The election of 1800 does not look like a revolution when you first glance at it. There are no barricades, no mobs storming palaces, and no generals turning their coats inside out in torchlit alleys. Yet Jefferson would later call it the Revolution of 1800, and for once a politician reached for a dramatic phrase that was not entirely inflated. What happened in that year was not a revolution of bullets but a revolution of temperament. It was the moment when the United States proved that power could shift peacefully in the face of anger and fear. Europe, still staggering from the shockwaves of the French Revolution, looked like a warning about what happened when tempers and theories ran ahead of constitutions. In contrast, the United States managed to change course with a kind of weary dignity. It was far from quiet, and it was hardly free of danger, but it worked. There is something impressive about a nation that nearly tears itself apart and then pretends that everything went fine because the furniture was not yet on fire.

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