Download The Election of 1800

The Election of 1800
• The key figure in the Federalist controlled House of Representatives after the electoral college failed to elect a President was James A. Bayard of Delaware, who help up his state’s vote until he could determine who would be friendlier to Federalism—Jefferson or Burr.
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• Once a “deal” had been struck, Jefferson was elected and the threatened military consequences were averted.
Election of 1800
• With regard to Federalist demands/overtures that Jefferson concede certain points in exchange for his election in the House of Representatives, Jefferson replied “that I should certainly make no terms; should never go into the office of President by capitulation, nor with my hands tied by any conditions which should hinder me from pursuing the measures which I should deem for the public good.”
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On the day of the Democratic‐Republican victory, Jefferson visited Adams at the White House and later described their conversation:
“He [Adams] was very sensibly affected, and accosted me with these words: ‘Well, I understand that you are to beat me in this contest, and I will only say that I will be as faithful a subject as any you will have.’ ‘Mr. Adams, said I, this is no personal contest between you and me. Two systems of principles on the subject of government divide our fellow citizens into two parties . With one of these you concur, and I with the other. As we have been longer on the public stage than most of those now living, our names happen to be more generally known. One of these parties, therefore, has put your name at its head, the other mine. Were we both to die today, tomorrow two other names would be in the place of ours, without any change in the motion of the machinery. Its motion is from its principle, not from you or myself. ‘I believe you are right,’ said he, that we are but passive instruments, and should not suffer this matter to affect
our personal dispositions.”
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The election of 1800 is popularly known as America’s “first election revolution” with the liberal, Democratic‐Republican, Jefferson, winning out over John Adams and the conservative Federalists (both parties viewed the others’ principles as running contrary to the Constitution).
Jefferson became the first leader of an opposition political party to wrest control of the national government from the party in power.
In the United States, the electoral process allows citizens to turn a leader and his party out of office through election, not insurrection; that power in government passes through balance and not bullets.
Doom‐sayers predicted blood would spill if the Democratic‐Republicans were allowed to assume office.
When Adams stepped down peacefully and Jefferson assumed power in a responsible manner, the tradition of revolution by election was established.
By assuming office in a responsible manner, Jefferson proved to the world the strength and staying power of the American republic and its democratic system under a changing political philosophy.
The election “revolution” of 1800
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With Jefferson in power, the people had no longer to fear monarchy and militarism‐‐they could return to republican simplicity.
This was a somewhat exaggerated notion:
There was never any real danger of monarchy and very little of militarism in America. Rather than a revolution, it was more a realization of the masses that the well‐to‐ do were not born to rule them.
The Federalists, failing to recognize that the foundation of American life was democracy/republicanism, were voted out of office.
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Political Scientist Stephen Skowronek has called the election a “reconstructive election”
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According to Skowronek, elections tend to either repudiate or ratify the presidential administration preceding them.
• Jefferson (at 57) was sworn in as President on March 4, 1801 (the first President to take office in the new Capital).
• Jefferson was aware of the drama in being the first Democratic‐
Republican President and of the widespread apprehension that he would destroy the Constitution.
• Jefferson’s first concern was to allay fears and to show his opponents that the only “revolution” he meant to inspire would be one in which changes in political policy would take place from within the system and not through extra‐legal means (e.g. the Judiciary Act of 1801, pardoning those Democratic‐Republicans convicted under the Sedition act, letting the Alien and Sedition acts expire, etc.).
• Jefferson urged his audience to remember that “we are all Republicans…we are all Federalists….” (i.e. we’re all Americans above and beyond our political affiliations).
• During Jefferson’s first term, Congress acted aggressively to implement his agenda for reversing Federalist policies.
• Congress abolished most taxes which the Federalists had used to fund the military leaving the U.S. dependent on import duties for revenue.
• In his first Inaugural Address, Jefferson declared “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”
• Jefferson set out during his first term to implement his republican ideals by limiting the power of the federal government—cutting taxes and reducing military size and expenditures, thus resulting in an increased reliance on the state militias for defense.
Jefferson negated many of Adams’ last minute judicial appointments.
Under Jefferson, the federal liquor tax was repealed
• Jefferson judged that the consolidated and coercive government created by the Federalists was a dangerous aberration; indeed, a hostile takeover of the revolutionary legacy.
• Jefferson believed the national government should interfere as little as possible in the lives of its people—he viewed his election victory in 1800 as a “revolution,” insofar as it meant “the true republican principles” of 1776 had been restored after a decade of Federalist corruption.
1743 (April 13) Born at Shadwell in Albermarle County, VA
1762 Graduated from College of William and Mary
1767 Began practicing law
1769‐79 Served in VA legislature
1772 (January 1) Married Martha Wayles
Skelton
1775‐76 Member of VA’s delegation to Congress; drafted the Declaration of Independence
1779‐81 Governor of VA
1783‐84 Member of VA’s delegation to Congress
1784‐85 Diplomatic commissioner of Congress in Europe
1785‐89 U.S. diplomatic minister to France
1789‐93 U.S. Secretary of State under Washignton
1797‐1801 Vice President under John Adams
1801‐1809 Third President of the United States
1816‐1825 Founder and first rector of the University of Virginia
1826 (July 4) Died at Monticello in Albermarle County, VA
(Right) Leading officials in Jefferson’s Administration:
Whereas Jefferson did establish the right of an incoming President to discharge major political appointees of his predecessor, he was restrained by John Marshall (Marbury vs. Madison) from applying the same principle to federal judges.
Office
Name
Years Served
Chief Justice
John Marshall
1801‐1835
Vice President
Aaron Burr
George Clinton
1801‐1805
1805‐1812
Secretary of State
James Madison
1801‐1809
Secretary of the Treasury
Samuel Dexter
Albert Gallatin
1801‐1802
1802‐1814
Secretary of War
Henry Dearborn
1801‐1809
Attorney General
Levi Lincoln
Robert Smith
John Breckinridge
Caesar A. Rodney
1801‐1805
1805
1805‐1807
1807‐1811
Secretary of the Navy
Robert Smith
1801‐1809
Postmaster General
Joseph Habersham
Gideon Granger
1795‐1801
1801‐1814
Congresses during Jefferson’s first term
House of Representatives
Senate
7th Congress
69 D‐R
36 F
18 D‐R
13 F
8th Congress
102 D‐R
39 F
25 D‐R
9 F
Under Adams, the Federalist party enjoyed majorities
in both houses during the 5th and 6th congresses.
