Transcription
The election of 1800 was one of the dirtiest, nastiest, and most contentious elections in American history. The bitterness and hatred that seized both parties and campaigns led the whole nation to believe that the very survival of the country hung in the balance. When the election resulted in a tie, it created a constitutional crisis that nearly led to violent insurrection and disunion. However, in the end, the opposite proved true. It was a hallmark of the peaceful transfer of power between opponents, symbolizing the strength and endurance of American democracy.
But why did this election get so nasty, contested, and then finally settled peacefully and nearly perfectly? Well, that's the treasure we're out to discover. I'm Dan Luer, and this is History for Humans.
The election of 1800 pitted two old friends, former allies of the American Revolution: the Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson against the Federalist John Adams. This was actually a repeat of the previous election in 1796 to fill Washington's seat when he stepped down from power. But this time, it was between the sitting president, Adams, and his sitting vice president, Jefferson. By 1800, though, the partisan divide in the country was much more fierce. The nation's differences were becoming more and more pronounced in the years after the unifying figure of George Washington faded away.
The country was just over a decade old and still very much on shaky ground as the only republic in the world. On a national level, nearly all other countries in the 19th century were monarchies ruled by kings who despised republicanism and the American experiment. America was very much just an experiment. Could a republic of such a size really last? There was no example to look towards for guidance or help.
Today, we take for granted the stability of the country and our democratic institutions, but Americans at that time knew just how volatile and fragile the nation still was. They were walking on thin ice, and most knew it. A raucous election and the infighting it brought could crack and maybe even shatter the ice entirely.
After writing the Constitution, a woman asked Ben Franklin, who was exiting the convention, what type of government they had created: a monarchy or a republic? To which Franklin quipped, "A republic, if you can keep it." It was, of course, a warning that the citizens of the country would have understood at the time—that republics have uncertain futures and are much more prone to fall to tyranny than to withstand the tests of time.
In many writings from our founding fathers, you can find the phrase, "If the republic is to survive." The election of 1800 was about to give the Constitution, the citizens, and the government a stress test that they would never forget.
But before we go any further, our exploration question for today's story lecture is: why did the election of 1800 become a constitutional crisis, and how did it lead to the first peaceful transfer of power between opposing parties? To answer that, we have to head onwards to the past.
We love to think of politics today as being especially nasty. No way honorable men in simpler times of pre-industrial America could have savaged one another like the politicians of today. Wrong. The political parties and the press were just as ugly and vicious—probably worse. Even though political parties were just coming into being, they needed little practice in hating their opponents. Just like today, the parties at the time stood for much different worldviews and often overlooked their commonalities and the things they shared.
Federalists, like President Adams, stood for a strong central government, a stable financial system modeled after Hamilton's bank, and supported Britain in the European wars and conflicts that were increasingly impacting America. They feared, more than anything, chaos, instability, and the radical bloodletting taking place with the French Revolution. They believed those very things characterized their opponents.
Though Adams was the president, the party was really led by its brainchild, Alexander Hamilton. He even turned on Adams, believing that he wasn't a true Federalist during the election. Then there were the Democratic-Republicans, sometimes called Republicans, but not the Republican Party of Lincoln or of today. They were led by Thomas Jefferson. They preferred a weaker central government with greater rights for the states and for the people.
They viewed Hamilton's financial system as favoring the North and the elites while hurting simple farmers. They also opposed the British monarchy and believed, as revolutionaries, that France was their natural ally. Their big fears were centralized power, corruption, and the loss of liberty. They thought the Federalists were pushing for tyranny.
One of the most contentious issues leading up to the election was the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by the Federalist Congress and signed by Adams. The Alien and Sedition Acts struck at immigrants and free speech and the press in order to silence their Jeffersonian opponents. Indeed, the Sedition Act actually made it illegal to criticize the president or the government—not exactly in line with the First Amendment.
