The election of 1800—which marked the first-ever peaceful transfer of power between political parties in American history—gave birth to the country’s two-party system that still exists today. Join presidential historians Lindsay Chervinsky, author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, and Edward Larson, author of A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign, as they discuss one of the most contentious and partisan elections in U.S. history and what we can learn from it. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
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Participants
Lindsay Chervinsky is a senior fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, the Kundrun Open-Rank Fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, and a professorial lecturer at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. Chervinsky is also columnist at Governing and Washington Monthly and the cohost of the podcast, The Past, The Promise, The Presidency. She is the author of the award-winning book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution and her forthcoming book is An Honest Man: The Inimitable Presidency of John Adams.
Edward Larson holds the Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law and is University Professor of History at Pepperdine University. Prior to becoming a professor, he practiced law and served as counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in History and numerous other awards for writing and teaching, Larson is the author of 17 books and over 100 articles, including A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign, and most recently, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Lindsay Chervinsky, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution
- Edward Larson, A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign
- Presidential Election of 1800: A Resource Guide
- Federalist 10
- Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
- Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798)
- 270toWin, Presidential Election of 1800
- Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams (1800)
- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural (1801)
TRANSCRIPT
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