United States presidential election, 1796
1
United States presidential election, 1796
United States presidential election, 1796
1792 ← 1796 → 1800
Nominee
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
Federalist
Democratic-Republican
Massachusetts
Virginia
Running mate
Thomas Pinckney
Aaron Burr
Electoral vote
71
68
States carried
9
7
Popular vote
35,726
31,115
Percentage
53.4%
46.6%
Party
Home state
Presidential election results map. Presidential electoral votes by state.
Because electors couldn't distinguish between their presidential and vice presidential choices until the passage of the Twelfth
Amendment, the map above assumes that the presidential votes are exactly the votes for Adams or Jefferson. This leads to an anomaly:
Maryland is listed as having cast 7 Federalist votes and 4 Democratic-Republican votes when Maryland had only 10 electors. One
elector had run unopposed from his district, having pledged to vote for both Adams and Jefferson. [1] Green denotes states won by
Jefferson, orange denotes states won by Adams. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before
election
George Washington
Independent
Elected
President
John Adams
Federalist
United States presidential election, 1796
The United States presidential election of 1796 was the first contested American presidential election and the only
one in which a president and vice- president were elected from opposing tickets. This anomaly led to the ratification
of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution in order to preclude such a result in the future.
With incumbent President George Washington having refused a third term in office, incumbent Vice-President John
Adams of Massachusetts became a candidate for the presidency on the Federalist Party ticket with former Governor
Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina as the next most popular Federalist. Their opponents were former Secretary of
State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia along with Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic-Republican
ticket. At this point, each man from any party ran alone, as the formal position of "running mate" had not yet been
established.
Unlike the previous election, where the outcome was a foregone conclusion, Democratic-Republicans campaigned
heavily for Jefferson, and Federalists campaigned heavily for Adams. The debate was an acrimonious one, with
Federalists attempting to identify the Democratic-Republicans with the violence of the French Revolution[2] and the
Democratic-Republicans accusing the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. In foreign policy, the
Democratic-Republicans denounced the Federalists over Jay's Treaty, perceived as too favorable to Britain, while the
French ambassador embarrassed the Democratic-Republicans by publicly backing them and attacking the Federalists
right before the election.
Although Adams won the presidency, Thomas Jefferson received more electoral votes than Pinckney and was
elected vice-president according to the rules of electoral balloting then in place.
General election
Candidates
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
John Adams (Massachusetts), Vice President of the United States
Samuel Adams (Massachusetts), Governor of Massachusetts
Aaron Burr (New York), United States Senator
George Clinton (New York), former Governor of New York
Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut), Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court
John Henry (Maryland), United States Senator
James Iredell (North Carolina), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
John Jay (New York), Governor of New York
Thomas Jefferson (Virginia), former Secretary of State of the United States
Samuel Johnston (North Carolina), United States Senator
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (South Carolina), U.S. Ambassador to France
Thomas Pinckney (South Carolina), former Governor of South Carolina
2
United States presidential election, 1796
3
Federalist Candidates gallery
John Adams
(Massachusetts)
Thomas Pinckney
(South Carolina)
Oliver Ellsworth
(Connecticut)
James Iredell
(North Carolina)
Samuel Johnston
(North Carolina)
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
(South Carolina)
John Jay
(New York)
Democratic-Republican Candidates gallery
Thomas Jefferson
(Virginia)
Aaron Burr
(New York)
Samuel Adams
(Massachusetts)
George Clinton
(New York)
Results
Under the system then in place, electors had two votes, but both were for president; the runner-up in the presidential
race was elected Vice-President (this was prior to the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, which changed the
electoral process to a system based on running mates). Each party intended to manipulate the results by having some
of their electors cast one vote for the intended presidential candidate and one vote for somebody besides the intended
vice-presidential candidate, leaving their vice-presidential candidate a few votes shy of their presidential candidate.
United States presidential election, 1796
4
Unfortunately, these schemes were complicated by several factors:
• All electoral votes were cast on the same day, and communications between states were extremely slow at that
time, making it very difficult to coordinate which electors were to manipulate their vote for vice-president.
• There were rumors that southern electors pledged to Jefferson were coerced by Alexander Hamilton to give their
second vote to Pinckney in hope of electing him president instead of Adams. Indeed, as it turned out, all eight
electors in Pinckney's home state of South Carolina, as well as at least one elector in Pennsylvania, cast ballots for
both Jefferson and Pinckney.
The result was that too many Adams electors failed to cast their second vote for Pinckney, and so Adams was elected
president while his opponent, Jefferson, was elected vice-president.
Presidential Candidate
Party
Home State
Massachusetts
Popular Vote(a), (b), (c)
Electoral Vote
Count
Percentage
35,726
53.4%
71
31,115
46.6%
68
—
—
59
John Adams
Federalist
Thomas Jefferson
Democratic-Republican Virginia
Thomas Pinckney
Federalist
Aaron Burr
Democratic-Republican New York
—
—
30
Samuel Adams
Democratic-Republican Massachusetts
—
—
15
Oliver Ellsworth
Federalist
—
—
11
George Clinton
Democratic-Republican New York
—
—
7
John Jay
Federalist
New York
—
—
5
James Iredell
Federalist
North Carolina
—
—
3
John Henry
Democratic-Republican Maryland
—
—
2
Samuel Johnston
Federalist
North Carolina
—
—
2
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Federalist
South Carolina
—
—
1
Total
66,841
100.0%
276
Needed to win
70
South Carolina
Connecticut
Source (Popular Vote): U.S. President National Vote [3]. Our Campaigns [4]. (February 11, 2006).
Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996 [5]. Official website of the National Archives [6].
(July 30, 2005).
(a)
Votes for Federalist electors have been assigned to John Adams and votes for Democratic-Republican electors
have been assigned to Thomas Jefferson.
