The vice presidency of Thomas Jefferson lasted from 1797 to 1801, and was the second vice presidency in the history of the United States. Thomas Jefferson was the first opposition politician to be elected to the vice presidency, and was elected president himself in the 1800 election, sometimes called the Revolution of 1800 for entrenching the norm of a peaceful transition of power between opposing parties in the United States.
Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class, dependent on slave labor. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution and inspired the Thirteen Colonies in their revolutionary fight for independence, which culminated in the establishment of the United States as a free and sovereign nation.
Jefferson served as the second governor of revolutionary Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed Jefferson U.S. minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. President Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first United States Secretary of State, where he served from 1790 to 1793. In 1792, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both personal friends and political rivals.
In the 1796 U.S. presidential election between the two, Jefferson came in second, which made him Adams' vice president under the electoral laws of the time. Four years later, in the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency. Jefferson became the second vice president in a row to be elected president. Incumbent vice presidents would not be elected to the presidency again until Martin van Buren in 1836 and George H. W. Bush in 1988. President Jefferson would have a hostile relationship with his vice president Aaron Burr.
Election of 1796
With incumbent president George Washington having refused a third term in office, the 1796 election became the first U.S. presidential election in which political parties competed for the presidency. The Federalists coalesced behind Adams and the Democratic-Republicans supported Jefferson, but each party ran multiple candidates. Under the electoral rules in place prior to the Twelfth Amendment, the members of the Electoral College each cast two votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. The individual with the votes of a majority of electors became president, and the runner-up became vice president. If there was a tie for first place or no person won a majority, the House of Representatives would hold a contingent election. Also, if there were a tie for second place, the vice presidency, the Senate would hold a contingent election to break the tie.
The campaign was a bitter one, with Federalists attempting to identify the Democratic-Republicans with the violence of the French RevolutionPresidential Election of 1796, retrieved on November 5, 2009. and the Democratic-Republicans accusing the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. Republicans sought to associate Adams with the policies developed by fellow Federalist Alexander Hamilton during the Washington administration, which they declaimed were too much in favor of Great Britain and a centralized national government. In foreign policy, Republicans denounced the Federalists over the Jay Treaty, which had established a temporary peace with Great Britain. Federalists attacked Jefferson's moral character, alleging he was an atheist and that he had been a coward during the American Revolutionary War. Adams supporters also accused Jefferson of being too pro-France; the accusation was underscored when the French ambassador embarrassed the Republicans by publicly backing Jefferson and attacking the Federalists right before the election. Despite the hostility between their respective camps, neither Adams nor Jefferson actively campaigned for the presidency.
In the presidential campaign of 1796, Jefferson lost the electoral college vote to Federalist John Adams 71–68. He did, however, receive the second-highest number of votes and, under the electoral laws at the time, was elected as vice president. Adams was elected president with 71 electoral votes, one more than was needed for a majority. He won by sweeping the electoral votes of New England and winning votes from several other swing states, especially the states of the Mid-Atlantic region. Jefferson received 68 electoral votes and was elected vice president. Former governor Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, a Federalist, finished with 59 electoral votes, while Senator Aaron Burr, a Democratic-Republican from New York, won 30 electoral votes. The remaining 48 electoral votes were dispersed among nine other candidates. Several electors cast one vote for a Federalist candidate and one for a Democratic-Republican. The election marked the formation of the First Party System, and established a rivalry between Federalist New England and the Democratic-Republican South, with the middle states holding the balance of power (New York and Maryland were the crucial swing states, and between them only voted for a loser once between 1789 and 1820).Jeffrey L. Pasley, The First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American Democracy (2013)
Vice presidency (1797-1801) As presiding officer of the United States Senate, Jefferson assumed a more passive role than his predecessor, John Adams. He allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an "honorable and easy" role.Meacham, 2012, p. 305. Jefferson previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him qualified to serve as presiding officer. In 1800, he published his assembled notes on Senate procedure as A Manual of Parliamentary Practice.Bernstein, 2003, pp. 117–118. He cast only three tie-breaking votes in the Senate.
