The Deadlocked Election of 1800

The Deadlocked Election of 1800 PDF

Author: James Roger Sharp

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2010-09-23

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0700617426

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It was one of the most critical elections of American history, overshadowed only by the one that plunged the country into civil war. The deadlocked election of 1800 has earned considerable attention and debate from historians; now James Roger Sharp reveals that modern observers didn't necessarily get it right. Only a decade old, the Constitution gave the federal government more powers than had the Articles of Confederation, causing many citizens to fear the erosion of states' rights. Meanwhile, war between France and Great Britain exacerbated the schism between Republicans and Federalists, each faction taking sides and questioning the other's loyalty. With Thomas Jefferson challenging incumbent John Adams for the presidency, a tied Electoral College vote threw the election into the House of Representatives amid rumors of violence, civil war, and secession. Richer in contemporary detail and context than previous studies, Sharp's book offers modern readers a better understanding of exactly what was at stake. Some say that this election was a "mighty democratic uprising"; Sharp argues that such interpretations are misleading. Others contend that eighteenth-century politics were no different than ours today; Sharp reveals just how distinctive they actually were. Avoiding the common mistake of imposing modern concepts onto the past, he instead puts himself in the place of citizens from 1800 to see events through their eyes. From that perspective, Sharp argues that Americans envisioned many possible outcomes to the crisis-and that a peaceful solution was far from inevitable. Sharp offers a vivid account of protagonists and events. He tells how military conflict became a real possibility during the deadlock and explains what Jefferson meant when he characterized his election as the "Revolution of 1800." He unravels the nature of political polarization and its relationship to the development of parties. And throughout he emphasizes that the participants themselves greatly feared what the future would bring. Engagingly written and uncommonly insightful, Sharp's chronicle reveals the complex interplay between the main actors and the historical context in which they operated. His book sheds new light on this crucial contest—and shows like no other work that the success of the fragile new government under the Constitution was tentative at best.

The Deadlocked Election of 1800

The Deadlocked Election of 1800 PDF

Author: James Roger Sharp

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2010-09-23

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0700617426

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

It was one of the most critical elections of American history, overshadowed only by the one that plunged the country into civil war. The deadlocked election of 1800 has earned considerable attention and debate from historians; now James Roger Sharp reveals that modern observers didn't necessarily get it right. Only a decade old, the Constitution gave the federal government more powers than had the Articles of Confederation, causing many citizens to fear the erosion of states' rights. Meanwhile, war between France and Great Britain exacerbated the schism between Republicans and Federalists, each faction taking sides and questioning the other's loyalty. With Thomas Jefferson challenging incumbent John Adams for the presidency, a tied Electoral College vote threw the election into the House of Representatives amid rumors of violence, civil war, and secession. Richer in contemporary detail and context than previous studies, Sharp's book offers modern readers a better understanding of exactly what was at stake. Some say that this election was a "mighty democratic uprising"; Sharp argues that such interpretations are misleading. Others contend that eighteenth-century politics were no different than ours today; Sharp reveals just how distinctive they actually were. Avoiding the common mistake of imposing modern concepts onto the past, he instead puts himself in the place of citizens from 1800 to see events through their eyes. From that perspective, Sharp argues that Americans envisioned many possible outcomes to the crisis-and that a peaceful solution was far from inevitable. Sharp offers a vivid account of protagonists and events. He tells how military conflict became a real possibility during the deadlock and explains what Jefferson meant when he characterized his election as the "Revolution of 1800." He unravels the nature of political polarization and its relationship to the development of parties. And throughout he emphasizes that the participants themselves greatly feared what the future would bring. Engagingly written and uncommonly insightful, Sharp's chronicle reveals the complex interplay between the main actors and the historical context in which they operated. His book sheds new light on this crucial contest—and shows like no other work that the success of the fragile new government under the Constitution was tentative at best.

Adams vs. Jefferson

Adams vs. Jefferson PDF

Author: John Ferling

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-09-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0199728542

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It was a contest of titans: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the young republic teetered on the edge of collapse. Adams vs. Jefferson is the gripping account of a turning point in American history, a dramatic struggle between two parties with profoundly different visions of how the nation should be governed. The Federalists, led by Adams, were conservatives who favored a strong central government. The Republicans, led by Jefferson, were more egalitarian and believed that the Federalists had betrayed the Revolution of 1776 and were backsliding toward monarchy. The campaign itself was a barroom brawl every bit as ruthless as any modern contest, with mud-slinging, scare tactics, and backstabbing. The low point came when Alexander Hamilton printed a devastating attack on Adams, the head of his own party, in "fifty-four pages of unremitting vilification." The stalemate in the Electoral College dragged on through dozens of ballots. Tensions ran so high that the Republicans threatened civil war if the Federalists denied Jefferson the presidency. Finally a secret deal that changed a single vote gave Jefferson the White House. A devastated Adams left Washington before dawn on Inauguration Day, too embittered even to shake his rival's hand. With magisterial command, Ferling brings to life both the outsize personalities and the hotly contested political questions at stake. He shows not just why this moment was a milestone in U.S. history, but how strongly the issues--and the passions--of 1800 resonate with our own time.

