Partisan Polarization and the Threat of Civil War in America's Most Dangerous Election: The Election of 1800

The partisan polarization in this American election was so intense that it became a political war.  Many people expected the country would fall into a violent civil war.  There were charges of voting irregularities that were part of a conspiracy to steal the election.  The party in control of the national government had used the force of the government to suppress freedom of speech by arresting their political opponents and charging them with sedition.  State legislatures controlled by one party claimed that they had the power to select their state's presidential electors without allowing a popular vote.  Those state legislatures that did allow the popular election of presidential electors found ways to rig the counting of the popular votes to favor the candidate preferred by the legislature.  

This was the election of 1800.  President John Adams was running for reelection as the leader of the Federalist Party.  Adams's opponent was Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, who was running as the leader of the Republican Party.  The election became a triumph for the Republicans, who took control of both the House and the Senate in the Congress.  Jefferson was elected President, but only after a deadlock in the Electoral College threw the outcome of the presidential election into the House of Representatives.  Oddly, Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr had received an equal number of votes for president in the Electoral College.  After taking 36 rounds of voting over a week's time, the House finally voted for Jefferson.  Later, Jefferson called this the "Revolution of 1800."  

Some historians have identified this as the first time in history that a popular election brought the peaceful transfer of power between parties who detested one another.  But even if it ultimately turned out to be peaceful, the election was turbulent, and it expressed enraged political passions that could easily have broken out into a bloody civil war.  And, of course, 60 years later, in the election of 1860, another turbulent election did lead to the American Civil War.

Now that Americans have once again been divided by vicious passions of political polarization, it is time to study the election of 1800 to see if it gives us any lessons about how to prevent political party competition from becoming a political civil war.  (Of the many scholarly studies of that election, one of the best is John Ferling's Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 [Oxford University Press, 2004].)

THE LOVE OF FAME AND PRESIDENTIAL AMBITION

The roots of the partisan split between the Federalists and the Republicans originated in the factional rivalry within George Washington's presidential administration (1789-1797).  Adams was the Vice-President.  Alexander Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury.  Jefferson was the Secretary of State.  All four of these men had a passion for fame, and thus all four wanted to be the President, because, as Hamilton had said in Federalist Number 72, the American presidency was designed to appeal to those moved by "the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds."  All four saw the American Revolution and the American Founding as providing them the opportunity for becoming famous as statesmen founding a new form of government.  In 1777, Adams told Richard Henry Lee: "You and I, my dear friend, have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live.  How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making election of government . . . for themselves or their children."

Although all four sought the fame of becoming great statesmen, they disagreed about what was the best form of statesmanship.  In a letter to Benjamin Rush in 1811, Jefferson related a story from the days of Washington's administration.  Jefferson had invited Hamilton and Adams to dine at his lodgings to discuss some matters that needed to be resolved.  After the discussion was over, they turned to casual conversation.  Hamilton asked Jefferson about the portraits hanging in Jefferson's room.  Jefferson told him that these were pictures of the three greatest men in the history of the world--Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke.  Hamilton paused for some time, and then said: "The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar."  Since Caesar had overthrown the Roman Republic, Jefferson took this as confirming his suspicion that Hamilton wanted to overturn the American Republic so that he could become a new Caesar ruling over an American Empire.

In that same conversation, according to Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton got into a discussion of the merits and defects of the British constitutional monarchy.  Adams thought that that if the defects were removed, this could become the best form of government.  But Hamilton thought that even with its defects, it was still the best form of government.  This indicated to Jefferson that they were both monarchists: Adams wanted a reformed monarchic republic that would balance the three orders of society (the one, the few, and the many), while Hamilton wanted a monarchic republic in which the president would be an elected monarch with a lifetime term in office.  Jefferson thought that Hamilton had revealed his monarchic plan of government in his speech at the Constitutional Convention on June 18, 1787.

Jefferson saw here a contrast between the Anglophilic attachment to the British monarchic form of government and his own attachment to the radically democratic and anti-monarchic politics of the French Revolution.  When war broke out between Great Britain and France, this provoked a division in Washington's administration between those Federalists who favored Great Britain and those like Jefferson who took the side of France.  This dispute continued under the presidential administration of Adams, who was elected president in 1796, with Jefferson as his Vice-President.

