The Jeffersonian Revolution

The Election of 1800

From 1790 to 1793 Thomas Jefferson served as the first US Secretary of State under President George Washington, and from 1797 to 1801 was Vice President under John Adams. He ran against Adams in the presidential election of 1800 and won. Jefferson won by a majority of seventy-three electoral votes to sixty-five. In defeat, the colorless and presumably unpopular Adams polled more electoral strength than he had gained four years earlier—except for New York. The Empire State fell into the Jeffersonian basket, and with it the election, largely because Aaron Burr, a master wire-puller and Jefferson’s vice-presidential running mate, turned New York to Jefferson by the narrowest of margins.
There were a number of pressing issues debated during the presidential campaign. The major foreign policy debate revolved around the appropriate American response to the French Revolution. Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans were sympathetic to France, while the Federalists leaned more toward Britain, fearing the growing radicalism of the French Revolution and attempting to prevent the United States from being drawn into the conflict. The Federalist party’s pro-British stance led to accusations that Adams and his compatriots were seeking to undo the political effects of the American Revolution and restore the monarchy.

The Alien and Sedition Acts, which John Adams had signed into law in 1798, were another point of contention. The acts made it more difficult for immigrants to become US citizens, and included a provision criminalizing false statements critical of the federal government.

While the Democratic-Republicans were well-organized and effective, the Federalist party suffered from a split between John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton penned a 54-page letter denouncing Adams, and it hurt the Federalist cause when it was published after falling into the hands of a Democratic-Republican. The campaigns were bitter and divisive, with both sides launching heated accusations, vilifying each other, and engaging in slander and character assassination.

The election of 1800 was fiercely contested and extremely acrimonious, to the point that outgoing president John Adams refused to even shake incoming president Thomas Jefferson’s hand. The election facilitated the spread of bitter partisanship, and ushered in the demise of the Federalist party and a political realignment that effectively ended the first 2-party system.

The Courts

The “deathbed” Judiciary Act of 1801 was one of the last important laws passed by the expiring Federalist Congress. It created sixteen new federal judgeships and other judicial offices. President Adams remained at his desk until nine o’clock in the evening of his last day in office, supposedly signing the commissions of the Federalist “midnight judges.”

The newly elected Republican Congress made an effort to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801 the year after its passage. Jeffersonians thus swept sixteen benches from under the recently seated “midnight judges.” Jeffersonians likewise had their knives sharpened for the scalp of Chief Justice John Marshall, whom Adams had appointed to the Supreme Court (as a fourth choice) in the dying days of his term. The strong-willed Marshall, with his rasping voice and steel-trap mind, was a cousin of Thomas Jefferson. Marshall’s formal legal schooling had lasted only six weeks, but he dominated the Supreme Court with his powerful intellect and commanding personality. He shaped the American legal tradition more profoundly than any other single figure.

One of the “midnight judges” of 1801 presented John Marshall with a historic opportunity. He was obscure William Marbury, whom President Adams had named a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia. When Marbury learned that his commission was being shelved by the new secretary of state, James Madison, he sued for its delivery. Chief Justice Marshall dismissed Marbury’s suit, avoiding a direct political showdown.

Until the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), controversy had clouded the question of who had the final authority to determine the meaning of the Constitution. Jefferson in the Kentucky resolutions (1798) had tried to allot that right to the individual states. But now his cousin on the Court had cleverly promoted the contrary principle of “judicial review”—the idea that the Supreme Court alone had the last word on the question of constitutionality. In this landmark case, Marshall inserted the keystone into the arch that supports the tremendous power of the Supreme Court in American life.

Jefferson In Office

Upon entering office, Jefferson focused on reducing the national debt he had inherited from his predecessors. His administration lowered excise taxes while slashing government spending. Additionally, the Jefferson administration reduced the size of the Navy, ultimately bringing the national debt down from $83 to $57 million. Foreign developments, however, including the intensification of piracy along the Barbary Coast, would necessitate the rebuilding of the Navy and its establishment as a permanent part of the US government.

The Barbary Pirates weren’t the only source of trouble on the high seas for US ships during Jefferson’s presidency. France and England were engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, which raged between 1803 and 1815. As a result, both countries began to seize American ships. The British Royal Navy impressed American sailors, kidnapping them from US ships and forcing them to serve in the British navy. The issue came to a head in 1807 when the HMS Leopard, a British warship, fired on a US ship, the Chesapeake, off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia. The British then boarded the ship and took four sailors.