So the Democratic-Republicans were furious, believing the Federalists were intent on muzzling their freedoms and ushering in tyranny. Literal brawls broke out in the halls of Congress when Democratic-Republican Representative Matthew Lyons spit tobacco juice in the face of Representative Roger Griswold. Griswold responded by attacking and beating him about the head with a wooden cane. The spitting Lyon then retreated to a fire pit, grabbed fire tongs, and fought back before others broke it up.
Again, this was in the halls of Congress, filled with dispassionate men of high esteem and honor. You can probably imagine what a pub or a town hall might look like after some political disagreements got heated. It was against this setting of violence and visceral factionalism that the election of 1800 would take place.
I hope you can see that to the citizens of the country, it was not a mere contest between two men but about two totally opposing views of the future of the country. Jefferson's running mate was the New Yorker Aaron Burr, and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina would be Adams's running mate. This election became famous for its mudslinging. The press was knee-deep in the muck, hurling vicious and inflammatory insults at their foes.
At the time, most papers were tied directly to a party. Editors knew that scathing attacks sold papers, so there was money to be made in riling up their readers, even if it was dangerous for the republic. It was profitable for them. Thank God that's not the case anymore.
The Federalist papers painted Jefferson as a godless drunkard, more in love with France than the Constitution. One Federalist warned that if Jefferson were president, murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest would be openly taught and practiced. Air would be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil soaked with blood, and the nation black with crime.
Whereas Adams was painted as a monarchist looking to crown himself and return America to Britain. He was described as a hideous, hermaphroditic character, which had neither the force and firmness of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman, and was bald, blind, crippled, and toothless. But to be fair, only half of those were true.
May I remind you that this was also a time when men possessed a particularly acute sense of honor against personal attacks? In fact, such attacks on one's honor were often settled at 12 paces. Right, Hamilton? So these insults carried even more weight than we might sense today.
Luckily, by December of 1800, the votes were all cast and counted. When the nation finally thought the ugliness was behind them, it had really only just begun. After months of the campaign and a long voting process that still excluded most Americans, the Democratic-Republicans had defeated the Federalists. Jefferson and Burr both tied with 73 electoral votes, whereas Adams received 65 and Pinckney 64.
At the time, the rules for electing the president and vice president were much different. The candidate with the most votes would become president, and the second most votes would become vice president. So with Jefferson and Burr tied, there was no clear victor.
You see, originally, electors were giving two votes each, as the president and vice president were not on one ticket. The Democratic-Republicans were supposed to ensure that one of the electors cast one ballot not for Burr, leaving Jefferson as the president, like the Federalists did with Adams and Pinckney. But they botched it.
With the tie, the president would now be decided by the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Federalists, who loathed Jefferson. Burr now seemed very likely to be president, despite being one of the most distrusted politicians in the country.
But the House voted and voted and voted, and neither candidate could get enough states to win. As days passed with similar results, a crisis descended on the country. What would happen if a president could not be chosen? It was a constitutional crisis whose outcome was entirely unpredictable.
The election was ugly for sure, but now civil war and disunion felt like dark clouds upon the country, and the monarchies around Europe cheered and rejoiced. Could Federalists finagle a means of installing one of their own as president amidst this deadlock? With control of Congress, could they undermine the will of the people behind closed doors and use the partisan press to support it?
Well, that's what the Democratic-Republicans feared. The Republican governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia then began mobilizing militias to install Jefferson as president. Jefferson himself warned that the Republican states could form a convention and write their own constitution if he was not elected as president.
Then the most unlikely of men came to bat to secure Jefferson the presidency: his archrival, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton convinced the Federalists in the House that Jefferson was indeed the better man and more trustworthy to safeguard the Constitution than the unscrupulous scoundrel and opportunist Burr.
To quote Lin-Manuel Miranda from Hamilton, "I never agreed with Jefferson once. We have fought on like 75 different fronts. But with all that said and done, Jefferson has beliefs; Burr has none."
Then, on the 36th vote, on the sixth day, Jefferson was elected president. After this, Congress went to work to pass the 12th Amendment, which ensured that this would not happen again by allowing electors to vote separately for president and vice president.
