Presidential election in the United States 1800

‹  1796  •   •  1804 ›
4th presidential election
October 31 - December 6, 1800
			Democratic Republican Party
			Thomas Jefferson / Aaron Burr
			electors					73
			be right				41,330
									61.4%
			Federalist Party
			John Adams / Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
			electors					65
			be right				25,952
									38.6%
Election results by state
8 states   Jefferson						7 states of   Adam
President of the United States
Before the election of John Adams Federalist Party						Elected Thomas Jefferson Dem.-Rep. Political party

In the United States ' 1800 presidential election , sometimes referred to as the 1800 Revolution , Thomas Jefferson and Vice President-elect Aaron Burr defeated incumbent President John Adams . A new political epoch began which was marked by the strengthening of the Democratic Republican Party and the dissolution of the Federalist Party .

Jefferson's victory ended an aggressive presidential campaign. One of the consequences of this constitutional crisis was the passage of the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in 1804, stipulating that the electors now vote separately for the President and Vice-President. The Marbury v. Madison in the United States Supreme Court was also a direct consequence of the outcome of that election.

National elections

Election campaign

In many areas, the election campaign was a repeat of the 1796 presidential election . The incumbent President Adams was accused by the opposition of being too friendly towards Great Britain and too hostile towards France . The Republicans also vehemently opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts . But his own party was also dissatisfied with Adams because he seemed too moderate to them. The party chairman of the federalists, Alexander Hamilton , tried in the background to help their vice-presidential candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to the election victory. Adams was also embarrassed when a critical letter from Hamilton made it public.

The election campaign was again marked by bitterness and aggressive slogans. The federalists called the Republicans radicals and accused them of murdering political opponents, burning churches and destroying the country. On the other hand, the Republicans accused Adams of wanting to crown himself king and planning a dynastic marriage with the United Kingdom.

elections

Since each state could set its own election day , the vote lasted from April to October. The Federalists and Republicans had a tie of 65 votes until the last state of South Carolina appointed eight Republican electors, helping Jefferson and Burr to victory.

Candidates

• 

  John Adams

• 

  Charles C. Pinckney

• 

  Thomas Jefferson

• 

  Aaron Burr

• John Adams , Acting President of the United States, of Massachusetts
• Charles Cotesworth Pinckney , former envoy to France, from South Carolina
• Thomas Jefferson , Acting Vice President of the United States, of Virginia
• Aaron Burr , former Senator for New York

Election result

The choice had the following results:

candidate	Political party	Home state	Popular election 1		electors
			number	percent
Thomas Jefferson	Democrats-Republicans	Virginia	41,330	61.4%	73
Aaron Burr	Democrats-Republicans	new York	-	-	73
John Adams	federalist	Massachusetts	25,592	38.6%	65
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	federalist	South carolina	-	-	64
John Jay	federalist	new York	-	-	1
total			67,782	100%	276
Needed to win					70

¹ People's election figures are only applicable to a limited extent, as firstly only six of the 16 federal states held a popular election at all, secondly, the rules distorted before the adoption of the 12th Amendment, and thirdly, the states with popular elections usually made the right to vote dependent on certain land ownership.

Constitutional crisis

According to the constitution in force at the time, every elector in the Electoral College had two votes that could not be cast for the same person. The candidate with the highest number of votes was appointed president and the candidate with the second highest number of votes became vice-president. In the 1796 election, this constitutional rule on voting led to the president and vice-president belonging to different parties.

To get around this, the Republicans had planned that exactly one of their electorates should vote for Jefferson but not for Aaron Burr. That would have made Jefferson president and Aaron Burr vice president in 1800. This plan failed, however, when both candidates reached a stalemate with 73 votes. In this case, the constitution stipulated a by-election in the House of Representatives in the previous electoral term. While the federalists lost their majority in the 1800 election, they still had a majority in the composition relevant for the presidential election and wanted to take the opportunity to prevent what they saw as the fatal election of Jefferson at any cost, although they did not want to the election of Burr, whom part of the federalists wanted to pull into their political camp in return for his unexpected election as president.

Vote in the House of Representatives

The members of the House of Representatives voted constitutionally by state. It took an absolute majority of states to choose a winner. Because of the majority situation, the federalists did not want to vote for Jefferson or Burr. In the course of six days, there were 35 ballots without the required absolute majority, with Jefferson getting a relative majority of eight states each time. Finally, a number of federalists around James A. Bayard declared that a peaceful change of power would only be possible with the support of the federalists. On February 17, 1801, just 15 days before the constitutional date of inauguration, Jefferson was elected third president on the 36th ballot. Ten states voted for Jefferson, four for Burr and two abstained.

Appointment of electors

In this election electors were named as follows:

State (s)	Method of appointment
Kentucky , Maryland , North Carolina	Division of the state into constituencies with one elector per constituency based on majority voting
Rhode Island , Virginia	All electors are elected by the state electorate
Tennessee	State divided into constituencies Each county in the constituency elects a county representative by general election County representatives jointly determine the elector for the constituency
all other	Electors appointed by the state legislature

Web links

Commons : US Presidential Election 1800  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

literature

• Donald Richard Deskins, Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett: Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2010, ISBN 978-0-472-11697-3 , pp. 33-40 (= Chapter 6: Thomas Jefferson's Initial Election. ).
• John Ferling: Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-516771-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=59539 and http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/scores.html#1800