What can we learn from the election of 1800?

0:04The election of 1800 literally gave birth to the modern political party system. We have a two party democracy and that's the legacy of the election of 1800. Now, how we got there was that the original Constitution did not envision, it's hard to believe, the framers. We keep thinking they're so brilliant. They didn't even consider political parties. They came out of this legacy of the Revolution and we're all Americans. George Washington, from beginning to end of his presidency and before he had poor partisanship. His final farewell address is no war, no partisanship. We shouldn't be partisans. Sure, we'll have different ideas, but their idea, and you can see it in everything the Constitution created. You can see it in the electoral college. You can see it in the way congressional districts were designed. You can see it in Senators not being elected by the people but by state legislatures.

1:03All of these devices and they're using electors to pick the president. All of these devices are designed for how to have a republican system of government without political parties. Because in every case, at every level, it will be people who know the candidates who vote. Congressional districts are small enough that the body of people voting will know the candidates. Senators, the state legislature should know the candidates.

1:29Electors are elevated a level enough to know who's a possible president because they don't need a political party. Then the idea is, when you take office, sure, you'll have different opinions. Everybody knew there'd be different of opinions. Obviously, Hamilton and Jefferson differed from each other. Franklin differed from Patrick Henry.

1:48There were a lot of differences, but everyone would serve the best person for the job and then use their best judgment. Well, that's not the system we have. We have a partisan system where people vote political party lines and political parties and people vote party lines. That's what came out of the election in 1800. How it happened was Washington steps down after his two terms and thereafter we have one more old style election where the two most prominent people, plausible candidates, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both stood for the office. Electors were elected, ensure they might have had a factional difference. They knew Jefferson thought one way and Adams thought another way. Jefferson was more pro states and Adams was more pro national government. That certainly there were differences. But electors were elected, they voted, and it turned out that Adams won by the narrowest possible margin.

2:45Two votes different, and it would have been Jefferson. But Jefferson comes in second. When you have that old nonpartisan system, the logical way to do it was the electors all vote, each cast two ballots to the two people they think most qualified to be president, a winner as long as they get a majority of electors voting for him becomes president and the runner-up becomes vice president. Adams and Jefferson were president and vice president.

3:10Well, it turns out that Adams has a disastrous, good man, disastrous presidency. It turns he just doesn't have the skills of being president because he doesn't have the stature and leadership skills of a Washington in that role. He has other gifts. I admire John Adams, but not as president. We go into the election of 1800, not with differences of opinions. Now we go in there with two organized political parties with an organized press. If you read the newspapers back then, every town would have a Federalist newspaper and a Jeffersonian newspaper, and reading them, there is differences. They will present what's happening in Europe, what's happening in the French Revolution, what's happening in England,

3:54what's happening in America. They will give it an entire partisan spin. It's as different as if you watch Fox News and then turn on MSNBC for the coverage of the same event. It's that level of polarization and name calling that Federalists who had all cause, Jefferson an atheist or worse. I don't know what in that world was worse than being an atheist. The Jeffersonian newspapers would call Adams a monarchist or worst.

4:23I don't know what's worse than being a monarchist, but they figured it was John Adams and then it was going to be John II, John Quincy President. This sense of division that we can feel today drove that election. In that election, a very polarized election, there's only a slight shift. Of course, you have the incumbent, but Jefferson manages to flip a state.

4:48He flips New York, thanks to picking Aaron Burr as his running mate. He flips New York and he ends up winning a narrow victory and becoming president, leading to the first peaceful transition of power between one party and another. Basically, people will say, ever, I don't know enough about Chinese history to know if that's true. But apparently ever in a world history, you had a peaceful transition.

5:17Adams was mad as heck. He didn't even stay for the inauguration. He got out of town, which was considered a terrible slide at the time because Washington and stayed around for Adams inaugural. There was certainly bitterness, but we had a peaceful transition of power. A new party came in and a new ideology, an ideology that lowered taxes, got rid of the Alien and Sedition Acts, got so friendly with France that France sold America the Louisiana Purchase, because they got along with Jefferson. There's no way that Adams would have ever gotten the Louisiana Purchase. What we end up with is Jefferson, at first term of office, turns out to be one of the most extraordinary terms in all of American history. In part it was because what we'd already gone through,

6:06the election of 1800 made America a partisan Republic. In fact, that was John Adams karma. After the election was over, and I'm only paraphrasing and barely he says, we'll no longer will have a national government. From now on, we will have a partisan Republic. Based of what I've seen in the last election, I wouldn't trust either of these people.

6:28I would hope that every eight years will change parties. Which is interesting because we have them at in the future, but the constitution was not written for a partisan government. Think of it as the presidency to have the electors pick the first person they'd be president and the person who came in second to be vice president. Well, that ensured having people on opposite sides. You're going to have, think of it in the last election you'd have Biden who's President and a Donald Trump as Vice President. Think of what would have happened. Election before it would have been Trump as President and Hillary Clinton his Vice President. Well, think of that situation. What they realized that now we have a partisan country we have to change the way we choose the president somewhat. That is, we have to have the president and vice president run as a ticket together.

7:16That one party picks a presidential and vice presidential campaign candidates. Back then they did it with a caucus, was how they did it. Twenty-five years later, did they move to nominating conventions. On the other side again, a president and a vice president and then if the electors vote for a ticket of a president and vice president together. That's how we enshrined into the Constitution, the partisanship that had organically developed on its own or I guess I could say the nature of humans, the way we are.