A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign

“Thinking back in later life about their prospects as ambitious young men, both Adams and Jefferson recalled that initially they could conceive of no higher positions for themselves than appointment to the King’s Council (or senate) for their respective colonies. Perhaps that fed their disillusionment with the imperial regime. They wanted so much more than the King would allow his colonists.” 

Larson suggests that the two men’s political decisions—and even, perhaps, their political views and philosophies—were shaped by the strength of their ambitions. In his framing, their desire to succeed coexisted with their views on liberty, in motivating their arguments for American Independence. 

“Jefferson opposed all [of Hamilton’s] policies as destructive of individual liberty and equality of opportunity. Even more, he feared that they would undermine popular rule by creating an aristocracy of wealth in America, a homegrown elite. He did not want the United States simply to become a better Britain, with its concentrated wealth and power. He dreamed of something new under the sun in America—a land of free prosperous farmers and workers. His support for their rights was staunch and heartfelt.” 

This articulation of Jefferson’s views highlights the essential split between the Republicans and the Federalists, by positioning the Republican candidate’s position against the key policies of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, as the leader of the High Federalists, held views anathema to Jefferson’s egalitarian principles. Jefferson stood by his vision of equality throughout the campaign. 

“Proud of his humble origins, Adams always had reservations about Hamilton’s elitist agenda. He particularly questioned the wisdom of a national bank and never warmed to Britain. Those reservations were lost on Jefferson, however, who reacted against the whole and all of its parts.” 

In the polarized political climate at the end of the century, even an experienced statesman like Jefferson rejected the nuance in opponent’s arguments. He did not attend to the ways in which Adams’s position moved towards the political center. Instead, he rejected it entirely, on the basis of its association with Hamiltonian elitism. 

“Rather than help to defuse partisan differences and unite the country, the proximity of Adams and Jefferson in office as President and Vice President served to personalize every clash and to excite the sense that an epic confrontation between them was imminent in the next presidential contest.” 

Although Adams and Jefferson served together, their parties remained divided. Even their close collaboration in the Executive Branch could not heal the split in the national politics. This set the stage for the contentious national election of 1800, when their parties moved farther apart. 

“In their conception of the Electoral College, the Framers foresaw an elite group of well-qualified electors exercising their collective judgment in picking the best-qualified President and Vice President from an open field of leading figures from across the country. Through this process, the Framers hoped to avoid both the formation of national political parties, which were never mentioned in the Constitution, and the development of coordinated partisan voting.” 

The Founding Fathers envisioned national politics that played out in a meritocratic, rather than partisan, way. They hoped that their design of the electoral college would both support and be supported by their idealized vision of American politics. 

“Virtually all Americans had initially welcomed the French Revolution as heralding a new birth of freedom in Europe. The absolute authority of the King in pre-revolutionary France and the oppressive power of its nobles and clerics found little support among Americans [...] As the French Revolution pushed far beyond its American predecessor, however, in repudiating political, economic, and religious traditions and opening new horizons for radical social change, many Americans, led by the High Federalists, began having second thoughts.” 

The American reaction to the evolving revolution in France was complex. The tension between the American enthusiasm at the spread of liberal democracy, and their anxiety at what seemed to be anarchist impulses amongst the French Jacobins leading the revolt, was cause for much debate in the United States. The French Revolution became a political point of reference and a campaign issue in 1800. 

“Partisans on both sides and in all parts of the country watched the New York City election closely […] Jefferson stressed the significance of that one local election […] [and] Federalists attached similar importance to the event. ‘We are full of anxiety here about the election of our members to the legislature,’ […] Robert Troup observed in March. ‘We must bring into action all our energies; if we do not…Jefferson will be in.’” 

The New York election was one of those political moments that loomed large not only in retrospect, but equally so as it approached. As a result, tensions and anxieties were elevated. Similarly, the weight of local elections increased in importance.

“Jefferson had good reason to worry about the art, industry, and resources that Hamilton poured into the New York City election, but neither of them could have anticipated Burr’s extraordinary effort on behalf of the Republican ticket. Ever since, political historians have marveled at his innovative techniques in urban electioneering.” 

Larson celebrates and contextualizes the efforts of Aaron Burr to swing the New York election in the Republicans’ favor. His tactics of leveraging banking connections with a uniquely Anti-Federalist bank allowed credit to run even to businesses who backed candidates on the Federalist roster—a breakthrough development at the time and one still celebrated to this day.