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Jefferson made the elimination of the national debt his major policy priority (the national debt then stood at $112 million).
Jefferson instructed his Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, to prepare a federal budget that retired the national debt at the rate of $7 million annually.
Under Jefferson, 70% of the national revenue was applied to reducing the national debt.
Because federal revenues each year amounted to $9 million, Jefferson was proposing to operate the entire federal government on $2 million a year.
In 1801 there were 130 federal employees within the federal bureaucracy; this was reduced by nearly half during Jefferson’s two terms.
This also allowed Jefferson to remove lingering Federalist officeholders.
Nonetheless, Jefferson kept many of the political appointees chosen by Washington and Adams.
• Jefferson’s administration also severely cut naval and military expenditures and operations.
• Unlike Washington and Adams, Jefferson had presented all his legislative proposals to Congress in writing rather than in person.
• Even within his Cabinet, Jefferson required his department heads to submit their recommendations in written form, which he would then revise and return in the same fashion.
• As far as we can tell, Jefferson made only two public speeches during his eight years in office (his First and Second Inaugural Addresses).
• The making of policy throughout Jefferson’s presidency was essentially an editorial process—such an approach reflected Jefferson’s acknowledged brilliance as a prose stylist while sidestepping his notorious weakness as an orator and his shyness in public forums.
Jeffersonian Democracy
Under Jefferson, a milder agrarian aristocracy replaced a commercial aristocracy, thereby setting an example of democratic simplicity. Jefferson placed more emphasis/faith in the common man and brought more idealism into the government.
Jefferson sought to restore to the country the liberty and tranquility it had known before Alexander Hamilton’s economic program and John Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts.
Jefferson’s view(s) on education
Thomas Jefferson once asserted that the duty and responsibility of both parents and teachers was to “to help their children develop…‘both an honest heart and a knowing head.”
Thomas Jefferson thus insisted on public education as a concomitant of a democratic Virginia and attached greater importance to founding the University of Virginia than to being President.
Contrary to limiting education to the wealthy elite, Thomas Jefferson preferred a general educational system that targeted the masses: “it is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened, than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance.” According to Jefferson, “the most dangerous state in which a nation can be” was one in which education was restricted to a privileged few.”
Public schools were useful, according to Jefferson, insofar as they were to “form the political character of the nation’s citizens and head off political lethargy and corruption.”
Jefferson’s view(s) on religion
Letter from Danbury Baptist Association addressed Thomas Jefferson dated October 7, 1801
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The Danbury Baptists are asserting that religious liberty is a part of divine law, yet, since the time of the framing and adoption of the Constitution, "such had been our Law and usages, and such still are....[that governments can legislature on matters of religion], that...what religious privileges we enjoy [as a religious minority] we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights...."
Sir,
Among the many millions in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office, we embrace the first opportunity which we have enjoyed in our collective capacity, since your inauguration , to express our great satisfaction in your appointment to the Chief Magistracy in the Unite States. And though the mode of expression may be less courtly and pompous than what many others clothe their addresses with, we beg you, sir, to believe, that none is more •
This, according to the Baptists, is wrong: "Religion is at all times and places sincere. a matter between God and individuals‐‐that...the legitimate power of civil Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or neighbor...."
effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter, together with the laws •
"What religious privileges we enjoy....we receive at the expense of [the made coincident therewith, were adapted as the basis of our government at the time of our degrading acknowledgement that they are received, enjoyed, and revolution. And such has been our laws and usages, and such still are, [so] that Religion is granted as favors and privileges and not as inalienable rights]...."
considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. And •
This, argues the Danbury Baptists, is inconsistent with the rights of these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are freemen.
inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore, if those who seek after power and gain, under the pretense of government and Religion, should reproach their fellow men, [or] should reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of religion, law, •
The Danbury Baptists continue to argue that anyone in government who and good order, because he will not, dares not, assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make uses their power to legislate on matters of religion have actually usurped laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ. that power from God: "he will not, dare not assume the prerogatives of Sir, we are sensible that the President of the United States is not the National Legislator and Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ...."
also sensible that the national government cannot destroy the laws of each State, but our hopes are strong that the sentiment of our beloved President, which have had such genial •
Furthermore, if anyone in government who ha usurped this power from effect already, like the radiant beams of the sun, will shine and prevail through all these God, uses it to reproach their fellow men [i.e. a religious minority], they States‐‐and all the world‐‐until hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the earth. Sir, when have reproached God (their Chief Magistrate) as an enemy of religion law we reflect on your past services, and see a glow of philanthropy and goodwill shining forth in a and good order.
course of more than thirty years, we have reason to believe that America's God has raised you up to fill the Chair of State out of that goodwill which he bears to the millions which you preside over. May God strengthen you for the arduous task which providence and the voice of •
What the representatives of the Danbury Baptist Association were seeking the people have called you‐‐to sustain and support you and your Administration against all the from Jefferson was his interpretation of the Establishment Clause and the predetermined opposition of those who wish to rise to wealth and importance on the poverty Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and his feelings in general on and subjection of the people. religious liberty: "Sir our constitution of government is not specific [as to And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to his Heavenly how far the legitimate power of civil government extends]."
Kingdom through Jesus Christ our Glorious Mediator. Signed in behalf of the Association, Neh,h Dodge }
Eph'm Robbins } The Committee
Note: Baptists in Danbury, CT were persecuted because they were not part of Stephen S. Nelson }
the Congregationalist establishment in the state.
Jefferson’s views on religion contd.
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In his original draft, Jefferson wrote "Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect, [Jefferson first wrote: "confining myself therefore to the duties of my station, which are merely temporal, be assured that your religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine and that." These lines he crossed out and then wrote: "concurring with"; having crossed out these two words, he wrote: "Adhering to this great act of national legislation in behalf of the rights of conscience"; next he crossed out these words and wrote: "Adhering to this expression...." •
According to Jefferson, Congress is inhibited from acts respecting religion and the President is a temporal leader only and not the head of any church or sect.
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"Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation [i.e. the First Amendment] in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see...[the restoration of this natural right]."
Jefferson’s response to the letter from the Danbury Baptist Association dated January 1, 1802
Gentlemen,‐
The affectionate sentiment of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing. Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem. Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802 An FBI forensics lab revealed that on Thomas Jefferson’s original manuscript (written on parchment/vellum) written to the Danbury Baptist Association, his editings can be seen (i.e. though faded, these omissions and amendments didn’t’ completely disappear and they were not completely erased) indicating he sought the advice of others.
