The American Vice Presidency (7 page)

But once again the double balloting for the presidency resulted in confusion and drove Adams from the White House. While Hamilton’s latest conspiracy did contribute to Adams’s departure, it ultimately landed his
other archenemy, Jefferson, in the presidency. In critical South Carolina and across the South, Jefferson and Burr swept nearly all the electoral votes. But when the electors in their states forwarded the results to the new capital at Washington for the final tally, Jefferson and Burr astonishingly finished in a tie, each winning seventy-three votes. Adams finished third with sixty-five and found himself out of office. So the election was not over; the Constitution specified that in case of a tie, the issue would go to the House of Representatives for resolution.

The Republicans’ clear intention had been that if their camp won, their leader, Jefferson, was to be president and Burr vice president. Burr himself well understood that expectation, but in a colossal blunder, the Republicans had failed to take the precaution of casting one fewer vote for Burr than for Jefferson. It didn’t happen, as Jefferson and Burr together swept all the electoral votes in both South Carolina and Georgia.

Burr, for his part, was not ready to step aside and settle for the vice presidency. He was still feeling used over the short shrift he had been given in the 1796 election, when he had received only one electoral vote from Virginia. He told John Taylor of the Old Dominion, “After what happened at the last election … I was really averse to have my name in question … but being so, it is most obvious that I should not choose to be trifled with.” Apparently in response to those remarks, Jefferson said later he “had taken some measures” to assure that Virginia’s Republican electors’ second votes went unanimously for Burr.
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In any event, while the Republicans in the 1800 election had just won a majority in the new House of Representatives, the presidential outcome would be decided by the old House, in which the Federalists had the majority. The Constitution required, however, that the vote be taken by state delegation, with each state having a single vote. On that basis, neither party had a majority as also was required to declare the winner. Jefferson wrote to Madison: “The Feds in the legislature have expressed dispositions to make all they can of the embarrassment, so after the most energetic efforts, crowned with success, we remain in the hands of our enemies for want of foresight in the original arrangement.”
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At first, the Federalists in Congress schemed to find ways to throw out the indecisive election and hold another. Jefferson meanwhile, in the most diplomatic language he could muster, suggested rather naively to Burr that as
vice president he would deprive the Jefferson administration of his service in a cabinet position, hinting that if he turned down the powerless vice presidency there would be a major place for him in the cabinet. “I feel most sensibly the loss we sustain of your aid in our new administration,” Jefferson wrote, dismissing Burr’s equal claim on the presidency as the votes stood.
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To Jefferson’s transparently ludicrous proposition, Burr’s reply suggested complete acquiescence to Jefferson’s desires. He said he himself had expected that Rhode Island would have withheld one of its two votes from him, adding, “I do not however apprehend any embarrassment even in Case the Votes should come out alike for us—my personal friends are perfectly informed of my wishes on the subject and can never think of diverting a single vote from you—on the Contrary, they will be found among your most zealous adherents. I see no reason to doubt of your having at least nine States [the required majority] if the business should come before the H. of Reps.”
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Regarding Jefferson’s notion of putting Burr in his cabinet, Burr wrote he was certain Jefferson, if elected, would have many good Republicans from which to choose, but he added improbably, “I will cheerfully abandon the office of V.P. if it is thought that I can be more useful in any Active Station. In short, my whole time and attention shall be unceasingly employed to render your Administration grateful and honorable to our Country and to yourself.”
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In a letter to the Maryland congressman Samuel Smith, Burr wrote that it was highly improbable that he would have an equal number of votes to those of Jefferson, adding, “But if such should be the result, every man who knows me ought to know that I would utterly disclaim all competition. Be assured that the federal party can entertain no wish for such an exchange. As to my friends, they would dishonor my views and insult my feelings by a suspicion that I would submit to be instrumental in counteracting the wishes and expectations of the people of the United States. And I now constitute you my proxy to declare these sentiments if the occasion shall require.”
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Either Burr later had second thoughts or he was shamelessly pulling Jefferson’s leg over his preposterous suggestion about giving up a chance to be president or at least vice president. James Bayard, a Federalist congressman from Delaware, insisted that Burr would accept Federalist support if it came his way.

When the House convened in February 1801, the Federalist caucus
decided to back Burr, on the grounds that dealing with an ambitious opportunist would be better than dealing with Jefferson, a deeply committed ideologue opposed to the core of Federalist doctrine. But Hamilton fired off a flood of letters to fellow Federalists condemning Burr as a “voluptuary … without probity.”
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At least Jefferson could be counted on, he went on, to sustain the Hamilton bank, avoid war in Europe, and retain some Federalists in lower government positions.

But Hamilton’s grip on his party was fading, the Federalists having lost both houses of Congress for the first time, and their overtures to Burr were well underway. At first Burr insisted he was not interested in entertaining them. In advance of the tie vote, apparently under the impression that Jefferson would be elected to the first office, he had written to a Jefferson lieutenant, Samuel Smith, “Every man who knows me ought to know that I would utterly disclaim all competition,” referring to Jefferson.
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Soon thereafter, however, he had a change of heart. Prior to the voting, he had been told that one elector in Vermont was going to vote for Pinckney rather than Burr to assure Jefferson’s victory. Now he learned that the elector had failed to do so and that Burr had received all four of Vermont’s second votes under the double-balloting scheme, creating his tie with Jefferson. Burr was advised to say no more about stepping aside for Jefferson and await further developments. Burr suddenly realized that an unexpected opportunity was knocking at his door, and he decided to invite it to enter.

