A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign - Softcover

Larson, Edward J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743293177 ISBN 13: 9780743293174

Publisher: Free Press, 2008

Synopsis

They could write like angels and scheme like demons So begins Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Larson's masterful account of the wild ride that was the 1800 presidential election - an election so convulsive and so momentous to the future of American democracy that Thomas Jefferson would later dub it "America's second revolution" This was America's first true presidential campaign, giving birth to our two-party system and indelibly etching the lines of partisanship that have so profoundly shaped American politics ever since. The contest featured two of our most beloved Founding Fathers, once warm friends, facing off as the heads of their two still-forming parties - the hot-tempered but sharp-minded John Adams, and the eloquent yet enigmatic Thomas Jefferson - flanked by the brilliant tacticians Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who later settled their own differences in a duel. The country was descending into turmoil, reeling from the terrors of the French Revolution, and on the brink of war with France. Blistering accusations flew as our young nation was torn apart along party lines: Adams and his elitist Federalists would squelch liberty and impose a British-style monarchy; Jefferson and his radically democratizing Republicans would throw the country into chaos and debase the role of religion in American life. The stakes could not have been higher. As the competition heated up, other founders joined the fray - James Madison, John Jay, James Monroe, Gouverneur Morris, George Clinton, John Marshall, Horatio Gates, and even George Washington - some of them emerging from retirement to respond to the political crisis gripping the nation and threatening its future. Drawing on unprecedented, meticulous research of the day-to-day unfolding drama, from diaries and letters of the principal players as well as accounts in the fast-evolving partisan press, Larson vividly re-creates the mounting tension as one state after another

About this title

About the Author:

Edward J. Larson is the author of seven books and the recipient of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in History for his book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. His other books include Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory; Evolution's Workshop; God and Science on the Galapagos Islands; and Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution. Larson has also written over one hundred articles, most of which address topics of law, science, or politics from an historical perspective, which have appeared in such varied journals as The Atlantic, Nature, Scientific American, The Nation, The Wilson Quarterly, and Virginia Law Review. He is a professor of history and law at Pepperdine University and lives in Georgia and California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

CHAPTER ONE

FROM FRIENDS TO RIVALS

Although the friendship between Adams and Jefferson took root in Philadelphia during the opening days of the American Revolution, it blossomed in Paris at war's end. Again, the scene included Franklin. For the scene in Philadelphia, John Trumbull created the enduring image of the trio in his monumental painting, The Declaration of Independence. They stood together, seemingly larger than life, at the focal point of attention amid a sea of delegates at the Continental Congress, their purposeful eyes gazing forward as if into the future. A war with Britain lay ahead, and the task of building a new nation.

They had changed by the time the war finally ended and they could begin building on the promise of peace. Already the oldest signer of the Declaration in 1776, Franklin was seventy-eight in 1784, stooped with gout and kidney stones, when Jefferson reached Paris to augment the American diplomatic delegation there. Shortly after declaring the nation's independence, Congress had dispatched Franklin to seek French support for the Revolution. Adams joined him in 1778 and, although Franklin had obtained an alliance with France by then, they worked together with a shifting array of American diplomats to secure loans from the Dutch, peace with Britain, and commercial treaties with other nations.

Of middling height and decidedly square shouldered, Adams had added to his girth on a diplomat's diet. Tall for his day, Jefferson had grown into his height by 1784 and typically held himself more upright than before. When the three patriot leaders reunited as diplomats in Paris, the physical contrast between them had become almost comical. Upon making their initial joint appearance at the royal court in Versailles, one bemused observer likened them to a cannonball, a teapot, and a candlestick. America, however, never enjoyed abler representation in a foreign capital.

Franklin arrived in France already a celebrity and enhanced his reputation further while there. Hailed as the Newton of his day for his discoveries in electricity and renowned also as an inventor, writer, practical philosopher, and statesman, Franklin vied only with Voltaire as the public face of the Enlightenment, which then dominated French culture and influenced thought throughout Europe and America. When the two senior savants embraced at a public meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in 1778, it seemed as if all Europe cheered -- or so Adams reported with evident envy. "Qu'il etoit charmant," he caustically commented in two languages. "How charming it was!"

The sage of Philadelphia became a fixture in the finest salons of Paris and continued his scientific studies even as he served as America's senior diplomat in Europe. Ladies of the court particularly favored him, and he them, which gave Franklin access to the inner workings of pre-Revolutionary French society. These activities complemented each other by reinforcing Franklin's already legendary stature. Born in poverty on the edge of civilization and content to play the part of an American rustic by wearing a bearskin cap in fashion-conscious Paris, Franklin received honors and tributes from across Europe. A gifted diplomat, he secured what America needed from France to win the Revolution and secure its independence.

While in France, Adams always served in Franklin's shadow. At first, he accepted the shade. "The attention of the court seems most to Franklin, and no wonder. His long and great reputation...[is] enough to account for this," Adams wrote during his first year in Paris. Adding to his aggravation, however, was that Europeans seemingly took pains to distinguish him from his better-known cousin, the revolutionary firebrand Samuel Adams. "It was a settled point at Paris and in the English newspapers that I was not the famous Adams," the proud New Englander complained, "and therefore the consequence was settled absolutely and unalterably that I was a man of whom nobody ever heard before, a perfect cipher."

