Lessons of 1800 – The Atlantic

AAmericans fall in line today at the polls to cast their vote in a crucial election. People are anxious, hopeful and scared about the stakes of the election and its consequences. But this is not the only such electoral test that American democracy has faced. A previous contest has a lot to say in the present.

The presidential election of 1800 was a crisis of the first order, with extreme polarization, wild accusations and insults – the Federalist John Adams was labeled a “hermaphrodite” by the Republicans, and the Federalists in turn warned that Thomas Jefferson would destroy Christianity. People in two states began to gather arms to take over the government for Jefferson if necessary, seeing him as the expected winner. Federal members of Congress considered overturning the election; thousands surrounded the Capitol to learn the result; and a prolonged and painful tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr took 36 votes to resolve in the House of Representatives.

We are not looking at a rerun of the 1800 election; history does not repeat itself. But two key components of that election storm speak loudly to this day: the threat of violence and the proposed solution to electoral unrest after the contest is over.

The the unfortunate truth is that democratic government is often violent. When the promise and expansion of democracy is extended, it almost always brings an anti-democratic backlash, sometimes including threats and violence. Blacks who won the right to vote during the Civil War were met with hostile threats, intimidation, and voter suppression during Reconstruction. Black Americans’ advanced demands for civil rights in the 1960s led to vicious beatings and murders. In both eras, white Americans who felt entitled to power—and who felt threatened by the expansion of rights and opportunities granted to racial minorities through democratic means—resorted to violence.

Elaine Godfrey: The real risk of the election comes later

In the late 18th century, the Federalists were the party of the extreme right. They favored a strong central government with the power to enforce its precepts and were not too comfortable with a democratic politics of resistance, protest and rejection. They wanted Americans to vote for their favorite candidates, then step back and let the best of them govern.

When Jefferson and Burr—both Democratic Republicans—received an equal number of electoral votes, the Federalists were horrified. They faced the nightmarish choice between Jefferson, a Republican notoriously opposed to the Federalists, or Burr, an unpredictable and opportunistic politician with unknown loyalties. They overwhelmingly preferred Burr, who seemed more likely to compromise with the Federalists.

Tie elections are sent to the House of Representatives to decide, with each state getting one vote. Given this chance to steal the election, Federalists inside and outside Congress began plotting—perhaps they could block the election of either candidate and elect a president pro tem until they could find a better solution.

Federalist talk of intervention did not go unnoticed. The governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia began to store arms in case the government should be taken for Jefferson. This was not a subversive effort; Jefferson himself knew of their efforts, telling James Madison and James Monroe that the threat of resistance “in arms” gave the Federalists pause. “We have thought it best to declare openly and firmly, one and all, that the day such an act (of usurpation) shall pass, the Middle States shall arm themselves.”

In the end, there was no violence. But the threat was very real—a product of the fact that the Federalists felt so entitled to political power that they were unwilling to lose through democratic means. And losing is a key component of democracy. Elections are contests with winners and losers. Democracy relies on these free and fair contests to assign power according to the preferences of the American people. People who feel entitled to power are hostile to these contests. They will not accept unknown results. They want inevitability, invulnerability and immunity, so they attack the structures of democracy. They despise electoral procedures, manipulate the political process and threaten their opponents. Sometimes the end result is violence. In the 2024 election, this is the position taken by former President Donald Trump and his supporters. Just as in the 1800s, a strong sense of entitlement to power threatens our democratic process.

The the choice of 1800 was only the fourth presidential contest in American history, and only the 1796 election, the first without George Washington as a candidate, had been contested. After the Depression of the 1800s, some people looked for better options. At least one Federalist favored ending popular presidential elections altogether. Looking ahead to elections a few years later, Connecticut Federalist James Hillhouse proposed changing the constitutional way of electing presidents. The president should be elected from sitting senators, he suggested. A box could be filled with balls—most of them white, one colored—and each senator who qualified for the presidency would proceed in alphabetical order and draw a ball from the box. The senator who drew the colored ball would be president. Chief Justice John Marshall, who agreed that presidential contests are dangerous, declared the plan as good as any.

Most people didn’t go that far, but Federalists and Republicans alike understood that the threat posed by hotly contested partisan elections could be dire. Although the presidency had been transferred peacefully from one party to another, the road to this transfer had been difficult. Weapon storage? Threats of armed resistance? Taking over the presidency? The whole nation shaken by political passions, seemingly torn in two?

A Republican asked Jefferson in March 1801: What would have happened if there had been a “non-election of a President”? Jefferson’s response is noteworthy. In this case, he he wrote“the federal government would have been in the condition of a broken clock or clock… A convention, called by the Republican members of Congress… would have been on the ground in 8 weeks, would have repaired the constitution where it was defective, and l -I wrapped again.”

The political process would save the nation. A convention. Maybe amending the Constitution. The solution to the crisis, Jefferson argued, lay in tried and true constitutional processes of government. As he put it, they were a “peaceful and legitimate resource to which we are in the habit of defaulting.”

David A. Graham: How is it so close?

And indeed, that is the purpose of the Constitution, a road map of political processes. As Americans, we agree to abide by its standards or use political constitutional and legal means to change them. When people attack the Constitution—threaten it, ignore it, violate it—they strike a blow at the constitutional compact that holds us together as a nation. We don’t often think about this pact or even realize it exists—until it’s challenged.

Which brings us to the present. Today’s election presents a stark choice. Americans can either respect the basic constitutional structures of our government or trample them with denial and lies. The constitution is far from perfect. It needs modification. But it is our procedural starting point for change.

By voting, you are signaling your belief in this process. Declare that you believe in the opportunities offered by democracy, even if sometimes they have to be fought for. Democracy is not an end point; it is a process. This election is our opportunity to pledge our allegiance to this process – to the constitutional compact that anchors our nation. The choice is ours.