Washington’s Farewell Address was destined to have a long and important influence on American thinking, but its immediate impact was small. He had intended it to cool political passions. Instead, in the words of Federalist congressman Fisher Ames, people took it as “a signal, like dropping a hat, for the party racers to start.” By the time the 1796 presidential campaign had ended, many Federalists and Republicans were refusing to speak to one another.
Jefferson was the only Republican candidate seriously considered in 1796. The logical Federalist was Hamilton, but, as was to happen so often in American history with powerful leaders, he was not considered “available” because his controversial policies had made him many enemies. Gathering in caucus, the Federalists in Congress nominated Vice President John Adams for the top office and Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, negotiator of the popular Spanish treaty, for vice president. In the election the Federalists were victorious.
Hamilton, hoping to run the new administration from the wings, preferred Pinckney to Adams. He arranged for some of the Federalist electors from South Carolina to vote only for Pinckney. (Pinckney, who was on the high seas at the time, did not even know he was running for vice president!) Catching wind of this, a number of New England electors retaliated by cutting Pinckney. As a result, Adams won in the electoral college, seventy-one to sixty-eight, over Jefferson, who thus became vice president. Pinckney got only fifty-nine electoral votes.
That Adams would now be obliged to work with a vice president who led the opposition seemed to presage a decline in partisanship. Adams actually preferred the Virginian to Pinckney for the vice presidency, while Jefferson said that if Adams would “relinquish his bias to an English constitution,” he might make a fine chief executive. The two had in common a distaste for Hamilton—a powerful bond.
However, the closeness of the election indicated a trend toward the Republicans, who were making constant and effective use of the charge that the Federalists were “monocrats” (monarchists) determined to destroy American liberty. Without Washington to lead them, the Federalist politicians were already quarreling among themselves; honest, able, hardworking John Adams was too caustic and too scathingly frank to unite them. Everything seemed to indicate a Republican victory at the next election.
President Jefferson speaking with merchants who complained that the Non-Intercourse Act had killed trade.
World History
