Chapter 8 Notes
Securing the Republic 1791–1815
Focus Questions:
What issues made the politics of the 1790s so divisive?
How did competing views of freedom and global events promote the political divisions of the 1790s?
What were the achievements and failures of Jefferson’s presidency?
What were the causes and significant results of the War of 1812?
Inauguration of George Washington
April 30, 1789, in New York City.
All sixty-nine electors voted for him.
Washington wore plain American broadcloth.
Delivered his inaugural address, emphasizing the importance of the American experiment for the preservation of liberty and the republican model of government.
House of Representatives called Americans “the freest people on the face of the earth.”
First coins displayed “an impression emblematic of liberty.”
Political Harmony
American leaders wanted to maintain political harmony and avoid organized political parties
Parties were considered divisive and disloyal.
Washington believed parties served to organize faction and substitute the aims of a minority for the will of the nation.
The Constitution does not mention political parties.
National political parties quickly arose.
The 1790s became an “age of passion,” with parties questioning each other’s loyalty.
Political rhetoric became inflamed due to the high stakes.
Chronology
1789: Inauguration of George Washington; French Revolution begins
1791: First Bank of the United States; Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures; Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man
1791–1804: Haitian Revolution
1792: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
1793: First federal fugitive slave law
1794: Whiskey Rebellion; Jay’s Treaty
1797: Inauguration of John Adams
1798: XYZ affair; Alien and Sedition Acts
1800: Gabriel’s Rebellion
1801: Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson
1801–1805: First Barbary War
1803: Louisiana Purchase
1804–1806: Lewis and Clark expedition
1809: Inauguration of James Madison
1812–1814: War of 1812
1814: Treaty of Ghent; Hartford Convention
Politics in an Age of Passion
Washington provided national unity.
John Adams was respected as a leader for independence.
Washington’s cabinet included Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
John Jay headed a Supreme Court of six members.
Harmonious government proved short-lived.
Hamilton’s Program
Political divisions surfaced over Hamilton’s financial plan.
Aims:
Establish financial stability.
Gain support from powerful financial interests.
Encourage economic development.
Long-term goal: to make the United States a major commercial and military power.
Model: Great Britain.
Five parts of Hamilton’s program:
Establish creditworthiness.
Federal government assumes national and state debts at full face value.
Create a new national debt.
Issue new interest-bearing bonds to creditors.
This would give the wealthy a reason to support the national government.
Create a Bank of the United States.
Modeled on the Bank of England.
Hold public funds, issue banknotes, and make loans to the government.
Tax on whiskey producers.
To raise revenue.
Impose a tariff and government subsidies.
To encourage factories.
Hamilton promoted an industrial city in Paterson, New Jersey, and a national army.
Emergence of Opposition
Hamilton’s vision won support from financiers, manufacturers, and merchants, but alarmed others.
Jefferson and Madison believed the future lay in westward expansion, not ties with Europe.
Favored a republic of independent farmers with free trade.
They opposed government favoritism through tariffs and subsidies.
They feared a powerful central government allied with commercial capitalists.
Jefferson believed Hamilton’s system undermined the republic.
Critics feared a standing army, the national bank, and assumption of state debts would lead to corruption and enrich the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Speculators would benefit from Hamilton’s plan while original holders of bonds received nothing.
Hamilton’s whiskey tax unfairly targeted backcountry farmers.
The Jefferson–Hamilton Bargain
Opposition to Hamilton’s program arose from the South, which had less interest in manufacturing development and fewer holders of federal bonds (Virginia had paid off its war debt). Hamilton argued that his plans were authorized by the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause.
Southerners became “strict constructionists,” insisting the federal government only had powers listed in the Constitution. Jefferson believed the national bank was unconstitutional.
Negotiations culminated in a dinner in 1790 where southerners accepted Hamilton’s fiscal program (except subsidies) in exchange for establishing the national capital on the Potomac River.
Southerners hoped this location would enhance their power and remove the government from the influence of northern financiers.
Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant designed the “federal city.”
Benjamin Banneker did some of the surveying.
Most labor constructing public buildings was done by slaves.
The Impact of the French Revolution
Political divisions deepened in response to events in Europe.
Americans welcomed the French Revolution in 1789.
John Marshall: “I sincerely believed human liberty to depend in a great measure on the success of the French Revolution.”
In 1793, the Revolution took a radical turn with the execution of King Louis XVI, and war broke out between France and Great Britain.
