ABSTRACT
Whoever won the 1796 Presidential election would inherit a pot of boiling party animosities that not even Washington in a third term could have quieted. The Jay Treaty debate of the spring of 1796 provided the bitter ingredient to keep the soup seething. Adams predicted to Abigail, however, that the treaty would pass. He proved correct; the treaty did pass, a tormenting thorn in the side for the Republicans—and for the French Directory, which saw it as an Anglo-American confederation. The next Presidential administration would begin office burdened with this grim French disapproval. In any case, he would certainly never serve as Vice-President under anyone else but Washington, particularly if the new President were of the opposite party. It would be "a dangerous crisis in public affairs," he thought, anticipating the snags of the Constitution's electoral system, "if the President and Vice-President should be in opposite boxes.".