This political disagreement over what position the U.S. should take in the war between Great Britain and France led to an acrimonious debate in the party press, with Republican-supported newspapers attacking Adams and the Federalists as monarchists and Tories who wanted to overturn the American Revolution.  These attacks from the newspapers provoked the Ultra-Federalists in the Congress into passing the Alien and Sedition Acts in the summer of 1798.  The Sedition Act provided for fines up to $5,000 and jail terms of up to five years for those who uttered or published "any false, scandalous, and malicious" statement against the United States government or its officials.  This was a blatant violation of the First Amendment's declaration that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."  The Federalist newspapers demanded this.  For example, John Fenno of the Gazette of the United States declared: "It is patriotism to write in favor of government--it is sedition to write against it."  Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offenses under the English common law, but the Jeffersonian Republicans argued that such a law violated American Republican liberty.  This was one of the major issues in the election of 1800.  In 1799, Matthew Lyon, a Vermont Republican congressman, was reelected while serving jail time after being convicted under the Sedition Act.

BALANCING THREE SOCIAL ORDERS 

From his survey of political history and political philosophy, Adams had concluded that every society shows three social orders--the one, the few, and the many.  First, in every society, there must be a "first magistrate" or "principal personage."  Some one person of sufficient talent and ambition will rise to the top of society.  He might be a "great genius" or a "masterly spirit," who draws all eyes to himself.  Second, there must also be a small group of people whose influence elevates them to some aristocratic preeminence based on wealth, noble birth, or other abilities that make them the center of public attention.  Third, the great majority of people will generally defer to the rule of the dominant leader and the preeminent few unless they feel so oppressed that they resist or even overthrow their superiors.  These three social orders can be based on inherited positions as in the eighteenth-century British social class system of monarchs, nobles, and commoners.  But even in America, where there is no such hereditary order of classes, Adams observed, there can still be a constitutional arrangement of offices that reflects these three orders.  

Adams thought that these three social orders--one leader, an ambitious few who want to rule, and many others who defer to the ruling few but who don't want to be oppressed--could be seen not just in human societies but in the societies of other political animals.  I have written about this evolved political psychology of dominance, deference, and counter-dominance among political primates.

Adams thought that a constitutional republic like the United States could achieve a balance of the three social orders that would be free from violent disorder and despotic rule.  But achieving this would require constitutional procedures by which disputes over the positions of leadership could be settled in a peaceful and orderly way through popular elections.  The election of 1800 suggested, however, that the constitutional procedure for electing the president through the Electoral College was not an effective way to do this.

THE FAILURE OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

One of the most complicated and confusing debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was over how to elect the President.  The delegates finally decided on having the President selected by an Electoral College.  But the first two contested presidential elections--in 1796 and 1800--exposed the flaws in the Electoral College procedures--flaws that have continued to create problems for presidential elections throughout American history.

Here's the text from Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution:

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . ."

"The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves.  And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the the United States, directed to the President of the Senate [who is the Vice President].  The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.  The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President.  But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice.  In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President.  But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by ballot the Vice President."

For many years, I taught courses on American Government and American Constitutional Law for college students; and I regularly assigned my students to read this constitutional text in preparation for a class discussion of what it means.  Every time I did this, I found that almost all of the students found this text to be incomprehensible.  Moreover, I have found that most American citizens generally cannot understand this; and so they cannot understand how their presidents are elected.  Isn't that enough to justify amending the Constitution to strike out this section and replace it with a simple statement of how the President and Vice President should be elected by a national popular vote?

At the beginning, everyone assumed that George Washington would be the first President, and no one would dare to challenge him; and so it was easy for the Electoral College to select him for two terms.  But then by the end of Washington's second term, a two-party system had emerged, which had not been foreseen by the constitutional framers.  James Madison offered the first explanation of this new party system in an article ("A Candid State of Parties") for the Republican newspaper National Gazette on September 26, 1792.  He claimed that there had been three party systems in America.  First, during the American Revolution, one political party was comprised of those people who supported the Revolution, while the other party was comprised of the Loyalists or Tories who opposed the Revolution.  The second party system arose during the ratification debates over the Constitution of 1787--one party supporting ratification of the new Constitution (the Federalists) and another opposing it (the Anti-Federalists).

Finally, the third party system emerged during Washington's presidency; and this third division "being natural to most political societies, is likely to be of some duration in ours."  On the one side, are those people who favor the rule of those with wealth and high rank, because they think "mankind are incapable of governing themselves."  On the other side, are those who believe "that mankind are capable of governing themselves," and that hereditary power is an outrage to the rights of man.  It's the party of the few (the antirepublican party) against the party of the many (the Republican party).  Madison suggests that this is "natural to most political societies" because of the natural propensity of human beings to divide themselves into the privileged few and the common multitude.

