legislature switched from electoral districts to a general ticket, a winner-take-all system. Federalist legislators also switched methods, switching from districts and general tickets to legislature votes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, respectively.^[17]

In Pennsylvania, the General Assembly was split, with the Democratic-Republican-dominated House wishing to retain the general ticket and the Federalist-controlled Senate wishing to return to the district system, hoping to win at least some electoral votes. Eventually, this deadlock was broken by a last-minute compromise between the chambers that gave the Democratic-Republican eight electors and the Federalists seven.^[18]

In New York, the rejection to change the selection method backfired on the Federalists. In March 1800, two months before the assembly elections, the Democratic-Republicans attempted to pass a bill that would switch from a legislature vote to electoral districts, hoping they would secure at least a third of the state's seats. The Federalists defeated the measure, believing that they would win control of both chambers and award all of the state's electoral votes to the Federalist nominees. However, in the April state elections, Aaron Burr's effective mobilization of the vote in New York City led to a reversal of the Federalist majority in the state legislature, providing crucial support for the Democratic-Republican ticket.^[19]

In response to the Federalist defeat, Hamilton attempted to get Governor John Jay to call a special session of the outgoing Federalist-dominated New York legislature. Hamilton's plan was for the outgoing assembly to pass legislation that would establish the popular election of electors through electoral districts, a strategy almost certain to secure nine or ten of the twelve elector slots for the Federalists. Jay refused to participate in such an underhanded scheme.^[20]

The Federalist legislature in Connecticut did not change the method of voting but instead passed a "stand up" election law, mandating that all votes be cast publicly and orally, an intimidating procedure that ordinarily favored those in power.^[21]

Because each state could choose its own day to elect its electors in 1800, before Election Day on December 3, when electors "meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves" in accordance with the Constitution,^[22] the voting lasted from October^[23] to December. As election day neared, the election was too close to call. The last state to vote, South Carolina, chose its electors on December 2, and would become key to determining the election. The state elections in mid-October had produced an assembly that was about evenly divided between committed Federalists and Republicans, with 16 unaffiliated representatives who were all strongly pro-Jefferson. Many of the elected Jeffersonians were also supporters of Pinckney, the revered native son of the state. If South Carolina's electors gave their votes to Jefferson and Pinckney, then Pinckney would place an electoral vote behind Jefferson, becoming the vice president.^[24]

However, Pinckney stayed loyal to the instructions of his party's caucus and was adamant that any elector who voted for him must also vote for Adams. With uncommitted legislators not willing to desert Jefferson and Pinckney unwilling to abandon Adams, the uncommitted legislators eventually reluctantly agreed to support Burr.^[25]

Under the

Holly Brewer, a legal historian, argued that the counting of the Georgia ballot did not support Ackerman and Fontana's theory. Brewer contends that the ballot did in fact comply with constitutional requirements, since it contained a list of all four electoral college votes for both Jefferson and Burr respectively (and only them); the constitutionally required certification language was contained on the outside of the envelope; and the ballot was not understood to be irregular under the election practices of the day.^[32] Brewer's arguments helped to influence Vice President Pence's decision to reject the theory that he had such powers, via Judge J. Michael Luttig.^{[33][32][34][35]}

Jefferson and Burr carried every state that had supported the Democratic-Republicans in 1796, made gains in Maryland, and picked up Burr's home state of New York. In the six states choosing electors by some form of popular vote, they won a landslide over Adams and Pinckney, polling 15,846 more votes than the Federalist ticket. Adams made gains in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but these votes were not enough to offset the Democratic-Republican gains elsewhere. Of the 155 counties and independent cities making returns, Jefferson and Burr won in 115 (74.19%), whereas the Adams ticket carried 40 (25.81%). This was the last time that Vermont voted for the Federalists and the last time a Federalist won electoral votes from Pennsylvania. This was the first of two elections contested between people who would at some point serve as Vice President, the other being 1968.

Source (Popular Vote): A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825^[36]
Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 30, 2005.

^(a) Votes for Federalist electors have been assigned to John Adams and votes for Democratic-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.
^(d) Eight votes were cast for electors pledged to both Adams and Jefferson; 2 votes were cast for electors of unknown affiliation.

Source: "Tally of Electoral Votes for the 1800 Presidential Election, February 11, 1801". The Center for Legislative Archives. National Archives. August 15, 2016. Retrieved February 15, 2018.

