THE ADAMS-JEFFERSON CONTEST
1796
While it was generally accepted that Washington would not be a candidate for a third term, he gave no definite expression on the subject until he issued his farewell address a short time before the election of 1796. Washington was an extremely reticent man, and it is possible that, in view of the serious complications between this country and France, he may have anticipated a contingency that would make him accept a third election to the Presidency, but it seems to have been well understood by those nearest to him in official circles that he earnestly desired to retire to private life at the expiration of his second term. He was then the richest man in the country, his wealth being almost wholly composed of land and slaves, and for twenty years he had been unable to give any attention to his large business interests. While his election and re-election to the Presidency by a unanimous vote were very gratifying to him, he greatly preferred the life upon his plantation, where he gave most careful attention to all the details of its management.
As early as 1793 it was generally accepted by the public that Washington would not be a candidate for re-election, and that Jefferson and Adams would be the logical competitors for the succession. Jefferson had cleared his decks for the battle by resigning his office as Secretary of State early in 1794. He was not in harmony with the severe Federal policy of Washington, and was very positively hostile to the policy of the administration in failing to support the French Revolution. Jefferson led the Democratic forces of the country; Washington, and Adams as his logical successor, led the Federal forces, and between them there was an irreconcilable dispute as to the form of government the new Republic should assume. Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and their associates did not believe in the capacity of the people for self-government. They favored the strongest possible government, with checks and balances which could effectually restrain what they regarded as positive and dangerous ebullitions of public sentiment. They would have made Senators for life and given only the semblance of government to the people. Jefferson, on the other hand, took the broad ground that the people were sovereign and should rule. He logically supported the French Revolution against the Bourbon Kings, and cherished the strongest prejudices against England. As Secretary of State he could not well have remained in the Washington Cabinet the last two years of the administration, but he doubtless resigned to be entirely free to make his great battle for the Presidency in 1796.
Neither Jefferson nor Adams was nominated for the Presidency in 1796 by any Legislature or mass-meeting of which there is any record as far as I have been able to ascertain. Adams was the choice of Washington, and the logical successor to Washington as the Federal candidate for President, and Jefferson stood head and shoulders over all the Republicans of that day. The title of Republican was adopted by the friends of Jefferson, and the Democratic party was founded in 1796 by Jefferson under the name of Republican, established as the majority party of the nation four years later, and it fought and won the Democratic battles under that name until 1824, when the Jackson party changed the title to Democracy.
If the overshadowing individuality of Washington could have been eliminated from the contest of 1796, Jefferson would have defeated Adams by a decided majority, but Washington was earnestly enlisted in the support of Adams, and all the power of the administration was wielded in favor of the Federal candidate. While Washington was not charged with violent partisanship in his appointments, it is none the less true that when the issue came between Adams and Jefferson, every Federal official of the country felt bound to support, with all the power he possessed, the candidate preferred by Washington. Had Grover Cleveland lived in that day, he would have had ample opportunity to denounce the “pernicious activity” of office-holders with as much reason as he denounced them a century later in his support of civil service reform.
Not only were the Federal officials aggressively enlisted in favor of Adams, but the personal influence of Washington, that was greater than that ever wielded by any other official or citizen of the Republic down to the present time, was a serious obstacle to Jefferson’s success. The people loved Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and a large majority of them sympathized with his liberal ideas of popular government, but the name of Washington was sacred to a large majority, and his wishes were paramount in deciding their political action. Such were the conditions under which Jefferson entered the contest against Adams in 1796.
In this contest, for the first time, there were two candidates distinctly declared as competitors for the Presidency, and other candidates as distinctly declared as competitors for Vice-President, although all had to be voted for as candidates for President in the Electoral College. At that time Aaron Burr was in the zenith of his power. He was one of the most astute politicians of that day, inordinately ambitious, unscrupulous in his methods, and he was generally accepted by the friends of Jefferson as the candidate for Vice-President.
