Federalist victories in the 1798 congressional elections and public support for Adams's peace mission to France in November 1799 were encouraging signs for the Federalists in the presidential election of 1800. But the success of Adams's peace mission also threatened the future of Alexander Hamilton's expanded army and deprived the "High Federalists" of the position that their version of federalism was the only means to protect the nation from French invasion and Republican subversion. In May 1800 a caucus of Federalist congressmen pledged the party's equal support to President John Adams and vice-presidential candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, supposedly to prevent Republican victory, but Hamilton presumed that support for Pinckney in South Carolina would bring victory to Pinckney, not Adams. An outraged Adams exploded at Hamilton's political manipulations, which he believed had already cost him the election in New York, where Republican victory in the state.....
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