and it is possible that such conditions were proposed and accepted,
but the Federalists knew that the defeat of Jefferson would be a
monstrous perversion of the popular will; and Hamilton and Bayard,
of Delaware, and other prominent Federalists earnestly opposed all
affiliation with Burr. Burr having failed to announce that Jefferson
had been elected President by the people, and should be elected by the
House, and Jefferson having refused to make terms with the Federalists,
the election went into the House under rules which had been adopted
by Congress to meet the special case. Under the rules, the House was
required to retire to its own chamber after the announcement of the
electoral vote showing no choice, and proceed to ballot for President,
and to continue to ballot without adjournment until a choice was
effected. That session of the House continued for seven days. The
balloting began on the 11th of February and ended on the 17th, as the
House, instead of adjourning, simply took recesses from time to time.
Each State could cast but one vote in the House, and that vote was
determined by a majority of the delegation. Where the delegation was
evenly divided the State had no vote. The following is the vote of the
States on the 1st ballot, February 11, 1801:
════════════════╤════════════╤═══════╤═════════════════
STATES. │ Jefferson. │ Burr. │ State voted for.
────────────────┼────────────┼───────┼─────────────────
New Hampshire │ ―― │ 4 │ Burr.
Vermont │ 1 │ 1 │ Divided—Blank.
Massachusetts │ 3 │ 11 │ Burr.
Rhode Island │ ―― │ 2 │ Burr.
Connecticut │ ―― │ 7 │ Burr.
New York │ 6 │ 4 │ Jefferson.
New Jersey │ 3 │ 2 │ Jefferson.
Pennsylvania │ 9 │ 4 │ Jefferson.
Delaware │ ―― │ 1 │ Burr.
Maryland │ 4 │ 4 │ Divided—Blank.
Virginia │ 16 │ 3 │ Jefferson.
North Carolina │ 9 │ 1 │ Jefferson.
South Carolina │ ―― │ 5 │ Burr.
Georgia │ 1 │ ―― │ Jefferson.
Kentucky │ 2 │ ―― │ Jefferson.
Tennessee │ 1 │ ―― │ Jefferson.
├────────────┼───────┼─────────────────
Total │ 55 │ 49 │
────────────────┴────────────┴───────┴─────────────────
Nineteen ballots were taken on the same day, then a recess was taken
until the 12th, when 9 additional ballots were taken, and 1 ballot
was taken on the 13th, 4 on the 14th, 1 on the 16th (the 15th being
Sunday), and 1 on the 17th, making an aggregate of 35 ballots, all
of which were precisely a repetition of the 1st ballot given in the
foregoing table. Jefferson received the vote of 8 States, Burr of 6,
and 2 were blank, because of divided delegations. The vote of 9 States
was necessary to an election, and there was no choice.
On the 2d ballot cast on the 17th, being the 36th ballot in all,
Jefferson was successful, receiving the votes of 10 States to 4 for
Burr and 2 blank. The changes in favor of Jefferson were made by one
Vermont member declining to vote, thus allowing his colleague to
cast the vote of the State for President, and by four from Maryland
also declining to vote, by which the tie in that State was broken in
Jefferson’s favor.
In addition to these changes South Carolina and Delaware cast blank
votes, but they did not help Jefferson, as he required the positive
vote of 9 States to accomplish his election. It was James A. Bayard, of
Delaware, a leading Federalist, who changed his vote on the last ballot
from a vote for Burr to a blank ballot. Jefferson was thus declared
elected President, and Burr became Vice-President by the mandate of
the Constitution, he having received the highest electoral vote for
President excepting that cast for Jefferson.
It can be readily understood that Burr’s permission of the use of
his name to defeat the election of Jefferson in the House made an
impassable gulf between them, and that contest dated the decline of
Burr’s power in the land. He knew that there could be no future for
him, and his restless genius sought new fields in which to gratify
his ambition, ending in his arrest and trial for treason, and also
staining his skirts with the murder of Hamilton. Hamilton was open in
his hostility to Burr in the contest between Jefferson and Burr in the
House, and it was Burr’s resentment of Hamilton’s hostility to his
election that made him seize upon a trivial pretext to force Hamilton
into a duel, in which Hamilton fell mortally wounded at the first fire.
Burr’s public career was thus ended by the Jefferson-Burr contest, and
although he lived many years thereafter, he drank the bitterest dregs
of sorrow, and died in poverty and unlamented.
