[For this last
week before the most painful, frustrating, and potentially disastrous election
season in my lifetime—and perhaps American history—concludes, I’ll
AmericanStudy the histories, stories, and stakes of five prior exemplary elections.
Would love to hear your ElectionStudying thoughts—or your recipes for staying
sane for one more week—in comments!]
On the moment
that definitely changed things in post-Revolutionary America—but also, inspiringly,
didn’t.
It’d be an
overstatement to say that the first decade of post-Constitution America was
devoid of national or partisan divisions—this was the era of the Alien and Sedition Acts and their responses, after all; also of that little rebellion up in Pennsylvania—but I don’t think it’s inaccurate to see the first three
presidential terms (Washington’s two and John Adams’s one) as among the most
unified and non-controversial in our history. That’s true even though Adams’s Vice President was his chief rival in the 1796
election, Thomas Jefferson; Jefferson had
gained the second-most electoral votes, which in the first constitutional model
meant that he would serve as vice president (an idea that in and of itself reflects
a striking lack of expected controversy!). There were certainly two distinct
parties as of that second administration (Adams’s Federalists and Jefferson’s
Republicans), and they had distinct perspectives on evolving national
issues to be sure; but there doesn’t seem
to be much evidence of significant partisan divisions between them in that
period.
To say that
things changed with the presidential election of 1800 would be to drastically understate the case. Once again
Adams and Jefferson were the chief contenders, now linked by the past four
years of joint service but at the same time more overtly rivals because of that
prior election and its results; moreover, this time Jefferson’s running mate, Aaron Burr, was a far more
prominent and popular candidate in his own right. And this combination of
complex factors led to an outcome that was divisive and controversial on
multiple levels: Jefferson’s ticket handily defeated that of his boss, greatly
amplifying the partisan rancor between the men and parties; but at the same
time Burr received the same number of electoral votes as Jefferson, an unprecedented (then or since) tie between two Republicans that sent the election into the
hands of the Federalist-controlled Congress. Although most Federalists opposed
Jefferson (for obvious reasons), through a murky and secretive process (one
likely influenced by Alexander Hamilton) Jefferson was ultimately chosen on the 36th ballot as the nation’s third president.
Four years later Burr shot Hamilton dead in the nation’s most famous duel (now more famous than ever, thanks to a certain
groundbreaking musical), and it’s entirely fair to say that, in the
aftermath of this heated and controversial election, the nation could have
similarly descended into conflict. But instead, Burr and Hamilton’s eventual
fates notwithstanding, the better angels of our collective nature rose to the
occasion—Adams peacefully handed over the executive to Jefferson, all those who had supported Burr recognized the new
administration, and the parties continued to move forward as political but not social or destructive rivals. If
and when the partisan divisions seem too deep and too wide, and frankly too
much for me to contemplate (as, I will admit, they often feel at the moment), I
try to remember the election of 1800; not because it went smoothly or was
perfect (far from it), nor because the leaders in that generation were any
nobler or purer (ditto), but rather precisely because it went horribly and was
deeply messed-up and the leaders were as selfish and human as they always are,
and yet somehow—as untested and raw as we were—we came out on the other side.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ll do the same this time.
Next exemplary
election tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Thoughts on this or any prior election?