A Magnificent Catastrophe

by Edward J. Larson

  With few private homes to rent in town, most Senators and Representatives crowded into eight modest boardinghouses near the Capitol. “I arrived here last evening after a very tedious and fatiguing ride,” Bayard wrote to his family from Washington on January 3. “I have no lodgings yet and am in no manner arranged. The city I have seen only from the windows of the Capitol. The prospect furnishes a view of a few scattered houses and a great deal of dreary, rough country.” He soon found accommodations with fellow Federalists in Stelle’s Hotel.

  Joint living arrangements became common during the first session in Washington, but rarely crossed party lines. Gallatin, who also arrived in January, shared a double room at Conrad and McMunn’s Apartments. This boardinghouse became the Republican command post, with Jefferson occupying its only private suite. Gallatin likened dining at its common table to eating at “a refectory of monks”: One topic predominated and everyone thought alike. “You may suppose that being all thrown together in a few boarding houses, without hardly any other society than ourselves, we are not likely to be either very moderate politicians or to think of anything but politics,” he confessed to his wife, who remained behind in Pennsylvania.

  According to various accounts of the local social scene, Philadelphia’s grand balls had given way to Washington’s low saloons. Certainly fewer congressional wives accompanied their husbands to Washington than to Philadelphia. “There is a great want of society, especially female,” one member complained. “There is nobody to visit nor means of visiting. As soon as night comes, the tables for cards are introduced.” Federalists and Republicans had mixed freely in Philadelphia society. In Washington, however, they rarely met except in partisan combat. The urbane Massachusetts Federalist Harrison Gray Otis, who once delighted in Philadelphia’s bipartisan social circle, wrote to his wife in February about leaving a Washington party attended by Republicans. “I have concluded to go to no more balls,” he declared, because “I do not enjoy myself with these people.”

  House members endured the further frustration of having no permanent meeting place. With the roof not yet over its official chambers, the House had to convene in either smaller rooms of the Capitol or a nearby temporary structure called “the Oven.” No other options existed. Even the Executive Mansion remained little more than an elegant shell. “Not one room or chamber is finished of the whole,” Abigail Adams complained. “It is habitable by fires in every part, thirteen of which we are obliged to keep daily or sleep in wet and damp places.” Put to use in much the same condition, both the War Offices and Treasury Building caught fire during those first few months. Some Republicans charged outgoing Federalist officeholders with setting the blazes to destroy evidence of their corrupt dealings. “Party will believe it,” Gallatin wrote to his wife on January 29, “but I do not.”

  With less than two weeks until the critical House vote for President, trust had broken down completely between the parties. Each side attributed only the worst motives to the other. Gallatin’s letters suggest only one topic of agreement. “The Federal City,” he wrote, “is hated by every member of Congress without exception of persons or parties.” By the middle of February, lawmakers were in no mood to compromise, or even to act rationally. The presidency hung in the balance.

  Compelled by the Constitution to wait until February 11 to begin voting, Federalists and Republicans in the House spent the first six weeks of the new year posturing and plotting. Faced with a novel political situation and operating under a relatively new constitution that Americans did not yet venerate, anything seemed possible and rumors spread wildly. To a remarkable degree, however, both sides operated within parameters suggested by the Constitution.

  Republicans worried primarily that their opponents might make the bold move of enacting legislation to designate some Federalist officeholder as the interim executive pending the election of a President by the House. Such a measure, if signed into law by Adams, could extend the Federalists’ hold on power. “Is it possible that Mr. Adams should give his sanction to it,” Madison asked Jefferson in early January, “or that he would not hold it his duty or his policy, in case the present House should obstinately refuse to [elect a President], to appoint…for the succeeding House to meet and supply the omission?” Republicans would control that next House, but it could not convene until December unless called by the President. Adams could thus use his remaining power to tilt the outcome either way. Madison and Gallatin urged Jefferson to seek Adams’s help, but when Jefferson later did so, Adams reportedly rebuffed him.

