A week long as usual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1804
Voting for Jefferson again.
Bumped
I don’t know how much response you are going to get for a while. Elections after 1800 are less and less interesting as the Federalist Party dwindles. The next contested election isn’t until 1824.
I don’t know much about Pinckney, but at least he isn’t Jefferson. Jefferson shamefully bankrolled an opposition newspaper while serving in Washington’s Cabinet, and then lied about it until the paper’s editor got mad and exposed him. Jefferson refused President Adams’s offer of a bipartisan partnership when he was Adams’s Vice President, and then spent four years striving to defeat and replace him. Jefferson is a hypocrite as to slavery, and a spendthrift in his personal life. He is unworthy of a second term as President.
But, but – the Louisiana Purchase!
Directly contrary to his frequently-expressed views of the limited powers of the Federal government. Yet another example (although in the national interest, I concede) of his political expediency and hypocrisy. Adams would surely have done the same, but been true to his principles in doing so.
With a Federalist administration there is no Embargo but what would we have instead? Jefferson is rightfully criticized heavily for the commercial catastrophe but he, like Adams, was no warrior not even of the armchair variety. Under President Pinckney we might have had war with Great Britain over provocations such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair.
I would rather take my chances with one who served honorably in uniform during the Revolution than one who did not, as governor, prepare at all for the approach of the enemy, and then ignominiously fled his state capital.
Jefferson (like Adams) was best in committee. It is somewhat startling given his reputation just how ineffective he was in an Executive capacity. Even most of his best work under Washington was done in the Cabinet.
I actually voted for Pinckney on the chance the pro-British party could ameliorate some of the tensions with that country and avoid war and embargo. But Britain couldn’t forgo the blockades or impressments that were root causes. She needed to restrict war materiel moving into Napoleon’s control and didn’t have enough of her own seamen to do it. So no matter how friendly the ministry might want to be with the US they couldn’t move on those issues.