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Adams Vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (Pivotal Moments in American History)

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The election of 1800 is notable for many reasons. It was an electoral tie, it led to the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and it was an election in which both sides feared that the election of the other party could lead to the end of the United States. Of even more importance however was that this election signaled a basic realignment of the American electorate and a growing sense of tension between Northern Merchant interests and Southern agrarian interests. The election of 1800 also marked the first time that a member of the opposition party had ousted the sitting head of state without bloodshed and for all intents and purposes this election ended the political career of Alexander Hamilton. For these reasons this election is one of the most important events in American history and a book like this is long overdue.

When I first picked up this book I was afraid I was not going to like it at all. After having read some of the reviews of this book I decided that Mr. Ferling had written this work in a dry, pompous academic style and for some reason the dust jacket reinforced that idea. I am pleased to say however that I really enjoyed this book and found it to be well written and very well researched. The author has gone through numerous collections of personal correspondence, Congressional records, and apparently even court transcripts so that he might properly tell this story. Unfortunately some of the facts about this election will never be known due to closed door caucuses and purposely destroyed correspondence. Where the evidence survives however, Ferling has sniffed out the story and given us a lively account of this fascinating election.

I was glad to find that the author was very even handed in his approach to this topic. Since he had previously written a biography of John Adams I would not have been surprised to find that Mr. Ferling was unable to shed the all too common biographers bias toward their subject. Happily however, Mr. Adams' faults are discussed just as often as those of Jefferson and Burr are. Alexander Hamilton is the only major player in this story that comes across in an almost entirely negative light but even friendly Hamilton biographers agree that this was not Hamilton's finest hour.

It is certain that John Adams is slowly being rehabilitated by history and this book like most recent studies of this time period is fairly complimentary of the second President. On the other hand Jefferson's reputation has been on a downward spiral but thankfully Mr. Ferling does not add to Jefferson's current woes. This election may not have been the Virginian's finest hour either, but as the author points out the most questionable of Jefferson's actions may have been in the best interest of his country. Sometimes moderation is indeed a virtue and we all might do well to remember that lesson and apply it to today's problems.

Think the last two presidential elections have been nail biters? Then you should take a look at the presidential election of 1800. That election ended in an electoral college tie and took 36 votes by the House of Representatives to pick a President. Today's elections have nothing on what it took to decide the winner back then.

John Ferling gives readers a fresh and contemporaneous look at the election of 1800 and the events that led up to it in, Adams vs Jefferson, The Tumultuous Election of 1800. He shows how this election was really the final battle of the war for American Independence. The book covers the moves made by all the major players of the day including men like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

It was a titanic battle between the most powerful politicians of the era. It was a time when political parties were just beginning to form and there was more than just two candidates for the office. In fact, most politicians felt that the office of President should seek out the man instead of the man actively running for the office. I know - that's a radical thought today.

Adams was the sitting President and like so many modern Presidents he started his term in a flurry of success only to stumble down the stretch. Jefferson was `retired' from political life on his Virginia plantation, Monticello when his supporters began to push him to run. Because of a flaw in the Constitution the electoral college locked in a tie between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, with Adams eliminated from the race entirely.

Adams and Jefferson were both heroes of the American Revolution, but both men also had issues with their reputations. The parties exploited the flaws of the opposition in ways that make more modern elections seem tame and civilized. There was name calling, back room deals for votes, and outright voter fraud in many places. The two men had been the best of friends during the Revolution, but this race caused a bitterness that kept them from speaking to each other for nearly twenty years.

Adams vs Jefferson is worth reading to get a better understanding of how many problems our nation had in the early part of its history. It's an important story that never seems to be taught in our schools. This election led to the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it laid the groundwork for the Civil War, it was first time that a member of the opposition party had ousted the sitting President without bloodshed and it killed the political career of Alexander Hamilton; confidant to George Washington, the founder of the national bank and architect of our monetary system.

This book should be required reading for anyone that is registered to vote.

