In the election of 1800, Vice President Thomas Jeeeerson defeated the incumbent, President John Adams. It was a campaign and election of many firsts for the new nation. POLITICAL parties dominated a presidential contest for the first time. The House of Representatives decided its first presidential election when the DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN Party candidates tied, and it marked the first time in the history of the United States that power was peacefully transferred from one party to another. The campaign was also noteworthy for the personal attacks against Jefferson and Adams. Jefferson’s opponents charged him with atheism, while Adams was attacked for being a monarchist.
Democratic-Republicans united behind Jefferson as their candidate. They believed that a victory would rescue the principles of the American Revolution from the Federalist Party. In particular, they argued that Jay’s Treaty (1794), Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), and the Quasi-War (1798-1800) with France proved that the Federalist Party wished to subvert the rights that had been secured by the Revolution.
Under the Constitution, states determined how and when they chose the members of the electoral college. In 10 states—New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, and Georgia—the state legislature chose electors. Thus legislative elections were of particular importance in these states. Voters in Rhode Island and Virginia chose electors on a general ticket. In Maryland, North Carolina, and Kentucky, voters selected the electors by district, and Tennessee employed a combination of the district and legislative methods. The selection of electors for the presidential election took place from May until December 1800.
The Federalist Party felt confident that it would win New England (with the possible exception of Rhode Island) and Delaware. They believed that they had a chance in South Carolina. Democratic-Republicans would safely capture Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. They needed to hold onto the South and win some votes in the mid-Atlantic states for victory. Because of the sectional nature of the parties, the outcome of the election primarily hinged upon the results in the mid-Atlantic states, particularly New York and Pennsylvania.
New York held its legislative elections in May 1800. Aaron Burr masterfully assured a Democratic-Republican victory by capturing New York City’s seats and thus the legislature for the party. He outmaneuvered his longtime rival Alexander Hamilton and earned for himself a place on the ticket with Jefferson. Because of New York’s national importance, Hamilton and others entreated Governor John Jay to call the old Federalist-controlled legislature into session to select the electors to ensure Federalist success. Jay, standing above party, rebuffed Hamilton, declaring that “I think it would not become me to adopt” such partisan methods. Before the election had hardly begun, New York was in Jefferson’s column.
The Federalist Party caucused in early May and selected Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina as their candidates. Hamilton, distraught over Adams’s peace overtures to France, worked secretly to arrange the election of Pinckney as president. Once the electors in New England and the mid-Atlantic states had committed to Adams and Pinckney, Hamilton hoped that South Carolina’s legislature would meet and provide an edge to its favorite son. At this time there was no separate election for president and vice president. Each elector had two ballots and whoever gained the most electoral votes would become president, and whoever had the second most votes would become vice president. Unfortunately for the Federalist Party, Adams began to suspect Hamilton and decided to purge his cabinet of Hamilton’s close political allies. Adams called Secretary of War James McHenry, who had long had more loyalty to Hamilton than the president, for a private interview and launched into a vicious attack on Hamilton for losing New York and for undermining his authority. He accused Hamilton of leading a “British faction” and proclaimed him “a man devoid of every moral principle,” a foreigner, and a bastard. He then forced McHenry into resigning. A few days later Adams gave Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, another supporter of Hamilton, a similar dose of invective, and when Pickering refused to resign, Adams fired him.
These actions created an open split in the Federalist Party. Hamilton wrote a “private” letter, which he published to circulate among his friends, that lambasted the president as having “great and intrinsic defects in his character, which unfit him for the office of Chief Magistrate.” These defects included unsound judgment, inconsistency, vanity, and “a jealousy capable of discoloring every object.” Of course the Democratic-Republicans got a copy of “Hamilton’s precious letter” and published it for the entire nation to read.
Even with all of this brouhaha, Adams still almost won the election. In Pennsylvania the election became deadlocked because the Democratic-Republican Party-controlled lower house and the Federalist Party-controlled Senate could not agree on the method for casting the state’s electoral votes. Finally, on November 29, the legislature agreed to split its vote by selecting eight electors from the Democratic-Republican Party and seven electors from the Federalist Party. In New Jersey a legislature controlled by the Federalist Party chose Adams and Pinckney electors despite the fact that Jefferson would probably have won a popular vote. Ultimately, as Hamilton had suspected, the election hinged on South Carolina. Pinckney, however, refused to allow the legislature to favor him over Adams, and after some strong politicking by the Democratic-Republicans, South Carolina gave its eight electoral votes to Jefferson and Burr.
