Prior to 1796, there had not been a contest for the office of the presidency, George Washington unanimously twice winning the office without challenge or dispute. But the unanimity behind Washington’s election and reelection could not conceal ongoing partisan aggravations, a condition that actually grew worse in Washington’s second term, even to the point of eventually weakening the president’s own popularity, hitherto undiluted. These divisions involved both domestic issues and foreign concerns and seemed to promote an unreflective politics that stifled dialogue between the various interests and perspectives. The ruling Federalist Party followed Alexander Hamilton in favoring active central government, which continued to include a national bank, government support for commerce and industry, a strong executive, and, despite his disappointments, public support for Jay’s Treaty, which was designed to relieve an ongoing state of hostility between the United States and Britain. Perhaps most notably and definitely of lasting significance, the Hamiltonian mercantilist view toward commerce, finance, and industry led to strong Federalist support for the imposition of tariffs directed at protecting young industries from foreign competition. In pointed contrast, Jefferson’s Republicans strongly criticized high protective tariffs, advocated local and state power, sought a comparatively weaker national government, opposed a national bank, were more disposed toward affiliations with the French republic than the old enemy Great Britain, and ultimately envisioned an economy rooted in the agrarian ideal. Thus, the Washington administration drew broad and sometimes bitter criticism from the Jeffersonian quarter in response to the economic policies designed and administered by Hamilton and bearing Washington’s imprimatur. The same concerns over a powerful, centralized government that simmered throughout the previous election were heating to a slow boil. Hamilton’s policies were developed and applied against the context of a small but evident rift in the economic terrain of the country, with the interests of commerce and industry—particularly strong in New England, the Atlantic Seaboard, and in the more urbanized areas—pitted against the agricultural economic base that dominated the South (particularly inland from the coast) as well as rural areas in the interior regions of the North and West; and in general the farmers—and in particular the Southern planter—who, to protect their perceived interests, supported low tariffs, opposed the national bank, and were suspicious of the more urbanized vision of the Hamiltonians.
These nettlesome domestic divisions, however, were overshadowed by disturbing developments abroad, particularly on the high seas, involving incidents that exposed American vulnerabilities and polarized its partisan factions, adding still more heat to the political pressure cooker. Much like the sharp division over domestic issues, interparty fissures quickly opened over foreign policy. The Federalists aligned themselves with the British largely because of the common heritage shared between the United States and Britain along with the obvious economic advantages of sustaining close ties with the industrial power of London and Manchester. In sharp contrast, Jeffersonian Republicans found spiritual kinship in the equalitarian principles of the French Revolution. As Britain and France were bitter enemies battling for international supremacy, any foreign policy directed at either nation would be a delicate matter. Although Washington sought to keep the United States clear of Great Power conflict by following a policy of careful neutrality toward Britain and France, many Federalists and Republicans rejected this approach in support of one of the belligerents. Washington, now no longer inoculated against partisanship, was subjected to increasingly more frequent and harsher criticism from Republicans over allegations that the president and his administration were passively sitting by while Britain’s Royal Navy, seeking to add needed and experienced manpower to its ranks, brazenly and with utter impunity impressed American sailors into His Majesty’s service. Ships were also seized by the Royal Navy while the U.S. government offered no resistance, and the British army remained fortressed on the northwestern frontier in violation of prior agreements. In spite of these insults, Washington held steady in his desire to maintain neutrality, but this position found him running against the grain of both pro-English Federalists who despised the excesses of the French Revolution and pro-French Republicans, the latter claiming to be especially aggrieved by Washington’s refusal to stand with a sister republic against an old and common enemy.
