FEDERALISTS, the earliest political party organized in the United States after the achievement of liberty. The leaders were Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jay, Marshall, and others of their rank and ability. In the French revolution, the federalists sympa thized rather with England than with the party of Marat and Robespierre; and'this gave occasion to Jefferson, who was ambitious to be president, to organize, in connection with Burr and others, a party called " republican," whose distinctive features were to inten sify the natural feeling against England, and to accuse the federalists of being enemies of the masses of the people, of favoring an aristocratic government, and even of designs against the newly achieved liberties of the nation. The federalists had their own way in the elections for the first three terms, electing Washington twice and John Adams once; but in the canvass of 1796, Jefferson and Burr were the republican candidates. At that time, no discrimination was made by the electoral college between president and vice president; each elector voted for two persons, the man having the highest vote took the first office, and the other went to the next highest. The vote was: Adams, 71; Jeffer son, 68; Pinckney (fed.), 59; Burr (rep.), 30; with 46 votes scattered among nine others. Thus, we had a federalist for the first and a republican for the second officer. In 1800, Adams was again a candidate, with C. C. Pinckney (fed.), and Jefferson and Burr (rep.) opposed. The electoral vote showed for Jefferson, 73; Burr, 73; Adams, 65; Pinckney, 64. There being an equal vote between Jefferson and Burr, the house of representatives was compelled to elect, and the vote was taken by states. After 36 ballots, Jefferson got 10, and Burr 4 states, and two states voted blank. So Jefferson took the first office.
In subsequent elections, the federalist candidates for president were Charles C. Pinckney iu 1804 and 1808, De Witt Clinton in 1812, and Rufus King in 1816. Clinton had the largest electoral vote, 89 to 128 for Madison. In the struggle with England, the federal ists were charged with hostility to the war; and with some show of reason. The capi talists and merchants of the country were chiefly of that party, and capital always dreads the disturbance of war. Although weak in votes they were strong in social and political position and influence, and were a constant source of fear to the more popular republi cans. In 1814, the federalists committed suicide as a party by holding the famous Hartford convention, the motives and actions of which were construed, though unjustly, yet not unnaturally, to be directly opposed to the war, and little short of treasonable. In fact, the convention was opposed not to the war, but to the manner in which it was conducted, and to acts of the administration which they deemed oppressive and unjust to the New England states. See HARTFORD CONVENTION. The unmeasured denuncia tion of this convention overwhelmed what there was left of the old federal party, and it speedily passed out of consideration as a national organization. In the succeeding presidential election (1816),.Rufus King got but 34 out of 221 electoral votes, and only three (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware) of the 19 states. The last appearance of a federalist candidate for president was in 1820, when their leader, John Quincy Adams, received one electoral vote (from New Hampshire) out of a total of 235.