• Hamilton and Jefferson
• The New Government
• Washington as President
• Hamilton and Finance
• America & The French Revolution
• Politics
• Foreign Affairs

General

We tend to think in this age that the writing of the Constitution and its ratification, the setting up of the new government under the Constitution, the early years of Washington's administration and indeed the whole series of events in the post-revolutionary war period had a certain inevitability, that these things were the logical and only possible outcome of the struggle with Great Britain. Along with that idea goes the notion that American history was pretty much ordained to come out as it did, that subsequent events would have taken us along the same general path to the future, that America would become the great Twentieth Century powerhouse that has dominated world affairs for the last 60 years. In fact, particularly if one accepts the general premise of chaos theory as applied to historical events which we discussed in the opening sessions, there was nothing inevitable about what happened from 1775 to 1800 at all.

In class we discussed Washington as "the indispensable man." Just suppose that he had gone out riding in December of 1788, had gotten wet and chilled and come down with the disease that killed him in 1799? Suppose that Jefferson had come back from France in time to be elected the first president, or that the honor had gone to John Adams, just back from England, or Madison, the father of the Constitution. All three were great men and made great contributions to our history. Yet Jefferson was a minimalist with respect to government and might have been comfortable taking the presidency down the road toward irrelevancy, a kind of ceremonial office that followed the general path taken by the British monarchy. Adams could be a cantankerous, passionate political fighter who might not have been able to bring the warring factions of Federalists and Republicans to heel. And Madison, brilliant as he was, might, like Jefferson, have brought so little power to the office of President (though perhaps more from personality and "presence" than by design, as compared with his close friend Jefferson) that the office would have evolved in very different ways.

We also tend to think of our own times as politically troublesome—people get angry over politics and think the worst of our political leaders with a cynicism that present day pundits find disturbing. How wonderful, we think, it must have been to have lived under government conducted by those great founding fathers, who had to have gotten along famously in order to have achieved what they did. Yet Page Smith, a superb historian of that period, has written that the 1790s were so bitter that "many Americans of various political persuasions felt little hope that the republic could survive." He discusses the election of 1800 in terms of "a quantum of Republican and Federalist rage difficult to account for" and adds that the loss of the election of 1800 for the Republicans "would almost certainly have driven them mad" and that the loss of that election did just that to many Federalists. (The killing of Alexander Hamilton by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel in 1804 is but one highly visible symptom of the political antagonism of the era.)

Looking back with a more critical eye we can see that the decade of the 1790s was a time of enormous turmoil, both in America and Europe, and the troubles on the two continents were connected in various, not always obvious ways. Certainly the successful American Revolution had its impact on French thinking before and during their Revolution, and we can but wonder at how differently those two upheavals turned out. Yet it is not too great a stretch to suggest that the bloodshed and violence of the French Revolution may have had a dampening effect on political discord in this country even as the struggle in Europe from 1792 to 1815 drove the American political parties even farther apart. It is not difficult to imagine the American Revolution turning out just as badly as the French, had it not been for the right people in the right places at the right time. Few nations in history have had such good fortune as ours, and even with good fortune, we might well have lost it all, as we came perilously close to doing on numerous occasions. What, then were the 1790s about?

HAMILTON, JEFFERSON & the POLITICS OF PERSONALITY

This age of American history, from the beginning of the Revolution through the first years of government under the Constitution, is the age of the "founding fathers," the political giants whom we have elevated to nearly godlike or at least mythical proportions. In so doing we tend to forget that they were human beings with all the faults, foibles, idiosyncrasies and failings we all have. That they were supremely capable men and women does not alter that fact, and only by digging beneath the myth can we begin to see the person underneath. The problem is that we don’t always like what we find—we prefer our heroes and heroines neat. During the 60s when American society and culture were coming under close scrutiny, a popular pastime—and indeed a serious undertaking for many historians and biographers—was to attempt to explode the myths and bring "those so-called heroes" down to earth.

While for the most part well-intentioned, the effort may have gone too far at times. For in the course of demythologizing those giants, by extension we brought all public figures under closer scrutiny, and many of them did not bear that much attention from the media or other critics very successfully. If we discover that Jefferson and Washington and Lincoln and others were, by our standards, less than democratic or racist or short-sighted in other ways, then what can we expect from lesser men in modern times? When we look closer at men like Hamilton and Jefferson, however, and examine their characters, we discover that they were very complex individuals who lived in very different times from ours, faced different challenges and operated on a different set of assumptions. By reading the fine biographies that exist of all those men, we can look at their lives and contributions with more sophistication.