A not so often appreciated turning point in American history is the election of 1800. It signaled the end of the Federalist party, the rise of party politics, and the beginning of a new path for the nascent union. This short book gives voluminous details of this important campaign in a very readable and exciting narrative. And the campaign was not without its excitement. It unfolds as though it had been written for a novel or a movie script. Almost all of the people involved met surprising or engaging ends. Not only is this book good history, it's also a great story.

The book gives overviews of the political careers of all of the major players in the election of 1800. Not only Adams and Jefferson, but C.C. Pinckney, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton. By way of these summaries, the administrations of George Washington and John Adams also receive good summaries. This gives the reader a pretty good idea where the nation stood as 1800 approached. The crises of Adams' presidency, such as the war scare with France in the late 1790s, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Alexander Hamilton's control issues all loomed. John Ferling spoke about the book in Minnesota this past October. He said that while researching this book his assessment concerning Jefferson and Adams increased tremendously (he even alluded that he previously held a somewhat negative view of Jefferson), while his view of Alexander Hamilton decreased greatly. The book does depict Hamilton as a power-hungry, potentially menacing schemer that actually held the strings behind Adams' cabinet. Thus Hamilton is to blame for the provisional army and the Alien and Sedition Acts, not Adams. Ferling also says that part of the American legacy is indebted to Hamilton, but overall Hamilton fares badly in this text. John Adams fares rather well (which will surprise readers of Rosenfeld's "American Aurora" where Adams is pretty much equated with despotism, incompetence, and monarchy). Here Adams seems more like a very capable politician - apart from some obvious blunders - caught inbetween the different factions of his own Federalist party (the "Ultras" who follow Hamilton, and the more moderate). Another surprising fact is Adams' uniqueness amongst the other players of never having owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson's ups and downs also receive a fair showing: His slaves, his monetary excesses, his suffocating debt, his weakness as a public speaker, and his affair with his slave Sally Hemmings. The major players receive farily balanced portraits. None are totally romanticized or completely demonized.

Those who think that dirty politics and negative advertising are endemic to modern American elections will receive a shock. The election of 1800 was rife with schemes, defamations, backstabbing, rumors, and questionable polling practices. In many ways it resembled modern elections in its tireless hurling of mud and brickbats across party lines. Ferling discusses the role of the press in this process. Each side had its newspaper that fired accusations at its opposition. This greatly resembles the current publishing wars between the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Anne Coulter, Micheal Moore, and Al Franken. Dirty politics are in no way the exclusive capital of the modern age.

The election itself reached the pinnacle of nail-biting intensity. A tie in the electoral vote, a deal struck between the tied contenders gets broken, the election goes to the house who vote over thirty times, threats of civil war loom, and finally a sole member of the opposition rises to the occasion to keep the situation from spiraling completely out of control. How the exchange of power in 1801 occurred without bloodshed approaches the miraculous. The book outlines the amazing details.

Readers will leave this book with a deep appreciation of the importance of the election of 1800. America would never be the same again, and many of the major players meet interesting, almost jaw-dropping, ends. Highly recommended for readers wanting to know the pivotal events that shaped the early United States.

Although the title of this book suggests that it is about the Presidential Election of 1800, it is really about the relationship of Adams and Jefferson dating back to their blissful time together as US delegates in Paris during the War of Independence and tracing that relationship till the Election of 1800 when they went to war against each other.

If anything else, Ferling, a staunch "Republican" in the 1800 sense, helped me to understand the greatness of Jefferson, and to a lesser degree, Adams. Jefferson has come under attack recently due to his connection with Sally Hemings and tacit endorsement of slavery and opposition to Hamilton's economic reforms. I was wondering why he has been so revered, and now I have a better respect for him. I also have a better understanding of why the Federalist Party that Jefferson railed against was seen as a potential threat in its day and why it precipitously died out.

Ferling's writing and research are absolutely first rate, it's easy to read and very informative and insightful. I also enjoyed learning about the other characters such as "CC" Pinckney, Burr, and numerous other second level players who held sway in their day but haven't received much recognition.

