You think this past election was bad? During the 1800 presidential election, voters on both sides were certain that the existence of the Republic was at stake. Thomas Jefferson supporters were convinced that if John Adams were elected, America would end up a monocracy, slave once again to Great Britain. Adams supporters believed that if Jefferson were elected president, we would have gone the way of the French Revolution and that “the people of this nation will receive the just vengeance of an insulted heaven. We will witness our dwellings in flames, hoary hairs bathed in blood, female chastity violated, and children writhing on the pike and halberd.”