But Hamilton was on hand to spread further venom against the fellow New Yorker who had bested him in the critical fight for their state’s political control. He called Burr a dangerous man “of a temper bold enough to think no enterprise too hazardous and to think none too difficult,”
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altogether “the most unfit man in the U.S. for the office of President.”
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Hamilton called on Federalists to make a deal with Jefferson with four conditions: that he would support the present fiscal system of which Hamilton was the principal architect; that he would adhere to neutrality in foreign policy; that he would preserve and gradually increase the navy; that he would retain on the federal payroll all Federalists then serving, with the exception of cabinet members. The deal, he argued, would not only preserve most of the Federalist agenda but also lay seeds of division between Jefferson as president and Burr as vice president. Indeed, on Sunday, sometime after Bayard and Nicholas had talked, Jefferson wrote to Governor Monroe, “Many attempts
have been made to obtain terms and promises from me. I have declared to them unequivocally that I would not receive the government on capitulation, that I would not go into it with my hands tied.”
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On February 11, a cold and snowy day in Washington, the Congress finally convened to vote as crowds jammed the galleries to witness the historic event. The first order of business was to tabulate the vote and officially announce the tie. As president of the Senate, Jefferson presided, and he called for the state delegation votes. On the first ballot Jefferson won eight states, one short of the majority needed, Burr won six, and two, Vermont and Maryland, were deadlocked and cast blank ballots. Burr actually won more individual House members, fifty-five to Jefferson’s fifty-one, but the state delegation votes were what mattered.

The roll call continued through the afternoon, night, and early the next morning with no change. One ill member was carried on a stretcher through the snow to the Capitol to cast his vote for Jefferson and maintain the stalemate. A Sunday hiatus gave birth to a host of rumors, from threats of force from Virginia and mobilizations in Pennsylvania and among Republicans in the mid-Atlantic states. Governor Monroe, in Virginia, ordered state militia to guard an arsenal lest Federalists try to arm themselves, and Jefferson himself warned of Federalist talk of a “dissolution” of the Union. At one point he called on Adams, who subsequently expressed fears that the two parties had come to a “precipice” and that “civil war was expected.”

During this fearful time, Delaware’s Bayard, who had been voting for Burr as the lesser of two evils, proposed a bargain whereby he would abstain from voting on the next roll call, reducing the majority of states required to eight, which Jefferson already had. He sought to have the Virginian John Nicholas, a close Jefferson friend, approach the candidate on the acceptability of the Hamilton terms. Nicholas said he considered the terms reasonable and would vouch for Jefferson’s acceptance but balked on approaching him. Bayard told Speaker Sedgwick what he was up to and meanwhile conferred with five other Federalists, four from Maryland and one from Vermont, about breaking the impasse. Nicholas said later that he had passed the proposal to a Jefferson adviser who told him Jefferson had authorized him to say it “corresponded with his views and intentions,” but Jefferson later denied in the most strenuous terms that he had struck any deal.

At the time Bayard made his decision, he provided an altogether different reason for his behavior: “Burr has acted a miserable paultry part. The election was in his power, but he was determined to come in as a Democrat.” At the time, Bayard told his wife that Burr had declined to meet the terms that the Federalists demanded. Bayard also confided to Hamilton that Burr “was determined not to shackle himself with federal principles.”
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After six days of roll calls and thirty-six ballots, on February 17 the Federalists caved in. The pivotal Vermont member absented himself, throwing the state to Jefferson, and four Marylanders cast blank ballots, giving their state to him. Bayard also abstained, as did the South Carolina delegation. Jefferson was elected with ten states to four for Burr and two not voting. The Republicans also wound up with a thirty-three-seat majority in the House, ending the Federalist reign and putting the newly formed opposition party in power.

Jefferson’s vice presidency was not quite a stepping-stone to the presidency, as the office came to be advertised. Rather, he got there as the prime architect of the new rival party built as he occupied the second office. Accordingly, he had a stronger claim to the presidency than did Burr, whose place on the Republican ticket was more a reward for his efforts in carrying New York for the party, and for Jefferson, than for playing any broader strategic or policy role in it.

It remained a mystery, however, why the transparently ambitious Burr didn’t take the deal that the Federalists had apparently offered him for making him president, just as they had Jefferson. His insistence that he could not and would not act against the principles of his own party might have been more expected from Jefferson, who despite his denials appeared to have done just that. And so Aaron Burr of New York prepared to take office as part of the Jefferson administration but in the context of the bitter postcampaign fight that he had lost. Neither was it a propitious premise for a productive or rewarding Burr vice presidency, nor did it hopefully augur what was to come.

AARON BURR

OF NEW YORK

F
rom the moment Aaron Burr took the oath of office as vice president on March 4, 1801, it was clear he would be on the outside of the Jefferson presidency looking in. His demeanor in dealing with the electoral college vote that had left him in a tie with Jefferson and with the poisonous aftermath in its resolution in the House of Representatives killed any possibilities of partnership between the two contenders, though both were members of the lately emerged Jeffersonian Party.

At their inauguration, much was made of Burr’s gesture in yielding his seat as presiding officer of the Senate to the new president upon his entry to take his oath of office. Behind the symbolism, however, there was little substance of cooperation as the business of the Jefferson administration got underway.
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