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1789 – 1800
Alexander Hamilton
He was one of the youngest and most
brilliant of the Founding Fathers, who
might have been president but for his
ultraconservatism, a scandalous
adultery, and a duelist’s bullet. Hamilton
favored a strong central government
with a weak legislature to unify the
infant nation and encourage industry.
His chief rival, Thomas Jefferson, who
extolled states’ rights as a bulwark of
liberty and thought the United States
should remain an agricultural society,
regarded Hamilton as a monarchist
plotter and never forgave him for
insisting that “the British Govt. was the
best in the world: and that he doubted
much whether any thing short of it
would do in America.”
Hamilton
• Born in West Indies
• Served as Washington’s aid in the Revolution
• Wanted to concentrate debt in the national
government
• Way to monitor/regulate state banks
• Modeled after Bank of England
• “Make debt an asset
for vitalizing the
financial system as
well as the
government itself” p
203
• Urged Congress to
“fund” the entire
national debt “at par”
and to assume
completely the debts
incurred by the states
during the recent war
• Wide speculation of
bonds
Strict vs. Loose
Interpretation
• Hamilton’s Views:
o What was not forbidden in the Constitution was permitted.
o A bank was “Necessary and Proper”
o He evolved the Elastic Clause – Congress has power to “make all laws
necessary and proper to carry out its function”
• Jefferson’s Views:
o What was not permitted was forbidden.
o A bank should be a state controlled item (9th Am.)
o The Constitution should be interpreted literally and strictly
Bank of the US
• Hamilton won
• Bank of the United States created in 1791 –
chartered for 20 years
o Located in Philadelphia
o Capital of $10 million
o Stocks open to public sale
Whiskey Rebellion
• Excise Tax approved by Congress 1791 - 7 cents on
a gallon of Whiskey
Whiskey Rebellion
• 1794 farmers in western Pennsylvania revolt
• Challenged the new national government
• Washington summons state militias
o 13,000 troops appear
• Significance: government strengthened
• Some argue the force was too much
Foreign Affairs
• Jeffersonians = ProFrench
• Federalists = Pro-British
• Jeffersonians upset
because WA passes
Neutrality without
consulting Congress
• Citizen Genet
• France
o French Revolution
o Some favored honoring the
Franco-American alliance of
1778
o Washington and Hamilton push
for delay and favor inaction
o Neutrality Proclamation 1793 –
America is neutral and urges
citizens to impartial as well
Foreign Affairs
Britain
• Strained relations
• British troops still in NW
Territory
• Begin to impress sailors
and seize American
ships
Jay’s Treaty 1795
• British agree to pay
damages for lost cargo
• Evacuate military posts in
west
• Did avoid war
• But never pledged to
stop seizing ships or
impressing sailors
• Trading rights for neutral
nations were not
protected
Spain
Pinckney Treaty 1795
• Treaty gave Americans
free navigation of the
Mississippi and large
part of northern Florida
• 31 Parallel boundary
with Florida
Political Parties Emerge
Federalists
• Who: Hamilton,
Washington, Adams
• Where: Northeast
• Issues: strong central
government, probusiness
• Loose Interpretation
• Pro-British
Democratic-Republicans
• Who: Jefferson and
Madison
• Where: South and West
• Issues: States rights and
small farmers
• Strict Interpretation
• Pro-French
Farewell from
Washington
• Warns against binding, permanent alliances
• Condemned political parties
John Adams
• Member of the Continental Congress
• Attorney From Massachusetts
• Served as a diplomat to France during American
Revolution
• VP under Washington
• Hamilton favored at first but falls out of favor due to
financial policies that benefitted speculators
Election of 1796
• Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) ran against
Adams for Presidency
• Adams wins majority vote = Federalist (71)
• Jefferson becomes VP = Democratic Republican
(68)
• This two-party combination was addressed with the
Twelfth Amendment (1804)
Quasi-War with France
• French angered by Jay’s Treaty and seize American
ships
• Adams sends diplomats to Paris
• French foreign minister refuses to meet with
delegation
• XYZ Affair – 3 officials offer bribe of $250,000 to meet
with officials
• Wave of patriotism and anti-French sentiment
“Unofficial fighting with
France”
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•
•
•
Americans and French skirmish in Caribbean
No declaration of war
DR still sympathetic to French
Federalist Congress passes legislation to suppress
opposition to war against France
Alien and Sedition Acts
(1798)
• 3 aimed at foreigners (leaned to DR Party)
o President could expel any foreigner deemed a threat to the nation
o Foreigners could be deported or jailed by President during war time
o Residency for citizenship extended from 5 to 14 years
• Sedition Act
o Highly controversial
o Limited free speech:
• Illegal to defame or criticize President or Government
• Aimed at newspapers critical of federalists and war critics
• Is it a violation of the First Amendment?