Hamilton was much more in favor of a strong national government than was Jefferson. An immigrant from the Caribbean, Hamilton came to New York in 1773 at the age of sixteen. When the fighting started he joined the Continental Army, an experience that changed the thinking of many young men. John Marshall, the great Chief Justice, for example, said of his war experience, "I went into the war a Virginian, and came out an American." Washington, Marshall, Hamilton and many others lived in a state of almost permanent frustration at how inefficiently the Continental Congress, which evolved into the Confederation Congress, handled the war effort. The states’ representatives were seen as chintzy, narrow minded and put their own interests first whenever asked to provide supplies and money for the army. Jefferson, who did not serve in the Continental army but remained in Virginia, serving in various capacities of that state’s government, felt for all of his political career a definite loyalty to Virginia. (Robert E. Lee is probably the most famous spokesmen for that idea—he referred to Virginia as "my country.") Jefferson, and his friend Madison, became among the first to articulate the "states’ rights" position, that debate over which would finally be decided only by Civil War

Whatever their backgrounds, and whatever the reasons for their differences, Hamilton and Jefferson became the focal points of what was probably the period of sharpest political antagonism in American history, so much so that one historian has opined that if the Republicans under Jefferson had not defeated Adams’ Federalists in 1800, the country might have been torn apart.

The Constitution transferred control of the national government from the states to the people. As ordinary American voters became keenly interested in political issues and debates, elected officials learned that public opinion, not just the leadership of a social elite, would play a major role in guiding the country's future. The basic cause for the development of political parties was the ambiguity of republican ideology. The Hamiltonians, or Federalists, stressed the need to create a national economy to preserve the independence of the United States. The Jeffersonians, or Republicans, preferred to keep government small, local, and responsive. Federalists and Republicans agreed upon ends but differed about means.

Review: Ratification was a near thing: Massachusetts, Virginia, New York: Less than 5% change in votes out of over 1500 would have defeated ratification: it it entirely possible that ratification of the Constitution would not have passed a popular vote. Thus we should keep in mind that the United States in the 1790s was a very precarious arrangement—it was an experiment that might well have failed.

The New Government

The political figures who assumed office under the new Constitution had varying ideas of how the government should work. Some wanted a strong chief executive to keep order, while others saw the president as merely enforcing the will of Congress. Most political figures were nervous about too much democracy, fearing something like mob rule. The Senate, elected by the state legislatures, was seen as a balance against the excessive democracy of the House, to thwart, when necessary, the will of the people. Elbridge Gerry: The mass of people are “neither wise nor good.” Full democracy in America was still decades off.

Thus the new government was an experiment, and no one could be sure how it was going to turn out, or indeed, if it was even going to succeed. In our time we take in for granted that it had to have worked, but the 1790s were a perrilous time, perhaps the most politically divisive decade in American history. Even the revered George Washington did not escape the political vitriol that often spilled out.

Trying the Constitution on For Size: The Bill of Rights

In the 1780s, the American people met the challenge of self-government. When they discovered that it was dangerous to give themselves too much power, they created governments regulated by a system of checks and balances that protected the people from themselves.

The ratification of the Constitution closed an era of protest, revolution, and political experimentation. The future seemed to belong to the free people of a strong nation. The American people had won their sovereignty and accepted the resulting responsibility, and created a new, stronger government based on the Constitution. Yet no one really knew whether this republican experiment would work.

The Anti-Federalists lost the ratification battle but because of them the nationalists had to promise to add a bill of rights to the Constitution. By 1791, the first ten amendments had been added. Anti-federalists had also protested the Constitution's lack of guarantees for individual rights. To overcome those objections, the Federalists agreed to add the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

The United States began to function on March 4, 1789 with 8 senators and 13 representatives; no quorum was achieved until sometime in until April.  Matters of protocol to be decided, such as the proper terms of address for the President.  Was Washington to be called "Your Highness," or perhaps "Your Republican Majesty"?  We smile at such things, but they point out the experimental nature of this new government.  Congress had to write its rules—the was no "Roberts' Rules of Order" to guide them only precedents borrowed from the British, and that done very cautiously. There was very little bureaucracy in that new government—the State Department consisted of Secretary of State Jefferson and couple of clerks.  Jobs and responsibilities of those four cabinet officers and their "departments" had to be invented, and under the Constitution Congress was required to create a federal court system—the Constitution named only one specifically—the Supreme Court, and even there the number of justices was left to Congress to determine.

