Adams Reelected

Does he get a Federalist Congress? If so, the Sedition Act would probably be renewed, yielding an authoritative early limited interpretation of the First Amendment. Otherwise, they'd expire - but President Adams would not pardon the offenders with a strong statement of the law's unconstitutionality, like President Jefferson did iOTL. This would very likely have long-lasting negative effects on civil rights. For that matter, if Adams is still President, he'd very likely keep Marshall in the Cabinet rather than appointing him to the Supreme Court, yielding no immediate precedent of judicial review. After Marbury, the Court iOTL didn't strike down any federal law until Dred Scott! Without Marbury (which certainly wouldn't happen in an Adams administration which certainly would deliver Marbury's commission), expect a far stronger opposition to Dred Scott to start opposing judicial review altogether. Taney certainly couldn't write such a strong defense of it as Marshall did, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if judicial review (of Federal acts, at least) goes out of style altogether after the Civil War. Methinks this would be a much worse United States.

Talking about civil rights, however, Adams was at least indifferent to slavery, while Jefferson supported it in practice. For example, Adams recognized the Haitian revolutionaries, while Jefferson immediately withdrew recognition. This might have interesting effects, too - Virginia almost abolished slavery in OTL 1830; with a less-supportive Federal government, they might almost have done it. At least, I don't think things would be any worse.

In addition, we wouldn't have the Twelfth Amendment, which iOTL grew out of Jefferson's unintentional tie with Burr under the original Electoral College formulation. I don't know if this'd have any measurable effects, but it might in future tight Presidential races.
 
There wouldn't be a Twelfth Amendment, at least not for the time being. Some sort of fuckup is bound to happen and create a constitutional crisis.

Whether or not the Sedition Act is renewed depends on how Congress turns out. IOTL, the Senate remained Federalist, while the House went to the Republicans. That outcome may or may not be the same, should Adams be re-elected.
 
There wouldn't be a Twelfth Amendment, at least not for the time being. Some sort of fuckup is bound to happen and create a constitutional crisis.
I don't think it'd necessarily be changed. All the parties need to remember is to "waste" one vote on someone other than their Vice-Presidential candidate, and the Federalists certainly managed that well enough in 1800. There wasn't a crisis after the 1796 election gave us a President and Vice-President of opposing parties, because Vice-President Jefferson had so few powers that he could safely be ignored. I know parties were only just starting to develop in 1796, but I think the Vice-President's powerlessness would mean there'd be no need to change this. Again, though, it always could happen - there was no urgent need for the Twelfth Amendment iOTL, either, but it happened anyway.

Whether or not the Sedition Act is renewed depends on how Congress turns out. IOTL, the Senate remained Federalist, while the House went to the Republicans. That outcome may or may not be the same, should Adams be re-elected.
True, but even simply letting it expire would quite likely have negative repercussions on civil rights, like I said.

And I don't think Adams would have had a Federalist House, either. According to the Wikipedia, the vote count was 73-65. Adams could have easily won by flipping five votes in either New York, South Carolina or Pennsylvania; all states' electors were chosen by the legislature. In New York (and I think South Carolina as well, but I'm not sure there), the Republicans eeked out legislative majorities by a narrow number of votes; in Pennsylvania, the two houses (one controlled by each party) argued back and forth before finally compromising on a split slate of electors. The Senate was similar - the Republicans iOTL had a two-vote majority, which could've been changed by Federalist majorities in New York and South Carolina. (Remember that the senators were still elected by the state legislatures, and only 1/3 were elected in 1800!) The Republican House majority was much larger, though; that wouldn't easily change.
 
I don't think it'd necessarily be changed. All the parties need to remember is to "waste" one vote on someone other than their Vice-Presidential candidate, and the Federalists certainly managed that well enough in 1800. There wasn't a crisis after the 1796 election gave us a President and Vice-President of opposing parties, because Vice-President Jefferson had so few powers that he could safely be ignored. I know parties were only just starting to develop in 1796, but I think the Vice-President's powerlessness would mean there'd be no need to change this. Again, though, it always could happen - there was no urgent need for the Twelfth Amendment iOTL, either, but it happened anyway.

The Republicans had planned for Burr to get one less vote for president, but one moron managed to screw it up. Unless you somehow manage to get an odd number of candidates in subsequent elections, a situation like IOTL 1800 is bound to happen at some point.
 
The Republicans had planned for Burr to get one less vote for president, but one moron managed to screw it up. Unless you somehow manage to get an odd number of candidates in subsequent elections, a situation like IOTL 1800 is bound to happen at some point.

I don't think so - as I heard, they made utterly sure no one abandoned Burr to keep him from abandoning the party. Better communications and organization would help.
 
I don't think so - as I heard, they made utterly sure no one abandoned Burr to keep him from abandoning the party. Better communications and organization would help.

Yes but, what would stop something like OTL 1800 from happening later on? That part of the Constitution that was changed with the Twelfth Amendment simply does not mesh well with the party system.

If the pre-12th system somehow manages to make it long enough, you could see it replaced with a popular vote system. That's an idea I had for the TL I used to be working on, anyways. That's the only way I could see the runner-up becomes Vice President system realistically surviving in the long-run.
 
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