o 10 Jeffersonian editors tried and convicted
o Matthew Lyon (the Spitting Lion)
• Federalists intentionally write law to expire in 1801 to
ensure it would not be used against them in the chance
of losing the election
Impact
• Federalists believe war was imminent
• Jeffersonians saw it as proof that individual liberties
were at stake in the hands of a strong central
government
Virginia and Kentucky
Resolutions
• State legislatures pass legislation in response to
taxes on citizens
• States could judge constitutionality of laws passed
by Congress
• If national government overstepped its powers,
states could nullify laws
• Authors anonymous at first because fear of
retribution of Sedition Act
• James Madison wrote VA’s Resolution
• Thomas Jefferson wrote KY’s Resolution
• President had signed laws and VP writing resolutions
to upturn same legislation
Native Americans
• Henry Knox (WA’s Sec of War) implements policy of
assimilation
• Somewhat successful
• Belief that American culture was superior to Indian
culture
• Many Natives used traditional and European items
in daily life
• Still many white Americans saw Native Americans in
Ohio Valley as a barrier to settlement in the West
• Northwest Territory organized by land ordinances
under Articles of Confederation
• Violence existed because US never negotiated with
Natives for access to land
• Natives defeat Americans in two skirmishes, one
killing more than 600 whites
Native Americans
• British, in defiance of Treaty of Paris, still occupy forts
in NW and supply Natives to help resist Americans
• 1794: Battle of Fallen Timbers – General “Mad”
Anthony Wayne
o Defeat the Miamis, British refuse to shelter Miamis so they seek peace with
Americans
• Treaty of Greenville
o Give up tracts in Old Northwest (IN, OH)
o Natives receive - $20,000, annual annuity of $9,000, right to hunt,
recognition of their sovereign status
o Establishes US as dominant power and opens Ohio Valley to US settlement
Key Concept: Dividing
governmental power
• Should the government be allowed to pass
legislation like the Alien and Sedition Acts? During
wartime?
• Does the Bill of Rights go far enough, or too far, in
protecting civil liberties?
• How strong should the central government be in
relation to the states?
Age of Jefferson
1800 – 1815
Election of 1800
• Federalists were split as President Adams sought
peace with France
• The Press attacked Adams as a monarchist
attacking individual liberties; Hamilton’s pamphlet
published by JDR’s
• Jefferson attacked as well; atheist, radical, Sally
Hemings
Presidential Election of 1800
(with electoral vote by state)
•New York was the key state in
this election, and Aaron Burr
helped swing it away from the
Federalists with tactics that
anticipated the political
“machines” of a later day.
Federalists complained that
Burr “travels every night from
one meeting of Republicans
to another, haranguing . . .
them to the most zealous
exertions. [He] can stoop so
low as to visit every low tavern
that may happen to be
crowded with his dear fellow
citizens.” But Burr proved that
the price was worth it. “We
have beat you,” Burr told kidgloved Federalists after the
election, “by superior
Management.”
Election of 1800
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•
•
•
Jefferson popular in the South
Aaron Burr gained votes in NY
Problem – Jefferson and Burr tie in Electoral College
Solution – House of Representatives had to chose
winner
o Federalists dominate HoR
o After several ballots, Jefferson declared winner
• Adams was the last Federalist president
o Unable to yield to American public – unable to evolve, they died
• Jefferson inaugurated in new capital of
Washington, D.C. (March 4, 1801)
Impact of the Election of
1800
• Twelfth Amendment
o Electors would cast separate votes for president and vice president
• Peaceful transfer of power showed success of
American experiment in democracy
Thomas Jefferson
• Influenced by the Enlightenment
Read Greek and Latin
Designer and architect – designed Monticello
Popularized the polygraph which made copies of letters
Shy, over six feet, red hair
Not a great public speaker  sent State of the Union to Congress instead
of delivering himself (precedent lasts until Woodrow Wilson)
o Often meet visitors in robe and slippers
o
o
o
o
o
Jefferson
• Early Career in Government
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o
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o
Member of Continental Congress
authored Declaration of Independence
Governor of Virginia
Minister to France
A Man of Contradictions
Beliefs/Writings
Reality
• Value of common man
• All Are Equal
• Limited government
power
• No intermixture
• Monticello and money
• Slave owner
• Bought Louisiana
• Sally Hemings
“Jeffersonian Restraint”
• Pardons those convicted under Sedition Act
• New naturalization law returns years to 5 from 14 to
be a citizen
• Persuades Congress to repeal Hamilton's excise tax
o Burden to farmers
o Bred bureaucracy
• Costs government roughly a million a year
Courts
• Adams named several Federalists to positions in the
judiciary
• Goal: maintain Federalist influence in the
government
o 12 judges nicknamed the “midnight judges”
William Marbury
• Set to become a justice for Washington D.C.