Adams accepted his defeat most ungracefully. He remained in the
Executive Mansion until midnight of the 3d of March, 1801, when he
and his family deserted it, leaving it vacant for Jefferson to enter,
without a host to welcome him. It was the only instance in which the
retiring President did not personally receive the incoming President in
the Executive Mansion, with the single exception of President Johnson,
who did not remain at the White House to receive Grant; but Johnson
was excusable from the fact that Grant had expressed his purpose not
to permit Johnson to accompany him in the inauguration ceremonies.
Jefferson, in marked contrast with the pomp and ceremony of Federal
inaugurations, appeared on the 4th of March clad in home-spun, and rode
his own horse unattended to the Capitol, and after the inauguration
ceremonies returned to the Executive Mansion in like manner. Both
Jefferson and Adams lived for more than a quarter of a century after
their great battle terminated in 1800, and time greatly mellowed
the asperities of their desperate political conflicts. In the later
years of their life, when both had lived long in retirement, they had
friendly correspondence; and it is one of the most notable events in
our political annals that Jefferson and Adams, who stood side by side
in presenting the Declaration of Independence to Congress, and who
had fought the fiercest political battles of the nation as opposing
leaders, both died on the same day—the natal day of the Republic—July
4, 1826.
THE JEFFERSON-PINCKNEY CONTEST
1804
The election of Jefferson in 1800 was a complete revolution in the
political policy of the new Republic, and it maintained its supremacy
for sixty years. The Republican party that triumphed with Jefferson
never suffered a defeat until after the name of the party had been
changed to Democracy under Jackson. John Quincy Adams, who was elected
President in 1824, was nominated and supported as a Republican, as
were Jackson, Crawford, and Clay, and the Whig triumphs of 1840 and
1848 stand in our history as accidental victories without changing
the general policy of the Government in any material respect. It may
be accepted as a fact that from 1800 until 1900, the full period of a
century, there have been but two political policies established and
maintained in the government of this country. The Democratic policy
ruled from 1800 to 1860, and from 1860 to 1900 the Republican policy
has maintained its supremacy, notwithstanding the two Democratic
administrations of Cleveland. They were but temporary checks upon
Republican mastery, as the Whig successes of 1840 and 1848 were mere
temporary checks upon Democratic rule.
[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON]
With Jefferson’s success in 1800 came, for the first time, the control
of the Republicans in both branches of Congress, and Jefferson thus had
the entire legislative power of the Government in thorough sympathy and
harmony with himself. He was bitterly opposed by the Federalists at
every step. They justly criticised his hostility to an American navy;
they complained vehemently of his removals from office in partisan
interests, and they specially assailed his ostentatious attempts to
limit the authority and powers of the General Government to give the
supreme sovereignty of the nation to the people.
The one act of his administration that was most violently assailed
was his purchase of Louisiana in 1803. It was proclaimed by the
Federalists as the most flagrant usurpation of authority, as an utter
overthrow of the Constitution, and as the beginning of the end of the
Union. There is not an argument made to-day against the acquisition of
the Philippines and Puerto Rico that is not the echo of the earnest
arguments made by the Federalists against the acquisition of Louisiana.
The ablest of the Federalists proclaimed in the Senate and House that
the Union was practically destroyed by the acquisition of a distant
country, containing a people with no sympathy with our interests or
institutions; who were generally strangers to our language and could
never be educated to the proper standard of American citizenship. But
the country then, as now, believed in expansion, and the acquisition
of Louisiana stands out as one of the grandest achievements of
statesmanship exhibited by any administration, from Washington to
McKinley.
The contest between Jefferson and Burr for the Presidency, after
one had been distinctly supported as a candidate for President and
the other as distinctly as a candidate for Vice-President, taught
the necessity of changing the method of choosing a President in the
Electoral College, but the Federalists bitterly opposed the change,
chiefly on the ground that it was desired solely to gratify the
personal ambition and interests of Jefferson. The proposed amendment
prevailed, however, and was ratified by thirteen of the sixteen States
in ample time for the contest of 1804. The dissenting States in the
ratification of the amendment were Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
Delaware. Under that amendment the electors voted for President and
Vice-President as they do to-day, and the candidate for Vice-President
must now have a majority of the electoral vote as well as the candidate
for President to be successful.
The Congressional caucus that made Presidents for many years became
an accepted institution in 1804, when the Republican or Jeffersonian
members of Congress were publicly invited to meet on the 25th of
February. They unanimously nominated Mr. Jefferson for re-election,
and as Burr was unthought of for Vice-President, they nominated
George Clinton, of New York, for that office. This was the first
open political caucus or convention to nominate national candidates.