Jefferson believed that despite its excesses, the Revolution was a victory for popular self-government.
Liberty poles and caps reappeared.
Washington and Hamilton feared anarchy and drew closer to Britain.
American leaders feared being divided into parties swayed by European powers.
The “permanent” alliance between France and the United States complicated the situation.
Washington issued a proclamation of American neutrality in 1793.
French envoy Edmond Genet sought to arouse support for France.
Genet began commissioning American ships to attack British vessels.
The Washington administration asked for his recall.
Genet remained in America and married George Clinton’s daughter.
The British seized American ships trading with the French West Indies and resumed impressment.
John Jay negotiated Jay’s Treaty in 1794, sparking public controversy.
Jay’s Treaty contained no British concessions on impressment but Britain did agree to abandon western frontier outposts.
The United States guaranteed favored treatment to British imported goods.
Critics charged that the treaty aligned the United States with monarchical Britain against republican France.
Jay’s Treaty sharpened political divisions and led to the formation of an organized opposition party.
Political Parties
By the mid-1790s, two parties appeared in Congress: Federalists and Republicans.
Both parties claimed the language of liberty and accused the other of conspiracy.
Federalists supported the Washington administration, favored Hamilton’s program and ties with Britain.
Prosperous merchants, farmers, lawyers, and established political leaders tended to support the Federalists.
They were elitist and believed public office should be reserved for the rich, able, and well-born.
Federalists feared that the spirit of liberty was degenerating into anarchy and licentiousness.
Freedom did not mean the right to oppose the government.
The Whiskey Rebellion
Hamilton’s tax on whiskey led to a clash over liberty (1794).
Backcountry Pennsylvania farmers protested the tax on distilled spirits.
The “rebels” invoked the symbols of 1776, displaying liberty poles and banners reading “Liberty or Death.”
Washington dispatched 13,000 militiamen to western Pennsylvania, accompanying them part of the way.
The “rebels” dispersed.
Washington’s response was motivated by concern for the impression it would make on Europeans.
The Republican Party
Republicans, led by Madison and Jefferson, were more sympathetic to France and had more faith in democratic self-government.
Drew support from southern planters and ordinary farmers.
Urban artisans increasingly joined Republican ranks.
They preferred the “boisterous sea of liberty” to the “calm of despotism.”
They were more critical of social and economic inequality and more accepting of broad democratic participation.
Each party considered itself the representative of the nation and the other an illegitimate faction.
Federalists denounced Republicans as French agents and anarchists.
Republicans called Federalists monarchists intent on transforming the government into an aristocracy.
Each charged the other with betraying the principles of the War of Independence.
Washington received mounting abuse.
An Expanding Public Sphere
The debates of the 1790s produced intense partisan warfare and an expansion of the public sphere.
More citizens attended political meetings and read pamphlets and newspapers.
The establishment of post offices made wider circulation of printed materials possible.
The number of newspapers rose from around 100 to 260 during the 1790s and reached nearly 400 by 1810.
“Obscure men” wrote pamphlets and newspaper essays and formed political organizations.
William Manning, a self-educated Massachusetts farmer, reflected the era’s political thought.
Manning believed society was divided between the “few” and the “many.”
He called for the “many” to form a national political association to prevent the “few” from destroying “free government.”
The Democratic-Republican Societies
Inspired by the Jacobin clubs of Paris, supporters of the French Revolution formed Democratic-Republican societies in 1793 and 1794.
The Republican press publicized their meetings.
The declaration of the Democratic Society of Addison County, Vermont, stated that all men are naturally free and possess equal rights, and that all legitimate government originates in the voluntary social compact of the people.
Federalists saw the societies as another example of liberty getting out of hand.
The government, not “self-created societies,” was the authentic voice of the American people.
Political liberty meant constant involvement in public affairs.
“Political freedom” included the right to “exercise watchfulness and inspection upon the conduct of public officers.”
Blamed by Federalists for inspiring the Whiskey Rebellion, the societies disappeared by the end of 1795.
Much of their organization and outlook was absorbed into the emerging Republican Party.
They helped to legitimize the right of “any portion of the people” to express political opinions and take an active role in public life.
Republicans also gained support from immigrants from the British Isles, where war with France inspired a severe crackdown on dissent.
Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man inspired a mass movement for political and social change.