  Instead, the President issued an advance call for a special session of the new Senate on March 4, ostensibly to confirm the next President’s appointments. Some Republicans smelled a rat. Knowing that many newly elected Republican senators could not arrive in time for the special session, they feared that the rump Senate would promptly elect a Federalist president pro tempore, who could assume the reins of government if the House failed to act. Already intense, the intrigue increased daily.

  Responding to the supposed Federalist scheme, Republicans vowed to resist all efforts to install an interim executive. Madison called them “substantial violations of the will of the people, of the scope of the Constitution, and of the public order and interest.” Gallatin agreed. “Whether the assumption be made by law or without it, the act of the person designated by the law or of the President pro temp. assuming the power is clearly unconstitutional,” he advised House Republicans. “Any assumption on their part is usurpation. Usurpation must be resisted by freemen whenever they have the power of resisting.” He called upon individuals and Republican-controlled state governments to refuse to obey “those acts which may flow from the usurper as President.” Even Burr agreed on this point, writing to Gallatin on February 12, “In case of usurpation by law, by President of the Senate pro tem., or in any other way,…I shall act in defiance of all timid, temporizing projects.”

  Resistance could become violent, Republicans warned. “It was threatened that if any man should be thus appointed President by law and accept the office, he would instantaneously be put to death,” Gallatin later acknowledged. Word spread that Governors McKean and Monroe would dispatch their state militias to suppress any Federalist coup and that the Republican states would join in forming a new government under a revised constitution. Some Federalists spoke of their states responding in kind, raising the specter of disunion or civil war.

  According to his own account, Jefferson verbally threatened Adams with “resistance by force and incalculable consequences” if the Federalists tried to install an interim President. “We thought it best to declare openly and firmly, [to] one and all, that the day such an act passed, the middle states would arm and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to,” Jefferson explained in a February 15 letter to Monroe. Republicans would reluctantly acquiesce if the House legally elected Burr, Jefferson later informed McKean, “but in the event of an usurpation, I was decidedly with those who were determined not to permit it because that precedent once set, would be artificially reproduced, and end soon in a dictator.” The specter of Napoleon’s coup and its authoritarian consequences for France still hung heavily on Americans.

  Republicans had their own ideas about what should happen if the House did not elect a President, but no consensus plan. “Let the two candidates agree between themselves…which of them shall act as President and which as Vice President,” McKean suggested in a letter to Jefferson. “Thus the constitutional choice of the people will be substantially carried into effect.” In this manner, Burr could have resolved the matter at any point by publicly and unequivocally declaring that he would not accept the presidency over Jefferson—but he never did. Instead, his words and deeds suggested that he would take the post if Congress offered it. Madison proposed that Jefferson and Burr jointly call the new House into special session after March 3. “The prerogative of convening the legislature must reside in one or [the] other of them,” he explained to Jefferson, “and if,
in reference to the Constitution, the preceding might be not strictly regular, the irregularity will…lie in form only rather than substance.” The new Republican-controlled House would elect Jefferson, Madison presumed.

  If all else failed, Gallatin urged Republicans to go along with the Federalists’ proposal of holding new national elections. “Let them order a new election whenever they please,” he noted deviously, “they cannot count the votes and complete the election without Congress being convened, and then the next House may act either on the new or on the present election.” All these options would result in a Republican President, their proponents insisted. Any of them would suffice. Republicans adamantly objected only to continued Federalist rule.

  Perhaps in response to Republican threats, on February 9, the House adopted procedural rules that effectively precluded it from passing a law to designate an interim President. The rules, drafted by a Federalist-dominated committee, gave a literalistic reading to the constitutional provision stating that in the case of a tie between two candidates for President, the House “shall immediately choose by ballot one of them.” The key proviso in the new rules stated that if the first ballot did not decide the issue, then “the House shall continue to ballot for a President, without interruption by other business, until it shall appear that a President is duly chosen…[and] shall not adjourn until a choice is made.” In effect, members would remain in session, conducting no other business, until either they elected a President or their terms expired on March 3, whichever occurred first.