As the humiliation caused by the impressment of men and the loss of ships continued to fester, President Washington, fully aware that the United States could not engage in another war against the might of Britain, sought ways to resolve tensions diplomatically. These developments along with Washington’s state of mind led to the dispatching of then chief justice John Jay to London to negotiate the treaty that now bears his name. This action provoked severe antipathy from the Republicans, who perceived the treaty as not only inadequate in dealing with Britain’s abuses—it most notably failed to solve the impressment issue—but also in effect drawing the United States into even closer relations with London. Moreover, while the British reduced their presence on at least a portion of the frontier, they remained in their fortifications in the Northwest, particularly in the Great Lakes region. Throughout the various states, angry Republican crowds burned Jay in effigy, and the French cockade in the tricolor of the Revolution was provocatively displayed on partisan clothing as a show of sympathy and allegiance. Angry partisans fought in the streets, and we have reports of violence erupting even in some church services. An impassioned mob burned a copy of the treaty on the doorstep of the British foreign ministry, for good measure shattering the windows of the ambassador’s residence.
The hardening opposition to Hamilton’s economic vision, combined with the violent reactions to Jay’s Treaty and the overall disgust at the foreign situation behind it, led to discernible erosion in the president’s popularity. Washington, who was once universally acclaimed as a leader above reproach, was now being scolded and attacked in the press with a personal bitterness with which he was entirely unfamiliar. For example, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Republican-affiliated Aurora (and who also happened to be the grandson of the eminent Benjamin Franklin), eviscerated Washington, impudently accusing him of harboring desires to become dictator and, with unabashed hyperbole, writing, “If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American Nation has been debauched by Washington.” Bache would later claim that Washington was nothing less than the “source of all the misfortunes of our country,” and that, far from being the reputed paragon of virtue, the president’s very name gave “currency to political iniquity and to legalized corruption.”
Had Washington decided to stand for a third term, and even if he had managed another victory, which was not altogether unlikely as his inestimable prestige had not been entirely spent, the solid base of unanimity behind his presidency had certainly vanished. Thus, after eight years of service, a wearied Washington, now embattled where once he was embraced, offered his now famous, sobering observations about partisan politics, or what he referred to as the “Spirit of Party”:
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human Mind. It exists under different shapes in all Governments, more or less stifled, controuled or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enemies, is itself a frightful despotism. . . . It [the Spirit of Party] serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another.
These reflections, looking back on the deepening partisan rifts within his own administration, testify to the sense of discouragement that descended upon Washington in the latter years of his administration, as well as to the prescience of his assessment. Indeed, they serve as an augury of an imminent change in the character of national politics—of two presidential elections that would expose two of the republic’s more prominent and qualified statesmen, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, to unleashed acrimony, thereby further driving the wedge between the nation’s two leading, formative parties, the Federalists of Hamilton and the Republicans of Jefferson and James Madison.
While Vice President Adams never quite held the same kind of universal esteem that Washington had enjoyed—and would yet still enjoy once sufficiently removed from the current political turmoil—he was nonetheless respected as an accomplished, experienced public servant of the first order and a leading intellectual. But earlier doubts about his suspected “monarchist” proclivities lingered, even though he had proven his republican credentials through the important leadership role that he played during the American Revolution. Although he despised the social upheaval that had occurred during the French Revolution, Adams was, like his counterpart Jefferson—and for that matter, Washington—a revolutionary in his own right. But owing to his faith in moderate government and executive power, further boosted by his affinities for the British traditions of governance and magnified by his sustained distrust in popular democracy, Adams was perceived as possessing serious autocratic tendencies. This sustained misperception both clouded the sophisticated nature of Adams’s republican principles and provided ammunition for his rivals in the Jeffersonian camp.
For his part, Adams was uncertain about the likelihood of succeeding Washington. As late as February 1796, Adams realized that the upcoming election would be a close match between him, Jefferson, and Jay, even considering the election of Jefferson as president and Jay as his vice president to be the probable result. The fact that Adams as vice president seemed to be the de facto successor was not by itself enough to assuage his doubts, particularly given the electoral trends that he had already observed in just the first two elections. In addition to his apparent uncertainties about his own electability, Adams attempted to follow Washington’s example—at least initially—by maintaining a safe distance from the question and stating his intentions to not participate in an open political contest for the presidency. Like Washington, Adams disliked partisan politics, and he let it be known that he would rather quit public service than engage in such indignities.