The only negative, besides giving Hamilton the short shrift, is that Ferling spends too much time analyzing and counting and explaining ad nauseum and ad infinitum possible electoral voting records and outcomes, similar to what CNN does with a map of the US during a presidential election.

All in all, a first rate book. And even though I knew the outline of the story before I started reading the book, the facts and quotes, etc, were in large degree new to me and helped to deepen my understanding of these two men and the Election of 1800 and the first few decades of our new nation.

This is a good book about the election of 1800 (and the prior one of 1796), concentrating more than other treatments I've read on how the failure of Adams's administration was due to the Federalist split into pro-Hamilton and pro-Adams factions. It identifies three interesting factors in Adams's loss. First, the Hamiltonian faction was more ideologically and personally united than the Adams faction, which was essentially the leftovers rather than a movement. Second, there was a horrendous miscalculation in the election of the New York legislature (which chose the Presidential electors) in the spring -- the corresponding, phenomenally successful, Republican campaign was run by Aaron Burr, which effectively guaranteed him a slot on the ticket with hilarious consequences. Third, because both of the party's candidates, Adams and Pinckney, were in the running for President (rather than one for President and one for Vice-President) intra-party politics were much more likely to get out of hand during the course of the campaign.

The book's good fun, and sympathetic to everyone (particularly Adams, as is fashionable these days). Its treatment of the sideshow after the election, when Jefferson and Burr tied in electoral votes and the House went through 36 ballots before choosing Jefferson, is thorough and enjoyable, though it doesn't really resolve the two mysteries of why Burr provoked the struggle and why he then blinked. I enjoyed it but felt that it was written to sell rather than to answer questions that were burning inside the author's head -- his earlier A Leap In The Dark seemed much more driven by genuine passion.

I started this book in the heat of the Bush vs. Kerry campaign and, after a two-month hiatus (unrelated to the quality of the book), finished it this week after attending an Alexander Hamilton museum exhibit in New York City. The book was a great and very interesting read, and I was most surprised by the similarities between the campaign process of 1800 and that of today.

The book devotes much of its space to the political background and relationship between Adams and Jefferson, but also spends a great deal of time on the other major players -- most notably Hamilton, Madison, Burr, and Washington to a lesser extent. It makes very clear the dislike and distrust between most members of the Federalist and Republican parties, and conveys the contempt that some of the more extreme members had for one another in the early government. While the author does a good job of providing the good as well as the bad in most of the major subjects, the same cant be said for his treatment of Hamilton. Ferling paints Hamilton as a calculating, scheming villain, a monarchist, a puppet master at times, and much more. I'm sure Hamilton was indeed regarded as such by many at the time, but I found it ironic that a week before completing the book I had just spent three hours at an exhibit glorifying the life and contributions of this "American hero." Unlike with Jefferson and Adams, there are no positives in regards to Hamilton to counteract all the negatives Ferling wrote about.

Overall, I enjoyed the book despite the bias. Needless to say, fans of Hamilton most likely will not feel the same way, while Jefferson fans may agree with my sentiments.

A readable and detailed survey, not just of the immediate crisis of the tied Jefferson-Burr election, but of the development of American politics in its earliest stages -- a more relaxed world; President Adams spent months at home in Mass. But in that era too, politics was a game played with very sharp knives. Strongly partisan against Hamilton, Adams, and even Washington, Ferling can be said to "vote for Jefferson on every page." Solid history enlived by human detail, but somewhat marred by anachronistic jargon -- 18th century pamphleteers are "bloggers"?!

"Adams vs. Jefferson" provides the reader with a marvelous insight, not only into the tumultuous election of 1800, but into the extensive struggle between those, represented by John Adams, who saw favored rule by the upper classes and those, championed by Thomas Jefferson, who favored rule by the masses.

The origin of this struggle stretched back into rivalries leading up to the Constitutional Convention and continuing into the early days of the Washington Administration. Author John Ferling does an excellent job of introducing the characters, defining the issues and explaining their resolutions.

