United States presidential election, 1796

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United States presidential election, 1796
1796

Nominee	John Adams	Thomas Jefferson ^{(became VP)}
Party	Federalist	Democratic-Republican
Home state	Massachusetts	Virginia
Running mate	Thomas Pinckney	Aaron Burr
Electoral vote	71	68
States carried	9	7
Popular vote	35,726	31,115
Percentage	53.4%	46.6%

Presidential election results map. Presidential electoral votes by state. Because electors couldn't distinguish between their presidential and vice presidential choices until the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, the map above assumes that the presidential votes are exactly the votes for Adams or Jefferson. This leads to an anomaly: Maryland is listed as having cast 7 Federalist votes and 4 Democratic-Republican votes when Maryland had only 10 electors. The problem is that at least one Maryland elector cast his ballot for a Jefferson-Adams ticket. Green denotes states won by Jefferson, Orange-red denotes states won by Adams. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent President George Washington Federalist President-Elect John Adams Federalist

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 a downside to the original Electoral College system. It was also the first ever non-incumbent presidential election slated in the U.S.

With incumbent President George Washington having refused a third term in office, incumbent Vice President John Adams of Massachusetts was a candidate for the presidency on the Federalist Party ticket with former Governor Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina as the next most popular Federalist. Their opponents were former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia along with Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic-Republican ticket. At this point, each man from any party ran alone, as the formal position of "running mate" had not yet been established.

Unlike the previous elections where the outcome had been a foregone conclusion, Republicans campaigned heavily for Jefferson, and Federalists campaigned heavily for Adams. The debate was an acrimonious one, with Federalists tying the Democratic-Republicans to the violent revolutions in France and the Democratic-Republicans accusing the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. In foreign policy, the Democratic-Republicans denounced the Federalists over Jay's Treaty, perceived as too favorable to Britain, while the French ambassador embarrassed the Democratic-Republicans by publicly backing them and attacking the Federalists right before the election.

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 Democratic-Republican ticket received more votes than Pinckney and was elected Vice-President.

1 General election
2 Consequences
3 Electoral college selection
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Navigation

[edit] General election

[edit] The Candidates

John Adams, Vice President of the United States from Massachusetts
Samuel Adams, Governor of Massachusetts
Aaron Burr, U.S. senator from New York
George Clinton, former Governor of New York
Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from Connecticut
John Henry, U.S. senator from Maryland
James Iredell, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from North Carolina
John Jay, Governor of New York
Thomas Jefferson, former Secretary of State of the United States from Virginia
Samuel Johnston, U.S. senator from North Carolina
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, former major general from South Carolina
Thomas Pinckney, former U.S. Minister to France from South Carolina
George Washington, President of the United States from Virginia

Vice President John Adams of Massachusetts	Governor Samuel Adams of Massachusetts	Senator Aaron Burr of New York	Former Governor George Clinton of New York
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court James Iredell of North Carolina	Governor John Jay of New York	Former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia
Senator Samuel Johnston of North Carolina	Former Major General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina	Representative Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina	President George Washington of Virginia

[edit] Campaign

[edit] Results

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 (this was prior to the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, which changed the electoral process to a system based on running mates). Each party intended to manipulate the results 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 electors in Pinckney's home state of South Carolina as well as at least one elector in Pennsylvania 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. This was due in part to the support the Democratic-Republican Party had for the French Revolution [1], but Democratic-Republican support was still significant enough to elect Jefferson Vice-President.

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote^{(a), (b), (c)}		Electoral Vote
Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Count	Percentage	Electoral Vote
John Adams	Federalist	Massachusetts	35,726	53.4%	71
Thomas Jefferson	Democratic-Republican	Virginia	31,115	46.6%	68
Thomas Pinckney	Federalist	South Carolina	—	—	59
Aaron Burr	Democratic-Republican	New York	—	—	30
Samuel Adams	Democratic-Republican	Massachusetts	—	—	15
Oliver Ellsworth	Federalist	Connecticut	—	—	11
George Clinton	Democratic-Republican	New York	—	—	7
John Jay	Federalist	New York	—	—	5
James Iredell	Federalist	North Carolina	—	—	3
George Washington	(none)	Virginia	—	—	2
John Henry	Democratic-Republican	Maryland	—	—	2
Samuel Johnston	Federalist	North Carolina	—	—	2
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	Federalist	South Carolina	—	—	1
Total			66,841	100.0%	276
Needed to win					70

Source (Popular Vote): U.S. President National Vote. Our Campaigns. (February 11, 2006).
Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 30, 2005).

^(a) Votes for Federalist electors have been assigned to John Adams and votes for Democratic-Republican electors have been assigned to Thomas Jefferson.
^(b) Only 9 of the 16 states used any form of popular vote.
^(c) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.

[edit] Breakdown by ticket

Presidential Candidate	Running Mate	Electoral Vote^(a)
John Adams	Thomas Pinckney	45 .. 49
Thomas Jefferson	Aaron Burr	25 .. 30
Thomas Jefferson	Samuel Adams	14 .. 15
John Adams	Oliver Ellsworth	11
Thomas Jefferson	Thomas Pinckney	9 .. 14
Thomas Jefferson	George Clinton	6 .. 7
John Adams	John Jay	5
Thomas Jefferson	James Iredell	3
John Adams	Samuel Johnston	2
John Adams	Thomas Jefferson	1 .. 6
Thomas Jefferson	George Washington	1
Thomas Jefferson	Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	1
John Adams	Aaron Burr	0 .. 4
Thomas Pinckney	Aaron Burr	0 .. 4
John Adams	John Henry	0 .. 2
Thomas Jefferson	John Henry	0 .. 2
Thomas Pinckney	John Henry	0 .. 2
Aaron Burr	John Henry	0 .. 2
John Adams	George Washington	0 .. 1
Thomas Pinckney	George Washington	0 .. 1
Aaron Burr	George Washington	0 .. 1
Samuel Adams	George Washington	0 .. 1
George Clinton	George Washington	0 .. 1

^(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 Democratic-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.

[edit] Consequences

For the only time in United States history, the President and Vice President were from different parties. Jefferson would leverage his position as Vice President to attack President Adams' policies, and this would help him reach the White House in the following election.

This election would provide the first impetus for the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On January 6, 1797, Representative William L. Smith of South Carolina presented a resolution on the floor of the House of Representatives for an amendment to the Constitution by which the presidential electors would designate which candidate would be President and which would be Vice President.^[1] However, no action was taken on his proposal, setting the stage for the deadlocked election of 1800.

[edit] Electoral college selection

Method of choosing Electors	State(s)
Each Elector appointed by the state legislature	Connecticut Delaware New Jersey New York Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont
State is divided into electoral districts, with one Elector chosen per district by the voters of that district	Kentucky Maryland North Carolina Virginia
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide	Georgia Pennsylvania
Two Electors appointed by the state legislature Each remaining Elector chosen by the state legislature from list of top two vote-getters in each Congressional district	Massachusetts
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide; however, if no candidate wins majority, the state legislature appoints Elector from top two candidates	New Hampshire
State is divided into electoral districts, with one Elector chosen per district Each county chooses an electoral delegate by popular vote Elector is chosen by electoral delegates of the counties within their district	Tennessee