United States presidential election, 1800

United States presidential election, 1800

October 31 – December 3, 1800
138 electoral votes 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 C. Pinckney Electoral vote 73 65 States carried 9 7 Popular vote 41,330 25,952 Percentage 61.4% 38.6%
Presidential election results map. Because electors could not distinguish between their presidential and vice presidential choices until the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, the map above assumes that the presidential votes are exactly the votes for Adams or Jefferson. Green denotes states won by Jefferson, burnt orange denotes states won by Adams, and gray denotes non voting territories. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. Note that until 1820, the state of Maine was a part of Massachusetts.
President before election John Adams Federalist Elected President Thomas Jefferson Democratic-Republican

The United States presidential election of 1800 was the fourth United States presidential election. It was held from Friday, October 31 to Wednesday, December 3, 1800. In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800",^[2][3] Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party. The election was a realigning election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican rule.

Adams had narrowly defeated Jefferson in the 1796 election. Under the rules of the electoral system that were in place prior to the 1804 ratification of the 12th Amendment, each member of the Electoral College cast two votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. As Jefferson received the second-most votes in 1796, he was elected vice president. In 1800, unlike in 1796, both parties formally nominated tickets. The Democratic-Republicans nominated a ticket consisting of Jefferson and Aaron Burr, while the Federalists nominated a ticket consisting of Adams and Charles Pinckney. Each party formed a plan in which one of their respective electors would vote for a third candidate or abstain so that their preferred presidential candidate (Adams for the Federalists and Jefferson for the Democratic-Republicans) would win one more vote than the party's other nominee.

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 imposed by the Federalists. 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. While the Democratic-Republicans were well organized at the state and local levels, the Federalists were disorganized and suffered a bitter split between their two major leaders, President 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.^[4]

At the end of a long and bitter campaign, Jefferson and Burr each won 73 electoral votes, Adams won 65 electoral votes, and Pinckney won 64 electoral votes. The Federalists swept New England, the Democratic-Republicans dominated the South, and the parties split the Mid-Atlantic states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The Democratic-Republicans' failure to execute their plan to award Jefferson one more vote than Burr resulted in a tie, which necessitated a contingent election in the House of Representatives. Under the terms laid out in the Constitution, the outgoing House of Representatives chose between Jefferson and Burr. Each state delegation cast one vote, and a victory in the contingent election required one candidate to win a majority of the state delegations. Neither Burr nor Jefferson were able to win on the first 35 ballots of the contingent election, as most Federalist Congressmen backed Burr and all Democratic-Republican Congressmen backed Jefferson. Hamilton personally favored Jefferson over Burr, and he convinced several Federalists to switch their support to Jefferson, giving Jefferson a victory on the 36th ballot of the contingent election. The result of this election was affected by the three-fifths clause of the United States Constitution; historians such as Garry Wills have noted that had slaves not been counted for the purposes of congressional apportionment, Adams would have won the electoral vote.^[5]

General election

Voting

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of blue are for Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) and shades of yellow are for Adams (Federalist).

Because each state could choose its own election day in 1800, voting lasted from April to October. In April, Burr's successful mobilization of the vote in New York City succeeded in reversing the Federalist majority in the state legislature to provide decisive support for the Democratic-Republican ticket. With the two parties tied 63–63 in the Electoral College in the autumn of 1800, the last state to vote, South Carolina, chose eight Democratic-Republicans to award the election to Jefferson and Burr.

Under the United States Constitution as it then stood, each elector cast two votes, and the candidate with a majority of the votes was elected president, with the vice presidency going to the runner-up. The Federalists therefore arranged for one of their electors to vote for John Jay rather than for Pinckney. The Democratic-Republicans had a similar plan to have one of their electors cast a vote for another candidate instead of Burr, but failed to execute it, thus all of the Democratic-Republican electors cast their votes for both Jefferson and Burr, 73 in all for each of them. According to a provision of the United States Constitution, a tie in a case of this type had to be resolved by the House of Representatives, with each state casting one vote. Although the congressional election of 1800 turned over majority control of the House of Representatives to the Democratic-Republicans by 65 seats to 35,^[12] the presidential election had to be decided by the outgoing House that had been elected in the congressional election of 1798 (at that time, the new presidential and congressional terms all started on March 4 of the year after a national election). In the outgoing House, the Federalists retained a majority of 90 seats to 54.^[12][4]

Results

Jefferson (and Burr) won all or a majority of the voters in each state that he had won in 1796, and additionally won majorities in New York and Maryland. Adams picked up votes 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.

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 (incumbent)	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 (Popular Vote): A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825^[14]
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.

