BOARD 8 ELECTS - The Election of 1796 - John Adams (F) vs Thomas Jefferson (DR)

By a Unanimous Vote, Board 8 supports the Federalists in the Era of Washington!

Hey all welcome to Board 8 Elects! a topic series in which we discuss each historical election from the perspective of the year it took place in!

The idea here is to re-litigate each election from the perspective of when it took place. I will be providing each candidates platform (where possible) so the merits of the election can be discussed and voted on. If possible lets speak of the issues in the present tense.

I am going to ask you vote via BOLDING the name of the candidate rather than providing a poll because I feel the poll encourages gut voting and I would really like to see some discussion.

Topics will be live for 3 or 4 days - basically until I make the next topic voting will be active in this one.

Welcome to the Election of 1796, the first contested election in American History. George Washington has chosen not to run for a third term in a surprising decision. In his farewell address he pleaded with the nation to reject political parties for the better health of the union. But instead the Federalists now have a true competitor in the Democratic-Republican party.

Meet the Candidates

The Federalist Party has nominated 61 year old John Adams, the sitting Vice President (or as he more often styled himself, President of the Senate) was their choice to succeed Washington seeing him as a better choice for continuity than controversial party leader Alexander Hamilton. Adams served as either legislator or ambassador in every American government from the beginning, to include a notable post as first Ambassador to Great Britain. He was a notable agitator for Independence even within the Continental Congress. He has chosen South Carolina Governor Thomas Pinckney as his running mate to try and win some electors in the Democratic Republican Strongholds in the South.

The D emocratic Republican Party formed when Thomas Jefferson dramatically resigned from his post as Secretary of State in protest of how much power the executive was accruing under Hamilton's advice. In particular he felt that the South was getting a raw deal going so far as to claim the government was on fire and that he could not put it out from the inside.

The 53 year old Jefferson has served as Secretary of State and before that as a delegate to the Continental Congress and as Ambassador to France. He has chosen New York Senator Aaron Burr as his running mate in an attempt to win Middle State support.

The Issues

• The French Revolution has consumed our closest ally in chaos and presented the American government with a philosophical choice - do we support the expansion of Democracy by supporting the rebels or do we support our allies in the Monarchical government? Adams thinks the revolutionary government is far too violent and has no reason to ally with the US and that we should at least tacitly support the monarchists just this once. Jefferson thinks violence is the price of freedom and that the US should throw material support to the Revolution to expand the experiment of the Democratic-Republic, thus ensuring their Alliance in the future.
• Two years ago, the Jay Treaty established a pact of non-aggression with Great Britain, laying the groundwork for a hopeful alliance and trading relationship. Adams supports this effort while Jefferson wishes to revoke this treaty.
• The Whiskey Rebellion has raised the issue of internal taxation. It seems clear that while people will abide tariffs on foreign goods there is a much more limited support for taxation on domestic goods (such as Whiskey). Adams and the Federalists support domestic taxes on specific goods while Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans want to repeal all taxes and rely solely on import tariffs to fund the government, even if it means a reduction in our standing military (which currently is a modest navy and the new United States Marine Corps that was founded by Adams)

The Campaign

• There were not many notable scandals or campaign incidents in 1796 as both sides waged a gentlemanly campaign aimed at convincing individual electors to vote certain ways rather than making appeals to the populace.
• That said the French Ambassador to the US made a point of endorsing Jefferson which has caused many to question whether Jefferson can be a neutral arbiter in our complicated web of relationships between the British, the French Monarchs and the French Revolutionaries.

EASY VOTE FORM

Adams vs Jefferson

Jefferson for the Whiskey

Jefferson

Jefferson

Some quick information about the Whiskey Rebellion:

After assuming States Debts in 1790, the Federal government needed increased income to pay down these debts, most of which were accrued fighting the Revolutionary War.

The decision was reached to pass an excise tax on distilled spirits since spirits are a luxury item. The problem was that this was a per-gallon tax which meant that it's impact was disproportionately heavy on farmers - who were used to distilling their excess grains into alcohol for extra money since the cost of transporting their spirits to market was higher and the profit per gallon lower than an urban distiller.

Many of these rural farmers, particularly on the frontier in Western Pennsylvania, felt this was inherently unfair and that they were being taxed without their own consent. Many were Revolutionary War veterans who felt it was their right to raise arms to protect their property.

Almost immediately there was a movement to resist via noncompliance with the tax among these western farmers. In a famous incident which became quite the newspaper scandal, a tax collector was tarred and feathered in Washington County, Pennsylvania by angry farmers who did not wish to pay the tax. Angry mobs descended upon the homes of tax collectors and forced them at gunpoint to resign their commissions as tax collectors.

This resulted in 1794 with the marching of Federal Army on Mingo Creek Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Local Revolutionary War hero James MacFarlane (commanding a local defiant militia) was killed in the altercation which sent Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties into chaos and saw radical leader David Bradford overwhelm the official city government calling for open armed rebellion.

Bradford was openly comparing himself to Robespierre and discussing the execution of Alexander Hamilton by Guillotonne. He had gathered 8000 militia with plans to march either on Pittsburgh or Fort Fayette. Local politicians led by Albert Gallatin managed to defuse the crisis temporarily.

