Video link: https://youtu.be/jvgIvhjpJ7g
After a series of emotional excerpts, The Election of 1800 finally brings us back to politics, as humorously requested by Jefferson in the second line of the song. As the end of John Adam's term is coming, there is a debate to who the next president will be. Adams made several mistakes during his presidency that will surely prevent him from being elected again. Therefore, it was a battle between Jefferson and Burr, who were both from the Democratic-Republican party. The reason they ran against each other wasn't because they wanted to, but rather because of the way the Electoral College worked at the time. The candidate with the most votes became president, while the runner-up became vice-president. Jefferson and Burr each earned 73 electoral votes, so the election was thrown into the House of Representatives to break the tie.
In the song, Hamilton promoted Jefferson, but that wasn't necessarily true in real life. Hamilton despised both of them, but he saw Burr as a threat to the stability and future of the country that he believed in. He didn't like Jefferson, but Jefferson was the less harmful than Burr. Hamilton actively campaigned against Burr behind the scenes to stop him from winning, so it could be said that Hamilton contributed to Jefferson's win. However, he did not actively support Jefferson.
Burr did end up becoming vice-president, but the complications that aroused in this election demonstrated the need for reform in the election process. This led to the passage of the 12th Amendment in the Constitution in 1804, which separated the presidential and vice-presidential elections, preventing members from the same party from running against each other.
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