United States presidential election, 1796
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The United States presidential election of 1796 was the first contested American presidential election and the first one to elect a President and Vice-President from opposing tickets, exposing potential flaws in the original Electoral College system.
Incumbent Vice President John Adams was a candidate for the presidency on the Federalist Party ticket with Thomas Pinckney as his running mate. Although Adams won, his opponent, Thomas Jefferson on the Republican ticket received more votes than Pinckney and was elected Vice-President.
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General election
Campaign
Incumbent Vice President John Adams was a candidate for the presidency on the Federalist Party ticket with Thomas Pinckney as his running mate. His opponent was Thomas Jefferson, who was joined by Aaron Burr on the Republican ticket.
Unlike the previous elections where the outcome had been a foregone conclusion, both sides campaigned heavily in the states to get favorable electors chosen. The debate was an acrimonious one, with Federalists tying the Republicans to the violent revolutions in France and the Republicans accusing the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. In foreign policy, the Republicans denounced the Federalists over Jay's Treaty, perceived as too favorable to Britain, while the French ambassador embarrassed the Republicans by publicly backing them and attacking the Federalists right before the election.
Under the system then in place, Electors had two votes, but both were for President; the runner-up in the presidential race was elected Vice President. Each party intended to get around this by having some of their Electors cast one vote for the intended presidential candidate and one vote for somebody besides the intended vice presidential candidate, leaving their vice presidential candidate a few votes shy of their presidential candidate. Unfortunately, these schemes were complicated by several factors:
- All electoral votes were cast on the same day, and communications between states were extremely slow at that time, making it very difficult to coordinate which Electors were to tank their Vice Presidential votes.
- There were rumors that southern Electors pledged to Jefferson were coerced by Alexander Hamilton to give their second vote to Pinckney in hope of electing him President instead of Adams. Indeed, as it turned out, all eight South Carolina Electors as well as at least one Pennsylvania Elector cast ballots for both Jefferson and Pinckney.
The result was that too many Adams electors failed to cast their second vote for Pinckney, and so Adams was elected President while his opponent, Jefferson, was elected Vice President. Jefferson would leverage his position as Vice President to attack President Adams' policies, which would help him reach the White House in the following election.
The problems arising from this election and the deadlocked election of 1800 were the impetus for the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Results
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Source (Popular Vote): U.S. President National Vote. Our Campaigns. (February 11, 2006).
Source (Electoral Vote): Template:National Archives EV source
(a) Popular vote figures are suspect because (1) only 9 of the 16 states used any form of popular vote, (2) pre-Twelfth Amendment electoral vote rules obscure the intentions of the voters, and (3) those states that did choose electors by popular vote often restricted the vote via property requirements.
Breakdown by ticket
Template:Start U.S. electoral vote box Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:U.S. electoral vote box row Template:End U.S. electoral vote box (a) Wikipedia's research has not yet been sufficient to determine the pairings of 15 electoral votes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; therefore, the possible tickets are listed with the minimum and maximum possible number of electoral votes each.
There were quite a few split tickets, with an elector casting one vote for the head of the Republicans, Jefferson, and the other for a Federalist:
- All eight South Carolina electors (along with at least one Pennsylvania elector) voted for native son Thomas Pinckney.
- Three North Carolina electors voted for native son James Iredell.
- There was even at least one elector in Maryland voting for an Adams-Jefferson ticket.
Electoral college selection
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See also
References
- Books
- Web references
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