Since America had been governed by Congresses since 1775, that branch probably had the easiest time finding its way.  Its first major act was to create a federal court system, which was accomplished by the Judiciary Act of 1789

Recall also that ratification of the Constitution had been a near thing: In Massachusetts, Virginia and New York a mere handful of votes otherwise probably would have doomed the Constitution. Ratification was possible in part because the conventions attached to their acceptance of the document suggestions for the amendments that became the Bill of Rights.  Thus one of the first orders of business in the First Congress was the adding of the Bill of Rights, a task ably managed by James Madison.  From over 200 proposals submitted by the state conventions, Madison narrowed the list down to seventeen.  (There was much duplication on the suggested amendments.)  Of those proposals, twelve were approved by Congress in 1791, and ten were quickly ratified and became the "Bill of Rights."

One more amendment, a historical oddity, languished unratified for almost two hundred years until a graduate student in history discovered that it was still technically alive.  That student raised the issue with the states that had not ratified the forgotten amendment, and it was finally declared ratified in 1992, 201 years after being passed by Congress.  It is now the 27th Amendment. It reads:

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

It is interesting that in that very skeptical age that amendment did not get ratified quickly enough to keep pace with the addition of new states.  The wheels of government sometimes turn v-e-r-y slowly!

George Washington as President: Setting the tone

Washington was unanimously elected president in 1789 and thus began his third and final labor in the creation of the United States, and—given the temper of the times—it is fortunate that a man of his character and reputation occupied that office for the first eight years under the Constitution.  Even he did not escape the political turmoil, and had to be encouraged to serve a second term lest the government fall apart without his firm hand to guide it.  Washington set the tone—he adopted trappings for his office that some found pompous or pretentious, but his purpose was to create an office as a symbol of America that would command the respect of the Europeans, who remained skeptical of this “republican experiment.”  Washington, like most of his countrymen, assumed that the government would function smoothly, but it was a trying time.

Washinton really wanted to serve only one term; he missed his home at Mount Vernon and his life as a prosperous gentleman farmer. But by the end of Washington's first term, politics had already become bitter enough that Hamilton urged him to stay, arguing that without his firm hand at the helm, the ship of state might well founder upon the shoals of partisan bickering. Reluctantly, Washington agreed, but to a certain extent lived to regret his decision. In his second term politics continued to become more sharply focused, and even Washington himself was not above the slings and arrows of his partisan opponents. He learned how to play politics, however, as when he withheld the Jay Treaty from the Senate until the time was ripe for its likely approval. Hamilton remained close to him, but Jefferson, his Secretary of State, drifted away, and by the end of Washington's second term Washington and Jefferson were no longer on speaking terms, a sad situation that continued to the end of Washington's life.

At the end of his second term Washington did retire, leaving his famous farewell address as a guidepost for the future of the nation he had served so well. During his brief retirement Mount Vernon became something of a mecca for people interested in and admirers of the new American Republic. Visitors came in droves from far and near, and were greeted with warm hospitality, although Washington himself kept his traditional aloofness from all but his very closest friends. His retirement lasted less than three years, for he was struck down after becoming chilled while riding during a winter storm; he died on December 14, 1799.

In summary, Washington's presidency could be defined as follows:

• He was firm, dignified and cautious.
• He understood that the separation of powers was important for success of the government.
• Thus he exhibited respect for Congress, but knew his own place as well.
• There was little guidance in the Constitution about a cabinet, so the offices had to be created under his guidance: War, State, Treasury and Justice (the Attorney General) were the first cabinet posts.
• Washington tried not to to make decisions according to politics, but rather according to what seemed best for the nation. In the end he tended to agree with the Federalist ideas of Hamilton.
• Nota bene: The great Presidents have tended to to be those who are most able to rise above partisan politics when deciding critical issues.
• Note also: For all his restraint, Washington asserted presidential power, as with the Creek Treaty ratification by the Senate.

Hamilton and Financial Reform

Note: An excellent recent biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow covers Hamilton's financial ideas in great detail. The book was rated one of the top 10 books of 2004 by the New York Times Book Review. Hamilton can truly be called the father of American capitalism. Whether ones approves of the capitalist system or not, it was still a great achievement by that most controversial of the founding fathers. His achievement as first Secretary of the Treasury was to create a stable and sound federal financial system, without which the economic development of America would have been severaly hampered.

Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies, had questionable parentage, but through benefactors made his way to America. He eventually married well, became an officer in Washington's army and was a valued military thinker. After the war he was one of the “nationalists” who believed that the Articles of Confederation needed to be revised to strengthen the national government, and helped get the Constitutional Convention off the ground. He was an active delegate from New York at the Convention and was the only signer from that state. During ratification he authored several of the Federalist Papers, aimed at leaders in his own state who were opposed to the Constitution. That state ratified by a vote of 30-27, and it is safe to say that Hamilton was indispensable in that narrow victory.

Washington named his former lieutenant to the post of Secretary of the Treasury, a post from which he managed to get the country under its new Constitution off on a sound financial basis. He did that in large part by getting the wealthy members of American society behind the new government. He has been severely criticized for so doing, both then and later, but the fragile nature of that first attempt at a new republic suggests that it needed all the help it could get. Hamilton is as responsible as anyone for that fact of its survival.

One of Hamilton's acts was to assume all the outstanding state debts under the federal government and fund them at 100% of their original value. That brought profits to wealthy speculators, but it built confidence in the soundness of the government and gave influential people a heavy stake in its success.

Hamilton also argued that the nation needed a national bank. Although Washington sought Jefferson's opinion (and the latter was strongly opposed) he went along with Hamilton and the bank was created. It will become a recurring issue as we go forward into the 1800s. Hamilton eventually issues four reports, all of which helped establish the financial position of the United States:

• Credit (duties and taxes)
• Bank
• Mint
• Manufactures

(Note: Chief Justice John Marshall later uses Hamilton's "necessary and proper" arguments in McCulloch v. Maryland in upholding the constitutionality of the national Bank.)

Liberty—Equality—Fraternity!  These inspiring words promised for many a continuation of the revolutionary fervor that had sprung up in America a decade or two earlier.  While the American revolution had yet to demonstrate its staying power, at least in terms of whether a republic could survive and prosper, people saw in it the promise of the future, and in 1789 that future seemed to be emerging among the French people.  Instead the French Revolution, while it did indeed reform many aspects of French life, evolved into a spectacle of unspeakable horrors, as thousands of people were executed for political reasons and violence swept across France and spilled out across the rest of Europe.  For twenty five years the events of the French Revolution and Empire—the Napoleonic Era, dominated not only Europe but the rest of the western world as well.

It is fortunate that America got its Constitution written and ratified before the French Revolution got into high gear. Many saw what happened in France during the terror—and under Napoleon—as the inevitable result of an excess of democracy: mob rule, as it was called.  Such attitudes would inevitably have affected the formation of the United States had we not completed our Constitution on the very eve of the outbreak in France.  Many seeds sown in America were harvested in France: the French were tuned in to what America had done; many veterans of American campaigns participated in the French revolution, including the Marquis de Lafayette.  But the two revolutions had very different outcomes.  Washington was no Napoleon: Napoleon was no Washington.  Yet the two great events of the late 1700s are inextricably connected.

Important events

• 1789: The French Revolution is underway with the convening of the Estates General.
• The Tennis Court Oath
• Storming of the Bastille
• The Constitutions and Counterrevolutions
• The Terror
• The Rise of Napoleon

The American Response: Jefferson as advisor

• The Genet Affair—the Frenchman commits indiscretions, stirs pro French fever.
• Genet eventually recalled, requests and receives political asylum, marries Clinton’s daughter, stays here.
• Monroe replaces Morris; avidly pro-French. Replaced by Charles Pinckney, who is ill received.
• Licensed vessels, etc.
• Overall 600 American ships seized 1793-94

Political groups and parties: This was a time of great political discord. It had begun during the Revolution when the two political groups were patriots and loyalists, who at times fought bitterly against each other.

• Personal Politics—one of the bitterest times in American politics, possibly because of great fear that experiment in republican government would not survive.
• Much fear of central power existed.
• Everybody concerned with safeguards or liberties—fear that liberty, as they understood it, would not survive.
• Interest in the French Revolution: fear of radicalism: What went wrong?