The caucuses of 1800 were held in secret by both the Federalists and
Republicans, and no record was preserved of their actions. Those who
called the caucus, appreciating the prejudice that would likely be
provoked by Congress attempting to dictate the candidates for President
and Vice-President, distinctly declared that the caucus or conference
was called solely as individuals, and not as official representatives
of the Senate and House. If the Federalists held a caucus in 1804,
there is no record of it that I have been able to find, but they
united on Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, for President, and
Rufus King, of New York, for Vice-President. Both of the parties gave
the second place on their respective tickets to New York, clearly
indicating that they regarded New York as one of the pivotal States of
the conflict.
Ohio had been admitted into the Union in 1802, making 17 States to take
part in the election of 1804, and the new apportionment, shaped by
the census of 1800, enlarged the number of electoral votes. While the
Federalists had greatly diminished in popular strength by the loss of
power and the steadily gaining approval of Jefferson and his Republican
policy, they did not abate in any degree the intensity of their
hostility to Jefferson, and in a few States where contests were made,
the campaigns were conducted on the old defamatory lines which marked
the two great battles between Jefferson and Adams.
In most of the States there was practically no contest, but in
Massachusetts and Connecticut, where Federalism had always maintained
its supremacy, the Federalists fought with an earnestness and
desperation such as might have been expected in a hopeful struggle.
The fiercest battle was fought in Massachusetts, where for the first
time the Republicans defeated the Federalists in the largest vote ever
cast in the State. Jefferson electors received 29,310 votes to 25,777
for the Pinckney ticket, giving Jefferson a majority of 3533. This
was a terrible blow to Adams, and it was aggravated by the fact that
while Massachusetts faltered, Connecticut gave her electoral vote to
the Federal ticket. Delaware, with her three electoral votes, was the
only other State that maintained her devotion to the Federal cause,
and the electoral votes of those 2 States, with 2 added from the 11
votes of Maryland, summed up the entire vote of the Federal candidate
for President in the Electoral College, the vote being 162 for
Jefferson to 14 for Pinckney, and a like vote for Clinton and King for
Vice-President. The following table presents the official vote cast in
the electoral colleges:
═══════════════╤═════════════════════════╦══════════════════
│ PRESIDENT. ║ VICE-PRESIDENT.
STATES. ├────────────┬────────────╫──────────┬───────
│ Thomas │ Charles C. ║ George │ Rufus
│ Jefferson. │ Pinckney. ║ Clinton. │ King.
───────────────┼────────────┼────────────╫──────────┼───────
New Hampshire │ 7 │ ―― ║ 7 │ ――
Vermont │ 6 │ ―― ║ 6 │ ――
Massachusetts │ 19 │ ―― ║ 19 │ ――
Rhode Island │ 4 │ ―― ║ 4 │ ――
Connecticut │ ―― │ 9 ║ ―― │ 9
New York │ 19 │ ―― ║ 19 │ ――
New Jersey │ 8 │ ―― ║ 8 │ ――
Pennsylvania │ 20 │ ―― ║ 20 │ ――
Delaware │ ―― │ 3 ║ ―― │ 3
Maryland │ 9 │ 2 ║ 9 │ 2
Virginia │ 24 │ ―― ║ 24 │ ――
North Carolina │ 14 │ ―― ║ 14 │ ――
South Carolina │ 10 │ ―― ║ 10 │ ――
Georgia │ 6 │ ―― ║ 6 │ ――
Kentucky │ 8 │ ―― ║ 8 │ ――
Tennessee │ 5 │ ―― ║ 5 │ ――
Ohio │ 3 │ ―― ║ 3 │ ――
├────────────┼────────────╫──────────┼───────
Total │ 162 │ 14 ║ 162 │ 14
═══════════════╧════════════╧════════════╩══════════╧═══════
THE MADISON-PINCKNEY-CLINTON CONTESTS
1808–12
The election of Jefferson ended the line of the succession to the
Presidency from the Vice-Presidency. Adams as Vice-President succeeded
Washington as President, and Jefferson as Vice-President succeeded
Adams, but the Burr fiasco made it impossible for the succession
to be maintained, and for many years the line of succession to the
Presidency was in the Premiers of the administration. Indeed during
the entire century from 1800 to 1900 but one Vice-President has been
elected to the Presidency. That single exception was Martin Van Buren,
and he started under the Jackson administration as Premier. Madison,
who was Secretary of State under Jefferson, succeeded Jefferson to the
Presidency; Monroe, Secretary of State under Madison, succeeded Madison
as President; John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State under Monroe,
succeeded Monroe as President, and since that time Buchanan was the
only Secretary of State who reached the Presidency, although Webster,
Cass and Blaine, who were Premiers under several administrations, were
defeated in Presidential contests.
