Peaceful transfers of power? Not a guarantee in early America

Journalists and commentators have invoked historic precedents to contextualize the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. While unprecedented in many ways, those events are also part of a long history of bitter partisanship and political violence in the United States. Thomas Jefferson’s election in 1800 offers an example: the peaceful transfer of power was anything but a foregone conclusion. Historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky discusses historic examples of sedition, violence, and mob action in the early decades of American history.