Colonial_18th

Election of 1796

Although Washington hoped that people would put aside their differences, the drift towards political parties continued. This was reflected in the Election of 1796. The Democratic-
Republicans (or simply Republicans for short) supported Thomas Jefferson as well as Aaron Burr for president. Why two men? The Constitution, not anticipating political parties, simply stated that the winner of the most votes became president and the runner-up became vice-president. By this method, the Republicans hoped to gather enough votes to occupy both the presidency and the vice-presidency. (They assumed Jefferson would be the top man.) The Federalists, on the other hand, were so divided they could not adopt a similarly effective plan. They, too, supported two candidates--John Adams (Washington's vice-president) and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. However, Alexander Hamilton wanted Pinckney to be president, and tried to maneuver behind the scenes so that Adams would get fewer votes than Pinckney. The result was that Adams gained the majority all votes, but Thomas Jefferson, of the opposing political faction, came in second (by just three votes) and thereby became vice-president. The Election of 1796, then, can be characterized as our first contested presidential election, and the results would cause men to rethink the way the Constitution handled presidential elections.

John Adams

Any way you look at it, John Adams faced a difficult task as he took the oath of office as the nation's second president. His own political party, the Federalists, were divided between his supporters and those of Hamilton; his vice-president was Thomas Jefferson, leader of the opposing political party, the Republicans; and he was following in the footsteps of a living legend, George Washington. Moreover, the ongoing crisis with England and France still threatened to drag the United States into a European war.

Adams' own personality made his tasks even more difficult. Although he was a brilliant man, a statesman, and honest to a fault, he was not very likable. He did not believe in unfettered democracy or trust in the people as a whole (although he did believe strongly in the republican form of democracy instituted by the Constitution). He was not a man of compromise, and so he would not be willing or able to restore unity either within the Federalist party or the nation.

The XYZ Affair

     Adams determined that he would free America from its alliance with France. He therefore sent a delegation to Paris to negotiate with the French government concerning this issue. Upon the delegations arrival in Paris, they sent word to the French foreign minister, Charles de Talleyrand, that they wished to meet. What followed next became the subject of intense dispute--and very nearly a causus belli (cause for war). Three men approached the American delegation, purporting to be representatives of Talleyrand. They told the Americans that in return for a payment of $200,000, they could arrange for a meeting with Talleyrand where they would get a favorable response to their mission of ending the alliance. These men--labeled "X, Y and Z" in secret letters to America--had, in effect, grossly insulted the Americans by offering them a bribe rather than offering to negotiate with them honestly. The Americans refused and left Paris without meeting with Talleyrand.

     John Adams received word of the "XYZ Affair" with worry and consternation. The Hamiltonians in the party got wind of the affair (every Cabinet member was a follower of Hamilton, as Adams had unwisely decided to carry over Washington's Cabinet into his own administration) and used it as a drumbeat for war. Hamiltonian Federalists in Congress demanded a declaration of war against France, while the Republicans demanded that we honor our alliance with France. For their part, the Republicans offered evidence of British treachery and insults. British ships harassed Americans ships bound for Europe, often seizing members of the crews and "impressing them" into the Royal Navy on the specious grounds that they were "deserters."   This was an insult to America as much as any French bribe, they argued.

     Adams pursued two courses: on the one hand, he supported measures to expand the army and the navy, in case the U. S. had to go to war; on the other, he decided to give peace one more chance by sending a second delegation to France. By the time this second delegation arrived in Paris, the French government had changed yet again. The young general Napoleon Bonaparte had overthrown the government and now ruled the Republic. Bonaparte proved more reasonable in dealing with the Americans, and agreed to end the twenty-two year Franco-American alliance in a treaty, The Convention of Montefontaine (aka The Convention of 1800).

The Naturalization, Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

Back in American, however, war fever had grown wildly out of control. The Federalists in Congress passed a series of noxious laws aimed solely at undermining their political opponents. Since many recent immigrants tended to vote for the Republicans, Congress passed the Naturalization Act, which extended the naturalization period from five years to fourteen. This, the Federalists believed, would stop the flow of new members into the Republican ranks by depriving them of the right to vote (which they could not do until they became citizens). They also passed the Alien Act, which allowed the president to deport any alien he deemed dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States. Finally, Congress passed the Sedition Act, which made it a criminal offense to criticize anyone in the government. This latter act was clearly a violation of the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and of the press. Cannily, the Federalists set the law to expire in 1801 so that they could not be victimized by their own law should the Republicans gain the election.

As a result of the Sedition Act, political opponents of the Federalists could not longer speak out publicly in criticism of the Adams administration, its members or its policies. Those who did were imprisoned. (Many newspaper editors allied with the Republicans were imprisoned under this law.) Deprived of any public way to speak out or organize, the Republicans derived other means of organization and protest. They formed Republican Clubs where members could gather together to discuss issues privately. These clubs evolved into the first nationally organized political structure in America, with units at the local, county, and state levels. In this way, the Republicans were able to maintain their organization without resorting to the normal methods of newspaper appeals to the public. In the matter of protest, Republican leader Thomas Jefferson felt that a protest by the states could effectively nullify the abhorrent federal law. Writing for the Kentucky legislature, with friend and loyal comrade James Madison writing for Virginia, the two men authored The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. These resolutions laid down the foundations for the doctrine of nullification. They argued that, as representatives of the people in the ratification process that made the Constitution the government of the United States, the states had the right to change laws that contradicted that document (as the Sedition Act clearly did). The states, then, were the final arbiter on issues of constitutionality, and in this case, both Kentucky and Virginia decided that the Sedition Act was unconstitutional and thus they would not enforce it within their boundaries. [This is a crucial argument to understand, as other would revive it later on the issues of the tariff and slavery.]

The Election of 1800

With tempers running so high, it is not surprising that the Election of 1800 was one of the most vicious elections in history. It featured a rematch of the men involved in the previous election. In spite of the Sedition Act, newspapers freely printed calumnies aimed at both Adams and Jefferson, the two leading candidates. Federalist papers spread rumors that Jefferson was immoral--that he had fathered bastard children by one of his slave women, Sally Hemmings--that he was an atheist and a man who shared dangerously radical French politics. Republican papers said that Adams was a monarchist and a spendthrift, saying his new taxes to pay for a navy were simply a means of driving the United States back into the fold of Great Britain.

When it was all over, Adams had lost the election, but strangely, Thomas Jefferson had not yet won. Both he and fellow Republican Aaron Burr received an equal number of votes in the electoral college. Under this circumstance, the Constitution left it to the Congress to decide the winner. Now Burr, as the junior man in the party, could have cut the whole thing short by stepping aside in favor of the party leader, Jefferson, but pride and ambition kept Burr in the race. Therefore, it took much political wrangling (Hamilton finally convinced Federalists that Jefferson, as a man of property, was less dangerous than Burr, whom he characterized as the "most dangerous man" in the United States) before Congress finally decided to elect Thomas Jefferson as the third president of the United States, thereby making Aaron Burr his vice-president.

Midnight
Appointments

The Federalists had lost the Election of 1800, but did not give up on their idea of a strong, centralized nation. If they could not construct one from the executive branch, they determined to do so from the judiciary.

On his last day in office, John Adams and the "lame duck" Congress (outgoing Congress) signed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created sixteen new federal judgeships, six new circuit courts, and a whole apparatus of federal clerks and marshals. Adams filled all these offices with Federalist appointees. Notice of these appointments was assigned to Adams' secretary of state, John Marshall, who was himself appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, but he did not have time to deliver most of them (save the one for himself!.

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