The election of 1800 marked the first transfer of the national control from one party to another. So accustomed has time made us to these changes, that it is difficult to appreciate the anxiety with which the people of that day awaited the transition. Well-known party issues, announced in party platforms, now give a fair assurance of the policies to be pursued. Yet no serious suggestion emanated from the Federalists that they would not yield to the ballot. Fitness for self-government was again demonstrated, especially when contrasted with some other American nations, by the peaceful eviction of one party, yielding to no more warlike weapon in the hands of its opponents than the suffrage of citizens. The anxiety of the hour was increased because the national machinery had suddenly come to a standstill. The defect predicted by its enemies and feared by its friends had suddenly appeared in the method of electing a President. According to the Constitution, each elector wrote two names upon his ballot. The man receiving the highest number, if a majority, was declared President, and the next highest, Vice-President. Every Republican elector chosen in 1800 had written upon his ballot the names of Jefferson and Burr. Consequently neither was elected, because neither had a majority. The superiority of Hamilton over Jefferson as a party manager is manifest by the fact that Hamilton had feared a Federalist tie in the election of 1789 and had taken steps to prevent it. The Republicans were now in a quandary. John Adams had received only sixty-five votes, cut off with one term, a vicarious sacrifice, as he thought himself; yet neither Jefferson nor Burr was elected, each having seventy-three votes. Various rumours disturbed the peace. It was said that Congress would appoint a President for the interim; that Adams would hold over; or that Hamilton, disappointed in not being made President, would turn dictator. Governor Monroe promised Jefferson that he would immediately re-convene the Virginia Assembly "should any plan of usurpation be attempted at the federal town." Monroe's remedy was an amendment which would correct the Constitution in this particular. The fathers had not foreseen this precise accident, but, in their wisdom, had provided a remedy for a defective election by casting a decision in the House of Representatives, the most popular body next to the electors. Jefferson had undoubtedly been the choice of the people, and his selection had been the intention of the Republican electors. This was ultimately accomplished in the House. An amendment to the Constitution was adopted before the next election to prevent the recurrence of such an accident, and the Union had by good fortune passed a crisis in a presidential election second only to that of 1876.