(Right) Danbury letter draft after preservation.
Important events during Jefferson’s administration
Foreign Affairs
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Jefferson had a defensive conception of United States military power and he advocated noninvolvement in foreign affairs, governmental economy and reduction of the national debt.
In Jefferson’s mind, none of the aforementioned goals accorded with a substantial peacetime military establishment.
Still, Jefferson believed the international arena was predatory and that military weakness invited aggression.
Jefferson had no intention of completely dismantling the Federalist military machinery—nonetheless, he viewed the militia system as the first line of defense.
The purpose of the militia: buy “time for raising regular forces [only] after the necessity of them shall become certain.”
Jefferson urged Congress to reform the militia, thus making it an effective immediate defense force so that regulars could be safely reduced, but not altogether abolished.
Whereas the Congress refused to tamper with the Uniform Militia Act, it did pass the Military Peace Establishment Act on March 16, 1802.
Military Peace Establishment Act
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Demonstrated Jefferson’s commitment to a regular army, though one that was “Republicanized”.
Jefferson wished to supplant the Federalist dominated Army with one that would respond to Republican direction.
The 1802 act provided the means by which Federalist control over the military establishment could be broken while providing a means for creating a class of Republican officers.
Under the guise of an economy measure, the 1802 act “reduced” and reorganized the Army.
It wasn’t really a “reduction” measure as the Army never grew to its authorized strength under the Federalists.
What the 1802 Act did was simply cut the Army’s authorized size to approximately its actual size/strength.
Reorganization under the 1802 act resulted in the elimination of eighty‐eight officers’ positions (Jefferson discharged those officers who had been Federalist partisans).
In addition, the 1802 act added approximately twenty ensigns to which Jefferson appointed Republicans.
Finally, the 1802 act established the Military Academy, thus creating a Corps of Engineers distinct from the artillery (the act declared that “said corps…shall constitute a military academy”).
Originally, Jefferson opposed the idea of a professional military institution while Federalists supported it.
Jefferson shifted his position, however, because he wanted a national school that would emphasize the sciences while producing graduates useful to society as scientists, engineers, explorers, and road builders).
Both the officers who taught at the academy and the cadets who attended it were selected by the President (Jefferson of course selected Republicans as a means to re‐make the composition of the officer corps—i.e. to “republicanize” it).
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1802: Congress reestablished a separate U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps' continuous existence dates from this year) while, at the same time establishing a new military academy at West Point, New York. Until 1866, the superintendent of the academy was always an engineer officer. •
The first superintendent, Jonathan Williams, also became the chief engineer of the Corps. •
During the first half of the 19th century, West Point was the major and for a while, the only engineering school in the country.
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From the beginning, many politicians wanted the Corps to contribute to both military construction and works "of a civil nature." Throughout the 19th century, the Corps supervised the construction of coastal fortifications and mapped much of the American West with the Corps of Topographical Engineers, which enjoyed a separate existence for 25 years (1838‐1863). •
The Corps of Engineers also constructed lighthouses, helped develop jetties and piers for harbors, and carefully mapped the navigation channels.
Once reestablished, the Corps of Engineers began constructing and repairing fortifications, first in Norfolk and then in New Orleans. The Corps' fortifications assignments proliferated during the 5 years of diplomatic tension that preceded the War of 1812. The chief engineer, Colonel Jonathan Williams, substantially expanded the system of fortifications protecting New York Harbor. The works, which Williams and his successor Joseph Swift erected around that harbor including the 11‐pointed fort that now serves as the base of the Statute of Liberty, convinced the commanders of the British navy to avoid attacking that strategic location during the War of 1812.
• Naval retrenchment under Jefferson initially bordered on liquidation (naval cuts included discontinuation of the work on the 74s, the drydocks, and the navy yards as well as the discharge of naval officers/men and the rapid sale of naval ships), but events in north‐west Africa changed this situation.
The Background
• It was the end of the eighteenth century, and for hundreds of years, pirates from the Islamic countries on the coast of North Africa had controlled the Mediterranean Sea. • They plundered and looted ships. • They captured sailors, holding them for ransom or selling them into the Ottoman (Turkish) slave trade. • These pirates considered themselves at war with any nation with which they did not have a “treaty.” • In fact, these “treaties” were demands for “tributes:” payments to prevent attacks.
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The Background Contd.
With the restraints of mercantilism broken following America’s War of Independence, American ships sailed freely into all the world’s oceans (but without the protection of the Royal Navy).
The British fleet had defended American ships from the Barbary pirates while it was part of England.
One the US won its independence, however, US ships were on their own.
Without protection, American merchant ships fell prey to the corsairs of the North African shore whose favorite naval maneuver was to come alongside and drop their great lateen yards across the victims rails whereupon pirates would instantly swarm across, pistols stuck in their belts and cutlasses clenched between their teeth, thus leaving their hands free for climbing.
As soon as it became an independent nation, the US faced an “unconventional enemy” in the Barbary Pirates who had controlled the Mediterranean Sea for hundreds of years. Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all exercised their power as Commander in Chief in various ways to deal with the threat posed by the pirates before Madison was eventually able to declare victory against them.
July 1785: Algerian pirates hijacked two American ships, taking 21 Americans and a Spanish female passenger hostage and demanding a ransom of $2,800/head.
The Confederation Congress cried poverty, the press cried vengeance, congregations prayed, and years passed without resolution.
1793: a peace agreement between Algeria and Portugal opened the Straits of Gibraltar to the pirates, who thereafter swarmed into the Atlantic, predating rich, unprotected American ships (eleven were taken during the summer 1793 alone and some 100 Americans found themselves in Algerian harems and quarries).
Congress appropriated money for “tributes,” but the attacks continued. By 1794, the pirates were holding dozens of US citizens for ransom. Thomas Jefferson, who was then President George Washington’s Secretary of State, advised Congress to declare war on the pirates. Congress did not heed his advice. Washington sent diplomats to negotiate for the prisoners’ release, but with no success. When John Adams became President in 1797, he continued paying the pirates. Congress continued to authorize payments. By the turn of the century, Congress was paying twenty
percent of the US’s annual revenue to the pirates.
The Background contd.
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March 1794: Congress authorized/ appropriated funds for the construction of six frigates (three 38s and three 44s). The naval construction program would cease if/when the hostage crisis was resolved.