New York was a Federal State, but it was hoped that by the masterly ability of Burr the electoral vote of New York might be won for Jefferson, although while there was entire unanimity among the Republicans in support of Jefferson, there was not equal unanimity in the support of Burr. He failed to carry New York for Jefferson, but succeeded in carrying it for Jefferson and himself in 1800, and his victory was won so early in the contest by the election of a Republican Legislature in that State in May, 1800, that he practically decided the battle against Adams.
The Presidential contest between Jefferson and Adams developed into the most defamatory campaign ever known in the history of American politics, unless the second campaign of 1800 between the same leaders may be accepted as equalling it. In no modern national campaign have candidates and parties been so maliciously defamed as were candidates and parties when Jefferson and Adams fought for power in the contest of the Fathers of the Republic. Jefferson was denounced as an unscrupulous demagogue, and Adams was denounced as a kingly despot without sympathy with the people, and opposed to every principle of popular government.
There were few newspapers, but it was the age of the pamphleteer, and the political pamphlets of those days, if compared with the political asperities of the present age, would make the partisan vituperation of the evening of the nineteenth century appear as tame and feeble. Nor were political leaders of that day any less unscrupulous than are the political leaders of the present. The struggles of mean ambition were as common then as now, and political leaders jostled each other in the most vituperative assaults to give victory to their cause.
The contest ended in November, when the elections were held in the various States. Tennessee had been admitted to the Union on the 1st of June, 1796, making sixteen States to participate in the choice of a President. Of these, six States held some form of popular elections, while ten chose their electors by the Legislature. The popular vote cast at these elections had no material significance. There was but one ticket voted for in nearly or quite all of the six States which assumed to choose electors by popular vote, as the New England States were solid for Adams, and the Southern States, where elections were held, were strong in the support of Jefferson. The result was the election of Adams in the Electoral College by a vote of 71 to 68 for Jefferson, who thereby became Vice-President. The following is the vote in detail, as cast in the Electoral College, the electors voting only for President:
| STATES. | John Adams, Mass. | Thomas Jefferson, Va. | Thomas Pinckney, S. C. | Aaron Burr, N. Y. | Samuel Adams, Mass. | Oliver Ellsworth, Conn. | George Clinton, N. Y. | John Jay, N. Y. | James Iredell, N. C. | George Washington, Va. | Samuel Johnston, N. C. | John Henry, Md. | Charles C. Pinckney, S. C. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 6 | — | — | — | — | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Vermont | 4 | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Massachusetts | 16 | — | 13 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 2 | — | — |
| Rhode Island | 4 | — | — | — | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Connecticut | 9 | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | 5 | — | — | — | — | — |
| New York | 12 | — | 12 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| New Jersey | 7 | — | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pennsylvania | 1 | 14 | 2 | 13 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Delaware | 3 | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Maryland | 7 | 4 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 2 | — |
| Virginia | 1 | 20 | 1 | 1 | 15 | — | 3 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — |
| North Carolina | 1 | 11 | 1 | 6 | — | — | — | — | 3 | 1 | — | — | 1 |
| South Carolina | — | 8 | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Georgia | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Kentucky | — | 4 | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tennessee | — | 3 | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total | 71 | 68 | 59 | 30 | 15 | 11 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
It will be seen by the foregoing table that Pennsylvania,[2] Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina cast divided electoral votes for the Presidency between Jefferson and Adams. In Pennsylvania, Adams received 1 electoral vote to 14 for Jefferson. In Maryland, Adams received 7 to 4 for Jefferson. In Virginia, Jefferson’s own State, Adams received 1 to 20 for Jefferson, and in North Carolina the vote was 1 for Adams to 11 for Jefferson. In all of these States the electors were chosen by popular vote, and they were doubtless selected with reference to their character and intelligence without pledges as to how they should cast their ballots in the electoral colleges. One of the Virginia electors exercised his admitted right to vote against Jefferson, who had the largest popular following in the State. It was this independent action of a few electors in 1796 that made both parties draw their lines severely in the selection of the candidates for electors, and from that time until the present all electoral tickets have been made up of men who were accepted as solemnly pledged to vote for their party candidates in the Electoral College.