Breakdown by ticket

Presidential candidate	Running mate	Electoral vote
Thomas Jefferson	Aaron Burr	73
John Adams	Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	64
John Adams	John Jay	1

Breakdown by state

State	Jefferson	Burr	Adams	Pinckney	Jay
New Hampshire			6	6
Massachusetts			16	16
Rhode Island			4	3	1
Connecticut			9	9
Vermont			4	4
New York	12	12
New Jersey			7	7
Pennsylvania	8	8	7	7
Delaware			3	3
Maryland	5	5	5	5
Virginia	21	21
Kentucky	4	4
North Carolina	8	8	4	4
Tennessee	3	3
South Carolina	8	8
Georgia	4	4
Total	73	73	65	64	1

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.

1801 contingent election

Aaron Burr tied Jefferson in the Electoral College vote.

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 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 Republicans; one of its Federalist representatives voted for Jefferson, forcing that state delegation also to cast a blank ballot.^[15]

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. He refused to disavow the presidency, writing in December 1800 to Representative Samuel Smith that he would not "engage to resign" if chosen president, adding that the question was "unnecessary, unreasonable and impertinent." Rumors circulated that Representative James A. Bayard, a Federalist, had—purportedly in Burr's name—approached Smith, and Edward Livingston with offers of political appointments if they voted for Burr.^[16]

True or not, House 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 they met to vote: A–the Federalists manage to engineer a victory for Burr, or, B–the Federalists refuse to break the deadlock leaving a Federalist—Secretary of State John Marshall—as Acting President.^[17] Neither came to pass however, chiefly due to the energetic opposition to Burr by Hamilton. Over the course of seven days, from February 11 to 17, the House cast a total of 35 ballots, with Jefferson receiving the votes of eight state delegations each time, falling just one short of the necessary majority of nine each time. Hamilton recommended to Federalists that they 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.^[11] Hamilton embarked on a frenzied letter-writing campaign to get delegates to switch votes.^[18]

On February 17, on the 36th ballot, Jefferson was elected. Federalist James A. Bayard of Delaware and his allies in Maryland and Vermont all cast blank ballots.^[19] This resulted in the Maryland and Vermont votes changing from no selection to Jefferson, giving him the votes of 10 states and the presidency. Bayard, as the sole representative from Delaware, changed his vote from Burr to no selection.^[4] The four representatives present from South Carolina, all Federalists, also changed their 3–1 selection of Burr to four abstentions.

Electoral college selection

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:^[20]

In popular culture

The election of 1800 was the topic of the song "The Election of 1800" from the Broadway musical Hamilton.^[21] In the song, Hamilton says, "I have never agreed with Jefferson once, we have fought on like 75 different fronts, but when all is said and all is done: Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none." This angers Burr and leads directly into the song "Your Obedient Servant", in which Burr stands up to Hamilton and declares a duel. This duel led to the death of Alexander Hamilton.

The election's story and the eventual reconciliation between Jefferson and Adams was also retold in a second-season episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History, with Jerry O'Connell portraying Jefferson and Joe Lo Truglio as Adams.

See also

• First inauguration of Thomas Jefferson
• United States House of Representatives elections, 1800
• United States Senate elections, 1800 and 1801
• History of the United States (1789–1849)
• Stephen Simpson (writer) (editor of the Aurora, a Philadelphia newspaper Jefferson credited for his victory in 1800)

References

Bibliography

• Ben-Atar, Doron; Oberg, Barbara B., eds. (1999), Federalists Reconsidered, University of Virginia Press, ISBN 978-0-8139-1863-1
• 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
• Beard, Charles A. (1915), The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, ISBN 978-1-146-80267-3
• 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
• Chernow, Ron (2005), Alexander Hamilton, Penguin, 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
• Ferling, John (2004). Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• 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, doi:10.2307/797378, JSTOR 797378
• Goodman, Paul (1967), "The First American Party System", in Chambers, William Nisbet; Burnham, Walter Dean, The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, pp. 56–89
• Hofstadter, Richard (1970), The Idea of a Party System
• Kennedy, Roger G. (2000), Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character, Oxford University Press
• McCullough, David (2001), John Adams
• Horn, James P. P.; Lewis, Jan Ellen; Onuf, Peter S. (2002), The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic
• Miller, John C. (1959), Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox
• 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;
• Wills, Garry (2003), "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Houghton Mifflin Co., pp. 47–89, 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).

External links

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

• United States presidential election of 1800 at Encyclopædia Britannica
• 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
• Vote Archive: Town Map of Election Results in Rhode Island
• Vote Archive: County Map of Election Results in Virginia
• 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