Thomas Jefferson worried that the language of the Constitution allowed a president to serve again and again until death, like a king. John Adams, on the other hand, liked that idea. In 1796, when Washington decided not to run again, Adams and Jefferson each sought to succeed him. The two men faced off again in the next election, which Jefferson nicknamed “the revolution of 1800.” The election was the climax of a decades-long political debate between the men, which caused a constitutional crisis. Adams and his running mate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, ran as Federalists, while Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, ran as Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson had heard that, if Adams lost, the Federalists would suddenly change the law in favor of Adams, and would allow him to serve for life. Rumor had it that some Federalists would have risked civil war rather than elect Jefferson.

Four years earlier, in 1796, in seven out of 16 states, the citizens elected delegates to the Electoral College. In the other states, it was the state legislatures who elected delegates. Two parties had emerged by then, and party leaders believed that delegates ought to satisfy the demands of the men who had them elected.