“Having orchestrated the Republican victory in the New York City election, Aaron Burr promptly set out to claim his reward—designation as the party’s choice for Vice President […] No candidate for national office in America had ever been so brash. Washington had appeared positively reticent about putting himself forward for President. Adams and Jefferson had worn a similar face when seeking national office.” 

Burr’s claim to the vice presidential nomination in the wake of his New York success marked a sea-change in the culture of national politics. Burr ushered in the link between candidacy and self-promotion, built upon by Adams in his countryside campaign. This marked the beginning of the culture of political self-promotion that characterizes national campaigns to this day. 

“Overturning the established political order by unseating an incumbent President in times of relative peace and prosperity required a concerted, committed effort […] Republican’s shared dread of continued Federalist rule bound them ever more firmly as the year progressed.” 

Partisan tensions ran high after the Republicans secured enough New York representatives to be able to choose a Republican elector—upsetting the current Federalist balance. Then, the Republicans rallied their own campaigns alongside Adams's presidential campaign trip, the latter of which was a first in U.S. history. Jefferson set forth his "political faith" principles, while Burr courted votes in New England. 

“Jefferson began his letter with a vow: ‘I do then […] wish an inviolable preservation of our present federal Constitution according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the states.’” 

With this letter outlining the principles Jefferson referred to as his “political faith,” Jefferson made a bold statement of his own beliefs. He also made it clear that he thought the Federalist’s policies were not only contradictory to his own, they went as far as to be unconstitutional. He articulated a view of the Federalist government that painted Adams as the chief of a power-hungry despotic regime, in contravention of the spirit of the social contract outlined in the Constitution. 

“As political conservatives, Federalists tended to value religion, tradition, and family authority as means of fostering social, economic, and political order. In contrast, Jefferson and many Republicans saw religion as a persona matter and denounced established churches as fetters on freedom.” 

This quote articulates the visions of religion held by each of the dominant political parties. These views split on the question of whether religion should be imagined, and therefore regulated, as a public issue or a private matter. Republicans viewed religion as part of the private sphere and balked at any attempt to regulate it. Federalists saw the church as part of the broader social fabric of society. Morality, they argued, was integral to public order, the church was a public matter, and, by extension, the religious beliefs of political servants were fair game in the process of examining a candidate’s worthiness for public office. 

“A Republican pamphlet published in October under the pseudonym Marcus Brutus tied various Federalist initiatives together into a dark conspiracy. It claimed that Hamilton’s funding system begot debt, which begot taxes, which begot corruption and intriguing officeholders, which begot a standing army, which would beget monarchy.” 

At this point in the election cycle, conspiracy theories entered the conversation. This was a remarkable development for a young nation so recently led by the universally beloved President Washington. Washington discouraged this sort of campaign tactic both actively (denouncing party politics) and passively (simply by being so universally popular, that there was no occasion for conspiracy). After his passing, campaigns took on a new and nastier tone. 

“Four years earlier, a swing of only two electoral votes from Adams to Jefferson would have switched the outcome. If the 1800 election proved equally close, then any state could decide the whole.” 

As the campaign season drew to a close, the whole nation was acutely aware that the design of the electoral college system could put the deciding votes in the hands of very few people. It became increasingly clear, as the year went on, that the remaining undecided electoral college votes would come out of the electoral-college representative selection process in a few states, specifically: Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. These states became the center of attention because everyone was aware that a single vote could determine the outcome of the election. 

“The speakers gave voice to familiar arguments for and against Adams and Jefferson. Indeed, these debates showed just how universal the campaign themes had become. Despite the lack of mass media and national party organizations, virtually the same partisan messages reached citizens everywhere.” 

After the spring season, the campaign themes for each side crystallized into clear messages, in particular around the questions of Adam’s interest in monarchical government and Jefferson’s liberal attitudes towards religion. The unity and consistency of these messages across state lines was one of the most remarkable new developments of this election season: it was the first time that political and campaign messaging, in its contemporary form, was used. 

“Rumors of a slave conspiracy had circulated in Virginia throughout the summer, but as governor, Monroe had dismissed and suppressed them. Republican leaders from Jefferson on down sought to discourage and deny threats of revolutionary activity at home during the campaign season so as not to feed Federalist fearmongering on the issue of domestic security.” 

The intensity of the partisan split, and the unity of the party messaging (in particular around questions of civil order) caused news of Gabriel’s uprising at Prosser’s plantation to be downplayed even by the governor of Virginia. This event, and slavery along with it, ended up becoming a central issue on the campaign trail when it became national news, despite the initial attempt to quell any rumors surrounding it. The relationship between historic events and the press was thus distorted but not interrupted by the campaign. 

