Our Presidents and how we make them

by Alexander K. McClure

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

THE JEFFERSON-PINCKNEY CONTEST

1804

The election of Jefferson in 1800 was a complete revolution in the political policy of the new Republic, and it maintained its supremacy for sixty years. The Republican party that triumphed with Jefferson never suffered a defeat until after the name of the party had been changed to Democracy under Jackson. John Quincy Adams, who was elected President in 1824, was nominated and supported as a Republican, as were Jackson, Crawford, and Clay, and the Whig triumphs of 1840 and 1848 stand in our history as accidental victories without changing the general policy of the Government in any material respect. It may be accepted as a fact that from 1800 until 1900, the full period of a century, there have been but two political policies established and maintained in the government of this country. The Democratic policy ruled from 1800 to 1860, and from 1860 to 1900 the Republican policy has maintained its supremacy, notwithstanding the two Democratic administrations of Cleveland. They were but temporary checks upon Republican mastery, as the Whig successes of 1840 and 1848 were mere temporary checks upon Democratic rule.

With Jefferson’s success in 1800 came, for the first time, the control of the Republicans in both branches of Congress, and Jefferson thus had the entire legislative power of the Government in thorough sympathy and harmony with himself. He was bitterly opposed by the Federalists at every step. They justly criticised his hostility to an American navy; they complained vehemently of his removals from office in partisan interests, and they specially assailed his ostentatious attempts to limit the authority and powers of the General Government to give the supreme sovereignty of the nation to the people.

The one act of his administration that was most violently assailed was his purchase of Louisiana in 1803. It was proclaimed by the Federalists as the most flagrant usurpation of authority, as an utter overthrow of the Constitution, and as the beginning of the end of the Union. There is not an argument made to-day against the acquisition of the Philippines and Puerto Rico that is not the echo of the earnest arguments made by the Federalists against the acquisition of Louisiana. The ablest of the Federalists proclaimed in the Senate and House that the Union was practically destroyed by the acquisition of a distant country, containing a people with no sympathy with our interests or institutions; who were generally strangers to our language and could never be educated to the proper standard of American citizenship. But the country then, as now, believed in expansion, and the acquisition of Louisiana stands out as one of the grandest achievements of statesmanship exhibited by any administration, from Washington to McKinley.

The contest between Jefferson and Burr for the Presidency, after one had been distinctly supported as a candidate for President and the other as distinctly as a candidate for Vice-President, taught the necessity of changing the method of choosing a President in the Electoral College, but the Federalists bitterly opposed the change, chiefly on the ground that it was desired solely to gratify the personal ambition and interests of Jefferson. The proposed amendment prevailed, however, and was ratified by thirteen of the sixteen States in ample time for the contest of 1804. The dissenting States in the ratification of the amendment were Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware. Under that amendment the electors voted for President and Vice-President as they do to-day, and the candidate for Vice-President must now have a majority of the electoral vote as well as the candidate for President to be successful.

The Congressional caucus that made Presidents for many years became an accepted institution in 1804, when the Republican or Jeffersonian members of Congress were publicly invited to meet on the 25th of February. They unanimously nominated Mr. Jefferson for re-election, and as Burr was unthought of for Vice-President, they nominated George Clinton, of New York, for that office. This was the first open political caucus or convention to nominate national candidates. The caucuses of 1800 were held in secret by both the Federalists and Republicans, and no record was preserved of their actions. Those who called the caucus, appreciating the prejudice that would likely be provoked by Congress attempting to dictate the candidates for President and Vice-President, distinctly declared that the caucus or conference was called solely as individuals, and not as official representatives of the Senate and House. If the Federalists held a caucus in 1804, there is no record of it that I have been able to find, but they united on Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, for President, and Rufus King, of New York, for Vice-President. Both of the parties gave the second place on their respective tickets to New York, clearly indicating that they regarded New York as one of the pivotal States of the conflict.