- Historic Sites When John Adams was elected President, and
Thomas Jefferson Vice President, each came to see the other as a
traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.
September 2000 | Volume 51, Issue 5 During the first contested
presidential election in American history, the voters were asked
to choose between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In this
millennial year, voters will choose between George W. Bush and
Al Gore. At first blush, the caustic observation of Henry Adams
appears indisputable: The American Presidency stands as a
glaring exception to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolutionary
progress. But straightforward comparisons between now and then
are notoriously treacherous ventures, in part because those
statesmen who have been eulogized and capitalized as Founding
Fathers enjoy privileged treatment in our memories, in part
because the political culture of the early American Republic was
a fluid and formative bundle of improvisations. Nothing remotely
resembling modern parties ye