A Magnificent Catastrophe

by Edward J. Larson

  Even more striking, the Federalist press rarely mentioned Adams even when it denounced Jefferson by name. “If the Federal ticket for the state legislature is carried, a Federal president will be chosen,” one typical appeal noted. “If the Jacobin ticket succeeds, Mr. Jefferson will be president.” These few words spoke volumes. If Hamilton held New York for the Federalists, then its electors would do his bidding—and it was clear enough to many that he had little interest in Adams’s reelection. Both Hamilton and Burr played a multidimensional game of politics, but they still needed the right cards to win.

  New York’s Republican press responded to its Federalist counterpart by stressing the commitment of its party to constitutional liberty. Pushing national issues to the fore, it denounced Federalists for the Alien and Sedition Acts, “the standing army and useless navy,” high war taxes, the soaring national debt, creeping monarchism, and a ruinous allegiance to pro-British policies and British-style aristocracy. “Peace or war, happiness or misery, opulence or ruin! These depend on the results of the approaching election. If the friends of liberty are zealous, the system of EQUAL RIGHTS will yet flourish,” one Republican writer exclaimed. “The political happiness of America hangs suspended upon the fruit of your activity upon the present occasion,” another added. “Rise then with Republican firmness, with energy and patriotic activity, in defense of those invaluable rights for which during the Revolution you fought and bled.”

  On the eve of the election, New York’s leading Republican newspaper warned its readers that Federalists would charge “that whoever disapproves of the administration of our government is an enemy to the Constitution.” Stand firm, it urged readers, for “if you waver, if you hesitate, if you neglect in this respect your duty, you will wreck upon the shoals of aristocratic design the vessel of state which includes in it the liberties and happiness of the people.”

  Republicans sensed that the public mood in New York was shifting in their favor. Two years earlier, at the height of the XYZ Affair and rumors of a French invasion, Americans had sought security even at the expense of civil liberties—and Federalists in New York and elsewhere had done well. As fears of war passed and the cost of preparedness became apparent, the pendulum of popular opinion had begun swinging back toward the Republicans, as reflected in the Pennsylvania legislative elections six months earlier.

  “A little patience,” Jefferson predicted in 1798, “and we shall see…the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit and incurring the horrors of war and long oppression of enormous public debt.” In March 1800, he advised Madison, “The Republican spirit beginning to predominate in Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York…there is the strongest expectation that the Republican ticket will prevail in the city election of New York.” On the second day of voting in that much-anticipated election, Jefferson anxiously wrote to Congressman Edward Livingston, one in an extended family of moderate New York Republicans that included his brother Robert, the state’s long-serving chancellor, and his cousin Brockholst, an eminent lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice. “By this time I presume the result of your laborers is known to you,” Jefferson observed. “Whatever it may be, and my experience of the art, industry, and resources of the other party has not permitted me to be prematurely confident, yet I’m entirely confident that ultimately the great body of the people are passing over from them…. The madness and extravagance of their career is what ensures it.”

  Jefferson had good reason to worry about the art, industry, and resources that Hamilton poured into the New York City election, but neither of them could have anticipated Burr’s extraordinary effort on behalf of the Republican ticket. Ever since, political historians have marveled at his innovative techniques in urban electioneering.

  Burr laid the foundation for victory in 1799 when, as a state legislator, he had secured the charter for the Manhattan Company, which broke the Federalist banking monopoly in New York City. By the spring of 1800, artisans and owners of small businesses could openly support Republican candidates without fear of losing access to credit. Indeed, bank records suggest that the Manhattan Company significantly stepped up operations to coincide with the election. “The [Federalist] bank influence is now totally destroyed,” Burr protégé Matthew Davis boasted in a preelection letter to Republican congressional leader Albert Gallatin, “the Manhattan Company will, in all probability, operate much in our favor.” Other partisans made similar comments at the time, and some later historians have seen the bank’s role in the city election as decisive. One stanza of a Federalist poem deriding the rise of republicanism in New York aptly noted:

  Here, when all other measures fail,

  To turn the newly balanc’d scale,

  Manhattan’s Bank pours in its stream,

  The Fed’ral party kick the beam…

  A Bank, upon occasion’s spur,

  To discount notes for Colonel Burr.

  At the very least, as this poem suggests, the Manhattan Company balanced the scales between Republicans and Federalists in New York City.

  Building on this foundation, Burr recruited a stellar slate of candidates for the State Assembly to stand against Hamilton’s lackluster list. As Davis explained to Gallatin, “Mr. Burr is arranging matters in such a way as to bring into operation all of the Republican interests.” This meant uniting the Clinton, Livingston, and Burr factions of the local party in a common effort. Clinton had stepped down in 1795 after six terms as governor, yet Burr persuaded him to permit his name to head the list of Republican candidates for the State Assembly. Brockholst Livingston represented his clan on the ticket. Washington’s first Postmaster General, Samuel Osgood, who once led a company of minutemen at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, lent his name. Perhaps most remarkable of all, at Burr’s urging, General Horatio Gates, whose fabled victory at the Battle of Saratoga turned the tide in the American Revolution, emerged from retirement at age seventy-four to stand for election to the Assembly.

