The American news media really did us all a disservice in the 2000 election with its caterwauling about constitutional crises, and how the world would come to an end because they were not allowed to predict the outcome of the election before the polls closed and – heaven forbid – we might have to wait a few weeks to discover the outcome. A shame they never read any history.

Our past is riddled with contests much more contentious than those of recent vintage. Take 1800, for example. John Adams must have sulked all the way home in his carriage. He had decided not to show up for the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as the new president in 1800. Jefferson had been his vice-president and close Revolutionary War friend, but the two had become enemies after trading acrimonious charges during a campaign that made today’s mud slinging tame by comparison. In the previous election of 1796, Jefferson had come in second to Adams and was therefore de facto his second–in-command. The Twelfth Amendment made the change to the present system as a result of the 1800 election. We owe Adams a substantial debt of gratitude. His peaceful relinquishment of the reigns [pun intended] of government to his political enemy Jefferson was the first such example in modern history. The catastrophe of the French Revolution was fresh in everyone’s mind, and the American Revolution was barely finished. Voter turnout in 1800 was miserable. One scholar has estimated that only 14% of eligible voters in Connecticut bothered to vote, a number that makes current participation look positively marvelous. The battle for the electoral votes was bitter, with state legislatures fighting. In Pennsylvania, for example, a Federalist Senate, elected for four years, had a bare majority, and they refused to recognize the clear sentiment for the Republicans in the state and they refused to approve the Republican slate of electors. Similarly, South Carolina politicians appealed for the allegiance of electors who were not obligated to vote for anyone. It was even possible that Charles Pinckney might corner enough votes — they despised Aaron Burr — to become president. After the dust had settled, there was a tie between Jefferson and Burr for electoral votes. The enmity between Jefferson and Adams had begun much earlier. The toppling of structures and institutions during the French Revolution disturbed Adams, a traditionalist, and he injudiciously published a series of letters in 1791 that made him appear to be supporting the monarchy and distinctions of rank. Jefferson republished Thomas Paine’s (the radical democrat and agnostic) Rights of Man writing an approving introduction. This looked like a calculated slam against Adams (both Adams and Jefferson were in Washington’s cabinet). “No one could more sincerely disavow partisan purposes than Jefferson, or be more persistent in apparently pursuing them.” Throw in Hamilton and his agitation for a national bank, something that Jefferson and Madison both feared, and the factional lines began to form. It would have all fallen apart sooner except that Washington was persuaded to remain for a second term. Weisberger does a wonderful and fascinating job of setting the stage for these historic events. He describes how the roots of factions were already present in the differing commercial values of the northern, middle and southern states: New England seeking maritime trade; New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey having rich farms and produce to sell; and the South, living on a pile of credit from tobacco and cotton agents in England and terribly afraid of any tampering with slavery or speculation that might ruin their decadent way of life. A “barely united” States that had hardly any infrastructure. Travel was horribly uncomfortable, postal service slow and expensive (the recipient would pay the bill, and letter writers filled both sides of the page and then turned the paper at right angles and wrote across what they had already written to save paper and weight).

By Washington's second term, the country had become bitterly divided between the Federalists, led by Hamilton, who supported Great Britain, and the Jeffersonians who applauded the revolution in France before heads began to roll. When France declared war on Briton and Spain, the young United States found itself squeezed between two enemy powers and diplomacy became a tight-rope walk. It's a wonder how any business could be conducted as it took so long for instructions to travel across the Atlantic. The competing philosophies played themselves out in the election of 1800 with Jefferson continuing an anti-British stance and Adams following Hamilton's lead. Many of the issues of 1800 have yet to be resolved even after the very real threat of literal partisan warfare and suppression of civil rights peaked during the Civil War. Even so, without the peaceful transition of Adams giving up the presidency to Jefferson, the history of the United States might well have been very different. ( )