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The Election of
1800 signaled a third
revolution in American history. (The first was the Declaration of
Independence, and the second the Constitution.) It marked the
first transition from one political party to another--and a peaceful
one at that. Given all the vituperation of the election and the
wrangling in the House over Jefferson and Burr's tie, one might
reasonably have expected Jefferson and his Republican cohorts to hold a
sense of revenge for their Federalist opponents. Such was not the
temperament of Thomas Jefferson. Always cordial and reserved in
public, Jefferson offered a proverbial "olive branch" in his
inaugural
address. Hearkening to Washington's call for the return to a
past
in which there were no political divisions, Jefferson seemed to abandon
partisan differences when he declared: "We are all Republicans;
we are all Federalists." Still, Jefferson recognized the election
he'd just won as revolutionary, and he hoped it would be a democratic
one. He called for a return to the principles of 1776, and
criticized his opponents for their lack of faith in democracy and
the American people. He declared himself unalterably opposed to
such governmental restraints such as the sedition acts, and called for
an air of political toleration: "If there be any among us who
would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its Republican form, let
them stand undisturbed as monuments to the safety with which error of
opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it." Jefferson's reassuring address helped ease political tensions and make possible the coexistence of opposing political opinions. Even Federalists accepted the new reality and their role as the "loyal opposition." Federalist Fisher Ames, seemingly ignoring the previous behavior of his party, described the useful role of such loyal opposition and described its proper conduct, saying they should not "revile or abuse magistrates, or lie even for good cause" but act as "good citizens, using only truth, and argument, and zeal" to carry the day. In this manner, an opposing party could become a permanent part of a republican government without risk to security or freedom. Thus, the Election of 1800 launched would become the two-party tradition in the United States. In keeping with the spirit of Jefferson's speech and the commitment to free speech, the new Congress let the Alien and Sedition acts expire and did not seek to replace them. It also repealed the Naturalization Act, restoring the five-year interval for citizenship. |
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Jefferson and the Judiciary
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One
of Jefferson's first moves was to
reverse Federalist control of the judiciary by getting Congress to
repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801 and eliminate Adams' midnight
appointments. He argued that his purpose in doing so was fiscal
because the nation could not afford to pay for the unnecessary--and
expensive--circuit courts. Federalists countered by saying
that if
Congress repealed the act, it would result in effect in the termination
of judges for reasons other than "high crimes and misdemeanors"
mentioned in the Constitution, thereby violating the separation of
powers. Congress proceeded anyway, replacing the Judiciary Act of
1801
with the Judiciary Act of 1802, and awaited the response of the
federal
courts. The constitutionality of the new Judiciary Act was never tested, but the power of the judicial branch to interpret and enforce federal law did become a major issue the following year. On taking office, Jefferson's secretary of state James Madison held back the appointment letters that John Marshall had been unable to deliver before the expiration of his term. One jilted appointee was William Marbury, who was to have been a justice of the newly created District of Columbia. Marbury, supported by the Federalists, filed suit in the Supreme Court. Marbury v. Madison (1803) was Chief Justice John Marshall's first major case, and in it he proved his political as well as judicial ingenuity. Marshall was certain that the Judiciary act of 1789 required Madison to deliver the appointment letter, but the chief justice was keenly aware that if he ordered Madison to deliver it, the Court did not have the power to enforce the order. In such a direct confrontation between the executive and judicial branches, Marshall was sure to lose. Rather than risking a serious blow to the dignity of the Supreme Court, Marshall ruled in 1803 that the Constitution contained no such provision for the Supreme Court to issue such orders as the Judiciary Act of 1789 required and that therefore the law was unconstitutional. This decision put Jefferson and Madison in a difficult political position. On the one hand, the authors of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were on the record for arguing that the states and not the courts should determine the constitutionality of federal laws. But political realities forced them to accept Marshall's decision in this case if they wanted to block Adams' handpicked men from assuming lifetime appointments in powerful judicial positions. Although this precedent for judicial review did not immediately invalidate the principles set forth in Jefferson's and Madison's earlier manifestos, it established the standard that federal courts, rather than the states, could decide the constitutionality if acts of Congress. |
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| Jefferson's Vision for America |
Confident in
Americans' ability to reason
(Jefferson was the ultimate Enlightenment rationalist), the new
president outlined a plan for a smaller and more frugal government, one
that would seek equal and exact justice for all men, regardless of
their religious or political persuasion. He vowed to support
states' rights, but also pledge not to dismember the existing federal
