In 1801, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, two Republicans, were tied in the electoral college. With the election thrown to the House of Representatives, talk among incumbant Federalists was to sabotage the balloting so that a president of the Senate Pro Tem (a Federalist) would be in control, or make a deal with Burr.
Meanwhile, rumors floated around of people and militias preparing for violence should a Federalist "usurpation" develop. Fortunately, the House elected Jefferson on the thirty-sixth ballot. Jefferson took a conciliatory tone in his inauguration speech, "We are all republicans, we are all federalists."
Avenging Rachel Jackson
Not conciliatory was Andrew Jackson after the election of 1828. It was a nasty campaign. Jackson's opponents dragged his wife Rachel through the mud, calling her a bigamist and an adulteress. The abuse weighed on her and she suffered a heart attack, dying on December 22.
Jackson simmered during the interregnum, believing his enemies had killed his wife. Once in office, when the wife of his friend and Secretary of War John Eaton, Margaret (Peggy), was impugned by Washington society, a vengeful Jackson lashed out. He eventually dismissed his entire cabinet over the "Petticoat Affair."
Secession
Lashing out was the south when Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. The south viewed Lincoln's election as an affront on slavery. After Christmas, from South Carolina to Texas, state conventions formed and decided to secede from the Union. Then the Confederate States of America was established.
Southerners seized federal property in their localities- customshouses, arsenals, mints, and forts. President-elect Lincoln had to sneak into Washington overnight due to assassination threats. In his inauguration speech, Lincoln asked the country to be guided by "the better angels of our nature." Instead there were four years of civil war.
End of Reconstruction
In 1876, another electoral college impasse left the Democrat Samuel Tilden one vote short of a majority against Ruherford B. Hayes. However, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, and Oregon submitted two slates of electors (one from each party). Congress formed an electoral commission consisting of eight Republicans and seven Democrats to settle the disputes.
Rumors of possible violence swept the nation. President Grant warned he would declare martial law in Washington if need be. Civil War veterans were put on alert. Someone fired a bullet into the Hayes parlor in Ohio while the family had dinner. Finally, the commission accepted the disputed Hayes electors, thanks in part to a backroom deal at the Wormley Hotel where southern politicians agreed to a Hayes presidency in exchange for the removal of federal soldiers in the south, thus ending Reconstruction.
The Great Depression
The economy was already faltering when Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932. But the situation worsened in the next few months. The banking system was failing- capital was fleeing abroad, depositors were withdrawing their money, prices were falling, and unemployment rising dramatically.
President Hoover and President-elect Roosevelt could not work together. According to historian David Kennedy, Hoover was more interested in vindicating his policies, while Roosevelt aide Raymond Moley thought Roosevelt wanted all the credit for rescuing the economy. Meanwhile in February, Roosevelt narrowly escaped assassination in Miami and the nation was so gripped in economic terror that some wished for a dictator to straighten the mess. Then Roosevelt sought to soothe the nation in his inaugural address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Despite America priding itself in its peaceful transference of power from regime to regime, there has been some turbulence during the interregnums. In these times the nation experienced electoral controversy, political animosity, rebellion, and economic ruin.
Sources
Kennedy, David, Freedom From Fear, Oxford: New York, 1999.
Marzalek, John, The Petticoat Affair, The Free Press: New York, 1997.
Morris, Roy, Fraud of the Century, Simon and Schuster: New York, 2003.
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