But there was still one last great challenge facing the nation—a challenge that had destroyed many republics in the past. A challenge for President Adams to decide if America were to remain a republic or fall into a dictatorship. Power still sat with Adams and the Federalists for nearly a month before Jefferson was to take office.
He knew it was the transfer of power between bitter opponents that had been the death knell of numerous republics of the Greek and Roman states. Democracy sat on a knife's edge, but Adams would handle it with extreme care and rise to meet the moment.
You see, things like elections, voting, and even the Constitution itself are really theoretical. They possess no power in themselves, but only the power that citizens give them by honoring them, trusting in them, and adhering to them. Adams, at the time, held real power. He had the army and the military and the instruments of government behind him.
But he did what the republic and the Constitution demanded and relinquished it. It was his greatest moment. It was really what he did not do that he is most remembered for. This stepping down became known as the Revolution of 1800—the peaceful transfer of power between opposing parties.
Then, on the morning of March 4, 1801, when Jefferson was set to be formally sworn into office, Adams left quietly in the wee hours of the morning for his home in Massachusetts. It was a mild day in Washington, D.C., the nation's new capital. The unfinished President's House was now vacant and awaited its new commander.
Around noon, Thomas Jefferson left his boarding house, where he stayed, and walked in the plain clothes of a citizen to the Senate chamber to address the nation. A hush fell over the room as Jefferson went to speak. He spoke of the exceptionalism of America, his promise to do his best to serve, though he feared the task was above his talents.
Then Jefferson surprised the crowd when he struck a conciliatory tone, stepping past the heated partisan rumblings of the election, stating, "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists." In those words, Jefferson rose to meet the moment as gracefully as did Adams.
Margaret Bayard Smith, an ordinary citizen who witnessed this event, was struck by its significance. In a letter to her brother-in-law, she stated, "I have this morning witnessed one of the most interesting scenes a free people can ever witness: the changes of administration, which in every government and in every age have most generally been epochs of confusion, villainy, and bloodshed, in this our happy country, take place without any species of distraction or disorder."
Something Americans have taken for granted for generations was once an awe-striking affair. So the election of 1800 proved to be a guiding light for American democracy moving forward and helped to ensure our future as a republic. When it was close to civil war and disunion, the Revolution of 1800 showed the importance of accepting the results of even a bitterly fought, venomous, and contested election.
In the moment that really mattered, Adams, Jefferson, and even Hamilton proved to be men of principle with allegiance to the Constitution and the republic, and not merely to power or party—something Hamilton paid for with his life. Because in the end, Adams knew he was not really relinquishing power to Jefferson at all, but to the people.
And still yet, citizens, we have a republic, if we can keep it.
Thanks for engaging in history today. This has been History for Humans. I just got to ask, before you go, if you liked this episode, there's a simple way to show it: click the thumb that looks like this and then comment below thoughtfully on what you think we must take away from this story, or just go ahead and make references to Hamilton.
You can also head over to our website and engage with conversations with students around the country. If you're doing the learning activity, hang out because we got instructions in just a second.
Okay, guys, you're going to need to stretch before this one because I'm telling you it's going to get heavy. For this lesson, you're going to be reading a few different documents. Most are pretty short excerpts but loaded with juicy history, so really try to squeeze out what you can.
The focus question for the whole assignment is: what does the peaceful transfer of power look like throughout American history? You'll be comparing the elections of 1800, 1960, 2000, and of course, what is literally unfolding in front of our eyes right now: 2020.
Now, we don't know exactly how this transfer of power is going to play out if you're watching this before the inauguration of Joe Biden, but you can still make a lot of conclusions and comparisons looking at a few short statements, speeches, and tweets from President Trump.
Then you're going to connect his actions to those of presidents in the past. Because this is so contentious, handle it with care. Approach it thoughtfully and clearly, and not just emotionally. But do your best, and I'll see you guys next time. Go forth onto history.