  These rules signaled that House Federalists wanted to select the President. If they failed, of course, the Senate could still try to elect a president pro tempore to serve as an interim executive following the end of Jefferson’s current term as Vice President, but the House would have no say in it. Voting along party lines, the House also decided to proceed in secret, with only members present. “We are to be shut up for God knows how long, though it cannot be longer than the third of March,” Otis wrote to his wife. “Our committee room must be garnished with beefsteaks, and a few Turk[ish] carpets to lie upon would not be amiss.”

  Both sides went into the House vote on February 11 with high hopes. The Federalists expected all the Republicans to vote for Jefferson on the first ballot, but believed that some would eventually split off if the balloting continued. Burr had friends in Congress, particularly among the Republicans in the closely divided New York and New Jersey delegations. Tennessee’s lone representative, a Republican, also seemed open to persuasion, as did Vermont’s Republican congressman. To win, Burr needed only one or two of these possible votes in any three of these four delegations.

  Rumors swirled of bribes and job offers—but these promises, if made, apparently came from zealous Federalists rather than from Burr himself. Jefferson, in contrast, needed only one more Federalist vote from either Maryland or Vermont, or Bayard’s vote from Delaware, to prevail. Republicans believed that he would win on the first ballot. “I hear both parties, and cannot help being amazed by the certainty of success which is declared by each,” Gouverneur Morris observed in early February.

  A snowstorm enveloped Washington on the morning of Wednesday, February 11, as legislators made their way to the Capitol for the opening and counting of the states’ electoral votes. The weather made travel especially difficult for Maryland Representative Joseph H. Nicholson, who suffered from the symptoms of pneumonia. Republicans needed him to stalemate (or perhaps to carry for Jefferson) the vote of his state’s divided delegation. Despite a raging fever, bearers (who perhaps included some of his slaves) carried Nicholson two miles on a litter from his residence to the Capitol for the official vote count and ensuing election. “It is a chance that this kills him,” Otis wrote to his wife. “I would not thus expose myself for any President on earth.” Nicholson’s health improved over time, however, and he never missed a vote.

  The entire House and Senate crowded into the ornate Senate chambers at noon to observe the vote count. Performing one of his few constitutionally mandated duties as Vice President, Jefferson read aloud the sixteen state ballots and announced the final totals. As everyone anticipated, the two Republican candidates had 73 votes each; Adams had 65; Pinckney 64; and John Jay 1.

  When reading the ballots, Jefferson undoubtedly noticed that the one from Georgia lacked the requisite certification and signatures of the electors. He moved on quickly, though, not mentioning the technical deficiency. A partisan dispute over the validity of Georgia’s votes for Jefferson and Burr could have disrupted the counting process, but no member raised the issue at the time, even though some apparently knew about it. Without votes from Georgia’s four electors, the Federalists could have claimed that no candidate had votes from a majority of the 138 named electors. Under the Constitution, the House could then choose from among the top 5 candidates, which would include Adams, Pinckney, and Jay. Republicans would have countered that Jefferson and Burr still had votes from a majority of the 134 participating electors, and thus remained the only 2 eligible candidates. Raising this issue would further complicate an already complicated matter without fundamentally changing the dynamics: Even with their candidates back in the race, the Federalists would still not have enough votes to elect them. In addition, no one seriously doubted that Georgia’s electors meant to vote for Jefferson and Burr.

  Congress moved on too. “The votes having been entered on the journals,” The National Intelligencer reported, “the House returned to its own chamber and, with closed doors, proceeded to the ballot.” Jefferson’s archfoe, House Speaker Theodore Sedgwick, presided. The voting began promptly at 1:00 PM.

