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Chapter V - A New President, A Divided Administration
A New President, A Divided Administration 1796
Fatigued by the pressures of his office, Washington refused a third term. The Federalists realized that Hamilton was poorly suited for the office both in temperament and experience. Instead, they selected John Adams of Massachusetts as presidential candidate and Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina as vice-presidential candidate. The obvious choices for the Anti-Federalists, now known as Republicans, were Thomas Jefferson for president and New York's Aaron Burr, who had graduated from Princeton at age fifteen, for vice-president. Though neither the Federalists nor the Republicans intended to create separate political parties, their differences in philosophy ultimately led to a two-party system. Political leaders in the eighteenth century had not yet considered the positive good of two political parties which would exercise "loyal opposition" to one another. Instead, parties were viewed as dangerous factions which manipulated government for their own self-interest. Jefferson claimed, "If I could not get to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."
Party or no party, Jefferson did not make it to presidential "heaven," for John Adams won the election by a narrow margin of three electoral votes. Delegates from the various states simply voted for two candidates without specifying the office for which they voted, electing as president the candidate with the highest total of votes and as vice-president the man with the second highest total. Thus, Federalist John Adams and Republican Thomas Jefferson found themselves sharing a bitterly divided administration which had to put aside theoretical differences in order to successfully cope with French intrigues.
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