The Federalists eventually backed Burr, judging Jefferson an unhinged revolutionary but Burr a pragmatist with whom they could do business. As Larson recalls, less than two weeks before the critical House vote, “Lawmakers were in no mood to compromise, or even to act rationally.” Over the course of a week, the House cast 35 ballots—each one resulting in tallies of Jefferson 8, Burr 6, and split 2. Eventually, seeing no other way forward, the Federalists caved and abstained on the 36th ballot, allowing Jefferson to claim a victory they viewed as catastrophic.
Well. First off, I think it’s fair to say that few high school or college classes wade into this history today. When students do encounter the years between 1789 and the Civil War, there’s a good chance they’re either getting some version of the Howard Zinn/1619 Project approach (learning about a clubby conspiracy of like-minded white guys); or a romanticized paean in which Adams and Jefferson are plaster saints of an impossibly noble cast. Either approach—reducing history to nefarious misdeeds or imagining it as Eden before the fall—relegates us to the role of unworthy heirs. Neither is designed to foster reflective citizens or prepare students for our real challenges.
Viewing everything through the lens of the here-and-now is both misleading and a recipe for despair. Wading into the messy complexities of history can be a healthy antidote. After all, for all the craziness and enmity of 1800, things turned out okay. Adams and Jefferson eventually had a rapprochement. Back then, the entire nation viewed one or the other as evil incarnate. Today, we view them as moral and intellectual giants.
Our institutions are designed to take a lot of sharp elbows. After all, as Jefferson noted in his inaugural remarks, “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” It was Federalist senator and signer of the Declaration of Independence Gouverneur Morris who wryly observed, “When people have been drinking long enough, they’ll get sober.”
This history is important for adults to know, students to learn, and citizens to contemplate. The lessons of 1800 don’t provide easy answers to today’s challenges. But they may offer a healthful reminder that challenges frequently described as novel aren’t necessarily all that new and that we’ve survived rough waters before. Recognizing this can provide perspective. It can provide insight. It can provide wisdom. After all, if anyone had cause for catastrophism, it was John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who’d just fought a war for independence and feared that all their labors had been for nothing. Perhaps the very act of teaching that and helping students reflect upon it would temper some of the frenzied distress that’s come to infuse our very online world.
