John Adams, as president of the Senate,…
November 1796 CE
John Adams, as president of the Senate, has cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes—a record that only John C. Calhoun will come close to tying, with twenty-eight.
His votes had protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees and had influenced the location of the national capital.
On at least one occasion, he had persuaded senators to vote against legislation that he opposed, and he has frequently lectured the Senate on procedural and policy matters.
Adams's political views and his active role in the Senate have made him a natural target for critics of the Washington administration.
He had begun to exercise more restraint toward the end of his first term, as a result of a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters.
Adams had joined the Federalist Party when the two political parties formed, but never got on well with its dominant leader, Alexander Hamilton.
Because of Adams's seniority and the need for a northern president, he is elected as the Federalist nominee for president in 1796, over Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party.
His success is due to peace and prosperity; Washington and Hamilton had averted war with Britain with the Jay Treaty of 1795.
Adams's two terms as Vice President have been frustrating experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect, and vanity.
He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."("Biography of John Adams". Whitehouse.gov. August 5, 2009. Retrieved July 4, 2012.)
The 1796 election is the first contested election under the First Party System.
Adams is the presidential candidate of the Federalist Party and Thomas Pinckney, the Governor of South Carolina, is also running as a Federalist (at this point, the vice president is whoever comes in second, so no running mates exist in the modern sense).
The Federalists want Adams as their presidential candidate to crush Thomas Jefferson's bid.
Most Federalists would have preferred Hamilton to be a candidate.
Although Hamilton and his followers support Adams, they also hold a grudge against him, but do consider him to be the lesser of the two evils.
However, they think Adams lacked the seriousness and popularity that had caused Washington to be successful and fear that Adams is too vain, opinionated, unpredictable, and stubborn to follow their directions.
Adams's opponents are former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who is joined by Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic-Republican ticket.
As is customary, Adams stays in his home town of Quincy rather than actively campaign for the Presidency.
He wants to stay out of what he calls the silly and wicked game.
His party, however, campaigns on his behalf, while the Democratic-Republicans campaign for Jefferson.
It is expected that Adams will dominate the votes in New England, while Jefferson is expected to win in the Southern states.
In the end, Adams wins the election of November 3 by a narrow margin of seventy-one electoral votes to sixty-eight for Jefferson (who becomes the vice president).