(b)
Only 9 of the 16 states used any form of popular vote.
(c)
Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property
requirements.
Breakdown by ticket
United States presidential election, 1796
Presidential Candidate
5
Running Mate
Electoral Vote{{{ev_footnote}}}
John Adams
Thomas Pinckney
50
Thomas Jefferson
Aaron Burr
30
Thomas Jefferson
Samuel Adams
15
John Adams
Oliver Ellsworth
11
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Pinckney
9
Thomas Jefferson
George Clinton
7
John Adams
John Jay
5
Thomas Jefferson
James Iredell
3
John Adams
Samuel Johnston
2
Thomas Jefferson
John Henry
2
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
1
Thomas Jefferson
George Washington
1
John Adams
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney 1
John Adams
George Washington
1
There were quite a few split tickets, with an elector casting one vote for the head of the Democratic-Republicans,
Jefferson, and the other for a Federalist:
• All eight South Carolina electors (along with at least one Pennsylvania elector) voted for native son Thomas
Pinckney.
• Three North Carolina electors voted for native son James Iredell.
• There was even at least one elector in Maryland voting for an Adams-Jefferson ticket.
Consequences
For the only time in United States history the president and vice-president were from different parties (John Quincy
Adams and John C. Calhoun would later be elected president and vice-president as political opponents, but they were
both Democratic-Republicans candidates; Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln's second vice-president, was a
Democrat, but Lincoln ran on a combined Union ticket in 1864, not as a strict Republican). Jefferson would leverage
his position as vice-president to attack President Adams' policies, and this would help him reach the White House in
the following election.
This election would provide the impetus for the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On January
6, 1797, Representative William L. Smith of South Carolina presented a resolution on the floor of the House of
Representatives for an amendment to the Constitution by which the presidential electors would designate which
candidate would be president and which would be vice-president.[7] However, no action was taken on his proposal,
setting the stage for the deadlocked election of 1800.
Electoral college selection
United States presidential election, 1796
6
Method of choosing Electors
State(s)
Each Elector appointed by the state legislature
Connecticut
Delaware
New Jersey
New York
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Vermont
State is divided into electoral districts, with one Elector chosen per district by the voters of that district
Kentucky
Maryland
North Carolina
Virginia
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide
Georgia
Pennsylvania
•
•
Massachusetts
Two Electors appointed by the state legislature
Each remaining Elector chosen by the state legislature from list of top two vote-getters in each Congressional district
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide; however, if no candidate wins majority, the state legislature appoints Elector from top
two candidates
New
Hampshire
•
•
•
Tennessee
State is divided into electoral districts, with one Elector chosen per district
Each county chooses an electoral delegate by popular vote
Elector is chosen by electoral delegates of the counties within their district
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
http:/ / elections. lib. tufts. edu/ aas_portal/ view-election. xq?id=md. presidentialelector1. 1796
Presidential Election of 1796 (http:/ / www. multied. com/ elections/ 1796. html), retrieved on 2009-11-05.
http:/ / www. ourcampaigns. com/ RaceDetail. html?RaceID=59540
http:/ / www. ourcampaigns. com
http:/ / www. archives. gov/ federal-register/ electoral-college/ scores. html#1796
http:/ / www. archives. gov
United States Congress (1797). Annals of Congress (http:/ / memory. loc. gov/ cgi-bin/ ampage?collId=llac& fileName=006/ llac006. db&
recNum=154). 4th Congress, 2nd Session. p. 1824. . Retrieved 2006-06-26.
References
Books
• The North Carolina Electoral Vote: The People and the Process Behind the Vote. Raleigh, North Carolina:
North Carolina Secretary of State. 1988.
Web references
• "A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College" (http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/ElectoralCollege.
html). The Green Papers. Retrieved March 20, 2005.
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825 (http://dca.tufts.edu/features/aas)
United States presidential election, 1796
Further reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Encyclopedia of the New American Nation, 1754–1829 ed. by Paul Finkelman (2005), 1600 pp.
Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (1978)
Chambers, William Nisbet, ed. The First Party System (1972)
Chambers, William Nisbet. Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776–1809 (1963),
political science perspective
Charles, Joseph. The Origins of the American Party System (1956), reprints articles in William and Mary
Quarterly
Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization: 1789–1801 (1957),
highly detailed party history
Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. , "John Beckley: An Early American Party Manager," William and Mary Quarterly, 13
(Jan. 1956), 40-52, in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1923388)
Dawson, Matthew Q. Partisanship and the Birth of America's Second Party, 1796-1800: Stop the Wheels of
Government. Greenwood, (2000) online version (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=22900345)
DeConde, Alexander. "Washington's Farewell, the French Alliance, and the Election of 1796," Mississippi Valley
Historical Review, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Mar., 1957), pp. 641–658 in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1902277)
• Dinkin, Robert J. Campaigning in America: A History of Election Practices. (Greenwood 1989) online version
(http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=14291969)
• Elkins, Stanley and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism (1995) online version (http://www.questia.com/
PM.qst?a=o&d=59152800), the standard highly detailed political history of 1790s
• Freeman, Joanne. "The Presidential Election of 1796," in Richard Alan Ryerson, ed. John Adams and the
Founding of the Republic (2001).
• Miller, John C. The Federalist Era: 1789-1801 (1960), survey of political history
• Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1984 (Vol 1) (1986), essay and
primary sources on 1796
• Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (2009)
Primary sources
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. ed. The Making of the American Party System 1789 to 1809 (1965), short excerpts
from primary sources
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr., ed. Circular Letters of Congressmen to Their Constituents 1789-1829 (1978), 3 vol;
political reports sent by Congressmen to local newspapers
7
Article Sources and Contributors
8
Article Sources and Contributors
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