structure or fail to pay debts. Jefferson had a strong, positive vision for the nation, and the party made every effort to put his policies into effect. He embraced a specific notion of proper political, economic, and social behavior. The greatest dangers to a republic, he believed, were (1) high population density and the social evils it generated and (2) the concentration of money in the hands of a few. Accordingly, Jefferson wanted to steer America away from away from the large-scale, publicly supported industry so dear to Hamilton and toward an economy founded on yeoman farmers--men who owned the land, produced their own food, and were beholden to no one. Such men, Jefferson believed, made for the ideal republican citizen who would make political decisions based solely on reason and good sense. But Jefferson was not naive. He knew Americans would continue to demand the comforts and luxuries found in industrial societies. His solution was simple. In America's vast lands, he said, a nation of farmers could produce so much food that its surplus could feed much of Europe, and in return Europe could provide Americans with the manufactured goods of an industrial society. In other words, Jefferson viewed America in much the same sense that Britain once had viewed its colonies: as a source of raw materials for foreign manufacture, the difference being that America would sell its raw materials in a free market. This scenario would help solve the problems of overpopulation and urbanization so apparent in the eastern seaboard states. America's future, then, rested in the vast lands of the West. |
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Republicanism in Action
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When Jefferson
assumed office he ushered in
a new spirit into national politics and the presidency. He
abandoned much of the formality of his predecessors, preferring to go
by horseback rather than carriage when he moved around the new capital,
Washington City. He abandoned the fashion of wearing a wig and
often entertained (shocking his guests) in slippers and work clothes. Jefferson's show of simplicity and his conciliatory inaugural address were somewhat misleading. He was an astute politician whose main objective was to turn the nation around with all possible speed. He quickly launched a program to revamp the American economy and give the U. S. a place in the international community. Along the way, he captured the affection and political loyalties of many Americans, but also alienated those who did not share his vision or who lacked his zeal. Jefferson was determined to tear down Hamilton's Federalist financial system and replace it with a new one more consistent with Jefferson's vision of an agrarian republic. The responsibility for this task fell to his Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin. Gallatin's first task as Secretary of the Treasury was to pay off the nation's debts--he hoped by 1817. With Jefferson's approval, Gallatin implemented a radical course of budget cutting, even going so fare as to shut down many American embassies overseas, reducing staff, and eliminating many social receptions and events. The administration also cut the cost of the military in half, reducing the army from four thousand to twenty-five hundred men, and the navy from twenty ships to a mere seven. Gallatin's cost-cutting did far more than reduce the nation's financial budget. First, Gallatin was able to mask the firing of many Federalist loyalists still employed in civil service in a seemingly non-partisan appeal to fiscal responsibility. He accomplished another ideological goal by reducing the overall federal presence, putting more responsibilities onto the states, where his and Jefferson's philosophy said they belonged. In addition, Gallatin's plan called for a significant change in the way the nation raised money. In 1802 the Republican-dominated Congress repealed all internal taxes, leaving customs duties and the sale of western lands as the sole sources of federal revenue. With this one sweeping gesture, Gallatin struck a major blow for Jefferson's economic vision by tying the nation's financial future to westward expansion and foreign trade. |
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The Tripolitan War (1801-1805)
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Early in
Jefferson's presidency, he faced a
foreign threat in the form of pirates who patrolled the coast of Africa
from Tangier to Tripoli (the Barbary Coast), controlling access to the
Mediterranean Sea. Ever since independence, American traders had
in effect been bribing these Barbary pirates not to attack American
ships. By 1800, one-fifth of the federal budget was earmarked for
this purpose! Seeking to cut costs, Gallatin wanted to stop this
practice, and for Jefferson, it was also a matter of national pride and
the principles of independence that Americans stop paying bribes for
the privilege of trade. With cessation of the bribe payments, the leader of Tripoli basically declared war on the United States, so Jefferson dispatched navy ships to the Mediterranean in 1801. The Tripolitan War was a disaster from a military standpoint. The best American ship, the Philadelphia, was captured and its crew taken prisoner. A bold but doomed effort to invade Tripoli by land across the Libyan desert failed. The war dragged on until 1805, when the United States finally negotiated peace terms, agreeing to pay $60,000 for the release of American hostages and accepted the pirates' promise to stop raiding American shipping. The unfortunate lesson of the war for Jefferson was that the United States did not need a large navy. For such a small skirmish as the Tripolitan War, this might work, but it completely ignored possible conflicts with major powers such as Great Britain or France, each of whom possessed powerful navies. It would be a mistake for which the U.S. would pay a high price in the future. In the meantime, France and Spain posed a threat to Jefferson's dream of westward expansion. As American settlers continued to pour into the trans-Appalachian Mountains towards the Mississippi River, the