1795: a settlement was reached with the dey of Algiers, calling for a ransom of $643,000 and a large annual tribute in naval stores (power, lead, iron, bullets, bombshells, bomb stones, masts, poles, yards, anchor chains, cables, sailcloth, tar, etc.).
Following the settlement, construction of the warships was halted, but the prisoners still had not been released.
When the dey grew restless over slow payment, however, he was promised an additional bonus—a brand new 36‐gun frigate (the Crescent).
With this, those prisoners who had survived or had not gone crazy in captivity were released.
38 gun frigate
• The generous payoff to resolve the Algerian hostage crisis made the U.S. the principal armorer of the pirates for years to come, but give the desperate state of America’s warship building program, it seemed to have little other choice.
• Furthermore, in buying off trouble with one cutthroat the U.S. stored up trouble for itself with another.
• The Crescent made the Tripolitan Bashaw, Yusuf Karamanli murderously envious (the other Barbary potentate was the bey of Tunis).
• The bashaw was by far the least powerful of the three Barbary States’ potentates and he was also the greatest pest (Karamanli had usurped the throne by murdering one brother and banishing the other, who happened to be the rightful heir).
• Yusuf “War is My Business” Karamanli was losing patience—
the bashaw was given to feeling bitter whenever he thought—
which he often did—of the brand new frigate, plus the two smaller warships and the mountain of naval stores being heaped on the dey of Algiers.
• The bashaw demanded a warship too and set a deadline.
• The bashaw was counting on the reputation of the new President, Jefferson, as a pacifist and appeaser.
• The bashaw had grievously misjudged Jefferson (Jefferson was one of the few in government who argued back in 1785 during the first hostage crisis that it was better to fight pirates than pay them).
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President Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801. Jefferson, who believed that paying off the pirates only led to more demands, announced that there would be no more tributes paid. •
Tripoli demanded a payment of $225,000 on top of annual payments of $25,000. Jefferson refused to pay, and Tripoli declared war on the US.
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Jefferson announced in his First Annual Message to Congress, “Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had [threatened] war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . .”
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Jefferson took this defensive military action without seeking a declaration of war from Congress. He
believed that a more decisive response would be needed, and so he asked Congress for formal action. In response, Congress passed the “Act for Protection of Commerce and Seamen of the United States against the Tripolitan Corsairs.” This act authorized an expanded force to “subdue, seize and make prize of all vessels, goods and effects, belonging to the Bey of Tripoli, or to his subjects.”
The Tripolitan War
The Pasha of Tripoli threatened to unleash his pirates unless he received increased tribute (the U.S. had been paying tribute since the 1780s).
Jefferson detested Barbary corsairs more than an expensive Navy and he dispatched several naval squadrons to the Barbary Coast during his administration.
A squadron of three frigates and two sloops was formrd in May 1801 and dispatched to impress the ridiculous bashaw with his impotence—a wasted gesture, since, in an act tantamount to a declaration of war the bashaw
sent a party of axmen the previous week to cut down the flagpole in front of the American consulate in Tripoli.
June 1801: the small squadron under Commodore Richard Dale was dispatched with orders to “protect our commerce and chastise their insolence” if Tripoli declared war .
Despite learning that the Pasha declared war on the U.S. Dale was not very aggressive, nor was Commodore Richard Morris who was dispatched with a replacement squadron in 1802.
Morris, who believed in proceeding cautiously, was so cautious that he not only allowed the bashaw’s trade to continue uninterrupted but, when necessary, helped it to do so!
Neither Dale nor Morris accomplished much and their excessive reasonableness prompted Jefferson to send a third squadron under Commodore Edward Preble in 1803 who imposed a tight blockade on the city of Tripoli while subjecting it to naval assaults that damaged the town, its fortifications, and enemy ships in the harbor.
One of the 38‐gun frigates, the Philadelphia unfortunately ran onto a shoal off Tripoli Harbor and an attempt to scuttle her was botched.
The 309 member crew of the Philadelphia became p.o.w.’s of the bashaw, whose sailors refloated her and took her within shelter of the harbor’s guns.
News of this national humiliation stunned the country (much like the news of Pearl Harbor would).
Virtually the entire American navy was soon heading for the Mediterranean, including a fourth squadron under Commodore Samuel Barron.
Preble did not wait for the American Navy to arrive—instead, he scoured the yards of Sicily and Malta to build or buy gunboats and bomb ketches and he planned to use a captured Tripolitan ship, the Mastico, to carry a raiding party into Tripoli Harbor, under Stephen Decatur (Decatur renamed the Mastico the Intrepid).
Decatur was able to get the Intrepid close enough to the captured Philadelphia to be able to board it due to the fact the Barbary pirates were not suspicious of its approach since the Intrepid was a captured Barbary ship.
Aside from retaking the Philadelphia and destroying it, another notable feature of Decatur’s action was that only one person was wounded.
Decatur burning the Philadelphia
As the burning flames reached the guns of the Philadelphia (all double shotted), she fired to broadsides: one out to sea, the other into the town.
Five times Preble sailed his squadron in to bombard Tripoli: wooden ships vs. stone forts.
In these artillery duels, Preble’s gunners far outclassed the Tripolitans (“Turks” to Americans), winning every one.
Preble’s bomb ketches lobbed hundreds of shells over the high walls while the bashaw cowered in his bombproof shelter under the harem, waiting for the Americans to run out of either ammunition or zeal (which they did).
Lacking troops to go ashore and take the town, all that Preble was doing amounted to convict labor—turning big rocks into little ones.
Despite the fact that Preble had successfully blockaded the Tripolitan coast and carried the war to the bashaw, he was recalled anyway!
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Another “attack” was made on the bashaw under the leadership of William Eaton, the American consul at Tunis.
Eaton’s plan was to restore the true bashaw, Hamet Karamanli, to the throne of Tripoli, in place of the wicked brother.
Eaton won over Hamet, assembled a force of 10 Americans (including 8 marines), and Englishman, 38 Greek mercenaries, an interpreter, 350 Arabs, and a “chief of staff” named Leitensdorfer who had been through four religions, five armies, several prisons, spoke half a dozen languages and would one day be custodian of the Capitol.
Because Bashaw Hamet was afraid of the sea, Eaton’s force approached Tripoli on foot, across 400 miles of desert, early in 1805.
