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.