• WASHINGTON: Tried to stay "above politics"; was generally sympathetic to Federalists—sided with Hamilton over Jefferson.  Probably could be called a Federalist.
• HAMILTON: Had a noted business-financial bias; believed in original sin—the natural depravity of human beings, therefore strong controls called for; he had authoritarian inclinations and an entrepreneurial spirit.
• ADAMS: Adams had an agricultural bias but otherwise thought much like Hamilton.  He was a trued republican, though accused of monarchical sympathies.  Deserved a second term as President.
• JEFFERSON: He had an agricultural bias; he also believed in human perfectibility and was wedded to ideas of reason and science; he therefore mistrusted government because of his belief in human goodness.
• MADISON: Began as Federalist but after the Constitution was adopted he turned more towards Jeffersonian ideals and began Jefferson's disciple and successor as President.  Many historians, myself included, believe that Madison was the most brilliant political thinker of the age.
• John MARSHALL: He was a strong Federalist who carried out much of Federalist agenda as Chief Justice—well into the Madison-Monroe-Jackson years,  Served as Chief Justice from 1801-1835.

Further Evolution of American Political Parties

Foreign Affairs: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

That famous phrase from Dickens is useful in describing the situation in which America found itself in the post-revolutionary era.  No other power in the world threatened the young United States, but neither did any nation feel much respect for the new republic.  And although the United States was all but invulnerable to quick attack because of her separation from Europe, the nation had trouble asserting its rights in the international arena. The United States was affected by the wars that emanated from the French Revolution, but considerable disagreements erupted about America's proper response. Jefferson and his followers, the Republicans, tended to admire France and believed in the promise of the French Revolution—and end to autocratic government.  The Federalists, led by Adams and Hamilton, saw the excesses of the French revolution as a threat to republicanism everywhere as the other nations of Europe recoiled in horror at the violence in France.  These disagreements were strongly felt in the political debates in America at the time, and it made the already significant political differences even more bitter.  For 25 years events in Europe whipsawed young America around and finally brought us to the point of war to defend American rights in a very troubled world.

America's basic position in world conflicts has traditionally been one of neutrality, but that position could be maintained only at a price.  Americans wanted to be free to trade in an arena in which wartime needs sent prices, and therefore potential profits, soaring.  But trade in a warring world is fraught with danger, as the Americans soon discovered.   No longer a part of the British Empire,American would now have to learn to defend their own interests, not an easy task.

Furthermore, leftover ill feelings between the U.S. and Great Britain from the revolution still hung in the air.  For example:

• There was no inclination on the British side to follow the 1783 Treaty
• The British in fighting the French and later Napoleon made attacks on American shipping
• According to the British Rule of 1756 ports closed in peacetime were also closed in wartime. British Orders in Council of 1793 in effect interrupted all American trade with France.

Jay's Treaty of 1795: Postponing War

With Great Britain pushing America hard in an attempt to end American trade with the French enemy, America needed a firm response,  President Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to England to negotiate outstanding issues such as the removal of British troops from American soil, payment for ships American illegally seized, better commercial relations, and acceptance of the United States as a neutral nation. Jay was hampered by backdoor politicking which led the British to believe we were less than serious.  Jay had little chance of getting a broad treaty and in fact got very little.  If Jay's Treaty accomplished anything, it postponed war with the British for another 17 years, during which time America grew stronger.

Washington objected to some of the treaty but sent it to the Senate anyway.  Over protest, it barely passed.   But Jay was burned in effigy and "damned" by many.  Yet the treaty accomplished some good: Arbitration was a valuable precedent—you don't need war to attack differences between nations.  The Jeffersonians were strongly opposed to treaty, and in areas they controlled it was very unpopular: "Damn Sir John Jay! Damn anyone who won’t damn John Jay!" But the Treaty postponed war for 17 years, and war in the 1790s would have been very dangerous.  Furthermore, Jay's Treaty led indirectly to Pinckney’s Treaty.

Pinckney’s Treaty of 1795

The Americans made the Spanish in the Southwest anxious.  They were afraid the American might team up with their old antagonists and attempt to drive the Spanish out North America.  Thus they approached the U.S.  with an offer open the Mississippi to American traffic, to settle the border between Spanish Florida and the United States, and to stop supporting the Indians in the region.  Pinckney's Treaty resolved virtually all of those issues.  Most important, Americans got untrammeled use of the Mississippi and the right a free deposit of goods in New Orleans.  The chief difficulty was that when Napoleon took the Spanish territory away a few years later, the new treaty rights did not go with the land.  Thus began the events that led to the Louisiana Purchase.

Summary: Jay's Treaty postponed war with Great Britain for over a decade and a half and Pinckney's Treaty of 1795 between the U.S. and Spain was very important because it guaranteed Midwestern farmers free use of the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans and indirectly led to the Louisiana Purchase.

History 121 Part 2 | Updated September 28, 2005