A History of Presidential Elections
1789-2016
A Rough Course Schedule
!  Lecture 1: 1789-1812
!  Lecture 2: 1812-1840
!  Lecture 3: 1840-1865
!  Lecture 4: 1865-1901
!  Lecture 5: 1901-1932
!  Lecture 6: 1932-1945
!  Lecture 7: 1945-1968
!  Lecture 8: 1968-today
Colonial-Era Politics
!  Rooted in the politics of colonial
America
!  Lively politics of the colonial era
!  Key issues and factions varied
from colony to colony, region to
region
!  No formal “Parties” but there
were informal “parties”
!  Were the framers naïve in
believing factional politics would
not happen in the new republic?
Establishing the Electoral College: Framers did
not anticipate development of parties
Enormous advantage conferred upon slave
states at expense of the north
Gray states are without restrictions on
faithless electors
1789: Washington 69; Adams 34; John Jay
9; John Hancock 4; and others 22
Early Factions and Parties
Hamilton vs. Jefferson
1792: First election where the original 13 states
appointed electors along with new states of KY and VT.
Results: Washington 132 (unanimous); Adams 77;
Clinton 50; Jefferson 4; and Aaron Burr 1
Washington’s Farewell Address
Warns of the dangerous “Spirit of Party”
The First Party System
c.1790-1824
Federalist Party
1789-1816
Urban
Northern
Centralized Government
Development, Manufacturing
Mildly Pro-British, Anti-French
George Washington
John Adams of MA
Alexander Hamilton of NY
Democratic-Republicans
1794-1824
Rural
Southern
De-centralized Government
Agricultural
Pro-French, Anti-British
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia
James Madison of Virginia
James Monroe of Virginia
Washington warns parties to let the pillars of Federalism, Republicanism and
Democracy stand to hold up Peace, Plenty, Liberty and Independence. At left,
a Democrat says: “This Pillar shall not stand I am determined to support a
just and necessary War.” At right, a Federalist claims: “This Pillar must come
down I am a friend of Peace”
Alexander Hamilton Looks for
Alternatives to Adams, 1796
Patrick Henry
Thomas Pinckney
1796 regarded as one of the most acrimonious elections.
Country divided into parties, a development the Electoral
College was not designed to accommodate
The Election of 1796
Adams won stray electoral votes in VA and
NC, and the presidency, by 71-68
Vice Presidents (14): nine upon death of
president; only five elected to office
!  John Adams (elected in 1796)
!  Jefferson (elected in 1800-01)
!  Martin Van Buren (elected in 1836)
!  John Tyler (death of Harrison,
1841)
!  Millard Fillmore (death of Taylor,
1850)
!  Andrew Johnson (death of Lincoln,
1865)
!  Chet Arthur (death of Garfield,
1881)
!  Theodore Roosevelt (death of
McKinley, 1901)
!  Coolidge (death of Harding, 1923)
!  Truman (death of FDR, 1945)
!  LBJ (assassination of JFK, 1963)
!  Nixon (elected in 1968)
!  Ford (resignation of Nixon, 1974)
!  Bush I (elected in 1988)
Secretaries of State (4)
(Pictured: James Madison with Hillary Clinton)
!  James Madison, 1808
!  James Monroe, 1816
!  J.Q. Adams, 1824
!  James Buchanan, 1856*
!  Hillary Clinton?
Senators (7)
!  Andrew Jackson, 1828
!  William Henry Harrison, 1840
!  Franklin Pierce, 1852
!  Benjamin Harrison, 1888
!  Warren G. Harding, 1920
!  JFK, 1960
!  Barack Obama, 2008
Governors (10)
!  James K. Polk, 1844
!  R.B. Hayes, 1876
!  Grover Cleveland, 1884
!  William McKinley, 1896
!  Woodrow Wilson, 1912
!  FDR, 1932
!  Jimmy Carter, 1976
!  Ronald Reagan, 1980
!  Bill Clinton, 1992
!  George W. Bush, 2000
Military Figures (4)
!  George Washington, 1789
!  Zach Taylor, 1848
!  U.S. Grant, 1868
!  Eisenhower, 1952
Members of the House (2)
Rep. Abraham Lincoln, 1860
Rep. James A. Garfield, 1880
Other Cabinet Members (2)
(other than State)
William Howard Taft, 1908
(Secretary of War)
Herbert Hoover, 1928
(Secretary of Commerce)
John Adams
President 1797-1801
!  Struggled in office; unhappy
!  Retained Washington’s cabinet
!  Alien and Sedition Acts, 1798;
grappled with French and British
machinations
!  Vice president also led opposition
!  Unseated by vice president
!  Temperamentally unsuited to
politics; took retreats of up to seven
months at a time
Electoral College Problems with
the Vice Presidency 1796, 1800
Election of 1800
The First of Several Rematches
!  Jefferson v. Adams, 1796, 1800
!  J.Q. Adams v. Jackson, 1824, 1828
!  Van Buren v. W.H. Harrison, 1836,
1840
!  Cleveland v. B. Harrison, 1888,
1892
!  McKinley v. Bryan, 1896, 1900
!  Eisenhower v. Stevenson, 1952,
1956
Election of 1800
!  Adams wrote that Jefferson
possessed “a mind, soured, yet
seeking for popularity, and eaten
to a honeycomb with ambition,
yet weak, confused, uninformed,
and ignorant”
!  1800 firmly established the two-
party system as the norm in
American politics
!  Set a precedent for the peaceful,
legitimate, transfer of political
power
Election of 1800
!  Jefferson working with the Devil and
some alcohol to pull down the stability
of the federal government
!  Neither Adams nor Jefferson
campaigned personally
!  Adams’s Federalist backers attacked
Jefferson for his atheism, radicalism,
and lack of morality
“The Providential Detection”
!  Jefferson kneels before altar of Gallic
despotism
!  God and an eagle attempt to prevent
him from destroying Constitution
!  He is about to fling the “Constitution
& Independence USA” into fire
!  Jefferson’s attack on Washington and
Adams falls from his pocket
!  Jefferson supported by Satan, writings
of Thomas Paine, and French
philosophers
Jefferson
“The Philosophic Cock”
!  Jefferson as the cock, courts a
hen
!  Opponents charged Jefferson
with promiscuous behavior with
his slaves
!  The cock was also a symbol of
revolutionary France, which
Jefferson was known to admire
Anti-Jefferson Political Attacks
!  One propagandist warned that, with
Jefferson as president, “murder,
robbery, rape, adultery, and incest
will be openly taught and practiced,
the air will be rent with the cries of
the distressed, the soil will be soaked
with blood, and the nation black with
crimes.”