The Rights of Women
The democratic ferment of the 1790s inspired renewed discussion about women’s rights.
Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, asserting that the “rights of humanity” should not be “confined to the male line.”
Wollstonecraft called for greater access to education and to paid employment for women.
She suggested that women “ought to have representation” in government.
American editions of Wollstonecraft’s work appeared.
A short-lived women’s rights magazine was published in 1795 in New York City.
The expansion of the public sphere offered new opportunities to women.
Increasing numbers began expressing their thoughts in print.
Hannah Adams became the first American woman to support herself as an author.
Judith Sargent Murray wrote essays for the Massachusetts Magazine under the pen name “The Gleaner.”
Murray insisted that women had as much right as men to exercise their talents and should be allowed equal educational opportunities.
Women and the Republic
Were women part of the new body politic?
The word “male” did not appear in the Constitution until after the Civil War.
Women were counted fully in determining representation in Congress.
The Constitution’s use of “he” to describe officeholders reflected the assumption that politics was a realm for men.
The women’s rights debates of the 1790s did not include a broad assault on gender inequality.
The discussion of women’s status helped to popularize the language of rights.
The rise of political parties seeking to mobilize voters, the emergence of the “self-created societies,” the stirrings of women’s political consciousness, and armed uprisings broadened and deepened the democratization of public life.
Glossary
Bank of the United States: Proposed by Alexander Hamilton, the bank opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue currency, make loans, and collect taxes. The Second Bank was chartered in 1816.
Impressment: The British navy’s practice of kidnapping men for service.
Jay’s Treaty: Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794. Britain agreed to vacate forts, and disagreements would be settled by commission.
Federalists and Republicans: Parties that appeared in Congress by the mid-1790s. Federalists favored a strong central government, while Republicans supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
Whiskey Rebellion: Protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on whiskey in 1794.
Democratic-Republican societies: Organizations created in the mid-1790s by opponents of the Washington administration and supporters of the French Revolution.
Murray, Judith Sargent: A writer and early feminist thinker.
The Adams Presidency
Washington won unanimous reelection in 1792 and decided to retire in 1796.
In his Farewell Address, Washington defended his administration, warned against the party spirit, and advised avoiding “permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
From Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790)
Murray demanded equal educational opportunities for women.
From Address of the Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794)
The Pennsylvania society defended its right to criticize the Washington administration.
It insisted on the centrality of “free communication of opinions” for preserving American liberty.
The Election of 1796
Washington’s departure unleashed party competition over his successor.
John Adams (Federalist) vs. Thomas Jefferson (Republican).
Adams received seventy-one electoral votes, Jefferson sixty-eight, and Pinckney fifty-nine.
Jefferson became vice president.
Voting fell along sectional lines.
Adams assumed leadership of a divided nation.
His presidency was beset by crises, including the Quasi-War with France.
Adams negotiated peace with France in 1800 over pressure from Hamilton, who desired a declaration of war.
Adams was less cautious in domestic affairs.
Unrest continued in rural areas.
Fries’s Rebellion: Farmers in Pennsylvania obstructed the assessment of a tax on land and houses.
Adams dispatched the federal army to the area.
The army arrested Fries for treason and proceeded to terrorize his supporters.
Adams pardoned Fries in 1800.
The “Reign of Witches”
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
A new Naturalization Act extended the residency requirement for immigrants seeking American citizenship.
The Alien Act allowed the deportation of persons from abroad deemed “dangerous.”
The Sedition Act authorized the prosecution of any public assembly critical of the government.
Eighteen individuals were charged under the Sedition Act, and ten were convicted.
Matthew Lyon received a prison sentence for criticizing the government.
Authorities indicted several men for erecting a liberty pole.
The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
The Alien and Sedition Acts failed to silence the Republican press.
Some newspapers ceased publication, but new ones entered the field.
The Sedition Act thrust freedom of expression into discussions of American liberty.
Madison and Jefferson mobilized opposition, drafting resolutions adopted by the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures.
The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions attacked the Sedition Act as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
Virginia’s called on the federal courts to protect free speech, while Kentucky asserted that states could nullify laws of Congress.
The resolutions reinforced the idea that “freedom of discussion” was indispensable to American liberty.
The revulsion against the Alien and Sedition Acts contributed to Jefferson’s election in 1800.
The “Revolution of 1800”
“Jefferson and Liberty” became the watchword of the Republican campaign.
Republicans developed techniques for mobilizing voters.