  Republican members of Congress felt supremely confident. “On the day on which we began balloting for President, we knew positively that Mr. [George] Baer of Maryland was determined to cast his vote for Jefferson,” Gallatin later wrote, “and his vote was sufficient to give us that of Maryland and decide the election. I was certain from personal intercourse with him that Mr. [Lewis] Morris of Vermont would do the same, and thus give us the vote of that state.”

  In private correspondence prior to the vote, various Republicans boasted that Jefferson would carry both of these states and Delaware to boot. “I was informed as I passed thro’ Wilmington that Mr. Bayard, their Representative, was decidedly in favor of your election,” one member assured Jefferson. “If so, I think the question is settled. God grant it may be so!” Other Republicans joked about the pressures on Maryland’s William Craik. “Mr. C’s lady, it is said, will renounce her husband if he does not vote for Mr. J,” one informant told Monroe.

  Remembering the iron discipline of both parties in the battle over Pennsylvania’s presidential electors, however, Jefferson was characteristically circumspect about his prospects. “I am far from confiding that a single state will come over,” he wrote to his son-in-law. “Pennsylvania has shown what men are when party takes place of principle.” Jefferson was right. Not a single one of the allegedly wavering Federalists voted for him. On the first ballot, Jefferson carried the eight Republican states; Burr took the six Federalist ones; Maryland and Vermont split evenly along party lines and did not vote. Neither candidate received the necessary majority. Bayard later explained, “By the arrangements I made, I became encircled by all the doubtful votes and made myself responsible for the issue.” He voted with his party and the Federalist “phalanx” (as one Republican termed it) held.

  Following the first vote, some members called for a break before taking a second vote, but the majority voted them down. Convinced that their opponents lacked principle, Federalists believed that some of them would soon switch sides. Persistent rumors spoke of offers made by various Federalists to Republicans in the New York, New Jersey, and Maryland delegations for their votes. The Federalists expected these states to move quickly into Burr’s column. “A second ballot will be taken,” a leading New York Federalist had predicted in advance, and “in this event, some of the [Republicans] will come over to vote for Burr.” Republican
congressmen from New York and New Jersey had held a secret caucus a few days earlier, however, and pledged to stick by Jefferson. This too spawned rumors of private deals, with Jefferson and other Republican leaders now the alleged sources of the offers and threats. “The business is now fixed,” Representative George Jackson assured Madison following the caucus. Six more votes occurred in rapid succession, but not a single vote shifted.

  After the seventh ballot, Congress rested. “We are in conclave and in a snowstorm,” Otis wrote home at this point. “We have balloted in the House seven times. Thus it stands, for Jefferson 8, for Burr 6, divided 2. We have agreed not to adjourn, but we have suspended balloting for one hour to eat a mouthful. Perhaps we shall continue here a week.”

  Members cast twenty more ballots on that first day and night, voting typically at one-hour intervals until eight o’clock Thursday morning. Nothing changed. They voted again at noon on Thursday, but reached the same result. Exhausted, the members agreed to recess until 11:00 AM on Friday, February 13. “What the Feds, especially those of Maryland, mean, I cannot tell,” Republican Representative John Dawson wrote to Madison during the recess. “We are resolv’d never to yield, and sooner hazard everything than to prevent the voice and wishes of the people being carried into effect. I have not closed my eyes for 36 hours.”

  Petitions circulated in some Maryland communities urging their Federalist representatives to end the stalemate by voting for Jefferson. Some area residents feared that if Congress failed to elect a President, the national government would collapse and the capital might move. Hecklers reportedly jeered Federalists as they left the Capitol. Maryland’s leading Federalist newspapers urged members to stand firm, however. “Unworthy will he be, and consecrated his name to infamy, who…has hitherto strenuously opposed the exaltation of Mr. Jefferson to the presidential chair, shall now meanly and inconsistently lend his aid to promote it,” the local Washington Federalist proclaimed.