By Erica Edman, Editor-in-Chief

I used to think of the Revolution of 1800 as just one of countless vocab terms buried in my old AP US History notes. Two-hundred and twenty years after the revolution, the prospect of transferring political power from one party to another seems pretty mundane in America. I don’t blame myself for thinking this way, considering that similar transfers of power have happened every four years since 1789. However, at the time, the Revolution of 1800 was earth-shattering. After John Adams, a Federalist, lost the presidency to Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, the Federalists believed that the America they knew would cease to exist. They labeled the Democratic-Republicans as dangerous radicals, and a bitter John Adams refused to attend Jefferson’s inauguration. Despite Adam’s bitterness towards his defeat, the democratic process continued, marking America’s first peaceful transfer of political power. 

The election of 1800, although seemingly divisive at the time, solidified a tradition that has continued in this country for two-hundred and twenty years. It is now customary for the defeated presidential candidate to concede and carry out a peaceful transition of power. While Americans see smooth transitions of power as the standard for elections, that is not true throughout the rest of the world. According to Adam Przeworski, only about half of all countries have seen an orderly transition of political power since the first world war – defined as transfers of governmental power without coups, civil wars, or constitutional crisis. Powerful countries such as China and Russia fall into the category of not having completed a peaceful transition of power in the past 100 years. Conversely, America has had 11 orderly transfers of political power within that time. 

  This year’s election is the first in our history where the orderliness of the transfer of power was called into question. Some people may panic over this fact, and consider this election a tipping point that will lead to more non-orderly elections. While I do feel this way, I also feel gratitude. I believe we should be thankful, and astounded, that this election is so deeply out of the ordinary for our country. Despite many wars, economic depressions, and now pandemics we are still able to carry out this fundamental part of our democracy. 

If you do think that the cruelty, violence, and lies that occurred during this election marks the end of American democracy as we know it, I think it’s important to think back on how the Federalists felt during the Revolution of 1800. They believed that America was going to fall apart at the seams, and it didn’t. Two-hundred years later, our democracy has only grown stronger. So the next time you read the news and become convinced that the America we know is going to fall to pieces, think about the girl 200 years into the future who is going to be frantically reading her APUSH notes on the election of 2020 on her way to school, in her self-driving flying car, thinking “Ugh, this is so boring!”