Of course, Hamilton and Adams refused to be identified as "anti-republican."  One might say that the contest was between three kinds of republicanism.  The oligarchic republicanism of Hamilton, the balanced republicanism of Adams, and the democratic republicanism of Jefferson.

In any case, once Washington had announced his political retirement, the presidential elections of 1796 and 1800 became politically polarized elections contested by the Federalists led by Adams and Hamilton and the Republicans led by Jefferson and Madison.  In 1796, the Republicans in the Congress agreed to support Jefferson for President and Aaron Burr for Vice President; the Federalists in Congress endorsed Adams for President and Thomas Pinckney for Vice President.  In 9 of the 16 states, the electors in the Electoral College were chosen by the state legislature rather than popular vote.  There were 136 presidential electors in the 16 states.  Adams received 71 votes, which was just one vote over the 70 required for a majority.  Jefferson received 68 votes, so he became Vice President.  This strange outcome--a Federalist President and a Republican Vice President--resulted from the fact that the Constitution required the electors to cast two votes without distinguishing between a vote for President and a vote for Vice President.

In 1800, the Federalist Congressmen agreed to support Adams for President and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for Vice President; and the Republican Congressmen again supported Jefferson for President and Burr for Vice President.

One Republican newspaper (Aurora, October 14, 1800) listed the differences between the parties as viewed by the Republicans (Ferling, p. 148):

Federalist

1.   Condemned the principles of 1776

2.   Monarchist

3.   Bent on war with France

4.   Hatred of the people

5.   Had made victims of new immigrants

6.   Inaugurated an economic bonanza for the affluent

7.   Supporters of established churches

8.   Increased the public debt and taxes

9.   wished to meddle in Europe to preserve the balance of power

10. Used the Sedition Act to destroy a free press

11. Favored an established church and powerful priesthood

Republican

1.   Longed to restore the principles of the Revolutionary patriots

2.   Foes of monarchy

3.   Wished peace with the world

4.   Appealed through reason to the people

5.   Prefer equal laws for all citizens and would-be citizens

6.   Would call to account those who plunder the public

7.   Would separate church and state

8.   Favored a reduction of both taxes and the public debt

9.   With Washington, prefers not to meddle in Europe's affairs

10. Favored freedom of the press

11. Favored religious freedom

State legislatures chose the presidential electors in 11 of the 16 states.  In those 5 states with popular voting, the state legislatures could influence the outcome by altering how the popular votes were counted--for example, whether it was a winner-take-all system across the state, or whether the votes would be counted by congressional districts.

On election day--December 3--as required by the Constitution, the electors met in each state and cast two votes, one of which had to be for someone outside their state.  Although the slate of electors was chosen by the parties, the electors are not required by the Constitution to keep their pledge to support their party's nominees.  In 1796, about 40% of the electors departed from their party's recommendations.  In 1800, only one elector of 138 broke ranks.

With 138 electors, a majority would be 69.  When the electoral votes were counted, Jefferson and Burr tied at 73, while Adams had 65, and Pinckney had 64.  Consequently, according to the Constitution, the House of Representatives would have to decide whether Jefferson or Burr was the president, with each state congressional delegation casting one vote.  

The House met on February 11, 1801, with Inauguration Day, March 4, only three weeks away.  Of the 16 states, the Republicans controlled 8 delegations (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee), the Federalists controlled 6 (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, and South Carolina), and 2 were deadlocked (Maryland and Vermont).

There were secret machinations in which the Federalists negotiated with Jefferson and Burr to see which one would give them the best deal in exchange for their votes for president.  Jefferson and Burr were being asked to promise that the Federalists would have some control over policies or appointments in the new presidential administration.  After 33 ballots over four days, the deadlock was not broken.  There were rumored threats from Jeffersonian Republicans that they would use force if Jefferson was not selected, or that Virginia would secede from the Union.  At the same time, there were rumors that there was a conspiracy to assassinate Jefferson.  Later, Adams said that "a civil war was expected" during this time.

Finally, after 36 ballots over a week's time, Jefferson was elected.  Although Jefferson publicly denied it, it was generally believed that he had agreed to some kind of bargain with the Federalists for their votes.

At the Inauguration, March 4, Jefferson delivered an eloquent inaugural speech stating his principles and attempting to reconcile the party divisions--declaring "we are all republicans, we are all federalists."  Adams was not at the inauguration, because he had left Washington hours before to return to his home in Massachusetts.  Adams and Jefferson would never meet again for the next quarter century.  They would die on the same day--July 4, 1826.