commercial importance of the inland waterway for the Americans increased. Whoever controlled the mouth of the Mississippi River would have the power to break the economy of the American interior. In accordance with Pinckney's Treaty of 1795, Spain had granted American farmers the right to ship cargoes down the Mississippi River without paying tolls, and had given American merchants permission to transship goods from New Orleans to Atlantic ports without paying export duties. In 1800, however, Napoleon had traded some of France's holdings in southern Europe to Spain in exchange for Spain's land in America. This would negate Pinckney's Treaty, as America had no such agreement with France. Anxiety over this issue turned to panic when, preparatory to the transfer of the land to France, Spanish officials suspended free trade in New Orleans. Jefferson responded on two fronts. Backing away from the Republican's traditional opposition to Great Britain, he declared that the day France took control of New Orleans was the day America would "marry" itself to the British fleet. (So much for independence!) Toward this end, he sent James Monroe to Europe to negotiate a military alliance with Britain. But he also dispatched Robert Livingston to France to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans from France for a top price of $2 million. Napoleon proved surprisingly willing to "make a deal." In 1791, a slave uprising on the island of Santo Domingo had ended the French presence on this rich (in sugar) island. Ten years later, the dynamic leader of this slave revolt. Toussaint L'Ouverture, kicked the Spanish off their half of the island. Napoleon wanted to regain control of the island, which was strategically placed to act as the hub of a French empire in the Caribbean and North America. In 1802, Napoleon sent an invasion army to retake the island. Americans feared his next destination would be New Orleans. It soon appeared that Napoleon had bitten off more than he could chew. In military engagements, the French army were largely victorious, but diseases--yellow fever and malaria chief amongst them--took more troops than weapons of war. Moreover, maintaining supply lines across the Atlantic--waters patrolled by the mighty Royal Navy of Great Britain--made maintaining this enterprise risky at best. Soon, Napoleon decided to cut his losses and abandoned any hope of an empire in North America and turned his full attention to an empire in Europe. Thus, when Livingston arrived in France, Napoleon made him a startling proposal: he would not sell New Orleans, but he would consider selling the entire Louisiana territory for $15 million! He could then use these funds to finance his wars in Europe. The offer put Livingston and his partner, Monroe, in a predicament: they were not authorized to make a deal for anything other than New Orleans. However, in these days before global communications (other than a letter sent on a ship for a three-month voyage), there was no way to receive timely instructions from Jefferson. So, taking the initiative--and the deal--they agreed to buy Louisiana for the agreed price of $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase expanded U. S. territory by 828,000 square miles, bringing new peoples under American control (French, Native Americans), and opened a vast new portion of the west for settlement. |
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| Constitutional Conflict |
The Louisiana
Purchase placed Jefferson in
a difficult position with respect to his principles. He had
opposed Hamilton on his belief that the "strict construction" of the
Constitution--i.e., the most literal interpretation of the
Constitution--was the only proper method of following the
document. Thus he had opposed the creation of the Bank of the
United States because the Constitution did not give Congress the
explicit right to do so. (Hamilton's way of interpreting the
Constitution is called "loose construction," which allows for broader
interpretation of the document.) The Congress did not explicitly
give the president the right to make such a purchase. What, then,
was Jefferson to do? In this case, Jefferson ignored his principles--or at least, outflanked them--by appealing to yet a higher principle. Jefferson claimed that although strict construction remained the best way to follow the law, there were times when the preservation of the country obligated one to take a different view. To put in other terms: Jefferson believed that in purchasing this broad expanse of territory, destined to be settled by farmers--his ideal citizen--he was insuring the safety of the nation's republican character. Congress agreed, and ratified the Louisiana Purchase in December of 1803. |
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| The Lewis and Clark Expedition |
Even before the
Louisiana Purchase,
Jefferson had abandoned his strict principles by authorizing an
expedition to explore the Louisiana territory. When rumors of a
land transfer between Spain and France first began circulating,
Jefferson started preparations to send his private secretary,
Meriwether
Lewis, and a small party into the territory to take a look at the
land. Jefferson informed Lewis and the party was to pretend to
be a scientific mission, and the president presented false papers to
that effect. However, the primary mission of the expedition was
to note the numbers of French, Spanish, and other agents in the area,
along with the numbers and condition of the Indians, and to chart major
waterways and other important strategic allies. They were also to
open the way for direct dealings between the Indians and the United
States. Following congressional ratification of the purchase,
the expedition received a secret congressional appropriation granting
the funds necessary to finance the mission. Click here to read more about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. |
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Lecture |
This
page last updated January 9, 2005.
© Kahne Parsons 2009-09
© Kahne Parsons 2009-09