John Adams

No Caucus or Federalist leaders to succeed Washington, and he never had the united following within his party that Jefferson enjoyed in Republican ranks. On the other hand Adams had twice been elected VicePresident, and this meant more in 1796 than it would today. In the first election Washington had received a unanimous first ballot of sixty-nine electoral votes. Adams, who was second, received thirty-four, but his nearest competitor, John Jay, had received only nine. Even when an opposition had gathered behind George Clinton in 1792 Adams had taken second place by a twenty-seven-vote margin over the New York governor. Mr. Adams was not just the man who would step into Washington's shoes in the event of death, he was the man who had twice received the second largest electoral vote.

It was already apparent by 1796 that the electoral balloting system was at odds with the development of political parties, but nothing was done to change it until the election of 1800 dramatized the ease with which the public will might be subverted. Hamilton and his powerful friends were as tempted to thwart the will of the Federalist rank and file in 1796 as many of them were to bargain Aaron Burr into the presidency four years later. Disliking and fearing Mr. Adams, they could not take the nomination - if it may be called that -- by an open test of strength. The United States was not far enough removed from British custom for Adams to have been deluding himself when he viewed the coming election as a "succession" to power. Though he clearly recognized that a large segment of the population did not think in such terms, his party had attracted most of the men who did.

There was also a sense in which a republic still led by the men who had directed its independence movement owed the highest public trust to the few who remained in the front ranks of national politics. Adams believed that he was expected to play a major role in public life and spoke of the many "claims" upon himself to do so. Adams may have been vain, but he was neither insincere nor unintelligent. Americans chose to celebrate the announcement of the Declaration of Independence rather than the acceptance of the Constitution as a memorial day; and Washington, Adams, and Jefferson alone remained national figures from that group which had led the independence movement. Patrick Henry still stirred memories, but he was old and chose obscurity rather than publicity.

The outstanding services that Adams had rendered in 1775 and 1776 when he had teamed up with Sam Adams and Richard Henry Lee to push and persuade wavering men into an open break with England were not easily forgotten; no one had been a more powerful debator, orator, or strategist than the John Adams of 1776. He had represented the Confederation during and just after the Revolution at Paris, London, and The Hague. His championship of New England fishing rights on the treaty commission had not been forgotten in Massachusetts, and his successful negotiation of a Dutch loan at a time when the Continental Congress had reached the end of its resources was a contribution of large proportions to the survival of independence.