Federalists viewed politics as an activity for elite men.
Jefferson triumphed, with seventy-three electoral votes to Adams’s sixty-five.
A constitutional crisis arose, with Jefferson and Aaron Burr receiving the same number of electoral votes.
Hamilton intervened, supporting Jefferson.
To avoid a repetition, Congress adopted the Twelfth Amendment, requiring electors to cast separate votes for president and vice president.
The election of 1800 set in motion events that culminated in Burr killing Hamilton in a duel.
Burr appears to have plotted to form a new nation in the West.
Acquitted of treason in 1807, he went into exile in Europe.
The events of the 1790s demonstrated that Americans believed ordinary people had a right to play an active role in politics.
Adams’s acceptance of defeat established the precedent of a peaceful transfer of power.
Slavery and Politics
Lurking behind the political battles of the 1790s was the issue of slavery.
Jefferson’s victory was possible because of the three-fifths clause, which counted slaves in apportioning electoral votes.
The slavery question was divisive and kept out of national politics.
In 1793, Congress enacted a law providing for the return of escaped slaves.
The Haitian Revolution
Events in the 1790s underscored slavery’s impact on American freedom.
The leaders of the French Revolution reacted with horror against the slave revolution that began in 1791 in Saint Domingue.
Toussaint L’Ouverture forged rebellious slaves into an army.
The slave uprising led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation in 1804.
The Haitian Revolution affirmed the universality of liberty.
Black Americans looked to L’Ouverture as a hero.
Thousands of white refugees from Haiti poured into the United States.
The Adams administration encouraged the independence of Black Haiti.
When Jefferson became president, he sought to quarantine and destroy the hemisphere’s second independent republic.
Gabriel’s Rebellion
In 1800, slaves in Virginia plotted to gain their freedom.
Organized by Gabriel, a Richmond blacksmith, and his brothers.
The conspirators planned to march on Richmond, kill some white inhabitants, and hold the rest hostage until their demand for the abolition of slavery was met.
The plot was soon discovered, and the leaders were arrested.
Twenty-six slaves were hanged, including Gabriel.
Gabriel’s Rebellion was a product of its age.
The participants spoke the language of liberty forged in the American Revolution.
The rebels planned to carry a banner emblazoned with the slogan
Securing the Republic 1791–1815
Focus Questions: - What issues made the politics of the 1790s so divisive?
How did competing views of freedom and global events promote the political divisions of the 1790s?
What were the achievements and failures of Jefferson’s presidency?
What were the causes and significant results of the War of 1812?
Inauguration of George Washington
April 30, 1789, in New York City.
All sixty-nine electors voted for him.
Washington wore plain American broadcloth.
Delivered his inaugural address, emphasizing the importance of the American experiment for the preservation of liberty and the republican model of government.
House of Representatives called Americans “the freest people on the face of the earth.”
First coins displayed “an impression emblematic of liberty.”
Political Harmony
American leaders wanted to maintain political harmony and avoid organized political parties
Parties were considered divisive and disloyal.
Washington believed parties served to organize faction and substitute the aims of a minority for the will of the nation.
The Constitution does not mention political parties.
National political parties quickly arose.
The 1790s became an “age of passion,” with parties questioning each other’s loyalty.
Political rhetoric became inflamed due to the high stakes.
Chronology
1789: Inauguration of George Washington; French Revolution begins
1791: First Bank of the United States; Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures; Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man
1791–1804: Haitian Revolution
1792: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
1793: First federal fugitive slave law
1794: Whiskey Rebellion; Jay’s Treaty
1797: Inauguration of John Adams
1798: XYZ affair; Alien and Sedition Acts
1800: Gabriel’s Rebellion
1801: Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson
1801–1805: First Barbary War
1803: Louisiana Purchase
1804–1806: Lewis and Clark expedition
1809: Inauguration of James Madison
1812–1814: War of 1812
1814: Treaty of Ghent; Hartford Convention
Politics in an Age of Passion
Washington provided national unity.
John Adams was respected as a leader for independence.
Washington’s cabinet included Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
John Jay headed a Supreme Court of six members.
Harmonious government proved short-lived.
Hamilton’s Program
Political divisions surfaced over Hamilton’s financial plan.
Aims: - Establish financial stability.
Gain support from powerful financial interests.
Encourage economic development.
Long-term goal: to make the United States a major commercial and military power.
