THE JEFFERSON-ADAMS-BURR CONTEST

1800–1

The Presidential contest of 1800 was as revolutionary in its aim and in its accomplishment as was the Republican revolution of 1860. The Federalists had practically undisputed control of the Government for twelve years, under Washington and John Adams, and the power of the Federal party, with the overwhelming individuality of Washington in its favor, accomplished the election of Adams over Jefferson in 1796. When the battle of 1800 opened, Washington was dead, and Hamilton, one of the ablest of the Washington political lieutenants, was not in hearty sympathy with Adams.

The Federalists held both branches of Congress, and a tidal wave of partisan bitterness and personal defamation ran riot, both in Congress and throughout the country. Our foreign complications with France had become very serious, and Congress approved what was then regarded as very extensive preparations for a war that was bitterly opposed by the Republican minority, the followers of Jefferson. So violent were the political discussions of the country that Adams, acting in accord with the Federal theory of a strong suppressive government, demanded and secured the passage of what are known as the Alien and Sedition laws, which now rank among the most odious legislative acts in the history of the Republic.

While the Alien and Sedition laws were apparently aimed at those who were open enemies of the country in war, they were, in fact, intended to suppress criticism of the administration and to impose the severest penalties for open hostility to its policy. The first session of the Congress of 1797–98 lasted eight months, and even in the fierce passions of civil war the Congressional debates did not equal the asperities of the Congressional debates of a century ago. The first Alien law lengthened the period for naturalization to fourteen years, and all emigrants were required to be registered and the certificate of registration to be the only proof of residence. All alien enemies were forbidden the right of citizenship under any circumstances.

JOHN ADAMS

Another of the series gave the President the power in case of war to seize or expel all resident aliens of the nation at war with us, and yet another gave the President power to deport any alien whom he might think dangerous to the country, and if after being ordered away he remained in the country, he was subject to imprisonment for three years and forbidden citizenship. In addition to these provisions, aliens so imprisoned could be removed from the country by the President’s order. Such were the general provisions of the Alien law. The Sedition bill, that was part of the same policy, declared that any who hindered officers in the discharge of their duties or opposed any of the laws of the country were guilty of high crime and misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment. Those who were guilty of writing or publishing any false and malicious writings against Congress or the President, or aided therein, were made punishable by a fine of $2000 and imprisonment for two years.

These measures were in harmony with the Federal theory of government. The Federal leaders did not believe the people capable of self-government, and Adams felt justified in imposing the severest penalties upon all who severely criticised or violently opposed the administration. Washington was yet alive and in full mental and physical vigor when these laws were passed, and it is reasonable to assume that he approved of them, as he could have defeated them if he had opposed their enactment. Hamilton vainly protested against the Alien and Sedition laws as a fatal political blunder, but Federalism had never suffered defeat, and President Adams never doubted his re-election until the vote was declared against him.

The contest of 1800 had its lines so well defined from the outset that candidates for President and Vice-President were as clearly indicated, although without any formal declaration, as national tickets would be indicated by a national convention of modern times. There is no record of the Congressional caucus in 1800, but it seems to be an accepted tradition that the Federals, who had a majority of the House, first called a secret caucus to confer about the management of the campaign. They did not formally name candidates, but by general consent Adams was accepted as the candidate for President and Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, for Vice-President. Apparently well-authenticated reports tell of a Republican Congressional caucus held during the same year, but there is no preserved record of it. If such a caucus was held, candidates were not nominated nor was any declaration of principles made. The chief object of the Republican caucus seems to have been to harmonize the friends of Jefferson on Burr as the accepted candidate for Vice-President, but no preference was expressed in any formal way. When the Federalists held their first caucus the Republicans denounced it as a “Jacobinical conclave,” and so severe were the criticisms of the Philadelphia Aurora, the leading Jefferson organ, that its editor was at one time arraigned before the bar of the Senate.

The contest of 1800 opened early in the year, the reported Congressional caucuses having been held in February or March, and from that time until the election the political discussions were acrimonious to a degree that would surprise the present generation. Jefferson had cordially united his friends in the support of Burr, and it was Burr’s magnificent leadership that carried the electoral vote of New York by winning the Legislature of that State as early as May. New York had voted for Adams in 1796, and the loss to Adams of one of the leading States of the Union and its transfer to Jefferson made the battle next to hopeless for Adams, but he and his friends fought it out to the bitter end.

No new States had been admitted during the Adams administration, and the same sixteen States which had elected Adams over Jefferson were then to pass a second judgment upon the great leaders of the two opposing political theories of that day. In Pennsylvania the Federalists controlled the Senate chiefly by hold-over Senators, as the popular sentiment of the State was strongly for Jefferson. In the three previous elections for President the Pennsylvania Legislature had passed special acts authorizing a popular vote for President, but in 1800, the Federals having control of the Senate, refused to pass a bill for an election whereby the choice of electors was thrown into the Legislature, and it required joint action of the Federal Senate and the largely Republican House to provide for a choice of electors even by the Legislature. The Federal Senators refused to go into joint convention except upon conditions which would divide the electoral vote, and the Republicans of the House were compelled to choose between disfranchising the State, as New York had been disfranchised in 1789, or to concede a large minority of the electors to Adams.

