Thevice presidency of Thomas Jefferson lasted from 1797 to 1801, and was the secondvice presidency in thehistory of theUnited States.Thomas Jefferson was the first opposition politician to be elected to the vice presidency, and was elected president himself in the1800 election, sometimes called the Revolution of 1800 for entrenching the norm of apeaceful transition of power between opposing parties in the United States.
In the1796 U.S. presidential election between the two, Jefferson came in second, which made him Adams' vice president under the electoral laws of the time. Four years later, in the1800 presidential election, Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency. Jefferson became the second vice president in a row to be elected president. Incumbent vice presidents would not be elected to the presidency again untilMartin van Buren in1836 andGeorge H. W. Bush in1988. President Jefferson would have a hostile relationship withhis vice presidentAaron Burr.
With incumbent presidentGeorge Washington having refused a third term in office, the 1796 election became the first U.S. presidential election in which political parties competed for the presidency. The Federalists coalesced behind Adams and the Democratic-Republicans supported Jefferson, but each party ran multiple candidates. Under the electoral rules in place prior to theTwelfth Amendment, the members of theElectoral College each cast two votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. The individual with the votes of a majority of electors became president, and the runner-up became vice president. If there was a tie for first place or no person won a majority, theHouse of Representatives would hold acontingent election. Also, if there were a tie for second place, the vice presidency, theSenate would hold a contingent election to break the tie.
The campaign was a bitter one, with Federalists attempting to identify the Democratic-Republicans with the violence of theFrench Revolution[1] and the Democratic-Republicans accusing the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. Republicans sought to associate Adams with the policies developed by fellow FederalistAlexander Hamilton during theWashington administration, which they declaimed were too much in favor ofGreat Britain and a centralized national government. In foreign policy, Republicans denounced the Federalists over theJay Treaty, which had established a temporary peace with Great Britain. Federalists attacked Jefferson's moral character, alleging he was an atheist and that he had been a coward during theAmerican Revolutionary War. Adams supporters also accused Jefferson of being too pro-France; the accusation was underscored when the French ambassador embarrassed the Republicans by publicly backing Jefferson and attacking the Federalists right before the election.[2] Despite the hostility between their respective camps, neither Adams nor Jefferson actively campaigned for the presidency.[3][2]
In thepresidential campaign of 1796, Jefferson lost the electoral college vote to FederalistJohn Adams 71–68. He did, however, receive the second-highest number of votes and, under the electoral laws at the time, was elected as vice president. Adams was elected president with 71 electoral votes, one more than was needed for a majority. He won by sweeping the electoral votes ofNew England and winning votes from several other swing states, especially the states of theMid-Atlantic region. Jefferson received 68 electoral votes and was elected vice president. Former governorThomas Pinckney of South Carolina, a Federalist, finished with 59 electoral votes, while SenatorAaron Burr, a Democratic-Republican from New York, won 30 electoral votes. The remaining 48 electoral votes were dispersed among nine other candidates. Several electors cast one vote for a Federalist candidate and one for a Democratic-Republican. The election marked the formation of theFirst Party System, and established a rivalry between Federalist New England and the Democratic-Republican South, with the middle states holding the balance of power (New York and Maryland were the crucial swing states, and between them only voted for a loser once between 1789 and 1820).[4]
As presiding officer of theUnited States Senate, Jefferson assumed a more passive role than his predecessor, John Adams. He allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an "honorable and easy" role.[5] Jefferson previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him qualified to serve as presiding officer. In 1800, he published his assembled notes on Senate procedure asA Manual of Parliamentary Practice.[6] He cast only threetie-breaking votes in the Senate.
In four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Létombe in the spring of 1797, Jefferson attacked Adams, predicting that his rival would only serve one term. He also encouraged France to invade England, and advised Létombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris.[7] This toughened the tone that the French government adopted toward theAdams administration. After Adams's initial peace envoys were rebuffed, Jefferson and his supporters lobbied for the release of papers related to the incident, called theXYZ Affair after the letters used to disguise the identities of the French officials involved.[8] But the tactic backfired when it was revealed that French officials had demanded bribes, rallying public support against France. The U.S. began an undeclared naval war with France known as theQuasi-War.[9]
During the Adams presidency, the Federalists rebuilt the military, levied new taxes, and enacted theAlien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson believed these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional.[10] To rally opposition, he and James Madison anonymously wrote theKentucky and Virginia Resolutions, asserting that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states.[11] The resolutions followed the "interposition" approach of Madison, that states may shield their citizens from federal laws that they deem unconstitutional. Jefferson advocatednullification, allowing states to entirely invalidate federal laws.[12][a] He warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold", the Alien and Sedition Acts would "drive these states into revolution and blood".[14]
BiographerRon Chernow contends that "the theoretical damage of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions was deep and lasting, and was a recipe for disunion", and contributed to the outbreak of theAmerican Civil War and later events.[15] Washington was so appalled by the resolutions that he toldPatrick Henry that, if "systematically and pertinaciously pursued", the resolutions would "dissolve the union or produce coercion."[16] Jefferson had always admired Washington's leadership skills but felt that his Federalist party was leading the country in the wrong direction. He decided not to attend Washington's funeral in 1799 because of acute differences with him while serving as secretary of state.[17]
Jefferson, aDemocratic-Republican, often used his tie-breaking power in favor of his party’s positions. Notable instances include votes on legislation related to fiscal policy,military appropriations, andappointments. His role highlighted the growing partisanship in the earlyfederal government and set precedents for future vice presidents in theSenate.