Gradually, Adams turned his rancor on Franklin, which soured their relationship. Except for John Jay (who joined them in negotiating peace with Britain), prior to Jefferson none of the diplomats sent by Congress to work with Franklin and Adams could bridge the growing divide. "The life of Mr. Franklin was a scene of continued dissipation. I could never obtain the favor of his company," Adams observed bitterly. "It was late when he breakfasted, and as soon as breakfast was over, a crowd of carriages came to his...lodgings, with all sorts of people: some philosophers, academicians, and economists...but by far the greater part were women and children who came to see the great Franklin." Then came formal dinners, parties, and concerts. "I should have been happy to have done all the business, or rather all the drudgery, if I could have been favored with a few moments in a day to receive his advice," Adams complained, "but this condescension was not attainable." Yet, Franklin managed a triumph at every turn despite (or perhaps because of) his socializing, which rankled the Puritan in Adams.

The only respite came in 1779 when, after Franklin secured the alliance with France and became America's sole ambassador to the French court, Adams returned to Massachusetts. He was back in Europe before year's end, however, assigned to work with Franklin and Jay in negotiating peace with Britain.

Despite their animosities, Franklin and Adams labored on with amazing success, each putting his nation's interests above his own. Always blunt and sometimes explosive, Adams was an unnatural diplomat at best. The odd-couple blend of Franklin's tact and Adams's tirades produced results. The alliance with France held, Britain conceded a generous peace, and America gained and maintained its independence from both of those grasping world powers. Between the two men, however, their personal relationship never recovered. Franklin's characterization of Adams stuck to him like tar and stained him forever: "Always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, in some things, absolutely out of his senses."

Both men rejoiced in 1784 when Jefferson arrived in Paris to join them in seeking postwar treaties of commerce and friendship with the various European nations. For Franklin, the attraction was obvious. A scientist and philosopher in his own right, Jefferson shared Franklin's Enlightenment values and religious beliefs. As fellow Deists, they acknowledged a divine Creator but, as Jefferson once wrote, they trusted in "the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs." If they prayed for anything from God, it was for wisdom to seek answers rather than for the answers themselves. Better yet for their relationship, Jefferson accepted Franklin's greatness without a trace of envy. In 1785, when Congress granted Franklin's longstanding request to retire and tapped Jefferson to serve as America's ambassador in Paris, the Virginian stressed that he would merely succeed Franklin: No one could replace him.

Adams seemed as happy as Franklin to receive Jefferson. His "appointment gives me great pleasure," Adams exulted at the time. "He is an old friend...in whose abilities and steadiness I always found great cause to confide." Best of all for Adams, Jefferson readily deferred to him and treated him as a senior colleague. "Jefferson is an excellent hand," Adams soon wrote. "He appears to me to be infected with no party passions or natural prejudices or any partialities but for his own country." Adams highly valued these traits. He accepted a political hierarchy founded on talent and believed in disinterested service by the elite. Jefferson seemed to exemplify these characteristics. Adams now spoke of the "utmost harmony" that reigned within the American delegation. "My new partner is an old friend and coadjutor whose character I studied nine or ten years ago, and which I do not perceive to be altered. The same industry, integrity, and talents remain without diminution," Adams observed.

Although Adams may not have noticed it at first, Jefferson had, however, changed. He now carried his height with dignity and hid his insecurities behind an ever more inscrutable facade. Never as self-confident as Adams, Jefferson learned to ignore the type of slights that often enraged Adams. In 1776, frustrations with public life and concerns about his wife's health led Jefferson to resign from Congress and decline appointment as a commissioner to France. He needed time at his beloved Monticello plantation. Once home, Jefferson reclaimed his seat in the Virginia legislature; worked to reform state laws to foster such republican values as voting and property rights, the separation of church and state, and public education; and served two troubled one-year terms as governor during the darkest days of the Revolution. After his wife, Martha, died following a difficult childbirth in 1782, Jefferson agreed once more to represent Virginia in Congress and, two years later, accepted the renewed offer to represent America in Paris. With his wife gone, he needed to leave Monticello as much as he once needed to be there. He grieved for her greatly and kept the vow purportedly made by him to her on her deathbed never to remarry.

During the week that Jefferson arrived, Adams's wife and three younger children joined Adams and their two older children in Paris after five painful years of separation. The Adamses welcomed the lonely Virginian into their happy home. For Jefferson, Abigail Adams became a trusted source of personal and family advice from a woman who was his intellectual equal. She also took Jefferson's two surviving children under her wing at times. He reciprocated in a manner that led John Adams to comment later to Jefferson that, in Paris, young John Quincy "appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine." Upon Adams's departure from Paris in 1785 to become the first American ambassador to Britain, Abigail expressed her regret about leaving Jefferson, whom she described as "the only person with whom my companion could associa...

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0743293177
• ISBN 13: 9780743293174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352