ON THE EVE OF THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, so much of this moment feels unprecedented. Yet historians and political commentators can’t help looking for points of comparison in previous presidential elections—not just the last few cycles, but further back to, say, 1964 (the last time polls were so tight in the runup to the vote) or 1892 (the only other time a defeated former president hoping for a comeback won his party’s nomination).
But I’m struck by the similarities between 2024 and a much earlier election, one of the most consequential in our nation’s history, from the time of the founders: the election of 1800.
During that election cycle, voters debated the value of deporting residents, state legislatures schemed to control their states’ electoral votes, foreign nations attempted to interfere with the outcome of the election, weak parties failed to contain intense partisanship, and the threat of political violence hovered over the election.
Republican candidate Donald Trump made these parallels explicit in his Madison Square Garden rally on October 27, when he pledged to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport undocumented citizens. In the summer of 1798, to prepare for a potential war with France, Congress passed a series of bills, including the creation of the naval department, the formation a provisional army, and expansion of coastal defenses. Democratic-Republicans and Federalists joined forces to pass the Alien Enemies Act—one of the laws that would become infamous lumped together as the “Alien and Sedition Acts”—which would go into effect with a congressional declaration of war. The bill empowered the president to deport foreign nationals of the United States’ enemy, but also provided due process protections for residents.
In 1798, no residents were deported under this law, though some French nationals left voluntarily. During World War II, an updated version of this law was one of the justifications for Japanese internment. The Supreme Court repudiated this use of the law for internment in 2018.