  Few of these candidates actually campaigned for office, and some of them had no intention of actively serving in the Assembly. Indeed, according to Davis (who participated in the meetings at which Burr pleaded with Clinton to join the ticket), the proud former governor reserved “to himself the right of stating in conversation that his name was used without his authority.” As for Gates, Burr later felt it necessary to remind the infirm general when to vote for presidential electors—presumably he did not otherwise attend legislative sessions in Albany. Yet, the united ticket of Republican luminaries served its purpose. “I believe we shall offer to our fellow citizens,” Davis wrote to Gallatin, “the most formidable list ever offered them by any party in point of morality, private and public virtue, local and general influence, etc…. If we carry this election, it may be ascribed principally to Col. Burr’s management and perseverance. Hamilton fears his influence.”

  While the Republican press hailed the party ticket as the finest assemblage of senior statesmen ever put forth for such lowly offices, the city’s two leading Federalist newspapers could only fume. “They have got names to which respectability has been attached,” the Commercial Advertiser noted, but “the citizens of New York will see through it.” None of these candidates cared about the state’s business, it charged, they cared only about electing a President. “Citizen Clinton does not go to the Assembly for the purpose of mending roads, nor Citizen Burr for that of digging wells,” the Daily Advertiser commented. Charging that “their sole object in standing candidates is to secure the election of Mr. Jefferson,” the Commercial Advertiser dismissed Gates as “tottering over the grave with a mind utterly impaired” and characterized Clinton as “smiling at the thought of having done his best to destroy that Constitution which he voted against adopting.” An election-day squib in the Daily Advertiser reminded voters of Gates’s infamous defeat at the Battle of Camden: “If the General runs as well at the election, he cannot
fail of success.” Such jabs had little impact on voters. Commenting on Gates’s election, one observer later wrote of “the veterans of the Revolution abandoning their party to vote for their old comrade and leader.”

  Once he secured strong candidates through personal negotiations, Burr staged a formal nominating process to engage the party. First, the Republican county committee met to nominate Burr’s hand-picked slate; then, a party caucus open to all interested voters accepted the nominations. Long after those events, one participant remembered Burr’s instructions for the party meeting: “As soon as the room begins to fill up, I will nominate Daniel Smith as chairman, and put the question quickly. Daniel being in the chair, you must each nominate one member…. We must then have some inspiring speeches, close the meeting, and retire.”

  Republican Party subcommittees met in each ward and worked tirelessly for the entire ticket. Burr had loyal lieutenants spread throughout the city, and his palatial home served as the campaign headquarters, with refreshments served at all hours and mattresses in the rooms for exhausted workers. “Our organization was completed by dividing the city into small districts,” the observer recalled, “with a committee appointed to each, whose duty it was to canvass the district and ascertain the political opinion of each voter by going from house to house.” These lists guided later efforts to get voters to the polls for the election. If not correct in every detail, this account fits the surviving record of those near-spontaneous events. The parts of America’s first urban party machine fell into place that spring by trial and error.

  Federalists also held caucuses and campaign rallies, but they did not generate as much enthusiasm as did the Republican meetings. “Never have I observed such a unity of sentiments, so much zeal, and as general a determination to be active,” Matthew Davis wrote to Gallatin following the Republican county meeting. In contrast, he reported that dissension marked the Federalists’ nominating conclave. “So much for the friends of good order and regular government,” Davis added dryly.

  Feverish partisan activity continued throughout the campaign. Each side organized groups of merchants and artisans on behalf of its ticket. Burr apparently put in place a highly organized fund-raising scheme that taxed Republicans according to their ability and willingness to contribute. Abigail Adams claimed that the Republicans spent $50,000 on the campaign, which (if true) was an unprecedented amount for the time—the equivalent of about $750,000 today. At the outset of the campaign, Burr reportedly “pledged himself to come forward and address the people in firm and manly language on the importance of the election and the momentous crisis at which we have arrived.” He fulfilled this pledge by vigorously portraying Federalist warmongering and abuses of civil liberties as a crisis of American democracy. “Many people wonder that the ex-senator and would-be vice president can stoop so low as to visit every low tavern that may happen to be crowded with his dear fellow citizens,” the Daily Advertiser commented accusingly, “but the prize of success to him is well worth all the dirty work.” Hamilton campaigned as well: “Every day he is seen in the street hurrying this way and darting that,” glad-handing individuals and speaking to small groups, a critic observed.

  When the polls finally opened on April 29 for three days of balloting, normal business came to a halt across the city and electioneering took over. “Both parties were very warmly engaged,” Elizabeth DeHart Bleecker noted in her diary, “and it is very doubtful which ticket will be successful.”