I do not view this book as having changed my view of this portion of our history, but rather clarifying and deepening it. As a few examples, he does a good job at defining the electoral process prevalent in 1796 and 1800, such as how the electors were chosen and how the candidates presented themselves to the voters who, in many cases, were state legislators and, ultimately, electors. I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the book focused on the political trends and personalities acting in the early Constitutional era and how little dealt with the actual shenanigans of the campaign. Some of the most interesting portions were those dealing with the ultimate decision in the House of Representatives.

After reading this book, I feel that my understanding of this era of history is better than it was before I read it. It also provides some background against which to contrast recent, disputed elections. I hope that "Adams vs. Jefferson" can be just as enlightening for you as it was for me.

While the focus is on the critical election (the first truly contested Presidential election that led, eventually, to a peaceful transfer of power in the nascent Republic) this book spends considerable time providing biographies of the principals -- Adams, Jefferson, Pinkney, Burr, Hamilton, and others -- involved in the contest. It gives extensive and understandable background to the conflict between the Federalists and the new Republicans -- a conflict whose rhetoric made the elections of 2000 and 2004 look like the calmest of civil debates (albeit the modern candidates couldn't hold a candle to those in 1800). Political dirty tricks, statehouse maneuverings, and a flawed electoral process defined in the Constitution ended up sending the election to the House of Representatives, where further furious deal-making and political chicanery barely led to our not ending up with a President Burr ...

Again, another fine, clear tale of the Revolutionary Era and the election that served as its "consummation," both proving that the Republic could endure and setting the grounds for the Jeffersonian Republican dynasty that so profoundly shaped American history.

This unabridged 10 CDs (vs. 260pp) book is well narrated by Jack Garrett, who brings a newscaster's flare to the conflicted tale he tells.

This book covers much the same ground as The Age of Federalism by Elkins and McKitrick, but much more rapidly. In that earlier book no effort was spared to lay out the details of diplomacy and policy as they related to Federalism and the nascent "Republicanism". Here much the same is accomplished by focusing more on the personalities involved -- Jefferson and Adams primarily, of course, but also Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and (to a lesser extent) Burr and Pinkney. Hamilton does not come off that well, as the story is told from the points of view of Adams and Jefferson, both of whom disliked him (for quite different reasons), and feared him to a certain extent. So he seems more of a petty schemer than he really was.

Still, scheming was the order of the day -- Jefferson pursued his designs relentlessly and disingenuously. (Adams was not up to committing chicanery. Though ambitious, he was a socially clumsy intolerant moralist with an ungovernable temper.) The election of 1796 was the first real presidential contest, since Washington was not running. It was a warmup for 1800: the party lines were drawn, but party discipline was lax, so it had the awkward outcome of the prominent Federalist Adams becoming President, and the prominent Republican Jefferson Vice-President.

By 1800 the rancor between the two parties was greater than ever, and the electors were disciplined to vote as they were told by the party organizations, with the interesting result that Jefferson and Burr tied. They were both Republicans, and the leadership, expecting a few defections in the electors' 2nd votes, had expected Jefferson to win. So the election went to the House, and many ballots.

There is much here about the ways the voting went, and how each state's electors behaved. It shows rather clearly the flaws in the system, once there are parties. There is much here, too, on the political machinations of the various factions, much of it entertaining. This was a pivotal election: Jefferson won, and the Republicans had their way for a quarter century, and the Federalists just faded away. But more than that, the whole cavalcade of characters, who were consciously and unconscously setting precedents that would endure to the present day, has its own fascination.

I enjoyed the writing, and I enjoyed the narrative devices. To begin with, Ferling gives us interesting biographical sketches of the main players, taking them up to about 1789. As we know that the climax comes with the election of 1800, we can enjoy all the details and incidents of the previous years as contributing to the final event, and taking significance from that. This is a story, in other words, not just a recitation of historical fact. Moreover, it is gracefully written for a lay audience, with notes tucked at the end of the book. It is written as part of the series Pivotal Moments in American History. As that name suggests, it is not discursive, but focused. It accomplishes its object of illuminating one of those important turning points in our history fully, with interest, but with economy, too.