The presidential election of 1800 ended in a tie, as the two Democratic-Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each received 73 electoral votes. Burr had been added to the ticket to carry his home state of New York, but it was assumed that nationally Jefferson would get the most votes and Burr the second most. When that did not happen, the election moved to the United States House of Representatives in accordance with Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.

The presidential election of 1800 was one of the most controversial and consequential in the history of the United States. It represented a true changing of the guard as the Federalist party of Washington, Hamilton, and Adams gave way to the Democratic-Republican ideals of Jefferson and Madison and took the United States in a different direction for a generation to come.