The Presidential Election of 1796 was the first contested presidential election of American history; learn about this election from these interesting sources on political history.

When Washington decided to not run for a third term in office, he would unknowingly set the stage for the nation's first two-party election. The Election of 1796 would be the test of whether a government by the people, of the people and for the people could survive such a transition of power peacefully.

This was an election where the two contenders campaigned for the office of the president. A battle that would last through the next Election of 1800. The two main issues of the campaign were, opposing political views of constitutional government and foreign policy.

The Campaign issues of the election were the Jay Treaty and the French Revolution. John Adams and his party supported the Jay Treaty. Thomas Jefferson and the Anti Federalists opposed the treaty because it favored the British over the French. This in turn led to the second issue, the French Revolution. The Federalists did not want to support the French because they did not want another costly war with Britain. The Jeffersonian party on the other hand felt that it was the duty of the United States to support the French because of the French assistance during the American Revolution.

The majority of the campaigning took place in the newspapers, broadsides, and other methods of the day. The supporters of these men actually campaigned for their favorites. Adams had won the election by only 3 votes and Thomas Jefferson, who finished second, automatically became vice-president.

The election of 1796 had exposed an inherent flaw in the Electoral College System. The Electors voted on one ballot with two names on it. The candidate, who had the most votes, won the election. The candidate who had the second most votes became the vice president.

For more information on the Election of 1796, look at the following sites.

The Electoral College
This site examines the Electoral College System and the changes implemented in the mid-1800s.

The Troubled Elections of 1796 and 1800
"George Washington won the first two U.S. presidential elections without being challenged. When he decided not to run for a third term in 1796, intense rivalries, political disputes, and attempted manipulations of the Electoral College came into play. These factors would again affect the 1800 election, essentially a rematch of 1796, pitting a sitting president, John Adams, against his own vice president, Thomas Jefferson."

The Election of 1800
Understand the issues of the election of 1800 on the Library of Congress website.