A Great Moment in American History: President John Adams Calls the U.S. Senate into Session for the Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson

January 1, 1801: “To the Senators of the United States. Sir, It appearing to me proper and necessary for the public service that the Senate of the United States should be convened on Wednesday the 4th of March next, you are desired to attend in the Chamber of the Senate on that day at 10 o’clock in the forenoon to…do and consider all other things which may be proper and necessary for the public service for the Senate to do and consider.”

 

A search of public sale records going back a century turns up only one other example reaching the marketplace; This letter has been in the same private collection for generations.

 

With incumbent President George Washington having refused a third term in office, the 1796 election became the first U.S. presidential election in which political parties competed for the presidency. The Federalists coalesced behind Adams and the Democratic-Republicans supported Jefferson. The campaign was a bitter one, with Federalists attempting to identify the Democratic-Republicans with the violence of the French Revolution and the Democratic-Republicans accusing the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. Republicans sought to associate Adams with the policies developed by fellow Federalist Alexander Hamilton, which they declaimed were too much in favor of great Britain and a centralized national government. In foreign policy, Republicans denounced the Federalists over the Jay Treaty, which had established a temporary peace with Great Britain. Adams supporters also accused Jefferson of being too pro-France. Adams was elected but under the rules in place at that time, Jefferson became his vice president. It was the first contested American presidential election, the first presidential election in which political parties played a dominant role, and the only presidential election in which a president and vice president were elected from opposing tickets.

The Adams administration was marked by the controversial Quasi-War with America’s former ally France, and the passage of the Alien and the Sedition Acts, which were looked on by many as abridgments of freedom. The ongoing war in Europe was a constant thorn in Adams’s side, and he proved an inept administrator. And always a factor was the intra-party rivalry between Adams and the powerful Alexander Hamilton. Establishment of the U.S. Navy was the greatest of Adams’s accomplishments.

With the Federalist Party deeply split over his negotiations with France, and the opposition Democratic-Republicans enraged over the Alien and Sedition Acts, Adams faced a daunting reelection campaign in 1800. It was one of the most bizarre and cantankerous elections on record. Jefferson and Aaron Burr ran together on a Democartic-Republican Party ticket, and Adams led the opposing Federalist Party ticket along with Charles Pinckney. The winner would take the oath of office on March 4, 1801.

The campaign was bitter and marked by malicious insults from both sides’ partisan press. The Federalists claimed that the Republicans were radicals who would ruin the country through revolution. Republicans were the enemies of “all who love order, peace, virtue, and religion.” They were said to be libertines and dangerous radicals who favored states’ rights over the Union and would instigate anarchy and civil war. Jefferson’s rumored affairs with slaves were used against him. Republicans, for their part, accused federalists of undermining republican principles through punitive federal laws, as well as of favoring Britain and the other coalition countries in their war with France in order to promote aristocratic, anti-republican values. Jefferson was portrayed as an apostle of liberty and man of the people, while Adams was labelled a monarchist. When the electoral votes were counted, Adams finished in third place with 65 votes, and Pinckney came in fourth with 64 votes. They were the clear losers. But Jefferson and Burr tied for first place with 73 votes each. Because of the tie and the selection system then in place, the election devolved upon the House of Representatives to determine whether Burr or Jefferson would be elected. There, on February 17, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected President of the United States.

It was left to Adams to call the Senate into session for the inauguration of the next president. This he did on January 1, 1801, before the next president had been formally determined. Adams, of course, knew he had no chance and the likely selection would be Jefferson rather than Burr.

Ray Greene was a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island during John Adams’ administration. Son of a Rhode Island governor and cousin of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, he was attorney general of Rhode Island from 1794 to 1797, and in the latter year was elected as a Federalist to the U.S. Senate. Greene was reelected in 1799 and served from November 13, 1797, to March 5, 1801, when he resigned, having been nominated for a judicial position. He was an ally of Adams and an opponent of Jefferson, who saw to it that Greene received no federal appointments during his administration.

Letter signed, as President, Washington, January 1, 1801, addressed to Sen. Ray Greene on the address panel. The letter calls the Senate into session for Jefferson’s inauguration. “To the Senators of the United States. Sir, It appearing to me proper and necessary for the public service that the Senate of the United States should be convened on Wednesday the 4th of March next, you are desired to attend in the Chamber of the Senate on that day at 10 o’clock in the forenoon to receive and act upon any communications which the President of the United States may then lay before you, touching their interests, and to do and consider all other things which may be proper and necessary for the public service for the Senate to do and consider.” Lightly silked.

Jefferson kept his inauguration simple. It was the first inauguration held at the Capitol in the new seat of government, Washington, DC. Wanting to get away from pomp and circumstance associated with aristocracy, he simply walked the few blocks from his boarding house to the Senate, where he was sworn in by Chief Justice John Marshall. When it was over, he simply walked back. Returning to the boarding house late for dinner, Jefferson took one of the only remaining seats at the far end of the table. Given the occasion, someone offered him a better seat near the fireplace. Staying true to his egalitarian platform, Jefferson declined.

Jefferson recognized how factions were tearing the country apart. In his inaugural address, he declared, “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names, brethren of the same principles. We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists.” While speaking those words of reconciliation, Jefferson also alluded to some of the accusations against him, “Let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”

As President, Jefferson was responsible for doubling the size of the United States by successfully accomplishing the Louisiana Purchase, and sent out the epochal Lewis and Clark Expedition. He also defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War, stabilized the U.S. economy, reduced taxes, government spending, and the national debt, and repealed the much-maligned Alien and Sedition Acts.

This letter calling the Senate into session for the Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson is a great rarity. Though similar letters would have been sent to the other thirty one senators, they seem to have essentially disappeared. We’ve never seen one in our four decades in the field, and a search of public sale records going back a century turns up only one other example reaching that marketplace.

This letter has been in the same private collection for generations.