Of the 16 states that took part in the 1800 election, six (Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia) used some kind of popular vote. In Rhode Island and Virginia, voters elected their state's entire Electoral College delegation at large; Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, and Tennessee all used some variation of single-member districts. In the rest, electors were chosen by the state legislature. Not until the 1836 presidential election would all states have direct popular selection of electors (except South Carolina, which had its state legislature vote for electors until 1868). Popular vote records for several states are incomplete, and the returns from Kentucky and Tennessee appear to have been lost; states did not print or issue electoral ballots, and most were issued by newspapers that supported a particular party or candidate. Newspapers are also the main source of voting records in the early 19th century, and frontier states such as Tennessee had few in operation, without any known surviving examples. Below are the surviving popular vote figures as published in A New Nation Votes.

Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, and Tennessee chose each of their electors from specially-drawn single-member districts, the results from which are as follows.

• Maryland
• New York

States and districts where the margin of victory was under 1%:

1. Maryland's 4th electoral district, 0.34% (9 votes)
2. North Carolina's Northampton electoral district, 0.98% (14 votes)

States and districts where the margin of victory was under 5%:

1. Rhode Island, 4.06% (194 votes)

States and districts where the margin of victory was under 10%:

1. North Carolina's Rockingham electoral district, 7.26% (179 votes)
2. Maryland's 3rd electoral district, 9.46% (360 votes)
3. North Carolina's New Bern electoral district, 9.78% (202 votes)

In February 1801, the members of the House of Representatives balloted as states to determine whether Jefferson or Burr would become president. There were sixteen states, each with one vote; an absolute majority of nine was required for victory. It was the outgoing House of Representatives, controlled by the Federalist Party, that was charged with electing the new president. Jefferson was the great enemy of the Federalists, and a faction of Federalist representatives tried to block him and elect Burr. Most Federalists voted for Burr, giving Burr six of the eight states controlled by Federalists. The seven delegations controlled by Democratic-Republicans all voted for Jefferson, and Georgia's sole Federalist representative also voted for him, giving him eight states. The Vermont delegation was evenly split and cast a blank ballot. The remaining state, Maryland, had five Federalist representatives to three Democratic-Republicans; one of its Federalist representatives voted for Jefferson, forcing that state delegation also to cast a blank ballot.^[80]

Publicly, Burr remained quiet between mid-December 1800 and mid-February 1801, when the electoral votes were counted. Behind the scenes, he faced mounting pressure from within the party to step aside if he and Jefferson should tie in electoral votes. However, there was confusion as to whether or not Burr could simply concede the presidency to Jefferson and become vice-president, or whether he would have been forced to withdraw entirely and allow one of the Federalist candidates to become vice-president, as the Constitution was unclear on the matter. Regardless, he refused to disavow the presidency, writing in December 1800 to Representative

True or not, House Democratic-Republicans, who from the start of the 1800 campaign viewed Jefferson as their candidate for president and Burr for vice president, faced two abhorrent possible outcomes when the House met to vote: the Federalists could engineer a victory for Burr; or the Federalists could refuse to break the deadlock, leaving Federalist Secretary of State John Marshall as Acting President.^[82] Neither came to pass, however,^{[83][page needed]} chiefly^{[citation needed]} due to Hamilton's energetic opposition to Burr. Hamilton embarked on a frenzied letter-writing campaign to get Federalist Representatives to switch votes.^{[83][page needed]} He urged the Federalists to support Jefferson because he was "by far not so dangerous a man" as Burr; in short, he would much rather have someone with wrong principles than someone devoid of any.^[13]

From February 11 to 17, the House cast a total of 35 ballots; each time eight state delegations voted for Jefferson, one short of the necessary majority of nine.

On February 17, on the 36th ballot, Bayard changed his vote from Burr to no selection,^[3] joined by his allies in Maryland and Vermont.^[84] This changed the Maryland and Vermont votes from no selection to Jefferson, giving him the votes of 10 states and the presidency. The four representatives present from South Carolina, all Federalists, also changed their 3–1 selection of Burr to four abstentions.

Due to the experiences of this and the previous election, sentiment for a new way of selecting the president and vice president rose significantly, resulting in the Twelfth Amendment.

