‘A Magnificent Catastrophe’, written by Edward J. Larson, explores a story that not many people would know of. The events that were the 1800 presidential election, and possibly the most catastrophic presidential election to date. It follows John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of the founding fathers of America, as they race to take the presidential seat in the White House. Although history can already tell us that Jefferson was the one that took the term, there was a lot that went into securing that seat. Through his book, Larson explores every nook and cranny of the events that transpired going to great detail to thoroughly explain how these two friends became bitter enemies. The forming of their respective parties and their ideals. The betrayal within Adam’s party through Alexander Hamilton. The problems and happenings of the world during those times and how that affected the election. And the strategies that each party came up with. A great book, with plenty of research to back up the over 200 pages of content, there are a couple critiques that I’d like to explore.
The first is that this book almost requires its reader to have an understanding of history and how government works, at least a basic understanding. The chapters follow a pretty routine pattern. First, they describe an event or a piece of history, and then it follows up with how it affected the elections, whether it be vote counts, opinions of the people, etc. Although the first part of every chapter is fairly easy to understand, if someone doesn’t really know how the voting process works or how the government was run at that time, then following the political talk that these chapters have is going to be a rough time. It was for me, as I’m a first generation American, so my parents aren’t citizens and don’t have a vote, and thus don’t follow politics as much as the average American does. Because of this, I’m not really sure how government works besides a basic understanding. This made understanding how government worked back then a tough time as it was different and changing a lot. Besides this, even though the story focuses mainly on the presidential election, it jumps around with dates and references. A chapter will take place in a specific year, but reference something that happened a couple years down the line or in the past. So, unless you have a general idea of the timeline of the election, keeping track of all the dates that are mentioned can make you miss a few details or be confused about what’s happening. This is biggest critique of the book I have.
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The introduction gives a few details about Adams and Jefferson, the two main persons of this story. It helps familiarize ourselves with what kind of men they are, even giving a detailed description of their appearances. Being the shortest section of the book, along with the epilogue, it doesn’t give much more insight than what it’s supposed to.
The first three chapters proceeds to further set the stage for the election. It describes what parties Jefferson and Adams belonged to and what their core beliefs were. The Federalist wanting a strong central government, and the Republicans wanting more power go to the average American, a sort of mob-like rule. It also explains how voting worked back then, with each elector getting two votes and the person with the highest vote count would become president, with second place becoming vice president.
Alexander Hamilton was also introduced as the leader of the High Federalist, and his plan of replacing Adams with Pinckney was foiled. This resulted in Adams actually getting presidency in 1796, with Jefferson as vice president, fueling Hamilton wanting Adam out even more. These sets of chapters introduce each person important to this story and gives a thorough explanation as to what their motives were. It also explains why Jefferson and Adams, who were the best of friends before, became bitter rivals. Both men had ambition and a want to leave a mark in history, “as their political goals for America diverged, however, their ideological zeal drove them apart” (Larson, 2007, p. 10). Both men were immovable objects in believing in their respective political viewpoints, and they were each unstoppable force for each other.
While the first few chapters spoke about the political trifle about to unfold, chapters 4-6 are where we get to see some actual events revealed. New York, then a strong Federalist state, was won over by the Republicans thanks to Hamilton’s schemes to overthrow Adams as president. Burr managed to play his cards right and win the state over, causing a huge upset for the Republicans. Adams also learns of Hamilton’s plans to replace him with Pickney and proceeds to fire a couple High Federalist people from his cabinet. Because of this America was seeing a somewhat three ways split in parties, the High Federalist, Federalist, and Republicans. This was causing more tension as the 1800 elections approached. Adams also launched what was considered the first presidential campaign by traveling a month-long journey to the then still under construction White House. Making speeches along the way, Adams sought to boost his popularity, which he managed with great success. The Republicans on the other hand were no less active, with Jefferson setting forth his plan for religious freedom seeking to “rebut Federalist charges that he would overturn the constitution and religious order” (Larson 155). These chapters really show how the election of 1800 was truly extraordinary, especially with the situation between Hamilton - Adams and Hamilton - Burr. The upset in New York was a major turning point for the Republicans, and showed just how intense the strategies were. Hamilton’s want to remove Adams from office cost them a State that has long been loyal to Federalist. It showed how much Hamilton was affecting the election, especially when we were showed how Adams reacted to learning about Hamilton's plot against him, causing yet another party to enter the race, and thus raising the stakes even further. Besides Hamilton’s ill opinion towards Adams, we do get some history in this chapter. Adams campaign to the White House is redeemed as one of the first presidential campaigns in history, and it’s interesting to see that it spawned through the hatred of two people that were supposed to be on the same side.