Model: Great Britain.
Five parts of Hamilton’s program: - Establish creditworthiness.- Federal government assumes national and state debts at full face value.
<!-- -->Create a new national debt.- Issue new interest-bearing bonds to creditors.
This would give the wealthy a reason to support the national government.
Create a Bank of the United States.- Modeled on the Bank of England.
Hold public funds, issue banknotes, and make loans to the government.
Tax on whiskey producers.- To raise revenue.
Impose a tariff and government subsidies.- To encourage factories.
Hamilton promoted an industrial city in Paterson, New Jersey, and a national army.
Emergence of Opposition
Hamilton’s vision won support from financiers, manufacturers, and merchants, but alarmed others.
Jefferson and Madison believed the future lay in westward expansion, not ties with Europe.
Favored a republic of independent farmers with free trade.
They opposed government favoritism through tariffs and subsidies.
They feared a powerful central government allied with commercial capitalists.
Jefferson believed Hamilton’s system undermined the republic.
Critics feared a standing army, the national bank, and assumption of state debts would lead to corruption and enrich the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Speculators would benefit from Hamilton’s plan while original holders of bonds received nothing.
Hamilton’s whiskey tax unfairly targeted backcountry farmers.
The Jefferson–Hamilton Bargain
Opposition to Hamilton’s program arose from the South, which had less interest in manufacturing development and fewer holders of federal bonds (Virginia had paid off its war debt). Hamilton argued that his plans were authorized by the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause.
Southerners became “strict constructionists,” insisting the federal government only had powers listed in the Constitution. Jefferson believed the national bank was unconstitutional.
Negotiations culminated in a dinner in 1790 where southerners accepted Hamilton’s fiscal program (except subsidies) in exchange for establishing the national capital on the Potomac River.
Southerners hoped this location would enhance their power and remove the government from the influence of northern financiers.
Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant designed the “federal city.”
Benjamin Banneker did some of the surveying.
Most labor constructing public buildings was done by slaves.
The Impact of the French Revolution
Political divisions deepened in response to events in Europe.
Americans welcomed the French Revolution in 1789.
John Marshall: “I sincerely believed human liberty to depend in a great measure on the success of the French Revolution.”
In 1793, the Revolution took a radical turn with the execution of King Louis XVI, and war broke out between France and Great Britain.
Jefferson believed that despite its excesses, the Revolution was a victory for popular self-government.
Liberty poles and caps reappeared.
Washington and Hamilton feared anarchy and drew closer to Britain.
American leaders feared being divided into parties swayed by European powers.
The “permanent” alliance between France and the United States complicated the situation.
Washington issued a proclamation of American neutrality in 1793.
French envoy Edmond Genet sought to arouse support for France.
Genet began commissioning American ships to attack British vessels.
The Washington administration asked for his recall.
Genet remained in America and married George Clinton’s daughter.
The British seized American ships trading with the French West Indies and resumed impressment.
John Jay negotiated Jay’s Treaty in 1794, sparking public controversy.
Jay’s Treaty contained no British concessions on impressment but Britain did agree to abandon western frontier outposts.
The United States guaranteed favored treatment to British imported goods.
Critics charged that the treaty aligned the United States with monarchical Britain against republican France.
Jay’s Treaty sharpened political divisions and led to the formation of an organized opposition party.
Political Parties
By the mid-1790s, two parties appeared in Congress: Federalists and Republicans.
Both parties claimed the language of liberty and accused the other of conspiracy.
Federalists supported the Washington administration, favored Hamilton’s program and ties with Britain.
Prosperous merchants, farmers, lawyers, and established political leaders tended to support the Federalists.
They were elitist and believed public office should be reserved for the rich, able, and well-born.
Federalists feared that the spirit of liberty was degenerating into anarchy and licentiousness.
Freedom did not mean the right to oppose the government.
The Whiskey Rebellion
Hamilton’s tax on whiskey led to a clash over liberty (1794).
Backcountry Pennsylvania farmers protested the tax on distilled spirits.
The “rebels” invoked the symbols of 1776, displaying liberty poles and banners reading “Liberty or Death.”
Washington dispatched 13,000 militiamen to western Pennsylvania, accompanying them part of the way.
The “rebels” dispersed.
Washington’s response was motivated by concern for the impression it would make on Europeans.
The Republican Party
Republicans, led by Madison and Jefferson, were more sympathetic to France and had more faith in democratic self-government.
