1800 Presidential Election (Adams Victory)

The 1800 United States presidential election was the fourth quadrennial presidential election. It was held from October 31 to December 3, 1800. Incumbent Federalist President John Adams won re-election to a second term, defeating the Democratic-Republican nominee and incumbent Vice President, Thomas Jefferson. This was a rematch of the 1796 presidential election and the first election where both candidates won the same amount of states, it is also the first in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote with Adams losing by over 10,000 votes. The outcome of the election severely worsened relations between the Federalist controlled New England and the Democratic-Republican controlled South.

Adams had narrowly defeated Jefferson in the 1796 election. Under the rules of the electoral system in place before the 1804 ratification of the 12th Amendment, each member of the Electoral College cast two votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. As Jefferson received the second-most votes in 1796, he was elected vice president. In 1800, unlike in 1796, both parties formally nominated tickets. the Federalists nominated a ticket consisting of Adams and John Jay, while the Democratic-Republicans nominated a ticket consisting of Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Each party formed a plan by which one of their respective electors would vote for a third candidate or abstain so that its preferred presidential candidate (Adams for the Federalists and Jefferson for the Democratic-Republicans) would win one more vote than the party's other nominee.

The chief political issues revolved around the fallout from the French Revolution and the Quasi-War. The Federalists favored a strong central government and better relations with Great Britain. The Democratic-Republicans favored decentralization to the state governments, and the party attacked the taxes the Federalists imposed. The Democratic-Republicans also denounced the Patriot Act, which the Federalists had passed to create more requirements for citizenship and to define what an American was. Both parties were well organized at the state and local levels in their perspective strongholds but across the Mid-Atlantic states both parties had failed to firmly establish themselves leading to increased tension and focus among party leaders. This was the first showing in a presidential election of what would be known as "battleground states".

New York would become the deciding state in the election, in New York, the state legislature chooses it's electors, the previous election saw a razor thin Democratic-Republican majority in the legislature and had they voted on party lines, Thomas Jefferson would've won the election. However John Jay, the incumbent Governor and the Federalists nominee for Vice President, promised powerful positions to Democratic-Republicans had he become Vice President. This proved to be enough as the legislature narrowly voted for Federalist electors for the election.

At the end of a long and bitter campaign, Adams had won 77 electoral votes, Jay won 69, Burr won 69, and Jefferson won 61. The shift in votes from Jay to Burr was caused by rebellious Federalist electors from North Carolina and Maryland who hoped to create a contingent election for the United States Senate where their allies could deadlock voting and demand concessions from Federalist leaders. This initially proved successful as on the 1st ballot, Federalist senators from Southern and Mid-Atlantic states managed to tie voting 16-16, however it soon would become disastrous for the Federalists as Burr had convinced his good friend, Senator Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, a Federalist, to vote for him. Burr would win on the 2nd ballot 17-15 to become the 3rd Vice President of the United States.

Adams would experience his 2nd inauguration on March 4, 1801 with Burr being inaugurated minutes later. Adams would face a similar situation as he had during his first term, a Federalist President and a Democratic-Republican Vice President. Adams would oversee the Republican Riots soon after his inauguration and an angered and rebellious South would go on to mar Adams' second term as President.