Adams vs. Jefferson

Adams vs. Jefferson PDF

Author: John Ferling

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-09-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780199840212

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

It was a contest of titans: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the young republic teetered on the edge of collapse. Adams vs. Jefferson is the gripping account of a turning point in American history, a dramatic struggle between two parties with profoundly different visions of how the nation should be governed. The Federalists, led by Adams, were conservatives who favored a strong central government. The Republicans, led by Jefferson, were more egalitarian and believed that the Federalists had betrayed the Revolution of 1776 and were backsliding toward monarchy. The campaign itself was a barroom brawl every bit as ruthless as any modern contest, with mud-slinging, scare tactics, and backstabbing. The low point came when Alexander Hamilton printed a devastating attack on Adams, the head of his own party, in "fifty-four pages of unremitting vilification." The stalemate in the Electoral College dragged on through dozens of ballots. Tensions ran so high that the Republicans threatened civil war if the Federalists denied Jefferson the presidency. Finally a secret deal that changed a single vote gave Jefferson the White House. A devastated Adams left Washington before dawn on Inauguration Day, too embittered even to shake his rival's hand. With magisterial command, Ferling brings to life both the outsize personalities and the hotly contested political questions at stake. He shows not just why this moment was a milestone in U.S. history, but how strongly the issues--and the passions--of 1800 resonate with our own time.

The First Presidential Contest

The First Presidential Contest PDF

Author: Jeffrey L. Pasley

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2016-12-04

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 0700623515

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This is the first study in half a century to focus on the election of 1796. At first glance, the first presidential contest looks unfamiliar—parties were frowned upon, there was no national vote, and the candidates did not even participate (the political mores of the day forbade it). Yet for all that, Jeffrey L. Pasley contends, the election of 1796 was “absolutely seminal,” setting the stage for all of American politics to follow. Challenging much of the conventional understanding of this election, Pasley argues that Federalist and Democratic-Republican were deeply meaningful categories for politicians and citizens of the 1790s, even if the names could be inconsistent and the institutional presence lacking. He treats the 1796 election as a rough draft of the democratic presidential campaigns that came later rather than as the personal squabble depicted by other historians. It set the geographic pattern of New England competing with the South at the two extremes of American politics, and it established the basic ideological dynamic of a liberal, rights-spreading American left arrayed against a conservative, society-protecting right, each with its own competing model of leadership. Rather than the inner thoughts and personal lives of the Founders, covered in so many other volumes, Pasley focuses on images of Adams and Jefferson created by supporters-and detractors-through the press, capturing the way that ordinary citizens in 1796 would have actually experienced candidates they never heard speak. Newspaper editors, minor officials, now forgotten congressman, and individual elector candidates all take a leading role in the story to show how politics of the day actually worked. Pasley's cogent study rescues the election of 1796 from the shadow of 1800 and invites us to rethink how we view that campaign and the origins of American politics.

Jefferson's Second Revolution

Jefferson's Second Revolution PDF

Author: Susan Dunn

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2004-09-09

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0547345755

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An “excellent” history of the tumultuous early years of American government, and a constitutional crisis sparked by the Electoral College (Booklist). In the election of 1800, Federalist incumbent John Adams, and the elitism he represented, faced Republican Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson defeated Adams but, through a quirk in Electoral College balloting, tied with his own running mate, Aaron Burr. A constitutional crisis ensued. Congress was supposed to resolve the tie, but would the Federalists hand over power peacefully to their political enemies, to Jefferson and his Republicans? For weeks on end, nothing was certain. The Federalists delayed and plotted, while Republicans threatened to take up arms. In a way no previous historian has done, Susan Dunn illuminates this watershed moment in American history. She captures its great drama, gives us fresh, finely drawn portraits of the founding fathers, and brilliantly parses the enduring significance of the crisis. The year 1800 marked the end of Federalist elitism, pointed the way to peaceful power shifts, cleared a place for states’ rights in the political landscape—and set the stage for the Civil War. “Dunn, a scholar of eighteenth-century American history, has provided a valuable reminder of an election in which the stakes were truly enormous and the political vituperation was far more poisonous than the relatively moderate attacks heard today. . . . An excellent work that effectively explains this critical contest that shaped the history of the new republic.” —Booklist “Dunn does a superb job of recounting the campaign, its cast of characters, and the election’s bizarre conclusion in Congress. That tense standoff could have plunged the country into a disastrous armed conflict, Dunn explains, but instead cemented the legitimacy of peaceful, if not smooth, transfers of power.” —Publishers Weekly “Dunn simultaneously teaches and enthralls with her eloquent, five-sensed descriptions of the people and places that shaped our democracy.” —Entertainment Weekly

The Failure of the Founding Fathers

The Failure of the Founding Fathers PDF

Author: Bruce Ackerman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2005-10-28

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9780674018662

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Based on seven years of archival research, the book describes previously unknown aspects of the electoral college crisis of 1800, presenting a revised understanding of the early days of two great institutions that continue to have a major impact on American history: the plebiscitarian presidency and a Supreme Court that struggles to put the presidency's claims of a popular mandate into constitutional perspective. Through close studies of two Supreme Court cases, Ackerman shows how the court integrated Federalist and Republican themes into the living Constitution of the early republic.

