Chapter 6 Section 2 The Election of 1800

Chapter 6 Section 2 The Election of 1800 With the election of 1800, Americans peacefully accomplished the nation's first transfer of power from one party to another. -As President, Adams faced the threat of war from abroad. -Adams faced growing party difference. During Adams' presidency, the U. S. drifted to war with France. They were upset over Jay's Treaty with Britain. They began seizing ships (300), just like Britain. XYZ Affair Adams sends American officials to negotiate with the French. They are met by secret French officials (known as X, Y, and Z) They demand a bribe of $250, 000 and a loan of $10 million to the French. This was common in Europe, but the Americans were outraged and insulted.

Adams made the insult and bribe public. Tensions built between both sides. An undeclared navy war would begin. French agents XYZ, Jean Conrad Hottinguer, Pierre Bellamy, and Lucien Hauteval.

The Alien and Sedition Acts -Federalists took advantage of the war. They increased the army, higher taxes were imposed and they passed four Alien and Sedition Acts. Expand the federal government. -The President could arrest and deport citizens of other countries living in the U. S. -Naturalization Act- increased time from 5 to 14 years an applicant had to wait to become a citizen. -Sedition Act- people who wrote or said anything false, and malicious against the government could be fined and jailed. This was created to silence the new republican party. (Ten republicans were jailed and others were put on trial. ) The Acts: 1) lengthened the waiting period to become a U. S. citizen for those not born in the country, 2) allowed the central government to restrain and track the daily activities of foreigners, 3) gave the government the power to expel any alien without a hearing whom it considered dangerous, and 4) made it a crime (libel) to defame the president, his party, or the central government.

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions -Jefferson, James Madison and Republicans believed that the Sedition Act violated the 1 st Amendment of freedom of speech. -They pushed for the creation of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. These resolutions argue that the states have the right to make federal laws “null and void” within the state. -Adams was taunted by crowds and was forced to enter the presidential residence through the back door. -Jeffersonian Republicans grew and an election was soon approaching. The Election of 1800.

Gabriel Prosser's Rebellion -Summer of 1800 Prosser and several other slaves planned a rebellion around Richmond, Virginia. -Prosser encouraged his followers to adopt the ideas about liberty that sparked the American Revolution. -The rebellion failed before it even started. Someone betrayed him and rain washed away bridges. -30 were executed. One defendant said, “I have adventured my life endeavoring [trying] to obtain the liberty of my countrymen, and am a willing sacrifice to their cause. ”

Election of 1800 Spirit of 1776 Liberty Spirit of 1787 Order vs. Jefferson Adams

Election of 1800 -Adams angers his own party, the Federalists, by telling them that the war with France needed to end. Adams was following Washington's advice of neutrality , but his party wanted a declaration of war. -Adams does negotiate peace, and tensions are lowered between the U. S. and France, but strangely this hurts him in the election of 1800. -Now that the undeclared war is over, the Alien and Sedition Acts were meaningless. -Hamilton and other Federalists rally Federalists to vote for Charles Pickney, instead of Adams. -Hamilton said that Adams was “unfit” and “does not possess the talents” to be president. -In Adams' defeat he is unfairly judged a President

The Campaign -No speeches were given by the candidates. But they were very negative campaigns. A truly nasty campaign. -Jefferson appealed to the common man and he said Adams was a monarchist, which at the time was an insult. -Federalists said that Jefferson would lead the U. S. into chaos. That he was linked to the French Revolution. They said he would lead the U. S. to become weak and disorganized.

A huge problem arises. Not between Jefferson and Adams, but between Jefferson and Aaron Burr was Jefferson's Vice President candidate. They both receive 73 votes. What to do? ?

Each Republican elector had cast one ballot for Jefferson and one for Burr, the two men received exactly the same number of electoral votes. Under the Constitution, the election was now thrown into the Federalistcontrolled House of Representatives. Instead of emphatically declaring that he would not accept the presidency, Burr declined to say anything. So the Federalists faced a choice. They could help elect the hated Jefferson - "a brandy-soaked defamer of churches" - or they could throw their support to the opportunistic Burr. Hamilton disliked Jefferson, but he believed he was a far more honorable man than Burr, whose "public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement. " As the stalemate persisted, Virginia and Pennsylvania mobilized their state militias. Recognizing, as Jefferson put it, "the certainty that a legislative usurpation would be resisted by arms, " the Federalists backed down. After six days of balloting and 36 ballots, the House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson the third president of the United States. And as a result of the election, Congress adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, which gives each elector in the Electoral College one vote for president and one for vice president.

Peaceful Transfer of Power -March 4, 1801 Jefferson takes the oath of office in Washington, which is a swamp with muddy, rutted roads and half-completed structures; just like most of the Federalists' goals (half-completed) -The Federalists stepped down and let the Jeffersonian Republicans take over. Americans now proved that they could transfer power from one party to another—and do it peacefully. -In Jefferson's inaugural address he stated, “We are all republicans—we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. ”