Word: jefferson
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Many of the early Presidents were not especially happy in the White House. Thomas Jefferson found his sojourn there a chore, and he called the presidency itself "a splendid misery." The first child born in the White House was Jefferson's grandson, James Madison Randolph, delivered in an upstairs bedroom in 1806. The second birth was a reminder of the nation's grim legacy: a child born in the basement quarters to two of Jefferson's slaves, Fanny and Eddy. No name is recorded for the child, who died before reaching age 2. The child's funeral was probably...
...Federalist Party had lost the presidency but retained a majority in the House. Most Federalists hated Burr less than they hated Jefferson and voted accordingly. On the first ballot, with nine states necessary for election, Jefferson had eight, Burr six; two were divided. Ballot after ballot followed, day after day passed, and a sense of crisis began to spread across the country. The whole succession procedure seemed to be failing...
Truman introduced the first television set to the White House, a harbinger of the presence of TV cameras and 24-hour cable journalists, who constantly haunt the grounds today. But the White House was always an experimental ground for new, in particular domestic, technology. Jefferson had two flush toilets; Andrew Jackson got running water and the first shower; Martin Van Buren brought in central heating; and Polk did away with candles and oil and lighted his chandeliers with gas. An early form of air conditioning was improvised for the dying James A. Garfield in the summer of 1881. Rutherford...
Finally Alexander Hamilton, who deeply distrusted Burr, persuaded enough Federalists to go to Jefferson--"I trust," he said, "the Federalists will not finally be so mad as to vote for Burr"--that the House at last elected Jefferson on the 36th ballot. (Four years later, Burr killed Hamilton in a duel.) The crisis of 1800 led to reform: the 12th Amendment required that the Electoral College must thereafter vote separately for President and Vice President...
...Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of what was then called the Republican Party (which later became the Democratic Party), ended up in an Electoral College tie, with 73 votes each. The choice devolved on the lame-duck House of Representatives, with each state's delegation voting as a unit...