“In October, Hamilton broke openly with Adams, and, in doing so, exposed the true depth of the division between the High Federalists and the moderates with the party.” 

The longstanding feud finally came to public light in the fall of 1800. No longer scheming in the shadows, Hamilton publicly disavowed the more moderate wing of his party and created turmoil at the national level. Those who knew Hamilton were unsurprised, but his move shocked people who were less familiar with the ins and outs of Federalist politics. Many took it as a sign of weakness in the Federalist ranks. 

“Hamilton may have wanted the letter to circulate only among discreet Federalists but Republicans obtained copies of it almost immediately and quickly began reprinting the most scandalous parts in their newspapers” 

Hamilton’s letter, intended to unify the Federalists behind Pinckney, not only divided the loyal Federalists but also provided fodder to the Republicans seeking to peel off voters who were uncertain about the Federalist platform. The party infighting represented by the letter was anathema to the Federalist political code of conduct, as set forth by lead Federalist George Washington, and many took Hamilton’s letter as an expression of bad taste. 

“[Jefferson] knew that there were seventy-three Republican electors and only sixty-five Federalist electors. He counted on all the Republican electors voting for him. Republicans had become so unified in their opposition to Federalists, however, that every Republican might also vote for Burr out of fear that otherwise Adams or Pinckney might slip in ahead of Burr in the final tally.” 

The short history of presidential elections in America loomed over the election of 1800. Because the Vice President and President were selected by determining who took second and first place in the overall tally, respectively, there was a strong incentive to prevent a split Executive branch, as had occurred in the Adams/Jefferson years. This threat reveals the rawness of the political process in action and its imperfections, as having been so recently conceived at the Constitutional Convention. 

“If both Republican candidates received seventy-three electoral votes, however, neither of them would win out-right, and under the Constitution, Congress would choose between them for the presidency. With Federalists holding the balance of power in Congress, this was a sobering prospect.” 

When Larson references the "sobering prospect," he is assessing the situation from the point of view of the Republican side. This quote points to the irony of the electoral system. After such an intensely partisan election, it seemed possible that the Republicans’ reward for unifying intensely behind their candidates was to produce a tie, which simply threw the ultimate decision for the Presidency out of their hands. This was the dark side of the partisan strategy. 

“Many Federalists blamed Adams for the party’s losses […] the truth is, though, that although he lost the election, Adams did better than his party as a whole. Outside New York he received more electoral votes in 1800 than in 1796, when he won. […] Meanwhile, Federalists lost control of Congress for the first time in the nation’s history […] Amid a Republican surge, Adams did remarkably well.” 

Adams, whose popularity plummeted during his Presidency due primarily to his handling of relations with France and who was constantly blamed for taking his party’s popularity down with him, nonetheless outperformed his party as a whole in the election of 1800. This suggests that despite all the blame cast at Adams’s feet, it was not, in fact, his Presidency that hurt Federalist chances in 1800, but rather perhaps some broader cultural shift away from Federalist values privileging order, in favor a turn towards Republican values favoring civil liberties. 

“In dealing with Burr, Hamilton suggested that the Federalists should ‘throw out a lure for him, in order to tempt him to start for the plate, and thus lay the foundation of dissension between the two chiefs.’ The power-hungry Burr would show his true face in response to an offer of votes from Federalists, Hamilton believed, and Jefferson would never again trust him. The ensuing dissension between the new President and Vice President might divide the opposition, he hoped.” 

Hamilton, faced with supporting one of the two Republican candidates for the Presidency, was not without a scheme. He did not simply hope to choose the lesser of two evils, in picking between Jefferson and Burr. He hoped to choose between them in such a way that, no matter which one of them ended up winning, they ended up hating each other. He hoped this would produce enough rancor in their Republican Executive Branch that a Federalist agenda could still hold its ground in the coming days. This subtle and multifaceted strategy is characteristic of Hamilton’s politics, throughout the campaign and his career.

“As the news of [Jefferson’s victory] reached them, Republicans across the nation celebrated with parades, banquets, bonfires, and making loud noises […] from start to finish, conflicting hopes for liberty and fears of disorder spurred Americans to unprecedented level of partisan activity.” 

For the first time, there was a culture of competition around presidential politics. The tenor set by the partisan climate in the election of 1800 is recognizable in contemporary politics but was entirely novel in the American political culture at the time.