[Illustration: JAMES MADISON]
Madison was generally regarded as the favorite of Jefferson for the
succession, and Jefferson’s power at that time was second only to
the power of Washington in dictating who should succeed him to the
highest honor of the Republic. Irritating opposition to Madison came
from his own State of Virginia, where the friends of Monroe were quite
aggressive. Two caucuses had been held in the Virginia Legislature,
one by the friends of Madison, and the other, much smaller in number,
by the friends of Monroe, and both were thus formally presented to the
country to succeed Jefferson.
A caucus of the Republican members of both branches of Congress was
called to meet on the 23d of January, 1808. It was known that the
friends of Madison largely outnumbered the friends of Monroe in
Congress, and the active supporters of Monroe earnestly opposed a
nomination by the Congressional caucus. The caucus was held, however,
and was attended by a majority of the Senators and Representatives,
and Madison was nominated on the 1st ballot, receiving 83 votes to 3
for Monroe and 3 for George Clinton. Monroe had a considerably larger
strength in Congress, but the result was predetermined, and a number of
them did not participate. George Clinton was nominated by substantially
the same vote for Vice-President. The caucus system was under fire,
and the caucus, in justification of its own act, adopted a resolution
declaring that in making the nominations the members had “acted only in
their individual characters as citizens,” and because it was “the most
practical mode of consulting and respecting the interests and wishes
of all upon a subject so truly interesting to the people of the United
States.”
It was a considerable time before the friends of Monroe gave a cordial
adhesion to the caucus nominations, but Jefferson, who was friendly
to both Madison and Monroe, interposed and reconciled the friends of
Monroe by the expectation that Monroe would succeed Madison; and as
there was practically no serious opposition to Madison presented by
the Federalists, the campaign drifted into the general acceptance of
Madison’s election long before the election was held. The Federalists
did not hold any caucus or formally present candidates, but accepted
Pinckney and King, for whom they had voted in the last contest against
Jefferson.
In the New England States vigorous contests were made by the
Federalists to regain the supremacy they had lost, and New Hampshire,
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which had voted for Jefferson, were
regained by the Federalists, but the struggle was not made with any
hope of defeating Madison for President. There had been no increase in
the number of States nor in the vote of the electoral colleges. Madison
won an easy and decisive victory, receiving 122 electoral votes to 47
for Pinckney and 6 for George Clinton, who was the regular nominee of
the Republicans for Vice-President, and who was elected to that office
by 113 electoral votes to 47 for King and 15 scattering. New York was
obviously disaffected, as while the Republican caucus had accorded to
Clinton of that State the second place on the ticket, and elected him
Vice-President, the electoral vote of New York was divided, Madison
receiving 13 to 6 cast for Clinton, and in the same electoral college
Clinton received 13 votes for Vice-President to 3 for Madison and 3 for
Monroe. The votes of North Carolina and Maryland were also divided, but
that was not unusual, as after Washington retired the electoral votes
of those States were divided, because their electors were chosen by
Congressional districts.
There is no intelligent record of the popular vote, and it would be
needless to attempt to present it, as outside of New England the States
which were contested generally chose their electors by the Legislature.
The following is the vote in detail as cast in the Electoral College:
══════════════╤═══════════════════════════╦════════════════════════════════════════
│ PRESIDENT. ║ VICE-PRESIDENT.
├────────┬────────┬─────────╫────────┬────────┬────────┬───────┬─────
STATES. │James │George │C. C. ║George │James │John │James │Rufus
│Madison,│Clinton,│Pinckney,║Clinton,│Madison,│Langdon,│Monroe,│King,
│Va. │N. Y. │S. C. ║N. Y. │Va. │N. H. │Va. │N. Y.