By December 16, the nation knew the results of the election. Jefferson and Burr each captured 73 votes, Adams received 65, Pinckney won 64 votes, and Jay had one. Leaders of the Federalist Party would later call Jefferson the “Negro President” since the three-fifths clause contributed to the Democratic-Republican triumph by giving the region more electoral votes than it would have had if representation had been based on the free European-American population. (The rumors of Jefferson’s sexual relationship with a slave—Sally Hemings—gave the charge added meaning). Even with the three-fifths advantage the victory in the electoral college was not overwhelming. Moreover, since Jefferson and Burr tied, the results created a new crisis for the nation. Following the rules of the United States Constitution in the event of two candidates obtaining the same number of electoral votes, the House of Representatives, which would be the old Federalist Party-controlled House of Representatives, voting by state would decide the election between Jefferson and Burr.
Nine states were needed to win. Eight states were firmly for Jefferson, the Federalist Party controlled six state delegations, and two states were divided. Burr would be crucial to any resolution, but he seemed to hesitate, neither proclaiming that he wanted Federalist Party support and the presidency nor conceding to Jefferson. Some members of the Federalist Party saw the deadlock as an opportunity to keep control of the presidency and deny Jefferson his victory, and hence they courted Burr. The House began balloting on February 11, 1801, and agreed to remain in session until the election was decided. The House was working against the deadline of March 4, when the Constitution required the next president be inaugurated. No one knew what would happen if there was no president by that date. On the first 35 ballots, the results remained the same: eight states for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two divided. Rumors ran rampant of violence and the taking up of arms. The governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania prepared their state militias for conflict if the Federalist Party seized the national government.
Finally, on February 17, the crisis was resolved. On the 36th ballot, 10 states voted for Jefferson, four for Burr, and two states did not vote. (Federalist Party congressmen from Vermont and Maryland absented themselves so that their states could move to Jefferson’s column.) The lone representative from Delaware, James Bayard, who had previously voted for Burr, submitted a blank ballot. South Carolina did the same. There were several reasons for the break in the deadlock. Hamilton, who detested Burr more than he feared Jefferson, prevailed upon some members of the Federalist Party to end their flirtation with Burr. Bayard was convinced that he had received Jefferson’s assurances regarding certain policies, appointments, and the removal of Federalist Party supporters from federal offices, although Jefferson denied agreeing to these accommodations. Most importantly, representatives did not want to risk civil war and disunion in 1800.
On March 4, 1801, in a relatively smooth transition, Democratic-Republicans took control of the national government for the first time. In his inaugural address, Jefferson pledged to restore the principles of 1776. A peaceful revolution had occurred. In 1804, the Twelfth Amendment requiring separate ballots for president and vice president was ratified.
Further reading: Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); John Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press 1993); Bernard Weisberger, America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the Revolutionary Election of 1800 (New York: William Morrow, 2000).
—Terri Halperin
Ely, Samuel Cullick (1740-1797?) preacher Educated at Yale College for the ministry, the Connecticut-born Samuel Ely became a popular leader opposed to what he saw as the autocratic state governments in New England and has sometimes been seen as a forerunner of Daniel Shays. Early in 1782 he lambasted the Massachusetts state government declaring that the state constitution (see also constitutions, state) should be thrown out. He was charged with “treasonable practices” for these outbursts. In April 1782 a club wielding Ely led an attempted court closing in Northampton, Massachusetts, claiming that he would rather challenge the authority of the state government than King George III. Officials arrested Ely and imprisoned him. However, he remained popular, and on June 13, 1782, about 120 people gathered in Northampton and rescued Ely from jail. After he escaped, Ely went to Vermont, where in July 1782 he challenged the nascent state government of the Green Mountain Boys declaring that “the State of Vermont is a damned State” and that a recent tax was “a cursed act.” He also called the assembly “a cursed body of men” and a “pack of villains,” and threatened to overturn the government. Ely was arrested, tried, and convicted of “defamation” and banished from Vermont for 18 months. Upon his return to Massachusetts, local authorities arrested Ely for his earlier rabble-rousing.
After his father put up a bond for his release, and asserting that his son was mentally distressed, Ely traveled to Vermont again, ignoring his banishment, and then moved to the district of Maine (which was a part of the state of Massachusetts) by 1790. Ely kept relatively quiet until the mid-1790s when he took up the cause of the settlers who contested the large landholdings of proprietors such as Henry Knox, who had used political connections to gain control over thousands of acres. Ely participated in the disruption of surveyors and threatened greater violence upon any who had a patent from the proprietors. An itinerant preacher, Ely articulated the grievances of the squatters and offered his own understanding of the American Revolution. Ely wrote that “We fought for liberty, but despots took it, whose little finger is thicker than George’s loins” and proclaimed that the poor settler had more liberty under the king than they did under the new state government. But Ely was no Loyalist. He was an advocate of revolution—“if rulers make a law to dispossess me of my just property, I have a just right to resist; and if a man comes to trespass my enclosure, I have a right to stop him.”
The date of Ely’s death remains unknown. Genealogical records indicate that he died in 1795, but his publications and a petition sent to the Massachusetts state house indicate he was alive in 1797.
Further reading: Robert E. Moody, “Samuel Ely: Forerunner of Shays,” New England Quarterly 5 (1932): 105134; Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
World History