The final 4 chapters give us the climax and resolution of this whole ordeal. Issues over Jefferson’s religious views surfaced. Some claimed that he was a deist, and others that he was atheist. Jefferson never responded publicly to the critics that he was one or another, as he believed it would make matters worse. Even then, Republicans were making claims on Adams as well, “just as Federalists used selected excerpts from ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’ to paint Jefferson as a deist, Republicans drew on earlier political writings by Adams to tag him as a monarchist” (Larson, 2007, p. 177). This gives us an example of how certain writings were taken out of context in order to make someone look bad, a behavior that is pretty prevalent, not only in the presidential elections of today, but in the general news. The chapters continue to explain how a slave uprising was coming into effect, and that the public blamed Jefferson’s egalitarian viewpoint for the cause of the slave’s actions to get out of control. Republicans had to reassure frightened Americans that they would be able to keep the peace. Along with this, Hamilton openly admitted to running against Adam in favor of Pickney as president. Although this plan backfired and resulted in a loss of popularity for his party. It was then predicted that Jefferson and Burr would come out in first and second place, with Adams and Pinckney in third and fourth. When the elections finally came around, it was true, although there was a tie between Jefferson and Burr. It took six tie breaking votes to finally put Jefferson in the presidential chair.
The final few chapters focus more on the more pressing issues of the election. The idea of religion and lack of dealing with internal conflicts that critiqued Jefferson. Hamilton opening up about is opposition of Adams. And the tie that resulted from the partisan nature that the republicans used to vote. Although Jefferson resulted in the seat at the end, it wasn’t an easy feat, and resulted in one of the most intense and extraordinary elections in history.
Besides my main critique that I wrote about earlier, the book still has some outstanding qualities to it. The best of them all being the research that is done. Taking a look at the notes in the back of the book reveals dozens of pages of references that the author used throughout the book. For someone that’s interested in learning what actually happened during the election of 1800, this book provides a story that’s difficult to refute with the amount of evidence it has backing it. The book also has a great deal of detail about its characters and their motives. You’ll feel as if you’ve known the characters for a long while after reading so much, not just about their political views, but their relationships with other people, to each other, and to their families. The events depicted are fairly chronological so the overall story isn’t too difficult to grasp. But the political talk and statistics that are thrown are unavoidable, which isn’t a terrible thing. Having data to back up claims is the most important thing in a historical text, and Larson provides more than enough data. Overall, Larson does a lot of things right. It’s easy to lookup who won the 1800 elections. History books and the Internet can tell us the Jefferson did. But to those that want to know the whole story, who want to look further into the people that were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Larson provides an amazing historical text that explains just that.
With more than enough quotes, references, and detail to explain what really happened, ‘A Magnificent Catastrophe’ is truly a portal back in time. However, one should be wary of the political jargon that this book employs. If you don’t have a good sense of how the government works or how it’s structured, then a good portion of it won’t really make total sense and can seem like random numbers and terms being thrown around. It’s not an easy book by any means, and definitely not enjoyed by anyone, but fans of history and government will love it.
References
- Larson, E. J. (2007) 'A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign', New York, NY: Free Press.
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