^(a) The votes of the representatives is typical and may have fluctuated from ballot to ballot, but the result for each state did not change.
^(b) Even though Georgia had two representatives apportioned, one seat was vacant due to the death of James Jones.
^(c) Even though South Carolina had six representatives apportioned, Thomas Sumter was absent due to illness, and Abraham Nott departed for South Carolina between the first and final ballots.

The Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, provided that the state legislatures should decide the manner in which their electors were chosen. Different state legislatures chose different methods:^[89]

In the 2015

• First inauguration of Thomas Jefferson
• Bibliography of Thomas Jefferson
• 1800–01 United States House of Representatives elections
• 1800–01 United States Senate elections
• History of the United States (1789–1849)
• Stephen Simpson (editor of the Aurora, a Philadelphia newspaper Jefferson credited for his victory in 1800)
• Burr dilemma

• Annals of the Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1834–1856, pp. 10:1028–1033
• "A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College". The Green Papers. Retrieved March 20, 2005.

Bibliography

Main article: Bibliography of Thomas Jefferson

• ISBN 978-0-8139-1863-1
• ISBN 978-1-146-80267-3 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help
  )
• Bowling, Kenneth R.; Kennon, Donald R. (2005), Establishing Congress: The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800, Ohio University Press,
  ISBN 978-0-8214-1619-8
• 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
• ISBN 978-0-14-303475-9
• Cunningham, Noble E. Jr. (1965), The Making of the American Party System 1789 to 1809
• Der Linden, Frank Van. (2000) The Turning Point: Jefferson's Battle for the Presidency. (Washington D.C.: Robert B. Luce).
• Dunn, Susan (2004), Jefferson's second revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
  ISBN 978-0-618-13164-8
• Elkins, Stanley; McKitrick, Eric (1995), The Age of Federalism
• ISBN 978-0-19-516771-9
  .
• Fischer, David Hackett (1965), The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy
• Freeman, Joanne B. (2001), Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic
• Freeman, Joanne B. (1999), "The election of 1800: a study in the logic of political change", Yale Law Journal, 108 (8): 1959–1994,
  JSTOR 797378
• Goodman, Paul (1967), "The First American Party System", in Chambers, William Nisbet; Burnham, Walter Dean (eds.), The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, pp. 56–89
• Hofstadter, Richard (1970), The Idea of a Party System
• Horn, James P. P.; Lewis, Jan Ellen; Onuf, Peter S. (2002), The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic
• Lepore, Jill (2018). These truths: a history of the United States (1st ed.). New York (N. Y.): W.W. Norton & Company.
  ISBN 978-0-393-63524-9
• McCullough, David (2001), John Adams
• Miller, John C. (1959), Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox
• Pasley, Jeffrey L.; et al., eds. (2004), Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic, University of North Carolina Press,
  ISBN 978-0-8078-5558-4
• Roberts, Cokie (2008), Ladies of Liberty
• Schachner, Nathan (1961), Aaron Burr: A Biography
• Schlesinger, Arthur Meier
  , ed. (1986), History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1984, vol. 1, essay and primary sources on 1800.
• Sharp, James Roger. The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr, and the Union in the Balance (University Press of Kansas; 2010) 239 pages;
• ISBN 0-618-34398-9 ... also listed (in at least one source
  ) as from Mariner Books (Boston) in 2004
• Weisberger, Bernard A. (2000) "America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the Revolutionary Election of 1800" (New York: William Morrow).

Primary sources

• Sloan, Herbert. " 'In a Choice of Evils...Jefferson is in Every View Less Dangerous than Burr': Alexander Hamilton to Harrison Gray Otis on the Deadlocked Presidential Election of 1800." OAH Magazine of History 18.5 (2004): 53-57 excerpt

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to United States presidential election, 1800.

• 1800 U.S. Presidential Election at VoteArchive.com Extant popular vote data and county-by-county maps for four states
• Vote Archive: County-level results for Maryland
• Vote Archive: County-level results for North Carolina
• Vote Archive: County-level results for Rhode Island
• Vote Archive: County-level results for Virginia
• Presidential Election of 1800: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Documentary Timeline 1787–1800 Lesson plans from NEH
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825
• Overview at Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
• Booknotes interview with Bernard Weisberger on America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the First Contested Election, February 25, 2001.
• Booknotes interview with John Ferling on Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, October 3, 2004.
• Election of 1800 in Counting the Votes Archived September 30, 2019, at the Wayback Machine