---
title: '1796: John Adams'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/elections/us-presidential/1796/
description: the first contested presidential election, in which John Adams (Federalist) narrowly defeated Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican); no campaign…
section: US presidential elections
---

![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg)

[US presidential elections](https://propagandaarchive.org/elections/us-presidential/)

# 1796: John Adams

- **When:** 1796

On this page

**In one line:** the first contested presidential election, in which John Adams (Federalist) narrowly defeated Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican); no campaign literature is catalogued in this archive.

## Context

With Washington declining a third term, the Federalists backed Adams and the Democratic-Republicans backed Jefferson, and each party ran more than one candidate [3]. Adams received 71 electoral votes and Jefferson 68, of 138 cast; Thomas Pinckney (Federalist) received 59, Aaron Burr (Democratic-Republican) 30, and nine other men shared the rest. Under the rules then in force the runner-up became vice president, so Jefferson served under Adams [1][2]. The American Presidency Project gives the electoral shares as 51.1 and 48.9 per cent [2].

Wikipedia reports that Federalists tried to link the Democratic-Republicans to the violence of the French Revolution, and Democratic-Republicans accused Federalists of favouring monarchy and aristocracy [3]. The sources fetched do not describe the media used.

## Campaign literature

| Candidate (party) | Objects in the archive |
| --- | --- |
| John Adams (Federalist) | 0 |
| Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) | 0 |
| Thomas Pinckney (Federalist) | 0 |
| Aaron Burr (Democratic-Republican) | 0 |

No campaign literature for 1796 is catalogued in this archive. A search of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs catalogue by candidate name with "campaign", "ticket", "broadside" and "cartoon" (7 queries) found no item that could be tied to the campaign. This does not show that nothing survives. No side has fewer items than another: all four have none.

### John Adams (Federalist)

No objects catalogued.

### Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

No objects catalogued.

### Thomas Pinckney (Federalist)

No objects catalogued.

### Aaron Burr (Democratic-Republican)

No objects catalogued.

## Techniques visible

None, because no objects for this year are catalogued.

## Sources

1. National Archives, "1796 Electoral College Results", https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/1796
2. American Presidency Project, "1796", https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/1796
3. Wikipedia, "1796 United States presidential election" (cross-check only): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1796_United_States_presidential_election