Election of 1800 Edit

Inauguration Edit

Administration Edit

Judiciary Edit

Domestic affairs Edit

Foreign affairs Edit

Election of 1804 Edit

Main article: United States presidential election, 1804 1804 Electoral College vote Like both of his predecessors, Jefferson ran for a second term. The election of 1804 was the first to be held after the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment, which instituted the current electoral system in which separate electoral votes are cast for the presidency and vice presidency. With Burr having little chance at re-nomination, the party's congressional nominating caucus chose Governor George Clinton of New York as Jefferson's running mate. The Federalists nominated Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for president and Rufus King for vice president. The Federalists made attacks on Jefferson's alleged atheism, his support for democratization, and his affair with Sally Hemings the centerpiece of their campaign, arguing that Jefferson's affair with an enslaved woman was hypocritical given his continuing support for slavery. The Democratic-Republicans enjoyed a marked advantage in party organization, while the Federalists and their ethos of government-by-the-elite were becoming increasingly unpopular. Jefferson won every state except for Connecticut and Delaware, taking 162 of the 174 electoral votes.[116]

Election of 1808 Edit

Main article: United States presidential election, 1808 Secretary of State James Madison defeated Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the 1808 presidential election. Jefferson, who believed that incumbents should not serve indefinitely, followed the two-term tradition precedent established by Washington, and declined to seek a third term. Instead, he endorsed his advisor and friend James Madison for the presidency. Jefferson's assertive foreign policy created intra-party criticism from the tertium quids, led by Randolph.[117] Randolph and other powerful Democratic-Republican leaders opposed to Madison, including Samuel Smith and William Duane, rallied around the potential candidacy of James Monroe.[118] Additionally, Vice President Clinton, who had accepted the vice presidential nomination again, announced his own candidacy for President. It took all of Jefferson's prestige and charm to convince dissident Democratic-Republicans not to bolt from the party out of disdain for Madison.[119] In the end, Madison, headed off the intra-party challenges and defeated Federalist nominee Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, winning 122 of the 176 electoral votes in the 1808 election.[120]

Historical reputation Edit

Meacham opines that Jefferson was the most influential figure of the democratic republic in its first half century, succeeded by presidential adherents James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.[121] Jefferson's reputation declined during the Civil War due to his support of states' rights. In the late 19th century, his legacy was widely criticized; conservatives felt his democratic philosophy had led to that era's populist movement, while Progressives sought a more activist federal government than Jefferson's philosophy allowed. Both groups saw Hamilton as vindicated by history, rather than Jefferson, and President Woodrow Wilson even described Jefferson as "though a great man, not a great American".[122] In the 1930s, Jefferson was held in higher esteem; President Franklin D. Roosevelt and New Deal Democrats celebrated his struggles for "the common man" and reclaimed him as their party's founder. Jefferson became a symbol of American democracy in the incipient Cold War, and the 1940s and '50s saw the zenith of his popular reputation.[123] Following the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, Jefferson's slaveholding came under new scrutiny, particularly after DNA testing in the late 1990s supported allegations he had a relationship with Sally Hemings.[124] Noting the huge output of scholarly books on Jefferson in recent years, historian Gordon Wood summarizes the raging debates about Jefferson's stature: "Although many historians and others are embarrassed about his contradictions and have sought to knock him off the democratic pedestal ... his position, though shaky, still seems secure."[125] Polls of historians and political scientists generally rank Jefferson as one of the best presidents, often just outside the top three. The Siena Research Institute poll of presidential scholars, begun in 1982, has consistently ranked Jefferson as one of the five best U.S. presidents,[126] and a 2015 Brookings Institution poll of the American Political Science Association members ranked him as the fifth greatest president.[127] Though historians tend to think highly of Jefferson's overall performance as president, a 2006 poll of historians ranked the Embargo Act of 1807 as the seventh-worst mistake made by a sitting president.[128]

References Edit