Despite treachery, hardship, and daily threats of mutiny/death, Eaton’s force reached Tripoli’s second largest city (Derna) and wrested control of it from a much larger defending force that lacked their same determination to win.
The loss of Derna frightened Bashaw Yusuf into releasing the prisoners from the Philadelphia and putting up a new flagpole.
The bashaw was also frightened by the news that the U.S. Congress had voted for a war appropriations bill of more than $500,000 a year, renewable indefinitely, promising a war without end for the bashaw.
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The Tripolitan War ended on June 4, 1805 when the Barbary State of Tripoli agreed to a peace treaty ending U.S. tribute payments.
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A combined land‐naval expedition under Barron forced the Pasha to sign a peace treaty in June 1805.
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Not only was Hamet abandoned by the treaty (much to Eaton’s surprise), but a secret clause in the treaty allowed the bashaw to hold Hamet’s wife and children hostage for an additional four years (this odious concession was even kept secret from Jefferson; by the time Jefferson learned of it, there was little he could do to help the betrayed, trusting Hamet Karamanli).
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Several times Hamet Karamanli had been protected by Lieutenant Presly O’Bannon and his seven marines. Hamet’s parting gift wasa a sword with a Mameluke hilt (the hilt is the pattern of the sword carried by marine officers; a reminder still of the Corps’s first great exploit—the crossing of the desert of Barca by a lieutenant and seven men in 1805).
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The U.S. will continue to pay tribute to Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco until 1816.
Years later in 1815, President James Madison sent the navy to the Barbary Coast once again. (The phrase “to the shores of Tripoli” from the Marine Hymn refers to this historic battle.) Madison eventually declared victory against the pirates in his Seventh Annual Message to Congress.
• The Tripolitan War made the Navy insofar as it was a nursery of talent (the young ambitious officers under Preble included Oliver Hazard Perry, James Lawrence, David Porter, Thomas Macdonough, Isaac Hull, and Decatur).
• Everything that could be practiced was (hand‐to‐hand combat, gunnery, navigation, sailing).
• In addition, the officers of the Philadelphia turned their prison into a school during their long confinement (e.g. which was better, carronade or long gun? Weather guage or lee gauge? Small ship with many guns or big ship with fewer? Round shot or bar shot?).
The Louisiana Purchase
Background to the Louisiana Purchase
• France had given up all of its territory in North America the end of the French and Indian War (1763).
• But Napoleon had plans to re‐establish the French empire in North America. • 1801: America learned that Spain had agreed to return Louisiana to France. • Jefferson had always looked upon France as a friend in the world, but he knew this was a potential crisis. • The new nation depended on New Orleans for its economic survival.
Louisiana Purchase
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When Jefferson learned of the French acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, he wrote to The American Minister in Paris, Robert Livingston, that “[this event] reverses all the political relations of the United States,” and he warned that “the day France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low water mark….From that moment, we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”
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In early 1803, Jefferson appointed James Monroe as a special envoy to France and dispatched him to France to assist Robert Livingston, whom Jefferson tasked with urging the French to sell New Orleans and West Florida to the United States.
Monroe and Minister to France Robert Livingston would try to buy land east of the Mississippi or in New Orleans itself, or, if all else failed, to secure US access to the river. Jefferson authorized them to negotiate up to $10 million. Monroe and Livingston learned that Napoleon had given up his desire to recreate an empire in North America. France offered the US the entire Louisiana territory—more than 800,000 acres from Louisiana to the Rockies and beyond—for $15 million (3 cents/acre). The two American ministers seized the opportunity, going beyond their mandate, and they negotiated a purchase treaty and returned to the US in time for an announcement to be made on July 4, 1803.
Louisiana Purchase
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Napoleon’s reluctance to fight the United States; and the inability of French troops (after almost 10 years of war) to defeat an intractable slave rebellion in what is today Haiti convinced Napoleon Bonaparte to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States.
In another sense, the Louisiana Purchase was hardly an accidental development, since both the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans (a French port) were of immense strategic importance to the United States’ western trade and transportation.
Furthermore, the fabled richness of western lands impressed Jefferson as a source of homesteading opportunities for coming generations of yoeman farmers.
Many Americans were convinced that this vast frontier land must be assimilated into the United States, lest it become a dangerous power vacuum inviting foreign invaders.
Jefferson’s reading of the maps yielded the conclusion that the purchase included the entire Gulf coast of modern Florida and al of present‐day Texas (Spanish authorities protested vehemently).
• Thomas Jefferson had always feared the costs of loose construction of the powers delegated to the national government in the Constitution, and the Constitution was silent about acquiring lands from other countries.
• Jefferson urged bringing the issue to the people to approve with a constitutional amendment, but Congress disregarded his draft amendments. The Louisiana Purchase Treaty would not be final until it was ratified by the Senate, funded by the
House of Representatives, and signed by the President. While the incorporation of these new lands into the United States was a momentous opportunity, Jefferson had reservations about its constitutionality. Jefferson had always stated his strong belief that the federal government’s powers should be interpreted strictly. Article IV of the Constitution said new states could be added, but made no provision for taking on foreign territories, Jefferson argued that a constitutional amendment was needed. He wrote in 1803, “The General Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it… it has not given it power of holding foreign territory, and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this.”
Jefferson drafted an amendment that would authorize the purchase of Louisiana retroactively. But Jefferson’s cabinet members argued against the need for an amendment, and Congress disregarded his draft.
• The Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty in October of 1803. • While Jefferson did his best to follow what he believed was proper constitutional procedure, not enough of his contemporaries agreed with him and he eventually assented.
Louisiana Purchase
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Even though Jefferson was not certain he had the authority to purchase land for the nation (there was no provision in the Constitution for incorporating foreign territory in the U.S.), he still accepted Napoleon’s offer, even though he believed a constitutional amendment was needed to insure the legality of the agreement.
Jefferson feared it would take too long and Napoleon might change his mind.
Jefferson urged Congress to approve the treaty and to authorize/appropriate the necessary money, stating, “the less said about any constitutional difficulty the better….”
Jefferson declared that “it will be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary in silence.”
The Congress approved the appropriations in the fall 1803 with little discussion.
In using the presidential treaty‐making powers, Jefferson asserted he stretched the Constitution until it cracked.
Furthermore, Americans did not object to the possession.
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Jefferson took personal charge of the diplomatic preparations in Washington, gently elbowing Secretary of State James Madison off to the side.