Jefferson responded to this episode by signing the Embargo Act of 1807. This law prohibited American ships from leaving their ports until Britain and France stopped seizing them. The logic behind the embargo was that cutting off all trade would so severely hurt the economies of Britain and France that the seizures at sea would end.

Unfortunately, Jefferson miscalculated--the embargo harmed the American economy far more than the economies of Britain or France. The embargo hurt American farmers, who could no longer sell their goods overseas, and seaport cities experienced a huge increase in unemployment and an uptick in bankruptcies. All told, American business activity declined by a shocking 75% in only one year following the Embargo Act. But the embargo proved very difficult to enforce, as many people smuggled goods between the United States and British Canada. At the very end of his presidency, Jefferson signed the Non-Intercourse Act of 1808, lifting the unpopular embargoes on trade with all countries except Britain and France.

The Louisiana Purchase

In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte induced the king of Spain to cede to France the immense trans-Mississippi region of Louisiana, which included the New Orleans area. Louisiana in the iron fist of Napoleon, the preeminent military genius of his age, foreshadowed a dark and blood-drenched future. Hoping to quiet the clamor of the West, Jefferson moved decisively. Early in 1803 he sent James Monroe to Paris to join forces with the regular minister there, Robert R. Livingston.

At this critical juncture, Napoleon suddenly decided to sell all of Louisiana and abandon his dream of a New World empire. The American minister, Robert Livingston, pending the arrival of Monroe, was busily negotiating in Paris for a window on the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans. Suddenly, out of a clear sky, the French foreign minister asked him how much he would give for all of Louisiana.

After about a week of haggling, while the fate of North America trembled in the balance, treaties were signed on April 30, 1803, ceding Louisiana to the United States for about $15 million. Which doubled the size of the United States and allowed for westward expansion although the immediate thought of Jefferson was one of worry because of the people who currently lived in the area. Jefferson didn’t want any conflict with the Native Americans in the area but in order to expand the country, there needed to be something to happen physically.

The War of 1812

The War of 1812, which lasted from June 18, 1812 to February 18, 1815,  was a military conflict between the United States, Great Britain, and Great Britain's Native American allies on the North American continent. The British had allied with Native Americans in the Northwest Territory (encompassing the modern-day states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin). Comprised of several tribes, including the Shawnee, Kickapoo, Sauk, Fox, and Winnebago, a Native American confederacy led by Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa and his brother Tecumseh had arisen to challenge US settlement in the territory.

Post 1812

The war sparked a resurgence of the Federalist Party in New England. Many Federalists deeply resented the power of the slaveholding Virginians (Jefferson and then Madison), who appeared indifferent to the war's economic impact on their region. In December 1814, twenty-six Federalists called a meeting in Connecticut to discuss the economic tumult. At the Hartford Convention, some attendees issued calls for New England to secede from the United States. But the tactic backfired: by suggesting secession during wartime and condemning the new American government, Federalists appeared unpatriotic. The Hartford Convention discredited the Federalist Party and sowed the seeds for the party’s demise.

The Madison administration then entered into peace negotiations with the British. The Treaty of Ghent, which formally ended the war, involved no significant change in pre-war borders or boundaries. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British had already abandoned their policy of impressing American sailors, and had informally lifted restrictions on neutral trade. According to the terms of the treaty, the British returned nearly four thousand Americans who had been classified as prisoners of war and forced into British service.

The end of hostilites ushered in the “Era of Good Feelings,” during which US-British relations improved. The nation’s sense of victory and unify was enhanced by the dissolution of the Federalist Party and the easing of bitter partisan divisions.

For American Indians, the war was devastating. General Andrew Jackson destroyed the military capabilities of the Creek nation in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814. The battle occurred in the Mississippi Territory, which Jackson sought to clear for US settlement. Approximately 15% of the entire Creek population was killed. The Treaty of Fort Jackson forced the Creeks to surrender 23 million acres of land and to promise to never again ally with the British or Spanish against the Americans. The US victory and the death of Tecumseh in battle ended any prospect of a Native American alliance system or confederation, and the British essentially abandoned their Native American allies. With no protection from the British, and very little tribal cohesion, Native Americans would suffer further defeats as the United States continued to expand ever westward.

Andrew Jackson, virtually unknown before the war, emerged as a national hero after his triumph at the Battle of New Orleans, which actually occurred after the Treaty of Ghent was signed but before the news had reached New Orleans. As president, Jackson would preside over the further removal, relocation, and destruction of Native Americans and their way of life.