payment page
Summary
The election of 1800 would turn out to be one of the most pivotal in American history. It was a rematch of the election of 1796: the Republicans backed Thomas Jefferson for president and influential New York politician Aaron Burr for vice president while the Federalists supported John Adams for reelection. However, the Federalist Party had serious fragmented late in Adams’s term, as Adams began to take a more moderate stance in response to public criticism of his policies—distanced him from the so-called “High Federalists,” more extreme politicians led by Alexander Hamilton.
When radical Federalists suggested that Adams attempt to spark a civil war or declare war on France to bring voters to the Federalist side, he refused. Instead, Adams had sent a second diplomatic envoy to France in 1799, much to the dismay of some Federalist leaders. Federalists in Congress were outraged, and Hamilton publicly denounced Adams as a fool. But they were silenced by Adams’s threat to resign and leave the office to his vice president, Jefferson. Extreme Federalists withdrew their political support for Adams during the election due to what they saw as his compromising of Federalist ideals.
Republicans, for their part, were busy mobilizing in full support of Jefferson. They were quite successful in harnessing the popular dissatisfaction with the Federalists in power and activated support in the swing state of New York, where Aaron Burr had a base of power. Around 35 percent of voters turned out nationally, largely due to the efforts of Republicans to raise political awareness. In 1788, only 12 years earlier, only 15 percent of eligible voters had gone to the polls.
The Federalists, in comparative disarray, nonetheless mounted opposition to Jefferson’s campaign. They concentrated a negative campaign around the religious nature of the population in most Federalist strongholds, especially New England. Noting Jefferson was something of a religious free-thinker, Federalists used the campaign slogan: “God—and a Religious President;” impiously declare for “Jefferson—and No God!!!” However, this appeal failed to persuade many voters as the Federalists struggled to find some way to capture the support of the nation beyond New England.
The Federalists lost the popular vote by a lopsided margin of 61 percent to 39 percent. Electoral College was closer, but the Republicans prevailed there by a vote of 73 to 65—reversing the results of the 71 to 68 vote Federalist victory in 1796—largely due New York flipping to the Republicans. To make matters even worse for the Federalists, the Republicans had also wrested control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives from the Federalists in the election.
However, due to rules for the Electoral College at the time that made the first place Electoral College vote-getter president and the runner-up vice president, Jefferson was not guaranteed to take office. When the Electoral College met, all 73 Republican electors had voted for both Jefferson and Burr. Thus, the Electoral College produced a Jefferson-Burr tie. The task of deciding who would become president then fell to the House of Representatives. Burr refused to pull out of the race, even though he knew the party had chosen Jefferson as president. Federalists saw this as a chance to promote Burr over Jefferson, their arch-nemesis. Over six days, the House took 35 ballots, failing to choose either man with a majority of states. Finally, several moderate Federalists changed their positions, granted assurances that Jefferson would not obliterate all traces of the Federalist system. After 36 ballots Jefferson was president, and Burr, for his insolence, became a complete outcast as vice president.
Analysis
The most important factors contributing to Jefferson’s victory and the Republican’s sweep of Congress in 1800 were the dissention in the Federalist ranks and the success of Republican organization and mobilization. Jefferson’s Republicans proved adept at manipulating the press and keeping their fingers on the pulse of public opinion. They capitalized on the Federalist actions which had taken the greatest toll on the common voter, focusing particularly on the Alien and Sedition Acts as indicative of a Federalist desire to deny basic freedoms to the common man, and decried Federalist sponsored taxation as exorbitant and unnecessary. Adams was painted as a panicky figurehead controlled by an evil party which cared not for the average citizen. As a result of Republican efforts, voter turnout was greater than ever before.
The Federalists, meanwhile, mounted very little opposition, proving themselves much less capable of political organization than were Republicans. Their appeals to religious sentiment were crude, and after Adams’s decision to send a second diplomatic mission to France, they could no longer rely on the traditional claim that Republicans sympathized with France, then the most prominent military threat to the nation. Additionally, with the probability of war declining, Americans grew incensed at the high taxes they were forced to pay to maintain the army. Under Adams, the national debt had swelled by $10 million, which further dismayed voters. Artisans and small business owners in cities such as Philadelphia and New York also increasingly turned away from the Federalists, who they saw as elitist and aristocratic, and toward the Republicans, led by Jefferson, who though he was an aristocrat, symbolized for many the spirit of equality and meritocracy.
Many years later, Jefferson would describe his victory in the election of 1800 as the “Revolution of 1800.” He considered it “as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form.” Jefferson and the Republicans saw themselves as the saviors of the nation, freeing it from the tyrannical grips of a party bent on elitism and tending toward monarchy. While there was certainly a vast difference between the Federalist style of government and the Republican style which Jefferson would bring to the national government, most historians think that to frame the transition as one from incipient monarchy to virtuous republicanism is to exaggerate the circumstances a great deal. John Adams was certainly not in pursuit of monarchy. He very much believed in the principles of democracy.
However, Adams he came from a school of thought that considered all men to be basically evil, and he sought to place the power of government in the hands of the least evil and most rational, which he thought to be represented by the political and social elites. Jefferson, for his part, most likely similarly considered men to be driven by self-interest and greed. However, he was from the school of thought which believed that the pursuit of self-interest could lead to social benefits and thought that government should not limit the governed so much that they could not undertake this pursuit. The difference in ideology was thus not as stark as Jefferson would have painted it, and he would soon find out that the president is beleaguered by challenges whether he be a Federalist or Republican.
