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.