This gave Washington time to resolve to lead a larger force of some 8000 men into the field personally and the presence of the federal army collapsed the resistance with the radical agitators all fleeing. They were eventually captured tried and imprisoned - though Bradfords supporters spread wild fantasies of him escaping to Florida to live among the Seminoles.

Hamilton believed (with some corroboration from the facts to include Bradfords biography) that these revolts were led by the new Democratic-Republican societies in these rural areas and has managed to associate the Democratic-Republicans with radicalism among the urban audiences for his newspaper editorials as a result of this incident.

In reality, Adams ends up pardoning nearly all of the agitators after adjusting the tax to be more reasonable for the aggrieved class. Armed rebellion....works?

Jefferson

Jay Treaty is more simple - it finalized our arrangement with Great Britain following the Revolutionary War.

It set the Canadian Boundary to be exact instead of fuzzy, forced the British to withdraw troops from British forts that were now on American soil and established rights of limited trade with British Caribbean colonies.

In exchange, debts owed to British creditors by American debtors would have to be paid and there was to be a cap on how much cotton the US could export.

The treaty had a 10 year term as the negotiator of the treaty, Chief Justice John Jay, hoped to be able to dramatically expand the scope of alliance and trade at that time.

This treaty bitterly divided the country but primarily the South whose wealthy landowners were the primary debtors to the British and whose cotton exports were curtailed while the removal of British troops from New England and the Middle States was very popular.

It was this move along with the Whiskey Tax that led to Jefferson's resignation and the founding of the Democratic Republican Party.

I assume I don't need to recap the French Revolution for people but by 1796 Robespierre has been overthrown and France is being ruled by the Directory.

The Directory is dispossessing the clergy, suspending the payment of all debt and with armies led by Bonaparte, the French have conquered much of Italy and have defeated the Army of the First Coalition with their utter defeat of the Habsburg armies in Germany.

The situation is violent and chaotic and observers expect further shifts until something happens to stabilize the situation.

I'm going with Adams .

Supporting good relations with Britain makes complete sense, since they have the most powerful navy in the world and have a huge colony with a border to our north, and island colonies to our south. We need good relations with them much more than we need good relations with France. That said, having good relations with both is obviously preferable, and since Britain would support the continued French monarchy over the revolutionaries, that would keep the peace between those two and ourselves way better than Republican France is likely to. If the French want a republican form of government, so be it, but there's no indication that the revolutionaries will be better in practice than the monarchy was given what's happening right now. I don't like Adams' policy on domestic tariffs, but the foreign policy concerns are clearly much more important right now.

Adams.

Adams

Adams

Gotta go with Adams for the Jay Treaty. Building the relationship with Britain seems important and the cap on cotton exports doesn't make me feel all that bad for southern 'wealthy landowners'.

Jefferson

where's the deets on Adams life as a +200 year old Progenitor secretly seeking to exterminate the rest of his species to attain top Highlander powers

I have no information on that

The Jay Treaty effectively gives the States nothing. The crown retains the ability to capture ships, seize goods, and press Americans into their service. The forts they abandoned were to be vacated under the Treaty of Paris and the tribes they provided arms to did not lose their ability to attack settlers in the territories. Further, there is nothing in the language of the treaty that forces Britain to repay any of the damages should they decide to walk away from additional negotiations.

The treaty may allow for trade with the West Indies, but what stops the British from declaring the goods were intended for the French? What stops them from simply taking American ships, goods, and citizens simply because they choose to do so? The treaty provides no guarantee against further abuses by the crown. The only thing that stops them from ignoring the Jay Treaty as they see fit, as they did with the Paris Treaty, is that it does not force them to do anything.

As for the issue of taxation, I would suggest all British goods be taxed extensively. This would prevent them from flooding the market as well as fund the Federal government.

I'm assuming we're allowed to change our vote as the topic progresses? As of right now Adams has my vote.

Tensions are naturally very high with the British so keeping the peace treaty is paramount, there's no sense in revoking peace. Then there's the French, while I completely get both sides, the Reign of Terror was literally insane and I feel like supporting that would support more violent revolutions. Besides the revolution led to Napoleon coming into power as Emperor.

Yes you may change your vote if you change your mind

I'll give this a bump

Adams gets it on general principle of supporting the Federalists

Adams

Adams.

I'll expound on my reasoning later maybe but I want to make sure I get my vote in before we move on. The Democratic-Republicans continue their general style of paranoia, and supporting the French Revolution as it currently stands is kind of a bad look.

Not to mention he's way better on slavery. Maybe we can actually get some reforms in on that point if he takes office, whereas there's no way abolitionists will get to make any headway at all with the wealthy slave-owning elite Jefferson in power.

I probably won't have time to write up 1800 til later tonight so voting remains open

Adams

Most people have given the arguments I agree with already.

Adams

I feel sympathy for the farmers but Adams.

Adams for the reasons already said. The Federalists are the closest party to me politically and culturally, and there are nothing about the candidates and issues in this election to dramatically change that.

Adams too lazy to give reasons since I'm on my phone, did want to mention that I trust his abolitionism more, Jefferson was in theory pro-abolition but I don't trust him