As it turned out, the Federalist slate led by former Governor William Greene prevailed by a narrow margin in the statewide election. This gave the Federalists 4 additional electors. If all the electors chosen so far duly voted for both candidates of their respective parties, Adams and Pinckney would each receive 58 votes, while Jefferson and Burr would each get 57 votes. Of course, one or more electors might drop a vote from one of their party’s candidates, but the running tally highlighted a new and disturbing threat to Jefferson.
Only two states remained to choose electors—Pennsylvania and South Carolina—and the Federalists had pulled ahead. If, as Jefferson feared, Pennsylvania did not vote, then Pinckney could finish ahead of him. That would happen if the South Carolina legislature, against the Republicans’ efforts, again chose electors committed to split their votes between the Southern candidates, giving one each to Jefferson and Pinckney, as they had done between Jefferson and Thomas Pinckney in 1796. The final total would then be 66 for Pinckney, 65 for Jefferson, 58 for Adams, and 57 for Burr, with 62 needed for a majority. Jefferson would come in second again, and Adams would be out.
Always pessimistic about his own prospects, Jefferson now saw this outcome as likely. “Putting Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Pinckney out of view, the votes will stand 57 for Jefferson and 58 for Adams, so that South Carolina will decide between these two. As to Pinckney, it is impossible to foresee how the juggle will work,” Jefferson wrote confidentially to his son-in-law. “If the Federal[ist] electors of the other states go through with the caucus compact [to vote equally for Pinckney], there is little doubt that South Carolina will make him the president.” Jefferson suspected that South Carolina’s electors would each cast one vote for him and one vote for their home-state candidate. He now thought that his best hope lay in either the Pennsylvania legislature agreeing on a majority of Republican electors or some pro-Adams electors dropping votes from Pinckney.
Jefferson was hardly alone in musing about these options. In this letter to his son-in-law, written from Washington before word reached there about the outcome in either of the remaining undecided states, Jefferson noted that the election “is the only thing of which anything is said here.” The closeness of the race and significance of the choice turned all eyes toward Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Their legislatures had until December 3 to choose electors or relinquish the right to vote. By law, all electors must cast their votes on that first Wednesday of December.
Following the October elections in Pennsylvania, Republican Governor Thomas McKean called a special session of the new legislature to meet in the state capital of Lancaster beginning on November 5. He hoped that somehow this session would lead to the appointment of Republican electors, but he had no clear plan how to achieve that goal. At least some Federalist state senators would need to cooperate for McKean to get his way because his party, despite its sizable majority in the State Assembly, did not control the Senate. Both houses would have to approve any law relating to the selection of electors. With the importance of the state’s electoral votes now more readily apparent than ever, both sides dug in for a fight. As if to signal their resolve, Federalists named as State Senate president the brother-in-law of U.S. Senator James Ross, McKean’s embittered opponent from 1799. “This I think is a bad symptom,” one Republican wrote to Jefferson.
The special session got under way in Lancaster on November 8, with the governor welcoming newly elected lawmakers to the state capital. “The situation of our country is critical,” he declared. “It has…fallen to the lot of Pennsylvania not merely to determine an important election, but to extinguish, by magnanimous example, those feuds and jealousies which have disturbed the order of society and which have threatened to eclipse the glory of the Revolution.” Failing to cast electoral votes would disgrace the state and endanger the union, McKean asserted. Although not enough time remained to schedule and hold popular elections before the December 3 deadline for naming electors, the legislature could still appoint them. Lawmakers had twenty-four days to reach agreement.
Petitions flooded into the legislature and letters filled local newspapers urging legislators to reach some solution. Each side accused the other of partisanship while claiming to stand for principle. Attention focused on the State Senate, where holdover Federalists appeared to block the current popular will. “Could the monarchists in the senate of Pennsylvania proceed in robbing this state of her suffrage in the election of President, they would cover themselves with eternal reproach,” the Aurora proclaimed. Not so, the Federalist Philadelphia Gazette countered. “A gracious Providence condescends to watch over the [affairs of the] United States,” it advised senators, “and in none, perhaps, has this Divine interposition been more obvious than in the noble stand which is ordained you should make against the inroads of disorganization.”
Pennsylvania Republicans argued that the Senate should submit to voters’ wishes as reflected in recent elections, in which their candidates had won most of the seats in the State Assembly. “Their doctrine is not less laughable than absurd,” the Philadelphia Gazette replied, “for they think the majority of the senate ought to yield their opinions and principles to the minority because, both houses taken collectively, there would be a great majority of Jeffersonians. This logic won’t do.” Rumors of bribes, threats, and violence circulated widely. Protesters purportedly burned an effigy of Federalist Senate floor leader Francis Gurney.