• Never received commission
• James Madison (new Secretary of State) refused to
deliver commission
• Marbury sued Madison
o Claimed Judiciary Act of 1789 required delivery of such documents
Marbury v. Madison
• John Marshall (another midnight Adams appointee)
was Chief Justice
• He actually failed to deliver the commission
• Conundrum: Marshall was a cousin of Jefferson and
knew Jefferson would ignore the ruling if in favor of
Marbury
• Significance – the Court would become subservient
to the other branches of government
John Marshall on Assuming the
Chief Justiceship, 1801
•Depicted here as a young
man, Marshall was destined
to serve on the Supreme
Court for thirty-four years and
deeply molded
constitutional law. Born in a
log cabin on the Virginia
frontier, he attended law
lectures for just a few weeks
at the College of William and
Mary— his only formal
education. Yet Marshall
would go on to prove himself
a brilliant chief justice. One
admiring lawyer wrote of
him, “His black eyes . . .
possess an irradiating spirit,
which proclaims the imperial
powers of the mind that sits
enthroned therein.”
Court Decisions
• Madison should deliver the commission, but the
Supreme Court couldn’t force him
• The Constitution never gave the Court the power to
issue such rulings
• The section of the Judiciary Act granting this power
was unconstitutional
Impact
• Short Term:
o Courts lost power to force delivery of commissions
• Long Term:
o Established power of Judicial Review
• Judicial Review: power of Courts to review
constitutionality of laws
• Significant because it made Supreme Court equal to other branches
in the federal government
Pacifist Turned Warrior
• Jefferson reduces militia to 2500 men and navies
reduced as well
• Standing armies seen as open invitations to
tyrannical rule
• Jefferson’s republican ideals pushed with the
emerging problem in the North African Barbary
States
o Pirates looting US ships
o 1801 – pasha informally declares war by cutting down flagstaff at
American consulate
o Jefferson responds by dispatching gunboats to the “shores of Tripoli”
Tripolitan War
• 1801-1805
• Peace treaty - $60,000 (merely ransom for captive
Americans)
• Jefferson enthusiastically calls for 200 gunboats to
be built
o “Mosquito Fleet” not very sturdy
o One ship ends up 8 miles inland in Savannah, Georgia
o Federalists mock his decision
Philadelphia
• Ship was captured
and set to be used
against Americans
• Stephen Decatur
burns the ship to
the waterline
Louisiana Purchase
• 1800 – Napoleon signs pact with Spain to cede
Louisiana territory to France (including Port of New
Orleans)
• 1802 – Spaniards deny American farmers right to
deposit goods to transport (was guaranteed by
Pinckney’s Treaty)
• Spain’s power declining in US
• France’s power escalating under Napoleon
• Jefferson decides to act quickly
America’s Response
• James Monroe sent to Paris to join forces with
Robert Livingston (minister to France)
• Instructed to buy as much land as possible to the
east, not to exceed $10 million
• Livingston accepts Napoleon’s offer of $15 million
and all the land to the west
o Napoleon’s offer stemmed from unrest in Haiti and Napoleon’s desire to
renew war with Britain
Toussaint L’Overture
A self-educated ex-slave and military
genius, L’Ouverture was finally
betrayed by the French, who
imprisoned him in a chilly dungeon
in France, where he coughed his life
away. Indirectly, he did much to set
up the sale of Louisiana to the United
States. His slave rebellion in Haiti
also (briefly) established the first
black government in the New World,
striking fear into the hearts of slaveowners throughout the Western
Hemisphere.
