AHC: 1st Governor of a State elected President

U.S David

Banned
A George Clinton idea I've had recently:

Aaron Burr gets shot and killed in a duel in 1799 that occurred in OTL, so it is Clinton who is the northern running mate for Jefferson four years early. It ends up in a tie OTL, and Hamilton decides to get the federalists to vote against Jefferson since his alternative is not Burr.

Of course, this runs the risk of having Clinton also being the first president overthrown in a coup, since Jefferson OTL had the Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania militias ready to depose Burr if he was the one elected President by the House, and might just try the same thing here.

Can you explain more about this coup?
 
Can you explain more about this coup?

Until the 12th Amendment was passed electors voted twice, they couldn't vote for the same person twice, and whoever got the most EV's became President, runner up Vice-President. But in 1800 the Democratic-Republicans hit a snag, both Jefferson and Burr had 73 votes, someone was supposed to throw their Burr vote elsewhere to make him VP, but they didn't. So the election was thrown to the House where Federalists keep deadlocking to embarrass Jefferson. Aaron Burr even tried to convince some of them to vote for him, make him President, and stage a coup on Jefferson who everyone intended to be President.

In comes Alexander Hamilton, rival of Jefferson, hateful foe of fellow New Yorker Burr. He convinced the House to vote in Jefferson as he respected him more the Burr, a man who he considered to have no morals. The 12th Amendment was ratified 1804, by then Burr was pariah for killing Hamilton in a duel, and was dumped off for New York Governor George Clinton.

Emperor Julian proposes that if all was the same in 1800, but with Clinton as the other half of Jefferson's ticket, Hamilton would back Clinton (who he hated not as much as Burr), steal the Presidency from Jefferson, and force Jefferson to try and stage a counter-coup to take the Presidency. An interesting idea, but unlikely because I believe Hamilton also hated Clinton for all the effort the Pharaoh of New York put into slandering the Constitution and Hamilton.
 
Can you explain more about this coup?
Basically, Jefferson was the "choice of the people" and of the state legislatures for the office of president. However, there was the very real possibility of Aaron Burr getting elected President instead of him by the US House. The governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania ordered their militias to start seizing arms and preparing for combat:

http://education-portal.com/academy...ection-and-jeffersonian-democracy.html#lesson

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/histor...tion-1800-story-crisis-controversy-and-change

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/burr/burr_teacher.cfm

http://books.google.com/books?id=NB...usurpation would be resisted by arms,&f=false

Thomas Jefferson, on Congress electing him President:
Thomas Jefferson said:
The Minority in the H. of R. after seeing the impossibility of electing B. the certainty that a legislative usurpation would be resisted by arms, and a recourse to a Convention to reorganise & amend the government, held a consultation on this dilemma.
In this personal letter to James Madison, he is certain that an attempt to install Burr would result in an armed uprising and a new Constitution.

In another letter, on the subject of a Federalist-Republican Coalition backing Burr:

Thomas Jefferson said:
But we thought it best to declare openly, once and for all, that the day such an act passed, the Middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to.
 
Last edited:
Top