On November 8, Republicans in the State Assembly introduced and promptly passed a bill authorizing legislators to choose presidential electors by a majority vote of the combined membership of the Senate and Assembly, with each member casting one vote. Legislatures in other states typically used this method to choose electors. Pennsylvania Republicans pushed it now because it would give them a two-to-one advantage in voting and certainly would lead to the selection of fifteen Republican electors. Senate Federalists amended the bill to provide instead for the Republican-led Assembly to choose eight electors, who presumably would all be Republicans, and the Federalist-controlled Senate to choose seven electors, who just as surely would all be Federalists. Senate Federalists conceded one elector to the Republicans in return for Assembly Republicans accepting a split that would keep Federalists in contention nationwide. South Carolina would then decide the presidential election, and Federalists expected that state to support its native-son candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.
After making this opening offer, Federalists refused to give any more ground. “Francis Gurney’s system of bargaining for electors resembles in some respects the plan of a noted Algerian renegade,” the Aurora complained, “who finding provisions short, and fearing he might be the first victim, conspired with seven of his crew to murder their fellows, and then with the seven others, to murder them, by which means he got rid of both.” When neither side backed down, a new impasse ensued.
In subsequent talks, Senate Federalists had the advantage of knowing that, if negotiations failed and Pennsylvania did not vote, the net effect would be much the same as under their plan. They had offered a reasonable compromise and would simply wait for the Republicans to accept it. Although Republicans could not know the precise count from other states, they realized that, from their perspective, even a one-vote advantage in Pennsylvania would help, given how tight the race had become. It might even prove crucial if South Carolina electors ended up voting equally for Jefferson and Pinckney.
Over the next two weeks, Republicans made a series of counteroffers calculated to secure more electors for their side. First they proposed selecting ten Republican and five Federalist electors; then nine and six. Various accounts suggested that Republicans promised favors and threatened reprisals to secure the two votes they needed from Federalists in the Senate, but to no avail. In a remarkable show of party unity, no Federalist broke ranks.
As the December 3 deadline approached, Pennsylvania Republicans finally acceded to the Federalists’ conditions, apparently on the advice of party leaders in Co
ngress. “The leading Jacobins at Washington had expresses constantly passing from thence to Lancaster previous to the decision for electors,” the Gazette of the United States reported, “and when they found that threats, flattery, and corruption had no effect on the Senate of Pennsylvania, they advised the lower house to close with the proposition of the Senate.” For the Republicans, a net gain of one elector was better than nothing even if it was less than they thought they deserved.
Once party leaders agreed to terms, the legislative process—stalled for weeks by negotiations—unfolded rapidly. On December 1, the State Senate nominated 8 Federalist candidates for elector and the State Assembly nominated 8 Republicans. On December 2, the entire legislature voted on these 16 candidates, with the top 15 of them elected: 8 Republicans and 7 Federalists. Adding these electors to those already designated by other states gave each party a total of 65 electors, with South Carolina still to choose its 8 electors and 70 needed for a majority. Commenting on the strategy of the Federalists in anticipation of the results in South Carolina, the Aurora reported the essential news that Pennsylvania “will have eight votes for Jefferson and seven for Pinckney, for with all their professions Adams will be left in the lurch.” This comment presumed that South Carolina would split its electoral votes between Jefferson and Pinckney—opening the prospect for a tie between them, and shutting out Adams entirely. The 7 votes cast by Pennsylvania electors for Adams and the 8 votes they cast for Burr then would not matter. With the outcome now hinging on South Carolina, the 1800 election would come down to the question of modern party allegiance versus traditional state and sectional loyalty.
Even as Pennsylvania legislators resolved their deadlock, lawmakers in Columbia, South Carolina, struggled to choose the eight electors who would cast the state’s sixteen electoral votes. Because of the distance between the two states, neither group knew what the other had done until two weeks after the fact. Each had to act on the assumption that its votes would decide the presidency. South Carolina legislators also had to factor in Pinckney’s prospects of winning the presidency.
Although, remarkably, Adams held out hope of victory to the end, South Carolina electors had never been kind to him. In 1789, when Adams first became Vice President, they had voted for Washington and native son John Rutledge. In 1796, when Adams became President, they voted for Jefferson and native son Thomas Pinckney. Only in 1792, when Adams’s sole opponent for Vice President was George Clinton—another Yankee—had any South Carolina electors voted for him. In 1800, Adams realized that the odds stood against his garnering votes from South Carolina.
After the October legislative elections, Jefferson held the clear advantage over Adams in South Carolina. Although party lines had not yet fully formed there, Republicans outnumbered Federalists in the state legislature following the elections, and most nonaligned members preferred Jefferson to Adams. Many of these independents, who held the balance of power in the legislature, surely liked Pinckney better than Adams too. For some of them, state and regional ties probably made the difference. For others, Hamilton’s letter, coupled with Tench Coxe’s release of Adams’s 1792 letter criticizing the Pinckney brothers, may have hardened opposition to Adams. The Pinckneys were patriotic heroes in South Carolina. Calling them pro-British, as Adams had done in his letter, must have struck South Carolinians as highly offensive if not downright ludicrous.