Drew support from southern planters and ordinary farmers.
Urban artisans increasingly joined Republican ranks.
They preferred the “boisterous sea of liberty” to the “calm of despotism.”
They were more critical of social and economic inequality and more accepting of broad democratic participation.
Each party considered itself the representative of the nation and the other an illegitimate faction.
Federalists denounced Republicans as French agents and anarchists.
Republicans called Federalists monarchists intent on transforming the government into an aristocracy.
Each charged the other with betraying the principles of the War of Independence.
Washington received mounting abuse.
An Expanding Public Sphere
The debates of the 1790s produced intense partisan warfare and an expansion of the public sphere.
More citizens attended political meetings and read pamphlets and newspapers.
The establishment of post offices made wider circulation of printed materials possible.
The number of newspapers rose from around 100 to 260 during the 1790s and reached nearly 400 by 1810.
“Obscure men” wrote pamphlets and newspaper essays and formed political organizations.
William Manning, a self-educated Massachusetts farmer, reflected the era’s political thought.
Manning believed society was divided between the “few” and the “many.”
He called for the “many” to form a national political association to prevent the “few” from destroying “free government.”
The Democratic-Republican Societies
Inspired by the Jacobin clubs of Paris, supporters of the French Revolution formed Democratic-Republican societies in 1793 and 1794.
The Republican press publicized their meetings.
The declaration of the Democratic Society of Addison County, Vermont, stated that all men are naturally free and possess equal rights, and that all legitimate government originates in the voluntary social compact of the people.
Federalists saw the societies as another example of liberty getting out of hand.
The government, not “self-created societies,” was the authentic voice of the American people.
Political liberty meant constant involvement in public affairs.
“Political freedom” included the right to “exercise watchfulness and inspection upon the conduct of public officers.”
Blamed by Federalists for inspiring the Whiskey Rebellion, the societies disappeared by the end of 1795.
Much of their organization and outlook was absorbed into the emerging Republican Party.
They helped to legitimize the right of “any portion of the people” to express political opinions and take an active role in public life.
Republicans also gained support from immigrants from the British Isles, where war with France inspired a severe crackdown on dissent.
Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man inspired a mass movement for political and social change.
The Rights of Women
The democratic ferment of the 1790s inspired renewed discussion about women’s rights.
Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, asserting that the “rights of humanity” should not be “confined to the male line.”
Wollstonecraft called for greater access to education and to paid employment for women.
She suggested that women “ought to have representation” in government.
American editions of Wollstonecraft’s work appeared.
A short-lived women’s rights magazine was published in 1795 in New York City.
The expansion of the public sphere offered new opportunities to women.
Increasing numbers began expressing their thoughts in print.
Hannah Adams became the first American woman to support herself as an author.
Judith Sargent Murray wrote essays for the Massachusetts Magazine under the pen name “The Gleaner.”
Murray insisted that women had as much right as men to exercise their talents and should be allowed equal educational opportunities.
Women and the Republic
Were women part of the new body politic?
The word “male” did not appear in the Constitution until after the Civil War.
Women were counted fully in determining representation in Congress.
The Constitution’s use of “he” to describe officeholders reflected the assumption that politics was a realm for men.
The women’s rights debates of the 1790s did not include a broad assault on gender inequality.
The discussion of women’s status helped to popularize the language of rights.
The rise of political parties seeking to mobilize voters, the emergence of the “self-created societies,” the stirrings of women’s political consciousness, and armed uprisings broadened and deepened the democratization of public life.
Glossary
Bank of the United States: Proposed by Alexander Hamilton, the bank opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue currency, make loans, and collect taxes. The Second Bank was chartered in 1816.
Impressment: The British navy’s practice of kidnapping men for service.
Jay’s Treaty: Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794. Britain agreed to vacate forts, and disagreements would be settled by commission.
Federalists and Republicans: Parties that appeared in Congress by the mid-1790s. Federalists favored a strong central government, while Republicans supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
Whiskey Rebellion: Protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on whiskey in 1794.
Democratic-Republican societies: Organizations created in the mid-1790s by opponents of the Washington administration and supporters of the French Revolution.
Murray, Judith Sargent: A writer and early feminist thinker.
The Adams Presidency
Washington won unanimous reelection in 1792 and decided to retire in 1796.