THE CORRUPTION OF AMERICAN POLITICS BY SLAVERY

The elections of 1796 and 1800 showed a sectional split: the Federalists were stronger in the North, the Republicans stronger in the South.  This split was rooted in slavery.  Adams had never owned slaves, and he condemned slavery as a violation of the equal liberty affirmed by the Declaration of Independence.  Jefferson owned many slaves, and while he admitted that slavery was wrong, he made no effort to abolish slavery.  The Federalists--particularly Hamilton--scorned Jefferson for the hypocrisy of affirming equal natural rights while owning slaves.  Moreover, Jefferson would not have won the election of 1800 without the Constitutional provision that counted 3/5 of the slaves towards state representation in the Congress.

In 1798, Jefferson and Madison wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions that affirmed the sovereignty of the states and the right of the states to nullify national laws, which would become the basis for the Southern nullification and secession movement to protect slavery in the South that would lead to the Civil War.

The moral corruption that comes from slavery was particularly evident in Jefferson's case because he took one of his slave women--Sally Hemings--as his concubine.  As I have indicated in a previous post, there is plenty of evidence that Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children, and that his sexual use of her began when she was 16 years old, and he was 46.  It is also clear that Hemings' father was Jefferson's father-in-law, and so she was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife Martha.

In the election of 1800, there were rumors of this.  Then, beginning in 1802, some Federalists openly condemned Jefferson for this.  Jefferson refused to say anything about it.

In some ways, the legacy of slavery in America continues to corrupt American politics through polarizing debates over Black Lives Matter, the 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, and the White Supremacist Movement.

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND JEFFERSON'S ATHEISM

We can also see in the election of 1800 the political polarization over whether America should be seen as a Christian Nation.  In the election, some ministers preached sermons warning that Jefferson was an infidel or an atheist, and therefore Christians should not elect him President.  For example, John Mitchell Mason, regarded as one of the greatest pulpit orators of his day, delivered a sermon in 1800 with the title "The Voice of Warning to Christians, on the Ensuing Election of a President of the United States," and it was widely circulated as a pamphlet.  

From his reading of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Mason found four kinds of evidence for Jefferson's atheism.  First, Jefferson denied the truth of Noah's Flood by claiming that such a universal flood over the Earth was "out of the laws of nature."  Second, Jefferson's account of the differences in the human races seemed to deny the common origin of mankind in Adam and Eve.  Third, Jefferson implied that there was never a "chosen people" of God.  Fourth, he denied that religious belief was necessary for social order, because he said that "it does me no injury for my neighbors to say there are twenty Gods or no God.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."  This passage from the Notes on Virginia was often quoted by many Federalists as evidence that Jefferson was an "infidel" or atheist.

Mason admits that "the federal Constitution makes no acknowledgment of that God who gave us our national existence," but that means that "to wipe off the reproach of irreligion," Christians must be careful not to elect an atheist like Jefferson.  Mason conceded that Washington and Adams were hypocrites who vaguely professed some religious belief without being true Christians.  But still, he argued, it was better for Christians to vote for a hypocrite like Adams than an atheist like Jefferson, because at least hypocrisy does not directly challenge the identity of America as a Christian Nation.

The question of whether we should recognize America as a Christian Nation or should affirm the separation of church and state continues today to disrupt American political debate.  The Trump Republicans have insisted that the Democrats want to expunge America's Christian tradition.  As I have said in a previous post, some of the Republicans have claimed that Trump is "God's Chosen One."  And a few days ago, Ron DeSantis's campaign organization broadcast a video claiming that DeSantis had been specially created by God--on the eighth day of Creation!--to be the "fighter" for true Americans.

                                                      And God Created Ron DeSantis

THE PHILOSOPHIC FRIENDSHIP OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON OVERCOMES POLITICAL POLARIZATION

As I have said, once Jefferson was inaugurated president in 1801, he and Adams never met again for the rest of their lives.  They did not even write letters to one another until 1812.  But in that year, they resumed their correspondence; and from 1812 to 1826, when they both died, they exchanged over 150 letters.  In my post on this correspondence, I have noted the deep philosophic topics that came up in this correspondence.  Adams and Jefferson had competed for political fame, and Adams left office resentful that Jefferson had become the more famous one, particularly in claiming to be the author of the Declaration of Independence.  But in this correspondence over the last 14 years of their life, having retired from politics, Adams and Jefferson could resume their philosophic friendship, and in doing that, rise above politics and the pursuit of political fame.

Amazingly, Jefferson and Adams both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence--July 4, 1826.  As the news spread across America, this was seen as a remarkable, perhaps even providential, sign that these two men, who had been so long divided by their partisan political rivalry, were ultimately united in common death and immortal fame as Founding Statesmen of America.