  Events hampered the Federalist effort. On the first day of voting, word reached the city that the British frigate Cleopatra, then moored in New York harbor, had recently captured two American merchant vessels and sent them as prizes to Canada. This affront reminded voters of the inadequacies of Jay’s Treaty and hurt the Federalists, who were associated with pro-British policies. “Can it be possible that the Federal Party in this country are so blinded by prejudice and actuated by party spirit that they cannot see the danger of close connection with that people,” a hastily prepared partisan handbill describing the incident said of Federalists’ ties to the British. “Let us go forward to our polls, give our suffrage to the men who have once released us from the tyrannical yoke of Britain, and who now come forward once more to secure to you that liberty they have so hardly earned.” Running a slate of candidates headed by several aging Revolutionary War heroes, the Republicans had invoked the Spirit of ’76 against the “British party” in American politics. A prominent High Federalist soon wrote to the U.S. ambassador in London about the timing of “the unconciliating conduct of Capt. Bellows of the Cleopatra” and its probable influence on the New York election.

  Following common election practices of the era, party leaders (but not candidates) positioned themselves at polling places to encourage their voters and intimidate all others. Hamilton and Burr threw themselves into this practice. “They repeatedly addressed the people and did all that men could do,” one Burrite observed. “They frequently met at the same polls and argued in the presence of large assemblages the debatable questions.” Some accounts had Hamilton going from poll to poll on a white horse—jeered in some wards, cheered in others—and Federalist officers from the national Army stationed at some polls in full regalia. “I have been night and day employed in the business of the election,” Hamilton’s friend Troup reported after the final day of voting. “Never have I witnessed such exertions on either side before. I have not eaten dinner for three days.” Burr matched Hamilton stride for stride (though not on horseback). Indeed, he stood for (and won) election from a neighboring county so that he could more freely campaign in the city. Defying convention, Brockholst Livingston addressed voters at the polls even though he was a candidate.

  Republican efforts focused on New York’s sprawling Sixth and Seventh Wards, located on the city’s expanding northern fringe. Crammed with foreign immigrants and home to many native-born African-Americans and impoverished European Americans, each of these wards contained over twice as many voters as any of the three wards at Manhattan’s southern tip, where most of the city’s wealthiest citizens lived. These northern wards promised the most votes for Republicans. The densely populated Sixth Ward contained the least desirable housing in the city, while the geographically larger Seventh Ward included a mix of neighborhoods.

  Various reports suggest the extent of Republican efforts in these two critical wards. The party dispatched German-speaking poll workers to the heavily German Seventh Ward, for example, and in both wards it organized transportation for poor voters, many of whom lived far from their ward’s central polling place. One account spoke of “carriages, chairs and wagons” appearing on the streets for Republican voters. “This morning, Mr. Robert Livingston drove an old Negro to the poll at the Seventh Ward, a distance of five miles in his own elegant chair,” the Federalist Commercial Advertiser reported snidely, yet the man “voted for the Federal ticket to the utter amazement and confusion of his dear friend Bobby.” An April 30 article in the same newspaper noted, “The purse-proud landlord of the Seventh Ward, Henry Rogers, stood at the poll yesterday in obedience to the orders of Burr to solicit, and to overawe, and to brow beat the voters.” Burr stationed himself in the Sixth Ward on April 30, and then moved on to the Seventh Ward for May 1. “This day has he remained at the poll of the Seventh Ward, TEN HOURS, without interruption,” his exhausted follower Matthew Davis wrote at day’s end. “Pardon the hasty scrawl: I have not eaten for fifteen hours.”

  Then it ended. By 12:00 on the night of May 1, the outcome was clear. “Republicanism Triumphant,” Davis emblazoned across the top of a midnight letter to Albert Gallatin at the national Congress in Philadelphia. With virtually identical numbers for all their Assembly candidates, Republicans had won by an average of some 450 votes—or about 8 percent of the total. The Sixth Ward, the city’s poorest, accounted for the entire margin of victory. Without its votes, every Republican candidate would have lost. The huge Seventh Ward voted Republican too, but more narrowly than the Sixth. As in Pennsylvan
ia earlier, the allegiance of new immigrants to the Republican cause tipped the scale. In this sense, the Naturalization and Alien Acts had hurt the Federalists. Federalist candidates meanwhile swept the three southernmost wards—home to the city’s wealthiest residents—by nearly a two-to-one margin. Vote totals from the middle two wards split about evenly. Despite a deeply divided electorate, city-wide voting gave all thirteen Assembly seats to Republicans.

  When word of the outcome reached Philadelphia by post, the U.S. Senate adjourned for the day. “The New York election has engrossed the whole attention of us, meaning by ‘us’ Congress and the whole city,” Gallatin wrote from Philadelphia. “Exultation on our side is high; the other party are in low spirits.” The political ground had shifted seismically under the nation’s politicians. Congressman Edward Livingston actually spoke of “an earthquake.” New York’s twelve electoral votes, which had gone to Adams in 1796, would move to Jefferson’s column for 1800. Federalists and Republicans alike struggled to digest the news and determine what it meant for themselves and their party. Passing the glad tidings on to Madison, Virginia Congressman John Dawson exclaimed, “Dear Sir! The republic is safe. Our ticket has succeeded in the city of New York.”