If Republicans and independents had joined forces, they could have quickly secured the selection of electors who would all support Jefferson and Pinckney. Outside South Carolina, many Federalists fully expected this outcome. “At the time we agreed on Mr. Pinckney as a candidate,” U.S. House Speaker Theodore Sedgwick noted prior to the October elections, “we had every assurance which could be given by the members from South Carolina that, whatever might be the character of their electors, such was the popularity of General Pinckney that all the votes of that state would be given to him—if federal[ist], of course for Adams and Pinckney; if anti-federal[ist], for Pinckney and Jefferson.” Leading Federalists had failed to anticipate, however, the strength of the Republican vote in the October elections or the determination of Republicans to impose party discipline. They also did not foresee Pinckney’s refusal to solicit votes independent of Adams. Particularly after the publication of Hamilton’s letter, it had become a matter of honor for him not to do so.
The South Carolina legislature convened on November 24 for its regular autumn session, leaving it only eight days to choose the state’s presidential electors. Unlike in Pennsylvania, where lawmakers met in special session and publicly debated the process of choosing electors; in South Carolina, the process was set by statute. Negotiations over who would serve as electors took place mostly in private as legislators attended to other matters in public sessions. Members of the state’s House of Representatives and Senate—151 persons in all—would vote for electors jointly, each casting one vote for eight different candidates. Each party offered eight candidates, for a total of sixteen. The eight candidates receiving the most votes from the assembled legislators would serve as the state’s electors.
Battle lines formed quickly. United States Senator Charles Pinckney led the Republican forces in open opposition to his cousin, the Federalist candidate, who attended as a state senator but tried to remain above the fray. In a November 22 letter to Jefferson, after acknowledging that “my situation is delicate in being obligated to oppose my own kinsman (who does not now on that account speak to me),” Charles Pinckney vowed to remain in the state capital and lobby for the party ticket until the legislature voted. Republican lawmakers caucused privately at the outset—nearly seventy strong by some counts—and pledged themselves to vote for electors committed to support Jefferson and Burr. To bolster their position further, Republicans challenged the credentials of eight Federalist representatives from Charleston, claiming election fraud and (at Charles Pinckney’s suggestion) asking for their immediate suspension from office. This might have given the Republicans a working majority, but their petition died without a vote.
Twice during the ensuing week, delegations representing nonaligned legislators reportedly asked General Pinckney if he would endorse the selection of electors committed to support him and Jefferson. To win, their candidates would need votes from Federalist legislators that only the general could command. Standing by his pledge to run with Adams, he refused to endorse any candidate who did not support the entire Federalist ticket. Although Charles Pinckney later disputed it, these independents, combined with Federalists, might have succeeded in electing a compromise slate of electors committed to the two Southern candidates. “In this dilemma, the Federalists had a very serious discussion of the proper measures to be pursued,” one of them later wrote. “If we would give up on Mr. Adams, and consent to vote for electors who would vote for Mr. Jefferson and [Gen.] Pinckney, we could easily secure the election of Gen. Pinckney…. After mature deliberation, we resolved to venture all on the election of Mr. Adams and Gen. Pinckney, doubtful as it was.” By most accounts, Republicans held only a plurality of seats in the South Carolina legislature and, if given the option, even some of them might have voted for candidates pledged to vote for Jefferson and General Pinckney. If all the Federalists had done so too, those candidates could have won.
General Pinckney recognized the implications of the Federalists’ decision to stick with Adams. “Contrary to my former advices to you and all my expectation,” he wrote to Secretary of State John Marshall on November 29, “I am sorry to inform you that the anti-federalists will have a small majority in our legislature, tho’ sufficiently strong to carry their ticket for electors, which every man is pledged to support Jefferson and Burr. So far therefore as it rests on South Carolina, the election is settled.”
Still the legislature hesitated to act, perhaps because some members hoped for a compromise. One Republican argued his party’s case to wavering legislators in the press. “Gen. Pinckney is well known to you all; highly amiable in private life; and deser
vedly estimated as a man of true honor and integrity,” he wrote. “But do not suffer yourselves to be deceived. If you do vote for Mr. Jefferson and General Pinckney together, let it be with your eyes open to the consequences. General Pinckney is no longer run as Vice President; it is the avowed object of the Federal Party to make him President; and, as proof of this, I refer you to Gen. Hamilton’s letter…. By voting in the contemplated manner, you secure the success of the Federal candidate.”
As the days wore on, South Carolina newspapers published every bit of news from the Pennsylvania legislature as it arrived, but because of the communications lag, legislators ultimately had to vote without knowing those results. They waited until the last possible moment. Then, shortly after noon on December 2, they chose from among candidates on two partisan slates. Each slate had eight names—one all Republicans and another all Federalists. Although not every legislator voted strictly along party lines, each Republican candidate received more votes than any Federalist candidate.
The electors met at the state capitol in Columbia on December 3. “The constitution and laws…as they relate to the election of a president and vice president of the United States were read,” an observer noted, “after which the electors proceeded to ballot; and upon counting the votes, it appeared that Thomas Jefferson of Virginia had eight votes; that Aaron Burr of New York had also eight votes; and that no other person was mentioned on the ballots of the said electors.” Anxious about security, the electors then signed and sealed three certified copies of the results, sent one to Washington by personal messenger, mailed one to Washington, and deposited one with the state’s federal district court judge.
A Magnificent Catastrophe Page 27