In his Farewell Address, Washington defended his administration, warned against the party spirit, and advised avoiding “permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
From Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790)
Murray demanded equal educational opportunities for women.
From Address of the Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794)
The Pennsylvania society defended its right to criticize the Washington administration.
It insisted on the centrality of “free communication of opinions” for preserving American liberty.
The Election of 1796
Washington’s departure unleashed party competition over his successor.
John Adams (Federalist) vs. Thomas Jefferson (Republican).
Adams received seventy-one electoral votes, Jefferson sixty-eight, and Pinckney fifty-nine.
Jefferson became vice president.
Voting fell along sectional lines.
Adams assumed leadership of a divided nation.
His presidency was beset by crises, including the Quasi-War with France.
Adams negotiated peace with France in 1800 over pressure from Hamilton, who desired a declaration of war.
Adams was less cautious in domestic affairs.
Unrest continued in rural areas.
Fries’s Rebellion: Farmers in Pennsylvania obstructed the assessment of a tax on land and houses.
Adams dispatched the federal army to the area.
The army arrested Fries for treason and proceeded to terrorize his supporters.
Adams pardoned Fries in 1800.
The “Reign of Witches”
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. - A new Naturalization Act extended the residency requirement for immigrants seeking American citizenship.
The Alien Act allowed the deportation of persons from abroad deemed “dangerous.”
The Sedition Act authorized the prosecution of any public assembly critical of the government.
Eighteen individuals were charged under the Sedition Act, and ten were convicted.
Matthew Lyon received a prison sentence for criticizing the government.
Authorities indicted several men for erecting a liberty pole.
The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
The Alien and Sedition Acts failed to silence the Republican press.
Some newspapers ceased publication, but new ones entered the field.
The Sedition Act thrust freedom of expression into discussions of American liberty.
Madison and Jefferson mobilized opposition, drafting resolutions adopted by the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures.
The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions attacked the Sedition Act as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
Virginia’s called on the federal courts to protect free speech, while Kentucky asserted that states could nullify laws of Congress.
The resolutions reinforced the idea that “freedom of discussion” was indispensable to American liberty.
The revulsion against the Alien and Sedition Acts contributed to Jefferson’s election in 1800.
The “Revolution of 1800”
“Jefferson and Liberty” became the watchword of the Republican campaign.
Republicans developed techniques for mobilizing voters.
Federalists viewed politics as an activity for elite men.
Jefferson triumphed, with seventy-three electoral votes to Adams’s sixty-five.
A constitutional crisis arose, with Jefferson and Aaron Burr receiving the same number of electoral votes.
Hamilton intervened, supporting Jefferson.
To avoid a repetition, Congress adopted the Twelfth Amendment, requiring electors to cast separate votes for president and vice president.
The election of 1800 set in motion events that culminated in Burr killing Hamilton in a duel.
Burr appears to have plotted to form a new nation in the West.
Acquitted of treason in 1807, he went into exile in Europe.
The events of the 1790s demonstrated that Americans believed ordinary people had a right to play an active role in politics.
Adams’s acceptance of defeat established the precedent of a peaceful transfer of power.
Slavery and Politics
Lurking behind the political battles of the 1790s was the issue of slavery.
Jefferson’s victory was possible because of the three-fifths clause, which counted slaves in apportioning electoral votes.
The slavery question was divisive and kept out of national politics.
In 1793, Congress enacted a law providing for the return of escaped slaves.
The Haitian Revolution
Events in the 1790s underscored slavery’s impact on American freedom.
The leaders of the French Revolution reacted with horror against the slave revolution that began in 1791 in Saint Domingue.
Toussaint L’Ouverture forged rebellious slaves into an army.
The slave uprising led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation in 1804.
The Haitian Revolution affirmed the universality of liberty.
Black Americans looked to L’Ouverture as a hero.
Thousands of white refugees from Haiti poured into the United States.
The Adams administration encouraged the independence of Black Haiti.
When Jefferson became president, he sought to quarantine and destroy the hemisphere’s second independent republic.
Gabriel’s Rebellion
In 1800, slaves in Virginia plotted to gain their freedom.
Organized by Gabriel, a Richmond blacksmith, and his brothers.
The conspirators planned to march on Richmond, kill some white inhabitants, and hold the rest hostage until their demand for the abolition of slavery was met.
The plot was soon discovered, and the leaders were arrested.
Twenty-six slaves were hanged, including Gabriel.
Gabriel’s