Chapter 21: Thomas Jefferson First Term

February 17, 1801

The Election Of 1800 Decided In The House Of Representatives

State voting in the election of 1800 –extending from October 31 to December 3, 1800 – finds Adams and the Federalist Party in a state of disarray.

The President has sacked disloyal Cabinet members in May; his peace commissioners to France won’t conclude a treaty until November 30, after most votes are cast; and Hamilton, the de facto head of the Party, comes out in favor of Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina over Adams.

Hamilton’s opposition to Adams is long-standing and intense. In October 1800 he attacks the President in a 54 page pamphlet, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams. In this diatribe, Hamilton says that his choice is Pinckney:

Resulted from the disgusting egotism, the distempered jealousy, and the ungovernable indiscretion of Mr. Adams’ temper, joined to some doubts of the correctness of his  maxims of administration.

The Democratic-Republicans are delighted by the split within the Federalists and add their own attacks against Adams, especially around the Sedition Act — which they cast as another attempt by the federal government to override individual freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Their “intended” ticket calls for Thomas Jefferson to become President, with Aaron Burr as his Vice President.  

When the electors gather to vote on February 11, 1801, John Adams is able to make a race of it, despite all of his vulnerabilities. In a contest requiring at least 70 of the 138 ballots to win, he is chosen by 65 electors, only 6 less than his 1796 total.  

But what follows next shocks the entire election system set up in the 1787 Constitution. Two men – Jefferson and Burr – end up in a dead tie for the top spot, with 73 votes apiece.

Results Of The 1800 Presidential Election 

This outcome throws the election into the House of Representatives, where each of the sixteen states is asked to caucus and cast one vote for either Jefferson or Burr. The winner must achieve an absolute majority of at least nine votes. 

Ironically, the existing House, elected in 1798, is dominated by Federalists who enjoy a 60-46 margin. It is clear to them that the “intent” of the Democratic-Republicans is to choose Jefferson, but many actually favor Burr, who is a New Yorker, rather than another Virginian.  

For eleven days in a row, across 35 ballots, the House voting is frozen, with 8 states favoring Jefferson, 6 for Burr and 2 deadlocked. Neither man is able to achieve the nine vote majority required by law. 

House Voting For President: Ballots 1-35

On February 17, 1801, just two weeks before the new President is to assume his office, none other than Alexander Hamilton steps in to push for resolution. His very public feuds with both men are legendary at this point. He has clashed with Jefferson repeatedly during his tenure as Treasury Secretary, and he holds Burr, along with James Monroe, accountable for publicizing his extra-marital affair with Maria Reynolds.  

But after weighing the two in the balance, he chooses Jefferson as the lesser of two evils.

Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be  desirous of something like an orderly government. Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself,  thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement. In the choice of evils, let them take the  least. Jefferson is in my view less dangerous than Burr. 

Though out of office, Hamilton has retained enough power to derail Adam’s re-election bid, and now he does the same against Burr. On the 36^th and final ballot, his behind the scene’s voice helps move Maryland and Vermont into Jefferson’s column, while also removing South Carolina and Delaware from the Burr side.  

House Voting For President: Ballot 36

Jefferson ends up with ten votes and is named President. The Congress ends up convinced that the “election process” must change, to avoid future chaos. This leads to passage of the 12^th Amendments, ratified on June 15, 1804. It ends the practice of having “electors” vote for their “two top choices” for President, and forces them to cast one ballot for President and a separate one for Vice-President.  

“Ties,” of course, will still be resolved by voting in the House of Representatives, as will be seen again as early as the controversial election of 1824. 

1800

The Democratic-Republicans Gain Control Over Both Houses Of Congress

In addition to Adams’ loss, the Federalists suffer a devastating reversal of fortune in the 1800 races for Congress.  

This is particularly true in the “people’s” House, where the upward momentum they exhibited in the prior two elections comes to a screeching halt. What was a commanding 60-46 majority going into the vote, becomes a 38-68 deficit coming out.  

Congressional Election Trends

Furthermore the 22 seats lost by the Federalists are spread across all regions of the country, including their historically strong home base in the North. 

House Trends By Region

This same pattern is repeated in the Senate, where the Federalist’s comfortable 22-10 majority swings over to a 15-17 minority position – again with the losses evident in all regions. 

Senate Trends By Region

History will show that the Federalist Party will never fully recover from the repudiation it suffers in 1800. 

The nation now seems intent on tinkering with the form of government it wants – ready to move away from Hamilton’s tight federal control in the hands of a few powerful men and toward Jefferson’s more de-centralized and broadly shared option.

1743-1826

President Thomas Jefferson: Personal Profile

Thomas Jefferson’s life is noted for remarkable personal and public achievements, offset at times by intense self-indulgences and a wavering moral compass.

His father, Peter, starts from modest means, enters public service as a county surveyor and sheriff in Virginia, and along the way befriends William Randolph II and Isham Randolph, two sons of the aristocratic planter Willian senior planter. In 1736 Peter buys 200 acres of land at Shadwell from William II, and in 1739 he marries Isham’s oldest daughter, Jane.