When Gallatin protested that the purchase would wreck all plans for eliminating the national debt, Jefferson told him to look up from his accountant’s ledger long enough to see the boundless western skies the purchase made possible.
Once news of the treaty reached the U.S. (July 1803), Jefferson took personal charge of interpreting the ill‐defined borders of the Louisiana Territory in the most expansive fashion possible.
Tallyrand acknowledged that no one in France could tell the Rio Grande from the Mississippi, or, he might add, the Rocky Mountains from the Alps.
Tallyrand claimed “you have mad a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it.”
• Jefferson may have had to compromise his most sacredly‐held principles for the Louisiana Purchase to go forward. • Jefferson later described the Purchase as a “great achievement,” writing in 1810 that “It is incumbent on those who accept great charges to risk themselves on great occasions.”
As Jefferson was usually a strict constructionist, his Federalist opponents used the treaty ratification debate in the U.S. Senate as an opportunity to criticize Jefferson’s contradictory domestic policy.
France turned New Orleans over to the United States on December 20, 1803.
Ceremonial Transfer of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States signed in New Orleans.
Through the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. acquired vast new territory (830,000 square miles), roughly doubling the size of the nation and the U.S. was extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. In addition, the U.S. acquired the port of New Orleans
while taking in the portion of the Mississippi drainage basin on the east. The lingering threat of mischief by a major European power was removed from our western borders. Furthermore, the Louisiana Purchase extended for several generations the American agrarian way of life while relieving overcrowding along the eastern seaboard.
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State territory carved out of the Louisiana Territory:
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Louisiana
Arkansas
Missouri
Iowa
Minnesota
North Dakota
South Dakota
Nebraska
Kansas
Oklahoma
Texas
New Mexico
Colorado
Wyoming
Montana
Louisiana Purchase
• The Louisiana Purchase was a sight‐unseen purchase and Jefferson was eager to find out what he bought.
• He wanted to survey the length of the new territory as well as to discover and explore it (e.g. perhaps there was an all‐water route to the Pacific Ocean).
• Shortly after the purchase, Jefferson sent his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and Lewis’s long‐time friend, William Clark, to explore the new territory.
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Even before news that the deal had gone through reached Washington, D.C., Jefferson instructed Lewis to mount a 35‐member expedition to explore the prospective new land and to keep going even beyond its borders into Spanish possessions all the way to the Pacific to discover the best water route across the Continent (as it turned out, there was none).
In order to disguise the questionable (illegal) character of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Jefferson obtained authorization from Congress under the pretense that it was merely a scientific exploration and, as he described it, “a literary pursuit”.
Jefferson requested and received from Congress nearly autocratic power over the provisional government to be established in the Louisiana Territory.
Jefferson proposed a governor to be appointed by the President and a Council or Senate called the Assembly of Notables be appointed by the governor and approved by the President.
In the Senate debate over the authorization of this government structure, John Quincy Adams observed that Jefferson would possess “an assumption of implied powers greater than all the assumptions of implied powers in the years of Washington and Adams administrations put together.
The Enabling legislation granted Jefferson imperial power over the Louisiana Territiory.
The Louisiana Purchase is perhaps the most dramatic and far‐
reaching executive decision ever made by an American President.
The year after the Louisiana Purchase was bought, a 35‐member expedition commissioned by Jefferson and led by U.S. Army officers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left from their fort near St. Louis, Missouri. Their goal was to create maps, gather specimens of plants and animals, collect data on soil and weather, and observe every detail of the new territory. The expedition explored the Missouri River, crossed the Continental Divide with the crucial help of Sacajawea (Sagagawea), a Shoshone Indian woman (who was with her French‐Canadian husband and carrying her newborn child). The expedition boated down the Columbia River and made it to the Pacific Ocean in November 1805, staying there until March 1806 before
heading back to St. Louis. Even though Lewis and Clark failed to discover a North‐
west Passage (a believed river that would flow to the Pacific Ocean from
the Missouri River), they returned with survey information that sparked further exploration and eventual western settlement.
A picture of Sacagawea with Leis and Clark during their expedition.
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Most Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase on the grounds that it would decrease the relative importance of their strongholds on the eastern seaboard.
Over the next 50 years, the acquired Louisiana Territory became the chief battleground in the political war over slavery.
Jefferson wanted desperately to keep the combustible question of slavery off the national agenda, but it emerged whenever each territory applied for admission as a state.
Rather than a place where American problems went for an answer, the West became a hotbed/breeding ground for the most ominous problem in American history—slavery.
Moreover, Jefferson set an imperial precedent in acquiring and governing the territory—this became the rallying cry for leaders of the antislavery movement, who argued that the federal government possessed sovereign jurisdiction over the eventual resolution of the issue of slavery.
• There also existed a glaring contradiction between Jefferson’s long‐
standing commitment to limiting federal power and his flamboyantly imperial style throughout the Louisiana matter.
• This inconsistency exposed the inherently rhetorical character of his sincere, but wholly theoretical convictions about consolidated political power in the Federalist mode.
• All of Jefferson’s convictions had developed as the leader of the opposition; however, once in office himself, the political imperatives that come with the actual exercise of power required practical adjustments to accommodate the patently obvious reality that executive leadership was essential if the American republic was to fulfill its national destiny.
• Throughout this affair, Jefferson contradicted his position insofar as the move doubled the size of the U.S. and expanded the role of the federal government.
“Fortunate Accident: the Louisiana Purchase”
Jonathon Earle
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The Louisiana Purchase was a great achievement for the United States and Thomas Jefferson’s acquisition of the vast lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains was by far the greatest achievement of his first term as President. Ironically, it came about as an accident. Jefferson had opined in his inaugural address that the United States alreay
had enough land to provide “for a thousand generations,” and he was not planning a major land purchase from European powers. However, the purchase of Louisiana, as the territory was called, made perfect political and geopolitical sense to Jefferson and his followers. Why? The U.S. needed New Orleans. By 1801 nearly a half million Americans lived west of the Appalachian mountains. Federalists, many of them New England descendants of Puritans who had migrated to America in the seventeenth century, openly feared that the white Scot‐Irish residents of the frontier, whom they mocked as being illiterate barbarians. Jefferson’s Republicans, on the other hand, saw western expansion as the best hope for the survival of
the United States. As the nineteenth century began, settlers in the west remained under the political control of Spain and France who controlled the Mississippi River. As a result these settlers depended on French and Spanish commercial systems to get their products to markets—hardly a recipe for the continual renewal of the republican spirit. Jefferson understood that the key to securing permanent control of the west was to gain possession of New Orleans, located at the mouth of the Mississippi. “There is on the globe,” Jefferson wrote, “one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans.” Spain threatened the economy of the U.S. In 1801, Spain owned New Orleans and under a treaty allowed Americans to transport produce from the interior. The year before, Spain had secretly given all of Louisiana to France, a move that allowed Napoleon to dream of creating a new French empire in America. In his scheme farmers in Louisiana would produce food for the immensely profitable French sugar‐producing colonies based in Haiti. In late 1802 Spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, giving rise to panicked rumors that the city would soon be transferred to France. Such a move would have posed a serious threat to the existence of American settlements in the West. In the end it was in America’s best interest to purchase Louisiana. They needed New Orleans and the Mississippi River for their survival. To not purchase it would have been not only a mistake, but also a lost opportunity to make America wealthy.