It was finally agreed that each House should nominate 8 electors, and that the Houses should then meet jointly and each member should vote together for 15 of the 16 thus nominated. The result was that the Federalists forced the election of 7 Adams electors with 8 for Jefferson. The Federal Senators, 13 in number, who controlled the Senate against the 11 Republicans, were heralded by their party papers and leaders as grand heroes, because by the accident of power in one body of the Legislature not immediately chosen by the people they had wrested 7 electors from Jefferson, which would have been given to him either by a popular vote or by a joint vote of the Legislature.

Rhode Island at this election for the first time chose electors by popular vote, making 6 States which chose electors by the vote of the people and 10 which chose electors by the Legislature. As the electoral colleges could vote only for candidates for President, Jefferson and Burr received precisely the same vote, 73 in number, and Adams received 65, with 64 for Pinckney and 1 for John Jay. The following is the table of the vote as cast in the electoral colleges:

STATES.Thomas Jefferson, Va.Aaron Burr, N. Y.John Adams, Mass.C. C. Pinckney, S. C.John Jay, N. Y.
New Hampshire——66—
Vermont——44—
Massachusetts——1616—
Rhode Island——431
Connecticut——99—
New York1212———
New Jersey——77—
Pennsylvania8877—
Delaware——33—
Maryland[3]5555—
Virginia2121———
North Carolina8844—
South Carolina88———
Georgia44———
Kentucky44———
Tennessee33———
737365641

It is impossible to give anything like an intelligent presentation of the popular vote between Jefferson and Adams. In most of the States which chose electors by popular vote there was practically no contest, as the New England States voted solidly for Adams, and the Southern States south of Maryland voted as solidly for Jefferson, with the exception of North Carolina, where an electoral ticket seems to have been chosen on the original theory that electors should exercise sound discretion in the choice of a President, and in the exercise of that discretion 4 of the North Carolina electors voted for Adams and 8 for Jefferson. Had Pennsylvania been permitted to give expression either to the popular will or to the decided Republican majority of the Legislature, 7 of the Pennsylvania votes would have been taken from Adams and added to Jefferson, which would have made him 80 electoral votes to 58 for Adams.

Jefferson had won his election, and there should have been no question about according it to him. Under the electoral system of that day, by which each elector voted for two candidates for President, Jefferson and Burr each received 73 votes for the Presidency, and upon the face of the returns were equally entitled to claim the highest honor of the Republic. True, Burr had not been discussed or seriously thought of as a candidate for President. He was accepted by the Republicans distinctly as the candidate for Vice-President, and the whole battle was fought out on the issue between Jefferson and Adams. Had Burr been honest and manly, he would have ended the struggle at once by declaring that the people had elected Jefferson to the Presidency, and that Burr could not consent to be presented to the country and the world as seeking to wear the stolen honors of the Government; but Burr developed his true character as soon as he discovered that his vote was equal to that given to Jefferson. While he did not make any open or visible effort to elect himself over Jefferson, he silently assented to the use of his name, and thus made the Presidency hang in uncertainty from the time of the election in November until the 17th of February, when the contest was finally decided in favor of Jefferson, and Burr stamped with infamy. That he wished to be elected over Jefferson cannot be reasonably doubted. If he had not permitted the use of his name without protest as a candidate against Jefferson, there would have been no discussion and no uncertainty, as the House would have chosen Jefferson on the 1st ballot.

Jefferson could have accomplished his own election without a serious contest if he had accepted the proposition of the Federalists to give him the election, to which he was entitled by the vote of the people, if he would agree not to remove the Federalists who then filled all the offices of the Government. Under Washington and Adams, the Republicans were practically proscribed in national appointments, and Adams had been specially proscriptive in dispensing the patronage of his administration. One of the most discreditable acts of his administration was the creation, by his Federal Congress in the expiring hours of Federal rule, of a number of judges, to whom commissions were issued by Adams at midnight before his retirement from office. They were known in political discussions of that day as the “midnight judges,” and the measure was so odious that it speedily destroyed itself. Jefferson, while not specially proscriptive in political appointments, regarded it as inconsistent with his appreciation of executive duties to give any pledge to the opposition to retain their friends in office. They naturally assumed that Jefferson would be as proscriptive as Adams had been, and that their only safety was in making terms with Jefferson, whose election they could accomplish without difficulty.

