The 1800 national election held an immense amount of danger for the new United States of America. The previous two presidential administrations— those of George Washington and John Adams—had sketched the outline of a new national government, a great political experiment in men’s ability to govern themselves. The United States was defining itself: largely autonomous states united in a strong federal constitution and capable of adding territory in America to the body politic so long as the states agreed to the principles of a strong central government that protected basic individual rights across state boundaries. Those principles had been tested severely—in the Whiskey Rebellion, in the creation of a national bank to streamline commerce, in the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, and in the de facto establishment of political parties that seemingly represented factional interests over the interests of the nation as a whole. Without any established traditions as to how such a national government should work, every change seemed like a challenge to the Constitution, every event like an opportunity to scrap the Constitution altogether.