Editing Aaron Burr (section)

==1800 presidential election==
{{Main|1800 United States presidential election}}
[[File:Aaron Burr post-failure.jpg|thumb|Burr as [[Vice President of the United States|vice president]] under [[Thomas Jefferson]] in 1803]]
In the [[1800 United States presidential election]], Burr combined the political influence of the Manhattan Company with party campaign innovations to deliver New York's support for Thomas Jefferson.{{sfn|Murphy|2008|pp=233–266}} That year, New York's state legislature chose the presidential electors, as they had four years earlier, in 1796, when they gave their support to John Adams. Prior to the April 1800 legislative elections, the State Assembly was controlled by the Federalists. The City of New York elected assembly members on an at-large basis. Burr and Hamilton were the key campaigners for their respective parties. Burr's Democratic-Republican slate of assemblymen was elected, giving the party control of the legislature, which in turn gave New York State's electoral votes to Jefferson and Burr. This drove another wedge between Burr and Hamilton, who had developed a rivalry with Jefferson.{{sfn|Elkins|McKitrick|1995|p=733}}

Burr enlisted the help of Tammany Hall to win the voting for selection of [[United States Electoral College|Electoral College]] delegates. He gained a place on the Democratic-Republican presidential ticket with Jefferson in the 1800 election. Jefferson and Burr won New York, and tied for the presidency overall, with 73 electoral votes each. Members of the Democratic-Republican Party understood they intended that Jefferson should be president and Burr [[Vice President of the United States|vice president]], but the tied vote required that the final choice be made by the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]], with each of the sixteen states having one vote, and nine votes needed for election.{{sfn|Paulsen|Paulsen|2017|p=53}}

Burr remained quiet publicly, refusing to surrender the presidency to Jefferson, who was seen as the great enemy of the Federalists. Rumors circulated that he and a faction of Federalists were encouraging Democratic-Republican representatives to vote for him, blocking Jefferson's election in the House. However, solid evidence of such a conspiracy was lacking, and historians generally gave Burr the benefit of the doubt. In 2011, however, historian Thomas Baker discovered a previously unknown letter from [[William P. Van Ness]] to [[Edward Livingston]], two leading Democratic-Republicans in New York.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=553–598}} Van Ness was very close to Burr, serving as his second in the duel with Alexander Hamilton. As a leading Democratic-Republican, Van Ness secretly supported the Federalist plan to elect Burr as president and tried to get Livingston to join.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=553–598}} Livingston agreed at first, then reversed himself. Baker argues that Burr probably supported the Van Ness plan: "There is a compelling pattern of circumstantial evidence, much of it newly discovered, that strongly suggests Aaron Burr did exactly that as part of a stealth campaign to compass the presidency for himself."{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=556}} The attempt did not work, however, at least in part because of Livingston's reversal and especially Hamilton's vigorous opposition to Burr. Jefferson was ultimately elected president, and Burr vice president.{{sfn|Ferling|2004}}{{sfn|Sharp|2010}}