So Burr has come up in some recent conversations and I’m not clear about the political picture at the time. Jefferson was the most prominent member of the Democratic-republicans, ok. Hamilton was the most famous Federalist, right, or maybe Adams. So Burr was also a Democratic-republican? If this is the case how did it happen that Burr and Jefferson ended up with the same number of electoral votes? And if Jefferson and Burr were both DR’s was there a sort of a split in the DR party ‘tween the two mens’ approaches? I’ve heard the term “Burrite” tossed around - does that have any more significance than just meaning a supporter of Burr? I also distinctly remember reading that Jefferson hatred Burr. I’m confused.
In 1800, each elector in the college voted for two people. They did not discriminate in their voting between President and Vice-president. The President got the most votes, the Vice-president was the first loser.
The 1800 election resulted in a majority of electors being Democrat-Republicans, and, thus, in favor of a D-R President and a D-R Vice-president. IIRC, the plan was to have one of the electors vote for Jefferson and someone other than Burr, but it got bungled; all of them voted for both men. This forced the election into the House, because neither man had the highest total. Eventually, Jefferson prevailed, largely because Hamilton, a prominent Federalist, thought Burr more dangerous than Jefferson, and managed to get the largely Federalist dominated House to choose Jefferson. This was one of the reasons Burr hated Hamilton, leading to the famous duel.
The 12th Amendment in 1803 changed the voting procedure to make certain nothing like that could happen again. Since then, the votes between President and Vice-President have been discriminated.
As for Jefferson and Burr, that’s unclear how it all came about. Jefferson asked Burr to be his running mate for the 1800 election. However, when the inadvertant tie came about, Jefferson apparently didn’t think Burr did enough to disavow attempts by the Federalists in the House to get Burr selected as President instead of Jefferson. Mind you, Burr didn’t leave Albany during the entire process, but who knows, maybe he should have come directly out and said, loudly and long, “I don’t want it!”
The result was that Burr was largely shut out of the Jefferson administration, and was replaced for the 1804 election by George Clinton. Once he knew that he wouldn’t be asked by Jefferson to run as his VP, he ran for Governor of New York State, and lost, largely thanks to Hamilton. This helped fuel his desire for a duel when he heard that Hamilton was defaming his character. In the duel, he killed Hamilton.
Other than that, the politics in 1804 was relatively sedate. The Federalists were on the way out, having lost Washington and Hamilton, and Adams having lost any real power after the disaster of his presidency and his failure to win in 1800.
Not really. Aaron Burr never offered much of an ideology–he was what we would today call a “machine politician”, more intereseted in nuts-and-bolts party building and in personal advancement than in theories of government. He was said to be very charming and charismatic and always attracted devoted personal followers; hence “Burrites”. But he never rivaled, nor sought to rival, Jefferson as a political theorist.
Keep in mind that this was long before presidential candidates hand-picked their running mates. Party nominations in the early Republic were made by caucuses of each party’s members in Congress.
In 1800, presidential electors in many states, including New York, were picked by the state legislature, so the legislative elections became the de facto presidential election. New York was a swing state, and it elected its legislature in spring 1800. Burr helped carry the election for the Democrat-Republicans, using the skills of the typical machine politician–keeping lists of friendly voters, arranging to transport voters to the polls on election day, and so forth. As his reward–and to ensure that he kept the legislators in line when it was time to name electors–he was designated by the caucus as the Democratic-Republican vice presidential candidate.
You also have to understand that political parties as we have them were just coming into existence. Back then, they were more a group of like-minded men rather than official organizations. In many cases, they were the people who supported an individual leader and his platform.
Another thing I remember being told in high school History (over 30 years ago): The US election of 1800 was significant as a"peaceful" revolution. Power changed hands, at least as defined by political parties, without any beheadings or imprisonments of the rival party. The concept of loyal opposition was born during this election.
I was told this when it was coming up to the US bicentennial, so I’m not sure if there’s a lot of basis in fact to this, or if it was feel-good patriotism.