Thomas Jefferson is born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, the oldest son in a family of ten children. He will benefit from the practical know-how of his father and the elite intellectual lifestyles and worldly connections of the Randolphs. The bond between Peter Jefferson and the two Randolph sons is such that both entrust him with guardianship over their younger children when they pass. In turn, Peter’s wealth grows dramatically, and by 1757 he has extensive land and slave holdings at two estates, Shadwell and Snowden, both in Virginia.  

But Peter Jefferson dies suddenly in 1757, with Thomas, age 14, inheriting his Shadwell Plantation (which includes Monticello), and his younger brother, Randolph, the land at Snowden.  

Two years later, Jefferson enrolls at William & Mary College, where he graduates with high honors in two years, learning six languages and studying philosophy and science. He then masters the law under the renowned George Wythe, and goes on to pass the bar in 1767. As a lawyer, he will handle over 900 cases, mostly involving disputes over land claims.  

In 1768 he begins a lifelong preoccupation with building his own land at Monticello. The effort will tap into many of his polymorphic capacities. On one day he is an architectural designer; the next an agronomist; then an inventor; a gourmet; an aesthete; a librarian; a manufacturer; a financier; and finally, a very astute capitalist. Over time, Jefferson will raise tobacco here, then switch to wheat, corn, and clover. He will build a 1200 foot canal and a grain mill for his own  use and as a sideline business. He will set up a nail-making operation operated by slave children too small to work in the fields. 

Other slaves will also play a crucial role in the development of Monticello and in Jefferson’s accumulation of wealth. He begins in 1757 with 52 slaves inherited from his father. In 1769 he marries a widow, Martha Wayles Skelton, whose father, John, dies the following year, leaving her another 135 Africans. Included here are Betty Hemmings and her ten mixed-race children, all fathered by John Wales. Over the years at Monticello, Jefferson will own roughly 650 different slaves, and will keep detailed notes and “observations” on their “characteristics and capacities” in his Notes On The State of Virginia.

Jefferson’s lifestyle is lavish, and he is forever in financial difficulties – including a staggering $107,000 debt left upon his death. When in need of short-term cash, he turns to selling off his “slave property” – and some 110 such transactions are recorded in contemporary documents.  

With his operations at Monticello moving along, Jefferson steps into the political arena in 1769,  representing Albamarle County from then until 1775, when he joins the Virginia House of Burgesses. In 1770 he is appointed Colonel in command of his local militia. 

Jefferson joins the rebellion against the crown in 1774 after the British impose the Coercive Acts on the colonies in response to the Boston Tea Party. In 1776 he is chosen as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, where he becomes a friend of John Adams of Massachusetts. Adams uses his influence to get Jefferson to join him on the Committee of Five that writes The Declaration of Independence. His role here in expressing America’s values and vision secures his place as a future political leader.  

Jefferson is not involved in actual fighting during the Revolutionary War, but does continue to oversee activities of the militia, first at the local level and then the state level, after he is elected Governor of Virginia in 1779. 

On September 6, 1782, personal tragedy strikes with the death of his thirty-three year old wife, Martha, soon after delivering the couple’s sixth child. Jefferson is shattered by the loss, suffering from depression and “many a violent burst of grief.” Months will pass before he records his “emerg(ence) from that stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as was she whose loss occasioned it.” 

Jefferson returns to public service as a Virginia Delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1783- 84 before heading off on a four year assignment as United States Minister to France. This experience will mark him forever as an unwavering Francophile.  

A 14 year old enslaved girl owned by Jefferson named Sally Hemings will join him in Paris in 1787. Sally is one of Betty Hemings’ and John Wayles’ ten mixed-race children. John Wayles was also the father of Jefferson’s now dead wife, Martha. Thus Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemmings are actually half-sisters by blood. 

From this time in Paris until the end of his life, Sally will be Jefferson’s mistress, bearing six children and overseeing his domestic life at Monticello. She will be one of the only five slaves he frees in his will.  

This interracial affair will be revealed in 1802 by James Thomas Callender, the same tabloid publisher who Jefferson had supported in his attacks on Adams during the 1800 presidential  campaign. The Irish poet Thomas Moore follows with a witty thrust at the hypocrisy inherent in the liaison.

The weary statesman for repose hath fled 

From halls of council to his negro’s shed, 

Where blest he woos some black Aspasia’s grace, 

And dreams of freedom in his slave’s embrace!

Like John Adams, Jefferson is still in Europe throughout the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where his powerful voice is missed on many occasions by his Anti-Federalist cohorts. But he generally approves the outcome, with two exceptions – a wish to add a Bill of Rights and to limit  the President to one term in office.  

Upon returning home, Jefferson prepares to become President. He serves from 1790-93 as Washington’s Secretary of State, then spends the next seven years organizing the Democratic Republican Party and, by a quirk of electoral college fate, serving as John Adams’ Vice  President.  