Louisiana Purchase
• April 30, 1803 – Louisiana Purchase finalized
• Jefferson, a strict interpreter of the Constitution,
goes against his beliefs to approve LP
• Senate approved
o Average 3 cents per acre
o Doubled size of US
Impact of Louisiana
Purchase
• Precedent of acquiring land through purchase
• Avoided possible problems with France
o And consequently an entangling alliance with Britain
• Incorporation of new lands into Union as equals
• Federal govt accept legal code of French Louisiana
o Louisiana legal code based on French civil law, unlike the other states
based on British civil law
The Corps of Discovery
• Jefferson’s secretly convenes Congress to dispatch
Lewis and Clark
o Jefferson a Deist, fascinated by the West
• Meriwether Lewis
o Jefferson’s aide
• William Clark
o Army officer
• 27 additional members
The Mission of the Corps
• Scientific Expedition
o Study and survey the land, plants, animals
o Determine economic potential
• Study Native American culture and lifestyle; possibly
establish a trade network
• Successes:
o Detailed observations in journals
o Biased descriptions of Natives but informative about lifestyle and Native
culture
o Improved U.S. claim to Oregon country
Aaron Burr
• Increasing fear of secession and foreign influence in
the large territory
• Burr and other Federalists plot the secession of New
England and New York
• Hamilton exposes plot to Jefferson
• Burr challenges Hamilton
o Hamilton felt his honor was at stake, accepts challenge but refuses to
shoot
o Hamilton dies and with it goes the Federalist’s last hope of effective
leadership
• U.S. acquires land but finds it difficult to govern it
effectively
Foreign Affairs
• Napoleon provokes war with England
• Trade suffers
o Orders in Council – closed European ports under French control to foreign
shipping unless ships stopped in British ports first
o Napoleon orders seizure of all merchant ships that entered British ports
o America unable to trade with either nation without facing harsh
consequences
War of 1812: Causes
• Trading rights and impressment of American sailors
o War in Europe  America neutral and benefits by trading grain
o 1805 both British and French forces blockade other’s trade and start
seizing American ships
• British impressment of sailors
o Pay and conditions were poor for British sailors (some desert to American
side)
o Royal Navy searches American ships and forced British sailors to return
along with 6,000 Americans
Chesapeake-Leopard Affair
• Chesapeake – US war ship; refuses to be boarded
by
• Leopard – British frigate; fire canons at close range
and kill 3 Americans and wound others
• Affair angers Americans
• Response – Jefferson passes Embargo Act
Embargo Act (1807)
• 1. Prohibited all U.S. exports
o Intent: European reliance on American goods would force recognition of
neutral rights
o Result: failure; unemployment rose and policy was unpopular in US
• Madison’s Response (1809)
o Loosely supported embargo
o Ships still being seized
o Americans turn anger toward British because Britain controlled the seas
War of 1812: Causes
• 2. British support of Native American resistance to US
presence in NW Territory
o Settlers move west and come into conflict with Natives
o Natives angered with American officials negotiating with Indians who had
no authority to speak with American officials
o Settlers often violated terms of treaties
• Tecumseh (Shawnee Chief)
o An experienced Warrior
o Worked with brother; the Prophet
o Aimed to create an Indian Confederacy of all Indians from Canada to
the American south
o Encouraged Indian settlement in towns like Tippecanoe as a challenge to
Americans
Battle of Tippecanoe
• William Henry Harrison (Gov of Indiana) concerned
about Indian resistance
• The Prophet called for an attack on Harrison’s
forces
• Natives were outnumbered and were defeated
and the town was burned
• Harrison becomes the hero of Tippecanoe
• Tecumseh convinced on necessity of allying with
British to stop American expansion
Conflict in NW Territory
• Natives begin to work more closely with British
• Harrison called for war against Indians and British
War of 1812: Causes
• 3. election of new congressional members called
War Hawks
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o
o
o
Supporters of war with GB
Strongest in South and West
Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun
Some call for annexation of Canada
Declaration of War
• Opposition strong in Federalist states like New York
and New England
• June 1812 – Madison sends list of grievances to
Congress
• June 1812 – Congress issues first declaration of war
• Critics called it “Mr. Madison’s War”
War of 1812
• Fighting lasts a little over 2 years
• Early on, Americans led unsuccessful invasions of
Canada
o Surrender of Fort Detroit
• Oliver Perry defeats British at Put-in-Bay giving
Americans control of Lake Eerie
• Tecumseh killed at the Battle of the Thames
• Battle of Bladensburg – Americans routed and British
move towards D.C.
War of 1812
• 1814 - D.C. unprotected and British burn Washington
including presidential mansion
• Britain withdraws from D.C. the following day after
damaging capitol building
Treaty of Ghent
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American and British officials meet in Belgium
Agree to end hostilities
Terms restore relations to pre-war status
Takes 2 months for news of the terms to reach
America
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o
o
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Fighting continued
Battle of New Orleans
Andrew Jackson’s troops vs. 6,000 British soldiers
21 casualties vs. 2,000
Battle is after peace agreement but is symbolic victory for Americans
Hartford Convention
(1814-1815)
• Federalists meet in Hartford, CT to discuss
grievances with war
• Some talk of secession from Union
• Talk of Constitutional Amendments
o 1. require a 2/3 vote to declare war
o Prohibit election of two successive Presidents from the same state
• Aimed at VA Dynasty (Jefferson and Madison)
• When news of Treaty of Ghent and Jackson’s
victory spreads, Federalists viewed as traitors and
Convention seen as nail in the coffin for Federalist
Party
Resulting Theme of the
Period
• Rise of Nationalism
o White House
o Star Spangled Banner written by Francis Scott Key while imprisoned at Fort
McHenry
o New hero: Andrew Jackson
Discussion Questions
• Did the Supreme Court decisions under John
Marshall’s leadership extend federal power too
much? Is it appropriate that someone who was not
elected should have such tremendous power to
shape the government and the law? Is it
appropriate that a political party’s ideology be
implemented through the judiciary?
• To what extent was the War of 1812 truly a Second
War for Independence? Consider the battles, the
politics, and the peace settlement.