The presidential election of 1800, in which Thomas Jefferson was elected as president of the United States of America.
Courtesy of the U.S. National Atlas.
The U.S. presidential election of 1800, often called the "Revolution of 1800," was a pivotal contest between incumbent President John Adams (Federalist) and Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican). It was a bitterly partisan battle, but it resulted in an electoral vote tie of 73 each between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr.
This tie threw the election into the House of Representatives, where it took 36 contentious ballots over a week to finally elect Jefferson president, with Burr as vice president. The crisis directly led to the passage of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, which required separate ballots for president and vice president to prevent a recurrence. The peaceful transfer of power between rival parties solidified the young nation's democratic foundations.
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