until it was changed by the Twelfth Amendment adopted in 1804.

In 1796, the electoral college gave votes to thirteen candidates. The
Federalist ticket was John Adams and Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina.
Hamilton urged equal support of both as the surest way to defeat
Jefferson; but eighteen Adams electors in New England withheld votes from
Pinckney to make sure that he should not slip in ahead of Adams. Had they
not done so, Pinckney would have been chosen President, a possibility
which Hamilton foresaw because of Pinckney's popularity in the South. New
York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted solidly for Adams and Pinckney as
Hamilton had recommended, but South Carolina voted solidly for both
Jefferson and Pinckney, and moreover Pinckney received scattering votes
elsewhere in the South. The action of the Adams electors in New England
defeated Pinckney, and gave Jefferson the vice-presidency, the vote for
the leading candidates being 71 for Adams, 68 for Jefferson, and 59 for
Pinckney. The tendency of such conditions to inspire political feuds and
to foster factional animosity is quite obvious. This situation must be
borne in mind, in order to make intelligible the course of Adams's
administration.

Adams had an inheritance of trouble from the same source which had plagued
Washington's administration,--the efforts of revolutionary France to rule
the United States. In selecting Monroe to succeed Morris, Washington knew
that the former was as friendly to the French Revolution as Morris had
been opposed to it, and hence he hoped that Monroe would be able to impart
a more friendly feeling to the relations of the two countries. Monroe
arrived in Paris just after the fall of Robespierre. The Committee of
Public Safety then in possession of the executive authority hesitated to
receive him. Monroe wrote to the President of the National Convention then
sitting, and a decree was at once passed that the Minister of the United