It is quite probable that they could have made such terms with Burr, and it is possible that such conditions were proposed and accepted, but the Federalists knew that the defeat of Jefferson would be a monstrous perversion of the popular will; and Hamilton and Bayard, of Delaware, and other prominent Federalists earnestly opposed all affiliation with Burr. Burr having failed to announce that Jefferson had been elected President by the people, and should be elected by the House, and Jefferson having refused to make terms with the Federalists, the election went into the House under rules which had been adopted by Congress to meet the special case. Under the rules, the House was required to retire to its own chamber after the announcement of the electoral vote showing no choice, and proceed to ballot for President, and to continue to ballot without adjournment until a choice was effected. That session of the House continued for seven days. The balloting began on the 11th of February and ended on the 17th, as the House, instead of adjourning, simply took recesses from time to time. Each State could cast but one vote in the House, and that vote was determined by a majority of the delegation. Where the delegation was evenly divided the State had no vote. The following is the vote of the States on the 1st ballot, February 11, 1801:

STATES.Jefferson.Burr.State voted for.
New Hampshire—4Burr.
Vermont11Divided—Blank.
Massachusetts311Burr.
Rhode Island—2Burr.
Connecticut—7Burr.
New York64Jefferson.
New Jersey32Jefferson.
Pennsylvania94Jefferson.
Delaware—1Burr.
Maryland44Divided—Blank.
Virginia163Jefferson.
North Carolina91Jefferson.
South Carolina—5Burr.
Georgia1—Jefferson.
Kentucky2—Jefferson.
Tennessee1—Jefferson.
Total5549

Nineteen ballots were taken on the same day, then a recess was taken until the 12th, when 9 additional ballots were taken, and 1 ballot was taken on the 13th, 4 on the 14th, 1 on the 16th (the 15th being Sunday), and 1 on the 17th, making an aggregate of 35 ballots, all of which were precisely a repetition of the 1st ballot given in the foregoing table. Jefferson received the vote of 8 States, Burr of 6, and 2 were blank, because of divided delegations. The vote of 9 States was necessary to an election, and there was no choice.

On the 2d ballot cast on the 17th, being the 36th ballot in all, Jefferson was successful, receiving the votes of 10 States to 4 for Burr and 2 blank. The changes in favor of Jefferson were made by one Vermont member declining to vote, thus allowing his colleague to cast the vote of the State for President, and by four from Maryland also declining to vote, by which the tie in that State was broken in Jefferson’s favor.

In addition to these changes South Carolina and Delaware cast blank votes, but they did not help Jefferson, as he required the positive vote of 9 States to accomplish his election. It was James A. Bayard, of Delaware, a leading Federalist, who changed his vote on the last ballot from a vote for Burr to a blank ballot. Jefferson was thus declared elected President, and Burr became Vice-President by the mandate of the Constitution, he having received the highest electoral vote for President excepting that cast for Jefferson.

It can be readily understood that Burr’s permission of the use of his name to defeat the election of Jefferson in the House made an impassable gulf between them, and that contest dated the decline of Burr’s power in the land. He knew that there could be no future for him, and his restless genius sought new fields in which to gratify his ambition, ending in his arrest and trial for treason, and also staining his skirts with the murder of Hamilton. Hamilton was open in his hostility to Burr in the contest between Jefferson and Burr in the House, and it was Burr’s resentment of Hamilton’s hostility to his election that made him seize upon a trivial pretext to force Hamilton into a duel, in which Hamilton fell mortally wounded at the first fire. Burr’s public career was thus ended by the Jefferson-Burr contest, and although he lived many years thereafter, he drank the bitterest dregs of sorrow, and died in poverty and unlamented.

Adams accepted his defeat most ungracefully. He remained in the Executive Mansion until midnight of the 3d of March, 1801, when he and his family deserted it, leaving it vacant for Jefferson to enter, without a host to welcome him. It was the only instance in which the retiring President did not personally receive the incoming President in the Executive Mansion, with the single exception of President Johnson, who did not remain at the White House to receive Grant; but Johnson was excusable from the fact that Grant had expressed his purpose not to permit Johnson to accompany him in the inauguration ceremonies. Jefferson, in marked contrast with the pomp and ceremony of Federal inaugurations, appeared on the 4th of March clad in home-spun, and rode his own horse unattended to the Capitol, and after the inauguration ceremonies returned to the Executive Mansion in like manner. Both Jefferson and Adams lived for more than a quarter of a century after their great battle terminated in 1800, and time greatly mellowed the asperities of their desperate political conflicts. In the later years of their life, when both had lived long in retirement, they had friendly correspondence; and it is one of the most notable events in our political annals that Jefferson and Adams, who stood side by side in presenting the Declaration of Independence to Congress, and who had fought the fiercest political battles of the nation as opposing leaders, both died on the same day—the natal day of the Republic—July 4, 1826.

THOMAS JEFFERSON