THE “BLADENSBURG RACES," 1816 (Poem) AS HIS FRIEND SAW COLONEL SHAW. COL. CHARLES F. MORSE 212 OH, LET US DIE LIKE MEN (Poem) LIEUT. GEORGE W. PATTEN, U.S.A. 216 VOL. XIX THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WITH NOTES AND QUERIES OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 1914 Nos. 4-5 T THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1800 HE United States has a number of exciting Presidential elections -indeed every one is more or less exciting; but that at the beginning of the 19th century was really the first exciting election. It was the fourth Presidential election; but the two elections of Washington were mere formalities, and the election of Adams, although closely contested by Jefferson, lacked the intensity and excitement of the fourth. This proved to be the most complicated perhaps of all our thirty-two Presidential elections, for Jefferson had not only to defeat his Federalist rival, John Adams, but also to fight for the Presidential office with a member of his own party, Aaron Burr. In 1789 when Washington was inaugurated we had really only one political party. It is true that previous to this, before the adoption of the Constitution there had been two parties, the Federalists, in favor of the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists, opposed to it. But by 1789 most influential men were Federalists, and the Antis disappeared soon after the adoption of the national Constitution; so that there was really only one party, although of course there were political cliques, during 1789. And it was naturally so, because as yet the new Constitution. and the new Government were more or less experiments; but by 1792 when Constitution and Government alike had begun to prove their worth, a new party, the Republican, was coming into existence: a party which later elected Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson, and extinguished the Federalists as that party had extinguished the Antis. In the election of 1796 John Adams and the Federalists defeated Jefferson and the Republicans by an electoral vote of 71 to 68; but Jeflerson, having received the second highest vote, became VicePresident. In 1796 the Federalists, as such, elected their last President, although their successors, the Whigs, and the second or present Republican party, were successful respectively in 1840 and 1848, and have been almost continually so since the election of Lincoln. The downfall of the Federalist party really began with the election of Jefferson in 1800, although that party struggled stubbornly along until after the election of 1816. In 1800, however, the battle between Republicans and Federalists was rather close, being in doubt until some of the last of the electoral votes were announced. The Federalistic party had, however, done its work; its great monument, our national Constitution, remains to mark its former existence; and the spirit of opposition to a broader extension of the central government, as well as the strong belief in "state rights", was the political foundation of the Republican party which thus arose to defeat and extinguish the party of Adams and Pinckney. Previous to the state selections of Presidential electors, public opinion that the Republicans would be victorious was general; but at that time of stagecoach and post-horse the results of these states elections were not known for several weeks. Indeed it was not until the 8th of December, 1800, that the results of the election in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey were known in Philadelphia. These results gave Adams and Pinckney nineteen electoral votes, Jefferson and his associate thirteen. The electoral colleges had already assembled in the several states (December 4). Thus, the first results of the election were favorable to the Federalists, although it was alleged by the Republicans that they would have had another elector in Maryland had they not lost him because the Federalists, in a Republican district, set the woods on fire during election day, thus keeping the farmers too busy to go to the polls! A unique device not repeated since then, so far as we know. On the 9th of December the returns of the vote in Delaware and Connecticut were further favorable to the Federalists; but this gain was offset on the same day by the returns from New York. The next day the vote of Massachusetts was announced, and on the 11th that of Virginia. The results from these states, added to those from Pennsyvania, Maryland and New Jersey, made a total of fourty-seven for Adams and fourty-six for Jefferson. Naturally the Federalists were overjoyed; but on the 16th their joy was blighted, for South Carolina was declared to be Republican, putting Jefferson in the lead with sixtysix votes, Adams having sixty-five. Of course this was a very small margin; but since the other states to be heard from would in all prob |