──────────────┼────────┼────────┼─────────╫────────┼────────┼────────┼───────┼─────
New Hampshire │ ―― │ ―― │ 7 ║ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 7
Vermont │ 6 │ ―― │ ―― ║ ―― │ ―― │ 6 │ ―― │ ――
Massachusetts │ ―― │ ―― │ 19 ║ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 19
Rhode Island │ ―― │ ―― │ 4 ║ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 4
Connecticut │ ―― │ ―― │ 9 ║ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 9
New York │ 13 │ 6 │ ―― ║ 13 │ 3 │ ―― │ 3 │ ――
New Jersey │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
Pennsylvania │ 20 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 20 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
Delaware │ ―― │ ―― │ 3 ║ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 3
Maryland │ 9 │ ―― │ 2 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 2
Virginia │ 24 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 24 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
North Carolina│ 11 │ ―― │ 3 ║ 11 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 3
South Carolina│ 10 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
Georgia │ 6 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 6 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
Kentucky[4] │ 7 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 7 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
Tennessee │ 5 │ ―― │ ―― ║ 5 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ――
Ohio │ 3 │ ―― │ ―― ║ ―― │ ―― │ 3 │ ―― │ ――
├────────┼────────┼─────────╫────────┼────────┼────────┼───────┼─────
│ 122 │ 6 │ 47 ║ 113 │ 3 │ 9 │ 3 │ 47
══════════════╧════════╧════════╧═════════╩════════╧════════╧════════╧═══════╧═════
[4] One Kentucky elector did not attend. The State was entitled to 8
votes.
The battle for Madison’s second election in 1812 began in the early
period of our second war with Great Britain. Many complicated foreign
questions excited earnest discussion and renewed the partisan
bitterness of the earlier national contests, while the struggle for the
renewal of the charter of the United States bank convulsed financial
and business circles. The bill was lost by indefinite postponement in
the House in 1811 by a single vote, and soon thereafter a like bill
was rejected in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President.
Madison did not possess the breadth of statesmanship so grandly
exhibited by Jefferson, and he lacked in the positive qualities needed
to meet the grave issues which confronted him. He parried our foreign
questions with almost endless diplomatic correspondence, and in the
conduct of the war he lacked in the settled purpose and methods which
are always necessary to sustain a government in such a crisis.
It was then that Clay came to the front as Commoner of the nation, and
it was his able, eloquent, and inspiring utterances and actions, aided
by Senator Crawford, of Georgia, that saved the administration when it
was apparently threatened with defeat. Madison was unwilling to accept
war with England until it became clearly evident that he must declare
war or give the Federalists a restoration to power, and it was only
after he had been very earnestly appealed to by the men upon whom he
had most to depend, that he sent a message to Congress pointing out the
necessity of a declaration of war, to which both branches in secret
sessions gave their approval.
It was not until after Madison had decided upon an aggressive war
policy with England that the Congressional caucus was called to
nominate Republican candidates for President and Vice-President. The
caucus met on the 12th of May apparently without objection, and Madison
was renominated by a unanimous vote, only one member present declining
to vote. Clinton had died in office, and a new nomination had to be
made for Vice-President. John Langdon, of New Hampshire, who was the
first Senator to be President _pro tem._ of the body, was nominated
for Vice-President, receiving 64 votes to 16 for Elbridge Gerry and
2 scattering. Langdon declined the nomination, and the second caucus
was convened when Gerry was nominated by a vote of 74 to 3 scattering.
While the proceedings of the caucus were apparently very harmonious,
there was significance in the fact that some 50 Republican Senators
and Representatives did not attend, only one being present from New
York State.
The reason for the New York members declining to attend the caucus
was soon developed by a counter movement, made in New York, to bring
out DeWitt Clinton, who was the leader of the Republicans of that
State, as the candidate in opposition to Madison. The Federalists had
no part in making him the competitor of Madison, but they were quite
willing, in their utter helplessness, to support any bolt against
the omnipotence of the Republican caucus. Many of the Republicans
thought that the administration was not sufficiently aggressive in its
opposition to England, and many others opposed Madison and were ready
to support Clinton or any other promising candidate who was entirely
opposed to the war. Had Clinton acted in harmony with the Republicans
and supported Madison, he would have been a very formidable competitor
of Monroe for the succession, but in allowing himself to be made
a candidate of the opposition, he entirely lost his position as a
Republican leader.
Madison had been nominated by the Republican Congressional caucus on
the 12th of May, and on the 29th of May a caucus of the Republican
members of the New York Legislature was held, at which 91 of the 93
members were present, and they unanimously nominated Clinton as a
candidate for President, and the Federalists gradually dropped into his
support. The Federalists took no formal action for the selection of
candidates until September, when a conference of the leaders of that
party was held in New York, with representatives from 11 States, and
that conference nominated Clinton for President with Jared Ingersoll
for Vice-President.