“As Long As Grass Grows or Water Runs”
Excerpt from A People’s History of the United States”
Howard Zinn
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[To white Americans,] Indians were the most foreign people…The Indian, not needed—indeed an obstacle, could be dealt with by sheer force, except that sometimes the language of paternalism preceded the burning of [the Indian] villages [by whites]. And so, Indian removal, as it has been politely called, cleared the land for white occupancy between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, cleared it for cotton in the South and grain in the North, for expansion, immigration, canals, railroads, new cities, and the building of a huge continental empire clear across to the Pacific Ocean. The cost in human life cannot be accurately measured, in suffering not even roughly measured. Most of the history books given to children pass quickly over it. [This so‐called Indian removal was increased
greatly after the Louisiana Purchase, and as a result the Louisiana Purchase was both negative for the United States and unjust for the Indian people.] Statistics tell the story. We find these in Michael Rogin’s Fathers and Children: In 1790 there was 3,900,000 Americans, and most of them lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. By 1830, there were 13 million Americans, and by 1840, 4,500,000 had crossed the Appalachian Mountains into the Mississippi Valley—that huge expanse of land crisscrossed by rivers flowing into the Mississippi from east and west. In 1820, 120,000 Indians lived east of the Mississippi. By 1844, fewer than 30,000 were left. Most of them had been forced to migrate westward. But the word “force” cannot convey what happened. Thomas Jefferson, said in 1791 that where Indians lived within state boundaries they should not be interfered with, and that the government should remove white settlers who tried to encroach on them. But as whites continued to move westward, the pressure on the national government increased [and Jefferson changed his mind]. By the time Jefferson became President, in 1800, there were 700,000 white settlers west of the mountains. They moved into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, in the North; into Alabama and Mississippi in the South. These whites outnumbered the Indians about eight to one. Jefferson now committed the federal government to promote future removal of the Creek and the Cherokee from Georgia. Aggressive activity against the Indians mounted in the Indiana territory under Governor William Henry Harrison. When Jefferson doubled the size of the nation by purchasing the Louisiana territory from France in 1803‐thus extending the western frontier from the Appalachians across the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains—he thought the Indians could move there. He proposed to Congress that Indians should be encouraged to settle down on smaller tracts and do farming;also, they should be encouraged to trade with whites, to incur debts, and then to pay off these debts with tracts of land. Jefferson wrote, “Two measures are deemed expedient. First to encourage the Indians to abandon hunting…Secondly, to multiply trading houses among them…leading them thus to agriculture, to manufactures, and civilization….” Jefferson’s talk of “agriculture…manufactures…civilization” is crucial. Indian removal was necessary for the opening of the vas American lands to
agriculture, to commerce, to markets, to money, to the development of the modern capitalist economy. Land was indispensable for all this, and after the Revolution, huge sections of land were bought up by rich speculators, including George Washington and Patrick Henry. In North Carolina, rich tracts of land belong to the Chickasaw Indians were put on sale, although the Chickasaws were among the few Indian tribes fighting on the side of the Revolution, and a treaty had been signed with them guaranteeing their land. John Donelson, a state surveyor, ended up with 20,000 acres of land near what is now Chattanooga. His son‐in‐law made twenty‐two trips out of Nashville in 1795 for land deals. This was [future military leader and later President] Andrew Jackson.
Jefferson’s second term
Domestic Events
On March 29, 1806 Congress authorized the construction of a public road known as the National (Cumberland) Road from Cumberland, MD to Wheeling, VA (today West Virginia) on the Ohio River.
Congresses during Jefferson’s second term
House of Representatives
Senate
9th Congress
116 D‐Rs
25 Federalists
27 D‐Rs
7 Federalists
10th Congress
118 D‐Rs
24 Federalists
28 D‐Rs
6 Federalists
Jefferson allowed the Bank of the United States to continue operating although he reduced its power by establishing a system of state banks.
On March 2, 1807, at Jefferson’s request, Congress banned the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808 (the earliest date permitted by Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution).
Foreign Affairs
The resumption of the Anglo‐French war once again threatened the neutrality of the United States.
The commercial agreement of Jays’s Treaty remained valid only until 1807.
The protection of American commercial interests after the expiration of Jays’s Treaty was one of the main concerns of Jefferson and his Cabinet.
For their part, the British were not observing America’s rights and assertions as a neutral country (e.g. searches and seizures, impressment of American sailors, etc.)
Impressment: the arbitrary seizure of goods or individuals by a government or its agents for public services. This was practiced by the British to regain deserters from the Royal Navy to American vessels (1790‐
1812) and was one of the reasons for the War of 1812 , when British vessels boarded and obtained their crew from the high paying American ships.
The Essex Decision (1805)
The British Admiralty Court decision in the case of the U.S. merchant ship Essex in 1805 altered official British policy toward neutral shipping, aggravated diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the United States, and set the two nations on a collision course that ultimately led to the outbreak of the War of 1812 (1812–15). With France and Great Britain at war for most of the time from 1793 to 1815, there was a tremendous opportunity for the United States merchants to reap profits as long as both belligerents respected neutral rights. Initially, the British wanted to follow the Rule of 1756, which stated that any trade prohibited before wartime would remain prohibited after a declaration of war. In other words, if France had prohibited neutral ships from carrying goods from French colonies to France before the outbreak of war, then France could not allow such trade to occur after war broke out. Merchants sidestepped this rule by shipping goods to the United States, unloading them, paying a small duty, and then reshipping the goods to France. Although such actions flouted British control of the seas—and allowed France to obtain goods from its colonies that would have been intercepted by the British had they been in French vessels—the British courts had allowed this trade to continue as indicated in the Polly decision of 1800. With such favorable circumstances, the reexport trade in the United States rose from $40 million in 1800 to $60 million in 1805.