A Magnificent Catastrophe

A Magnificent Catastrophe PDF

Author: Edward J. Larson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2007-09-18

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1416568409

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CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title "They could write like angels and scheme like demons." So begins Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Larson's masterful account of the wild ride that was the 1800 presidential election—an election so convulsive and so momentous to the future of American democracy that Thomas Jefferson would later dub it "America's second revolution." This was America's first true presidential campaign, giving birth to our two-party system and indelibly etching the lines of partisanship that have so profoundly shaped American politics ever since. The contest featured two of our most beloved Founding Fathers, once warm friends, facing off as the heads of their two still-forming parties—the hot-tempered but sharp-minded John Adams, and the eloquent yet enigmatic Thomas Jefferson—flanked by the brilliant tacticians Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who later settled their own differences in a duel. The country was descending into turmoil, reeling from the terrors of the French Revolution, and on the brink of war with France. Blistering accusations flew as our young nation was torn apart along party lines: Adams and his elitist Federalists would squelch liberty and impose a British-style monarchy; Jefferson and his radically democratizing Republicans would throw the country into chaos and debase the role of religion in American life. The stakes could not have been higher. As the competition heated up, other founders joined the fray—James Madison, John Jay, James Monroe, Gouverneur Morris, George Clinton, John Marshall, Horatio Gates, and even George Washington—some of them emerging from retirement to respond to the political crisis gripping the nation and threatening its future. Drawing on unprecedented, meticulous research of the day-to-day unfolding drama, from diaries and letters of the principal players as well as accounts in the fast-evolving partisan press, Larson vividly re-creates the mounting tension as one state after another voted and the press had the lead passing back and forth. The outcome remained shrouded in doubt long after the voting ended, and as Inauguration Day approached, Congress met in closed session to resolve the crisis. In its first great electoral challenge, our fragile experiment in constitutional democracy hung in the balance. A Magnificent Catastrophe is history writing at its evocative best: the riveting story of the last great contest of the founding period.

The Election of 1800 and the Election of 1876

The Election of 1800 and the Election of 1876 PDF

Author: Charles River Charles River Editors

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-08-28

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 9781537336015

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*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary descriptions of the campaigns, elections, and results *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents In 1800, Thomas Jefferson beat sitting President John Adams, albeit narrowly, and denied Adams the second term he coveted. Adams escaped to Massachusetts and left a curt note about the state of the White House stables behind. No congratulations were exchanged, and the two men did not speak to one another for over a decade afterwards. Jefferson's election to the Presidency also left an important electoral legacy. By 1800, the Alien and Sedition Acts had made Adams an unpopular President, especially in the South. Without formal parties to effectively nominate candidates in a President-Vice President ticket, the Democratic-Republicans had two nominees: Thomas Jefferson and New York's Aaron Burr, who had been tabbed to serve as Jefferson's Vice President. Once the Electoral College cast its ballots, Jefferson and Burr had the same number of electoral votes with 73, while Adams came in third with 65. This was, however, a mix-up. The Democratic-Republican electors were supposed to have one elector abstain from voting for Burr, which would make Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President. In the 1800 election, states selected their electors from April until October. The last state to select its electors, South Carolina, selected Democratic-Republicans but neglected to have one voter abstain. The final vote was thus a tie. As the Constitution prescribed, the election was determined in the House of Representatives. This proved problematic as well. The Federalists controlled the House that decided who would be President. With Jefferson as their arch-nemesis, they were hardly happy to support him, and many initially voted for Burr. The first 35 ballots were always a tie between Burr and Jefferson. Not until mid-February of 1801, when Alexander Hamilton, another of Jefferson's nemeses, came out to endorse the Vice President, did Jefferson come out ahead. Hamilton's disdain for Burr was so strong that he virtually handed the presidency to Jefferson, who had been his ideological opponent for the better part of a decade. Hamilton's decision created personal animus between Hamilton and Burr that stewed for years and famously culminated with the duel that ended Hamilton's life in 1804. Many assumed that President Ulysses S. Grant, the popular Civil War general who was still a relatively young man at the end of his second term in office, would surely run for a third, but many Americans knew nothing of the scandals and corruption that had surrounded Grant's administration, and he wanted to keep it that way All of this set the stage for one of the strangest interludes in American history. As the nation's two major parties each put forth a large slate of candidates for nomination in 1876, two candidates had to come to the fore, and each party selected both a presidential and vice-presidential candidate. These four men ran a bitterly contested race just to reach the general election, and that general election became the most controversial in American history. By the time results rolled in, Democrat Samuel Tilden had won the popular vote and was up by 19 electoral votes, but 20 electoral votes were disputed, and despite claims of fraud, the two sides eventually forged the Compromise of 1877, which gave the presidency to the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South. The Compromise effectively ended the Reconstruction era, and while it helped bring about the sectional reconciliation of the country, it also allowed the Solid South to emerge, which included the implementation of Jim Crow across the region. In effect, the election ensured another major battle over the civil rights of minorities would ensue decades later.

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