!  Jefferson’s backers responded by
charging that Adams planned to
marry one of his sons to the
daughter of the king of England,
start an American monarchy, and
reunite with England
The Election of 1800
!  Hamilton clashed with Adams,
guaranteeing Republican victory
!  Constitution failed to distinguish
votes cast for president and for vice
president
!  Jefferson ended up tied with fellow
Republican, Aaron Burr
!  Most Federalists distrusted Burr, but
they supported him because they
hated Jefferson more
1800: Voters in Jefferson’s States Possessed More
Electoral Power Because of the 3/5ths Clause
The “Contingent Election” of 1800-01 (Pictured:
Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson
!  1800 exposed flaw in the system
!  Members of the Electoral College
cast two votes for president
!  Leading vote-getter, provided that
he received a majority, elected
president
!  The second vote-getter, VP
!  If no candidate received majority
or if two candidates tied, the House
chose the president, each state
casting a single vote
Adams first defeated incumbent; nonetheless,
appeared on four national ballots
!  Adams: 1789, 1792, 1796, 1800
!  Van Buren: 1832, 1836, 1840, 1848
!  FDR: 1920, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944
!  Nixon: 1952, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972
!  G.H.W. Bush: 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992
Adams First Incumbent Defeated:
Ten Defeated Incumbents
!  John Adams, 1800
!  Taft, 1912
!  J.Q. Adams, 1828
!  Hoover, 1932
!  Van Buren, 1840
!  Ford, 1976
!  Cleveland, 1888
!  Carter, 1980
!  Ben Harrison, 1892
!  Bush I, 1992
20 (or 22?) Re-elected Incumbents
(Ital: Only 13 to Two Full Terms)
! 
Washington, 1792
! 
Coolidge* (filling Harding’s term), 1924
! 
Jefferson, 1804
! 
FDR* (reelected 3 times), 1936, 40, 44
! 
Madison, 1812
! 
Truman* (filling FDR 4th term), 1948
! 
Monroe, 1820
! 
Ike, 1956
! 
Jackson, 1832
! 
LBJ* (filling JFK’s term), 1964
! 
Lincoln, 1864
! 
Nixon, 1972
! 
Grant, 1872
! 
Reagan, 1984
! 
McKinley, 1900
! 
Clinton, 1996
! 
TR* (filling McKinley’s term), 1904
! 
Bush, 2004
! 
Wilson, 1916
! 
Obama, 2012
Jefferson: First president who was an
active party leader
!  Washington served above the fray
!  Adams sought to and failed
!  Jefferson pretended he was NOT a
party man …
!  … but he was a party man
!  The Democratic-Republicans
provided Jefferson with a vital
support network, one that Adams
never enjoyed with the Federalists
The most transformative Presidents are Partisan Leaders
Not a popularity contest; not a beauty pageant
!  Jefferson and his Democratic majorities (28-6), (116-26)
!  Jackson and his Democratic majorities (26-22), (143-63)
!  Lincoln and his Republican majorities (32-10), (108-75)
!  FDR and his Democratic majorities (76-16), (334-88)
!  LBJ and his Democratic majorities (68-32), (295-140)
The Enigma
!  Jefferson spoke of liberty,
nevertheless held other human beings
in slavery
!  Disdained politics, yet was a master
politician
!  Always outwardly polite to his
enemies, he spoke harshly of them in
private
!  An elegant writer, he was an inept
speaker
The Hemings Controversy
Thomas Jefferson
!  “Negro President” was the
appellation leveled at Jefferson
by Massachusetts Federalist
Timothy Pickering
!  Pickering charged that Jefferson
beat incumbent President John
Adams in the close election of
1800 only because of the extra
votes the three-fifths clause gave
to Southern slave-owning states
Louisiana Purchase, 1803
Hamilton v. Burr, 1804
Jefferson’s Vice President Slays Leader of the Federalists
1804
Criticizing Jefferson’s Embargo on Trade with
the French and British, “Intercourse or
Impartial Dealings” depicts Jefferson being held
up for money by George III and Napoleon
The Election of 1808