Meanwhile, other names were floated: Jefferson and Jay, the most prominent in spite of the political baggage that they both carried (i.e., charges of Jacobinism in the case of the former and the ill-received Jay’s Treaty in the case of the latter); James Madison and Patrick Henry of Virginia; and Hamilton himself, even though there were questions about his eligibility under the constitutional requirements for office (Hamilton having been born in the West Indies). Adams kept insisting that he would dutifully serve if selected by the Electoral College, but that he would not actively seek the office, preferring the office to come to him as it had to his noble predecessor. But as the prospects of his rivals increased, Adams’s personal ambitions along with his distaste for the possibility of a Jeffersonian presidency overtook him—even though he remained well disposed to Jefferson as a person—and he discreetly sought ways to preserve the appearance of Washingtonian disinterest while quietly but clearly communicating his availability.
No hats were thrown in the ring in this election, as Jefferson took the same approach in following Washington’s example and remaining publicly aloof to political office. In correspondence with Adams, he expressed his contempt for politics and reasserted his indifference to the presidency. This correspondence reveals Adams’s worries over Jefferson’s affection for the revolution in France, which appears to have been, more than any other difference between the two men, the anxiety that dominated Adams’s doubts about his friend’s potential candidacy. Even though Jefferson clearly stated that he did not seek the office, Adams, reading between the lines, was convinced that the Sage of Monticello was in the arena.
In spite of Adams’s effort to keep his distance from any campaign for the presidency, he nonetheless privately considered himself the presumptive heir. He patiently waited, understandably as the vice president, for some sign from Washington that such was indeed the case, but no hint of endorsement was given. Washington endorsed no one and remained completely removed from the discussion. Nonetheless, Adams took every opportunity to emphasize his association with Washington’s administration, and he freely praised Washington as a statesman. As Adams and Jefferson continued to cloak their ambitions, it was left to the press to promote their favorites. Bache put the Aurora to good use in Jefferson’s behalf, writing in glowing terms that Jefferson was the only reasonable choice to succeed Washington. “Democratic clubs” began to appear in several locations, working for the Jeffersonian cause. Adams was praised for his virtue and intellect, and he was lauded by his supporters as “the first planet from our political sun.” Unfortunately, less polite language was used in describing rivals. Jefferson’s Republican supporters continued to trot out unfair accusations of monarchism against Adams. It was evident that Adams’s republican credentials were sound, but the old scandalmongering would not abate. He was incessantly charged with being “an avowed friend of monarchy.” Jefferson suffered as well, for Adams’s Federalist supporters accused him of being an “atheist” with anarchistic tendencies. He was referred to as a demagogue and a coward, a “Franco-maniac” who led a following of ragged cutthroats, and quite willing to foment mobs for his own devious purposes. The level of hyperbole, as bad as it was, would be surpassed in subsequent elections, but it was enough to confirm at least in part some of Washington’s misgivings about partisanship and electioneering.
In spite of their attempts to appear indifferent, and given the relentless hostility of their critics, Jefferson and Adams were nonetheless clearly the two best choices for the presidency available at that time (i.e., in light of Washington’s unavailability for a third term). By contrast, the office of the vice presidency drew numerous candidates, but not all of them serious. Several names were offered: for the Federalists, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, John Jay of New York, James Iredell and Samuel Johnston of North Carolina, and the brothers Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina; from the Republicans, Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, George Henry of Maryland, and George Clinton and Aaron Burr of New York. Many Republicans turned to young Burr, who had made a brief appearance as a candidate for the vice presidency four years earlier and was in no sense averse to openly campaigning for office. Breaking form, Burr set out on the campaign trail, concentrating his efforts in New England, the incumbent vice president’s home turf, and may have been responsible for arranging the selection of a political ally, Sam Adams, to serve as a Republican elector in Massachusetts. Burr and other Jeffersonian loyalists spoke directly to the people, not just to the electors (as was the favored approach of the Federalists), setting a tone that would be sounded with increasing frequency in all future elections.
