The story
In 1808 Secretary of State James Madison, Jefferson's chosen successor, won the presidency for the Democratic-Republicans with 122 electoral votes. Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney won 47. Vice President George Clinton, who was reelected vice president on Madison's ticket, also received 6 presidential votes from New York electors who preferred him to Madison.
The campaign turned on the Embargo Act of December 1807. Caught between Britain and Napoleonic France, which were both seizing American ships, Jefferson barred American ships from sailing to foreign ports. The embargo hurt Britain and France far less than it hurt American merchants and farmers, and smuggling flourished along the Canadian border. New England, whose economy depended on shipping, revived the Federalist Party, which more than tripled its 1804 electoral total. Madison still won comfortably on the strength of the South and West, and Congress repealed the embargo days before Jefferson left office in March 1809.
Why it mattered
- Continued the Jeffersonian line with the man who had done more than anyone to draft the Constitution.
- Put Madison in office as tensions with Britain built toward the War of 1812.
- Showed that an unpopular trade policy could revive a fading opposition party.
Sources
- United States presidential election of 1808 Britannica
- 1808 Electoral College Results National Archives
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