American Historical Ephemera and Photography

4pp., folio, 19 3/8 x 12 in. This newspaper contains page 2 “breaking news” of Thomas Jefferson being elected US President by a vote in the US House of Representatives in the contested election of 1800 that was portrayed in the Broadway show Hamilton. Ink identified to original owner in top margin.

At the end of a long and bitter campaign in the Presidential election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each won 73 electoral votes, Adams won 65, and Pinckney won 64. The Democratic-Republicans' assumption that one or more electors in Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, Georgia, Kentucky, or Tennessee would vote for Jefferson and not Burr resulted in a tie, known as the Burr dilemma. It necessitated a contingent election in the House of Representatives. Under the terms laid out in the Constitution, the outgoing House of Representatives chose between Jefferson and Burr. Burr was accused of campaigning for the presidency himself in the contingent election despite being a member of Jefferson's party. Each state delegation cast one vote, and a victory in the contingent election required one candidate to win a majority of the state delegations. Neither Burr nor Jefferson was able to win on the first 35 ballots of the contingent election, as most Federalist representatives backed Burr and all Democratic-Republican representatives backed Jefferson. Hamilton favored Jefferson over Burr, and he convinced several Federalists to switch their support to Jefferson, giving Jefferson a victory on the 36th ballot.