On March 3, 1801, his time comes to lead the nation he helped to shape twenty-five years ago. 

Despite his eight years in office, the epitaph he subsequently writes for his tombstone will ignore his presidency in favor of other “testimonials I have lived, (which) I wish most to be remembered:”

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson 

Author of the Declaration of American Independence 

of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom 

& Father of the University of Virginia

The Remarkable Lifetime Accomplishments Of Thomas Jefferson

1801-1805

Overview Of Jefferson’s First Term

Thomas Jefferson is the first President inaugurated in the new capital city of Washington, D.C. – still a primitive setting as described by John Adams’ wife, Abigail: 

The President’s House is in a beautiful situation…but the country around is…a wilderness at present. George Town is the very dirtiest hole I ever saw for a place of any trade, or respectability of inhabitants. It is only one mile from me but a quagmire after every rain. 

Standing in front of the Senate wing of the capitol, Jefferson is sworn in by his cousin and frequent opponent, Chief Justice John Marshal. His inaugural address is brief, reflecting his penchant for concise insights delivered in the written word. After a bruising election, he opens with a conciliatory tone.  

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.

He then proceeds to articulate, with great precision, his core beliefs about good government. 

Jefferson assembles a strong cabinet, led by his close confident, James Madison, as Secretary of State. 

The Treasury will be run for the next thirteen years by Albert Gallatin, whose wide-ranging accomplishments mirror Jefferson in many ways. Gallatin is born and schooled in Switzerland, an intellectual who is drawn to the Enlightenment philosophers, before coming to Boston in 1780. He teaches French at Harvard, buys land in Pennsylvania, tries his hand at farming and glassworks manufacturing, enters politics and serves in the Senate and House from 1793-1801. Along the way he becomes recognized for his mastery of public finance and the budget, which leads to his selection by the President. Gallatin is a Democratic-Republican who focuses intently on eliminating the national debt. But he also supports Hamilton’s Bank of the United States and selects internal improvement projects aimed at strengthening economic growth.  

With the possibility of international conflict still looming, Jefferson picks General Henry Dearborn as Secretary of War. Dearborn is a physician and a veteran of Revolutionary War battles fought from Quebec to Yorktown.

Thomas Jefferson’s Cabinet In 1801

The President enters office intending to shift the philosophy and focus of the national government.

The Federalist Adams has concentrated on unifying the original Atlantic coast states behind a strong central authority. Jefferson’s sights are set on expanding west – the Mississippi River – and contracting federal power in favor of restored sovereignty for state and local legislatures.  

His early domestic moves are modest. He allows the Sedition Act to sunset on his first day in office, and pardons all eleven men who have been convicted since its inception. He does away with the unpopular Whiskey Tax, and attempts to cover the loss of revenue by downsizing the  

Navy program begun by Adams. He pushes through another Judiciary bill, undoing Adams’ attempt to limit his impact on the Supreme Court. 

During the term he also sets the wheels in motion to support statehood for Ohio and other Territories in the Northwest, and convinces Georgia to cede its claims in the Southwest over to the public domain. He also sponsors a series of expeditions to explore the “unknown land” beyond the Mississippi River. 

But as with all Presidents, his actions are suddenly dictated by unpredictable events – in Jefferson’s case, like Adams, these are threats of warfare.  

This begins on an insignificant scale in May 1801, when Jefferson refuses to pay the Kingdom of Tripoli a bribe of $225,000 to forestall its asserted “right and duty as faithful Muslims to plunder and enslave non-believers.” The Kingdom responds by declaring war on the U.S., followed by four years of repeated piracy and sea battles in the Mediterranean Sea. It ends in 1805, when the President sends naval vessels along with a small contingent of marines backed by local mercenaries to the region. They cross the desert from Egypt and win a decisive victory at the port  city of Dema, forcing the Kingdom to sign a peace treaty. Henceforth, victory on the “shores of  Triopli” will become part of the marine’s heritage. 

The so-called Barbary War in north Africa is, however, only a minor event relative to threats from both France and Britain that will occupy Jefferson across his entire time in office. 

Along with the rest of the world, the new commander-in-chief has his eyes fixed on the predatory figure of Napoleon Bonaparte. Only two years will pass between Adams’ treaty ending the “Quasi War” with France and Napoleon’s incursion into the Caribbean to suppress a slave rebellion and take back control over the sugar plantations on Saint Domingue (Haiti). When Jefferson also learns that Spain has ceded its Louisiana lands along the Mississippi to France, he fears that Napoleon will turn on America next.  

Instead of waiting, he acts, and is rewarded with the pivotal achievement of his administration, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In one fell swoop, it doubles the nation’s land mass and promises to fulfill the economic vision of his inaugural speech – a nation of independent yeoman farmers with…  

Room enough for our descendants to the thousandth generation

Assuming, of course, that renewed belligerence from Britain — growing during his first term – can be kept under control.

Jefferson’s First Term: Key Events