Below The Beltway

Recent American history has seen some fairly contested, highly partisan Presidential elections. In 1992 we saw the most successful run by a third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt in 1916 1912. In 1996, we saw Republicans fresh off an historic take-over of Congress convinced they could defeat a sitting President. In 2004, the race between Bush and Kerry brought up memories of a war that had ended almost thirty years in the past. And, of course, 2000 saw the closest and most controversial Presidential election since Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden.

But nothing that we’ve experienced can compare to the first partisan Presidential election in American history, the election of 1800.

In A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign, Edward Larson tells the story of a campaign that changed the way we elect Presidents and changed the course of American history.

Prior to 1800, the United States had not had a contested Presidential election. George Washington ran essentially unopposed in 1788 and 1792, and could have done the same in 1796 if he had chosen to. In the campaign of 1796, the partisan alignments that Washington had resisted and naively hoped would not come about were still forming. There were two factions, for sure, but formal political parties were still a few years away. The seeds for what would happen for years later, though, were planted when the Electoral College selected a President (Adams) and Vice-President (Jefferson) from opposing factions.

By the time the election of 1800 approached, those factions had developed into true political parties. The Federalists dominated New England and much of the North, the Republicans the South. Up for play, and all important to the election of 1800 were mid-Atlantic states like Pennsylvania.

In a relatively short, easy to read 276 pages, Larson takes the reader form one part of the country to the other as the two parties, and the factions within them, struggle to navigate the sometimes byzantine way in which President’s were picked in the late 18th century.

In addition to Adams and Jefferson, much time is spent on the role played by two bitter political rivals who would eventually end up on a dueling field overlooking Manhattan Island — Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. In 1800, Hamilton and Burr battled in the even-then rough and tumble world of New York City politics. The New York legislative elections would determine who won that state’s electoral votes and Burr put together a strategy to win the city, and the state, from Hamilton. Hamilton, meanwhile, was fighting two enemies; the Republicans and John Adams who he believed had betrayed Federalist Party principles during his time in office. By October, Hamilton would openly break with Adams and back Vice-Presidential candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for President, thus guaranteeing a Federalist loss and the end of the Federalist Party.

One of the more extraordinary things about the election was the fact that neither Jefferson nor his supporters seemed to realize that Burr, through the guarantees he had exacted from them, had virtually guaranteed that the two men would end up tied in the Electoral College and the election would be thrown to the Federalist dominated House of Representative. In the end, after thirty-six ballot, the House choose Jefferson and American history was set on a new course.

Larson’s book is an excellent read for anyone interested in electoral politics and American history.