Federalists, employing the same North-South strategy that was partially behind the selection of the Washington-Adams duo in the previous two elections, primarily supported Thomas Pinckney, the younger of the Pinckneys of South Carolina. Pinckney, unlike Jay, had recently succeeded in negotiating a popular treaty with Spain, a fact that was keenly understood by the Federalists as providing them with a smart antidote to the general hostility toward Jay’s Treaty. Pinckney was an able candidate, and an appealing one to Hamilton, who was never fully behind an Adams presidency. Hamilton hatched a plot to steal the election for president from both Adams and Jefferson and deliver it to the younger Pinckney. Pinckney would unanimously carry South Carolina, and if Hamilton could convince New England Federalists to cast all their votes for both Adams and Thomas Pinckney while simultaneously managing to find enough electors outside of New England to support any candidates other than Adams and Jefferson, this would strengthen Pinckney’s position while leeching away votes and preventing Adams from acquiring the needed majority. This scheme was thwarted when electors in New England caught wind of it and, on their own initiative, summarily removed Pinckney’s name from their ballots. But as the election approached, anxieties over Pinckney’s possible election did not dissipate until well into December, when the strength of Adams’s position became clearer, and not only in comparison with Pinckney, but also against Jefferson. Hamilton’s gambit to displace Adams did not succeed, but it did appear to have cut into support for Jefferson, an outcome that he doubtless found to be equally desirable, if not more so. Once Adams was in position to win the election, Republicans suddenly muted their criticism, thus allowing the election to proceed to a more amicable conclusion. The election was still strikingly close, with Adams receiving seventy-one electoral votes to Jefferson’s sixty-eight. Predictably, Adams’s strongest support was drawn from New England, which fell in unanimously behind the vice president (this time Rhode Island joining in the chorus of support), joined by New York and New Jersey—both delivering unanimous blocks. Twenty of Jefferson’s sixty-eight votes came from his home state of Virginia, with solid support also drawn from Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. Thomas Pinckney managed a respectable fifty-nine, just twelve votes off the pace (and only nine out of second place), and drew twenty-one votes from New England in spite of the backlash against Hamilton’s stratagem (it is to be remembered that, before the Twelfth Amendment, which would be passed in 1803 and then ratified in 1804, electors voted for two candidates for president; thus New Englanders and other electors could vote for both Adams and Pinckney if they chose to do so). Interestingly, Pinckney and Adams both carried New York, even though the Empire State had three favorite sons in the race. Burr gathered a total of thirty electoral votes (twenty-nine votes better than his showing in 1792), thirteen of which came from Pennsylvania; but, perhaps tellingly, none from his New York home. The remaining votes were tallied as follows: George Clinton and John Jay, who joined Burr in failing to win even a single vote in their home state of New York, took seven and five, respectively; Samuel Adams (15, all from Virginia); Oliver Ellsworth (11); Iredell (3); Samuel Johnson (2); John Henry (2); and Charles Pinckney (1). Two electors, one from North Carolina and one from Virginia, voted for Washington. When Adams was declared victorious, the press and popular opinion fell in behind him, with Jefferson, who was to now serve as vice president, making a point of visiting Adams in a show of unity. Goodwill was reestablished, and fears of irreparable fractures were for a time allayed.
The election of 1796 was the first in which party politics came to the foreground, even though formal parties still remained to be developed and political organization on a large scale did not as yet exist. Historian Page Smith noted that the election of 1796 was arguably the most important in American history, as its outcome proved that the selection of a president from among rival candidates and the transition of power from one president to the next could be peacefully achieved under the new constitution. In the end, once the participants dampened their hysteria, the result was indeed an amicable one. And at least for a time, the political waters were calmed and the ship of state steadied. But it would soon become evident that a far more tumultuous storm would yet appear over the horizon, made manifest as the Campaign of 1800.
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