Download 1796 Election

The election of 1796. When the Republicans attacked the treaty (Pinckney’s Treaty, 1795) in the
House of Representatives, they had an eye on the presidential election that was to take place later in the
year. In the elections of 1788 and 1792 there had been no serious contest for the Presidency. In 1796 it
was probable, though not certain, that Washington would retire. If he did, the Republicans would have a
chance to challenge Hamilton at the polls. But the Republican hope of unseating the Federalists received
a strong setback when Madison’s attack on the treaty foundered against Washington’s popularity.
As the election approached, Washington gave the Federalists another advantage by delaying his decision to withdraw. The Republicans were wary of advancing any candidate of their own unless the still insuperable national hero was out of the race. It was understood that if Washington chose not to run,
Adams would be the Federalist candidate; for Hamilton, though influential among politicians, did not
have a wide enough popular following to assure election. For the same reason the Republicans had settled on Jefferson rather than Madison. In September Washington finally announced his retirement and
delivered a farewell address written by Hamilton. The address contained a strong warning against partiality for foreign countries on the one hand (i.e., for France) and against political parties on the other (i.e.,
the Republicans). Washington still refused to think of the Federalists as a party.
Having secured Washington’s support for a Federalist successor, Hamilton set about substituting a
more pliable candidate for the prickly, independent Adams. Because of Adams popular following,
Hamilton could not renounce him publicly, but he hoped to achieve his purpose by manipulating the
election vote.
The maneuver was made possible by the peculiar constitutional provisions for electing the President.
Each state could select its members for the Electoral College in any manner it saw fit. Six did it by
popular vote, nine by vote of the state legislature, and one, Massachusetts by a combination of the two.
Most candidates for the college announced beforehand for whom they would vote; but this practice was
not universal, and the college as an institution retained some small measure of choice. Each elector cast
two ballots, without specifying which man he preferred for President; the candidate who received the
largest vote became President, and the candidate with the second–largest vote became Vice–President.
Since this was a system designed for a partyless government, complications arose when political parties
appeared. If all the electors who favored the strongest party voted for both its candidates, a tie vote would
result. In order to elect the party’s preferred presidential candidate some electors had to divert their
second vote from the party’s vice–presidential candidate to some other candidate. This could be dangerous: if too many votes were diverted from the party’s vice–presidential candidate might be left with
fewer than the presidential candidate of the opposing party, who would then become Vice–President instead. There was also the possibility that if both parties wanted the same man for Vice–President, he
might receive more votes than either presidential candidate and thus become President.
It was this latter possibility that led Hamilton to arrange for Adams’ running mate on the Federalist
ticket to be Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina. Pinckney, who had just returned in triumph from his
Spanish mission, enjoyed great popularity in the South, where the Republicans were strongest. Southerners would certainly give most of their votes for Jefferson, but they might be persuaded to designate
Pinckney as their second choice. If a substantial number of electors did so, the combined Federalist –
Republican vote might be large enough to put Pinckney into the Presidency.
But Hamilton was not the only one who knew the deficiencies of the electoral system. When the votes
of the Electoral College were cast, it appeared that his advocacy of Pinckney had failed. Adams’ friends
in Connecticut and New Hampshire, refusing to endanger his success, had all scattered their second votes,
and the Southern Republicans had actually given Pinckney nothing. Even so, he had fifty–nine votes; but
Adams with seventy–one became President and Jefferson with sixty–eight became Vice–President.
Jefferson’s running mate, Aaron Burr of New York, only thirty.
Had the Federalist electors of Connecticut and New Hampshire given Pinckney their second votes,
Hamilton’s strategy could have succeeded. Pinckney would have tied Adams’ vote, and tied presidential
elections, according to the Constitution, were to be decided in the House of Representatives. There, with
Jefferson out of the contest, Southern Republicans might have joined with Hamilton’s forces to make
Pinckney President. For Adams it was a bitter thing to have come so close to losing and to know that
Hamilton was to blame.
The Alien and Sedition laws.
The Alien Acts, three in number, were passed in June and July 1798. One, the Alien Enemies Act, was
a nonpartisan measure that simply provided for the restraint of enemy aliens in time of war. Since war
was never declared against France, the act did not operate during Adams’ Presidency. The other two
were partisan measures aimed against immigrants, who were widely suspected of being Republican on
politics. The Naturalization Act required that an alien seeking citizenship must have resided for fourteen
years in the United States, five of them in the state where naturalization was sought. The Alien Friends
Act, which was to run for two years only, gave the President power to deport any alien whom he considered dangerous to the welfare of the country.
The Sedition Act. Which was passed in July 1798, was one of the most repressive measures ever
directed against political activity in the United States. It provided fines and imprisonment for persons
unlawful combining or conspiring “with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of
the United States,” or counseling or advising such opposition, or writing, printing, uttering, or publishing
“any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or
the President of the United States, with the intent to defame…or to bring them or either of them, into contempt or disrepute.” The blatant political purpose of the act was admitted in the date it was to expire:
March 3, 1801, when the next President would be inaugurated. The act would last long enough to gag
Republican criticism of the Administration until the next election brought in a Republican
administration….
The Republicans were alarmed—and rightly so. The Alien and Sedition Acts demonstrated that the
Federalists were prepared to abandon the principles of the Enlightenment, of the Revolution, and the
Constitution. When Madison sponsored the first amendments to the Constitution, he had recognized that
they might one day have to be defended against an ambitious executive or legislature. He had suggested
that the federal courts might protect them, but thus far the courts had shown a disposition to restrain the
states more than the national government.