Jefferson ran for president againstJohn Adams again in1800. Adams' campaign was weakened by unpopular taxes and vicious Federalist infighting over his actions in the Quasi-War.[18] Democratic-Republicans pointed to the Alien and Sedition Acts and accused the Federalists of being secret pro-Britain monarchists. Federalists, in turn, charged that Jefferson was a godless libertine beholden to the French.[19]UCLA history professorJoyce Appleby described the 1800 presidential election as "one of the most acrimonious in the annals of American history".[20]
The Democratic-Republicans ultimately won more electoral college votes, due in part to the electors that resulted from the addition of three-fifths of the South's slaves to the population calculation under theThree-Fifths Compromise.[21] Jefferson and his vice presidential candidateAaron Burr unexpectedly received an equal total. Because of the tie, the election was decided by the Federalist-dominatedU.S. House of Representatives.[22][b] Hamilton lobbied Federalist representatives on Jefferson's behalf, believing him a lesser political evil than Burr. On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, the House elected Jefferson president and Burr vice president.[23]
The win led to Democratic-Republican celebrations throughout the country.[24] Some of Jefferson's opponents argued that he owed his victory to the South's inflated number of electors.[25] Others alleged that Jefferson securedJames Asheton Bayard's tie-breaking electoral vote by promising to retain various Federalist posts in the government.[23] Jefferson disputed the allegation, and the historical record is inconclusive.[26]
The transition proceeded smoothly, marking a watershed in American history. HistorianGordon S. Wood writes that, "it was one of the first popular elections in modern history that resulted in thepeaceful transfer of power from one 'party' to another."[23]
Following the 1801 electoral deadlock, Jefferson's relationship with his vice president,Aaron Burr, rapidly eroded. Jefferson suspected Burr of seeking the presidency for himself, while Burr was angered by Jefferson's refusal to appoint some of his supporters to federal office. Burr was dropped from the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1804 in favor of charismaticGeorge Clinton.
The same year, Burr was soundly defeated in his bid to be electedNew York governor. During the campaign,Alexander Hamilton made publicly callous remarks regarding Burr's moral character.[27]Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, held on July 11, 1804. In the duel, Burr mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the following day. Burr was subsequently indicted for Hamilton's murder, causing him to flee toGeorgia, even though he remained president of theU.S. Senate during Supreme Court JusticeSamuel Chase'simpeachment trial.[28] Both indictments quietly died and Burr was not prosecuted.[29]
Jefferson attempted to try former vice president Burr withtreason over theBurr conspiracy, but Burr was acquitted in multiple trials.
Jefferson is seen as an icon of individual liberty, democracy, andrepublicanism, hailed as the author of the Declaration of Independence, an architect of the American Revolution, and arenaissance man who promoted science and scholarship.[30] The participatory democracy and expanded suffrage he championed defined his era and became a standard for later generations.[31] Meacham opined that Jefferson was the most influential figure of the democratic republic in its first half-century, succeeded by presidential adherentsJames Madison,James Monroe,Andrew Jackson, andMartin Van Buren.[32] ASiena Research Institute poll of presidential scholars, which began in 1982, has consistently ranked Jefferson as one of the five best U.S. presidents,[33] and a 2015Brookings Institution poll ofAmerican Political Science Association members ranked him as the fifth-greatest president.[34]
TheJefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., in 1943, on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The interior of the memorial includes a 19-foot (6 m) statue of Jefferson byRudulph Evans and engravings of passages from Jefferson's writings. Most prominent among these passages are the words inscribed around the Jefferson Memorial: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man", a quote from Jefferson's September 23, 1800, letter toBenjamin Rush.[36]
In October 2021, in response to lobbying, the New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously to remove the plaster model ofthe statue of Jefferson that currently stands in theUnited States Capitol rotunda from the chamber of theNew York City Council, where it had been for more than a century, due to him fathering children with people he enslaved.[37] The statue was taken down the next month.[38]
^Jefferson's Kentucky draft said: "where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits."[13]
Gish, Dustin, and Daniel Klinghard.Thomas Jefferson and the Science of Republican Government: A Political Biography of Notes on the State of Virginia (Cambridge University Press, 2017)excerpt.
Scythes, James (2014). Tucker, Spencer C. (ed.).The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783–1812 A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO.ISBN978-1598841565.
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