As the time approached for the election of a new president, the two parties made again the most strenuous efforts each to acquire the direction of government. Adams had been elected by the predominance of federal principles, but several things had occurred in his administration which had not only weakened his personal influence, but rendered the party to which he was attached unpopular with the majority. The acts by which the army and navy had been strengthened, and which had placed 80,000 militia at his command, were regarded by the democratic as indications of a wish to subvert the spirit of republican government; while the Alien and Sedition Laws, to which he had given his sanction, completed his unpopularity, and fomented party animosity to an extent which had never been equalled, and tended greatly to the overthrow of the federal party. The federalists supported for the approaching election Adams and General Pinckney, the democratic party Thomas Jefferson and Colonel Aaron Burr. The two latter were found to have a small majority, the whole of the republican party having voted for them, with the intention of Jefferson being president and Burr vice-president. On counting the votes, however, it was discovered that both were equal; the selection, therefore, of the president devolved upon the house of representatives, who, voting by states, according to the constitution, should decide between the two. Again and again and yet again the balloting was repeated in the house, and the result always the same; nor was it until the thirty-sixth balloting that one altered vote turned the scale in Jefferson’s favour. He became president, and Aaron Burr vice-president. To guard against the recurrence of such a difficulty, Article XII. was added to the Constitution.