Election of 1800

History As It Happens

This is the sixth episode in an occasional series examining influential elections in U.S. history. The most recent episode, Election of 2000, was published on July 11.

If you believe American society has never been as politically polarized as it is now, you may not be familiar with the late 1790s. Federalists and Republicans viciously attacked each other, trading accusations of frittering away the Constitution and imperiling the legacy of the American Revolution. The incumbent president John Adams was beset by a crisis with France verging on war. His vice president, Thomas Jefferson, was the leader of the political opposition. In this episode, historian Alan Taylor takes us back to a crazy time: the XYZ Affair, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Aaron Burr! The election of 1800 had to be decided in the House of Representatives amid scheming to deny Jefferson the presidency. Jefferson's victory brought on the first peaceful transfer of power in the new republic, an important tradition that lasted until the election of 2020.