In four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Létombe in the spring of 1797, Jefferson attacked Adams, predicting that his rival would only serve one term. He also encouraged France to invade England, and advised Létombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris.Elkins, 1994, p. 566. This toughened the tone that the French government adopted toward the Adams administration. After Adams's initial peace envoys were rebuffed, Jefferson and his supporters lobbied for the release of papers related to the incident, called the XYZ Affair after the letters used to disguise the identities of the French officials involved.Chernow, 2004, p. 550. But the tactic backfired when it was revealed that French officials had demanded bribes, rallying public support against France. The U.S. began an undeclared naval war with France known as the Quasi-War.Meacham, 2012, p. 312.
During the Adams presidency, the Federalists rebuilt the military, levied new taxes, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson believed these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional.Tucker, 1837, v. 2, p. 54. To rally opposition, he and James Madison anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, asserting that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states.Wood, 2010, pp. 269–271. The resolutions followed the "interposition" approach of Madison, that states may shield their citizens from federal laws that they deem unconstitutional. Jefferson advocated nullification, allowing states to entirely invalidate federal laws.Meacham, 2012, p. 318. He warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold", the Alien and Sedition Acts would "drive these states into revolution and blood".Onuf, 2000, p. 73.
Biographer Ron Chernow contends that "the theoretical damage of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions was deep and lasting, and was a recipe for disunion", and contributed to the outbreak of the American Civil War and later events.Chernow, 2004, p. 574. Washington was so appalled by the resolutions that he told Patrick Henry that, if "systematically and pertinaciously pursued", the resolutions would "dissolve the union or produce coercion."Chernow, 2004, p. 587. Jefferson had always admired Washington's leadership skills but felt that his Federalist party was leading the country in the wrong direction. He decided not to attend Washington's funeral in 1799 because of acute differences with him while serving as secretary of state.Meacham, 2012, p. 323.
List of tie-breaking votes cast Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, often used his tie-breaking power in favor of his party’s positions. Notable instances include votes on legislation related to fiscal policy, military appropriations, and appointments. His role highlighted the growing partisanship in the early federal government and set precedents for future vice presidents in the Senate.
Election of 1800
Jefferson ran for president against John Adams again in 1800. Adams' campaign was weakened by unpopular taxes and vicious Federalist infighting over his actions in the Quasi-War.McCullough, 2001, p. 556; Bernstein, 2003, pp. 126–128. Democratic-Republicans pointed to the Alien and Sedition Acts and accused the Federalists of being secret pro-Britain monarchists. Federalists, in turn, charged that Jefferson was a godless libertine beholden to the French.McCullough, 2001, pp. 543–544. UCLA history professor Joyce Appleby described the 1800 presidential election as "one of the most acrimonious in the annals of American history".Appleby, 2003, pp. 27–28.
The Democratic-Republicans ultimately won more electoral college votes, due in part to the electors that resulted from the addition of three-fifths of the South's slaves to the population calculation under the Three-Fifths Compromise.The Corrupt Bargain, Eric Foner, The London Review of Books, Vol. 42 No. 10, May 21, 2020, accessed November 3, 2020 Jefferson and his vice presidential candidate Aaron Burr unexpectedly received an equal total. Because of the tie, the election was decided by the Federalist-dominated U.S. House of Representatives.Tucker, 1837, v. 2, p. 75; Wood, 2010, p. 278. Hamilton lobbied Federalist representatives on Jefferson's behalf, believing him a lesser political evil than Burr. On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, the House elected Jefferson president and Burr vice president.
The win led to Democratic-Republican celebrations throughout the country.Meacham, 2012, pp. 340–341. Some of Jefferson's opponents argued that he owed his victory to the South's inflated number of electors.Ferling, 2004, p. 208. Others alleged that Jefferson secured James Asheton Bayard's tie-breaking electoral vote by promising to retain various Federalist posts in the government.Wood, 2010, pp. 284–285. Jefferson disputed the allegation, and the historical record is inconclusive.Meacham, 2012, pp. 337–338.
The transition proceeded smoothly, marking a watershed in American history. Historian Gordon S. Wood writes that, "it was one of the first popular elections in modern history that resulted in the peaceful transfer of power from one 'party' to another."
Presidency
Relationship with vice president Aaron Burr