The Essex Decision contd.
The Essex decision made it more difficult for merchants in the United States to evade British regulations. The court case involved the reshipment of wine between Spain (at the time an ally of France) and Cuba (a Spanish colony). The British court said that the reshipment of the wine in the United States was meant to deceive the British, and it did not represent a legitimate mercantile exchange. Since Spain had prohibited other nations from carrying goods to its colonies before it went to war with Great Britain, the trade was illegal and the ship was liable to seizure. Within the next few months, scores of merchantmen from the United States were seized by the British navy. However, clever merchants soon managed to make the reshipment of goods appear more legitimate and the total amount of the reexport
trade did not decline greatly. Perhaps more important than the exact nature of the ruling was its symbolic significance. The courts put the burden of proof of neutral trade on the merchant owner, instead of the captain of the British warship that seized a vessel. Merchants, in other words, were considered guilty of violating British regulations until they proved themselves innocent, rather than considered innocent until proven guilty. Such an approach showed little or no respect for the flag of the United States. The British government had acted in what many in the United States thought was an arbitrary way, without warning or diplomatic discussion. When James Monroe, the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, attempted to discuss this ruling with the British government, he was told that it was nothing extraordinary and therefore not an appropriate topic for a special diplomatic meeting. The affront to national pride could hardly have been more direct. From the Essex
decision until the outbreak of the War of 1812, the United States had an increasingly difficult time gaining the respect of both France and Great Britain and in continuing its profits as a neutral trader amid a world at war.
Nicholson Nonimportation Act (1806)
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Marked an attempt by Congress to safeguard U.S. commerce.
The act forbade the importation of all goods from Great Britain which the U.S. could manufacture at home or buy elsewhere.
To assist James Monroe in his negotiations with the British in London, William Pinkney (MD) journeyed to London with the act whereupon the two envoys told the British diplomats that if Britain would sign a commercial treaty, the nonimportation act would never be enforced.
While these talks were in progress, Napoleon issued his Berlin Decree.
Thus, the British negotiators told the U.S. envoys that if the U.S. would disobey the Berlin Decree, Britain would sign the treaty; otherwise, it would not.
The Berlin Decree (1806)
• Created in response to Orders in Council by the British that were first issued in 1805.
• By decree, Napoleon proclaimed a blockade of the British Isles, and any ship attempting to enter or leave a British port would be seized by France.
• Napoleon effectively declared a blockade of the British Isles
• The French Navy would never have been in a position to enforce this on the high seas.
In response to Napoleon’s Berlin Decree, Britain issued a series of Orders in Council forbidding world trade with France and they instituted their own blockade.
Orders in Council (May, 1806)
• The British followed up the Essex decision with the first of several trade regulations which established a blockade of part of the continent of Europe and prohibited trade with France, unless American vessels went to British ports for licenses for trade.
Milan Decree, 1807
• Napoleon’s reply to the continuous British opposition, which was to tighten his so‐called “Continental System”.
• The decree proclaimed that any vessel that submitted to British regulations or allowed itself to be searched by the Royal Navy, was subject to seizure by France.
• Henceforth, the U.S. would become the prey of both the British and the French.
The Chesapeake Affair
The "Chesapeake‐Leopard Affair" took place on June 21, 1807, when the British warship HMS Leopard stopped and boarded the American USS Chesapeake, in the mid‐Atlantic. The British demanded the return and surrender of four deserters from the royal navy, in which the Chesapeake’s commanding officer, James Barron refused.
This resulted in a British attack and Barron’s surrendered after firing only one shot. The British, who were looking for deserters from their Navy, took four sailors from the Chesapeake
and tried them for desertion, with one of the captured sailors later being hanged. A total of 3 U.S. sailors were killed and another 18 were wounded
The incident infuriated Americans, who were already angry over the British policy of impressment . The British refusal to stop this practice led to President Jefferson's embargo against Britain and France in 1807.
Irwin John Bevan, Chesapeake vs. Leopard, June 21, 1807, n.d. The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia. • Jefferson tried to stay neutral and he issued a proclamation that: – Barred British war ships from American ports
– Forbade all British vessels from sailing in American waters
– Demanded reparations for the Chesapeake incident in particular and American losses in general.
– Demanded the British commander of the Leopard be punished
The Embargo Act (passed December 1807)
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Passed by Congress over Federalist opposition
Marked an attempt to remain neutral
Closed all U.S. ports to foreign trade
Forbade the shipping of American commodities to any European country during the Napoleonic War (also barred the departure of any U.S. vessel to European countries)
The Embargo Act (December 1807)
• Congress was attempting to pressure nations into respecting the neutral rights of the U.S.
• Congress was also attempting to demonstrate the value of trade with the U.S.
• Marked a U.S. response short of open warfare.
• Jefferson described the act as America’s “last card” to play “short of war”.
• Jefferson hoped the measure might induce France and Britain to rescind their decrees and orders.
The Embargo Act (December 1807)
• Despite opposition from New England merchants, the act remained in force to the end of Jefferson’s administration.
• Even though war was avoided, the embargo is considered among Jefferson’s greatest failure as President.
• Ruined/disrupted the U.S. economy (U.S. trade with Europe came to a standstill; U.S. shipbuilding and merchants endured great losses).
• Smuggling was rampant
• Forced Jefferson to expand his definition of executive power in order to enforce the embargo
Non‐Intercourse Act
• Went into effect March1, 1809
• Effectively repealed the Embargo Act
• Re‐activated American commerce with all countries except the warring French and British
Macon’s Bill No. 2
• Created by Nathaniel Macon in May 1810
• Designed to discourage the British and the French from interfering with U.S. commerce by bribing either England or France in repealing their restrictions on neutral shipping—the U.S. agreed to resume trade with the first nation of the two to oblige and who would cease violating the neutral rights of the U.S.
• In addition, the U.S. would halt all commerce with the other nation once either France or England obliged.
• Refusing all pleas that he run for a third term, Jefferson supported his friend and Secretary of State, James Madison, as his successor.
• Jefferson expressed his gratitude following Madison’s election:
“Never did a prisoner released from his chains feel such a relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power…..I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation.”