Transcript Washington and Adams

I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
A. The Federalists Implement the Constitution
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1. Devising the New Government – Washington received the
highest number of votes from the electoral college and was
elected president in 1788;
John Adams was elected vice president;
Washington insisted that only the president had the right to
remove appointed government officials.
He appointed a cabinet: T. Jefferson (head of Dept. of State),
A. Hamilton (head of Treasury Dept.), and H. Knox (Sec. of
War).
Judiciary Act of 1789 established a federal district court in
each state with three circuit courts to hear appeals; Supreme
Court would have final judicial say.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
A. The Federalists Implement the Constitution
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2. The Bill of Rights – Added to the Constitution;
Madison (now a member of Congress) submitted 19
amendments;
10 were approved by 1791; these 10 consisted the
nation’s first Bill of Rights to protect individual citizens
against an oppressive national government.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
B. Hamilton’s Financial Program
1. Public Credit: Redemption and Assumption –
(January 1790) Was extremely controversial because
it would create a permanent national debt; suggested
that Congress redeem at face value the $55 million in
Confederation securities held by foreign and domestic
investors to create good credit; critics said this policy
would unfairly increase the profits of speculators;
Hamilton wanted to improve public credit by having
the national government assume the war debt of the
states.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
B. Hamilton’s Financial Program
2. Creating a National Bank – (December 1790) Hamilton
argued that a national bank would be jointly owned by
private stockholders and the national government; bank
would make loans to merchants, handle government funds,
and issue bills of credit; Jefferson and Madison opposed a
national bank (preferred a strict interpretation of
Constitution) on the grounds that the government did not
have the right/power to create such an institution.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
B. Hamilton’s Financial Program
3. Raising Revenue Through Tariffs – Hamilton’s
“Report on Manufactures” (December 1791) urged the
expansion of American manufacturing; called for
Congress to impose excise taxes to pay the interest
on the national debt; advocated moderate revenue
tariffs and not protective tariffs.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
C. Jefferson’s Agrarian Vision
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1. Southern planters and western farmers – By 1793, the
Federalists had split over Hamilton’s financial plans for the
nation; southern Federalists supported Jefferson and Madison
(called themselves Democratic Republicans or simply
Republicans), while northerners supported Hamilton
(Federalists); Jefferson argued that the wage-labor of the
North could not sustain a republican nation; therefore, he
focused instead on yeoman farmers and their families, whose
work he argued could support the nation as well as European
countries. The French Revolution’s disruption of European
farming lent credibility to Jefferson’s ideas.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
D. The French Revolution Divides Americans
1. Ideological Politics – Americans made large profits
from the French Revolution but argued over the
ideologies that led to the revolution; some Americans
supported the Jacobin ideas of social
egalitarian/democratic society; Americans with strong
Christian beliefs disliked the Jacobins closing the
churches and feared a similar social rebellion in the
U.S.; still other Americans were critical of the
revolution’s bloodshed. In 1794, western
Pennsylvania farmers mounted the Whiskey Rebellion
to protest Hamilton’s excise tax on alcohol.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
D. The French Revolution Divides Americans
2. Jay’s Treaty – Disagreements between the British
and Americans over shipments to France led to Jay’s
Treaty (1793/1794), accepting Britain’s right to stop
neutral ships; in return, Americans could make claims
to the British for illegal seizures and required the
British to remove their troops and Indian agents from
the Northwest Territory; was seen as a decidedly proBritish treaty.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
D. The French Revolution Divides Americans
3. The Haitian Revolution – Saint-Domingue was a French
plantation colony in the West Indies; elite planters ruled a
population of 40,000 free whites; some 28,000 free blacks
were excluded from white privileges; a half million black slaves
worked the sugar plantations; French Revolution intensified
conflicts on the island and inspired a massive slave uprising
that aimed to abolish slavery. Toussaint L’Ouverture seized
control of the country and in 1803 proclaimed the independent
nation of Haiti, the Atlantic World’s first black republic. Haitian
refugees flood into the U.S.; American slaveholders feared
contagion of slave revolution; many Americans saw Haiti as a
perversion of the republican ideal.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
E. The Rise of Political Parties
1. Public interest – Many Americans believed
organized political parties were dangerous because
they feared that they did not serve the public interest;
debate over Hamilton’s financial policies led to further
divide among politicians. By the 1796 election, the
two groups were holding public festivals and
processions to celebrate their perspectives and
candidates; Adams was elected president; maritime
disputes with the British erupted in the XYZ Affair.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
E. The Rise of Political Parties
2. The Naturalization, Alien, and Sedition Acts of 1798 –
Federalists took a hard line against Republic critics; they passed
Naturalization Act (lengthened residency requirement for American
citizenship from five to fourteen years), Alien Act (authorized
deportation of foreigners), and Sedition Act (prohibited publication
of insults or attacks on president or members of Congress), which
limited individual rights and threatened the fledgling party system;
Federalist prosecutors arrested many Republican newspapers
editors and politicians and jailed some of them; resulting
constitutional crisis led Kentucky and Virginia legislatures to
declare Alien and Sedition Acts to be “unauthoritative, void, and of
no force”; the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions set forth a states’
rights interpretation of the Constitution, asserting that the states
had a “right to judge” the legitimacy of national laws.
I. The Political Crisis of the 1790s
E. The Rise of Political Parties
3. The “Revolution of 1800” – The presidential
election of 1800 was an intense partisan contest;
Federalists attacked Jefferson as an irresponsible
radical; election was contested, but Federalist
Hamilton supported Jefferson, leading in new
Republican era; bloodless transfer of power
showed that popularly elected governments could
be changed in an orderly way, even in times of
bitter partisan conflict.
II. A Republican Empire Is Born
A. Sham Treaties and Indian Lands
1. The Treaty of Greenville – Disagreements continued
in the West; government asserted control over transAppalachian west, arguing that the natives who lived
there were “conquered”; Indians disagreed because
they had not signed the Treaty of Paris; native peoples
were forced to cede huge tracts of land in New York
and Pennsylvania; land speculators used liquor and
bribes to take additional land; conflict arose between
allying native groups, white settlers, and the U.S. Army.
The Treaty of Greenville ceded most of Ohio to U.S.
and started a wave of migration from the east; by 1805,
Ohio was a new state with more than 100,000 people.
II. A Republican Empire Is Born
A. Sham Treaties and Indian Lands
2. Assimilation Rejected – To prevent conflict, U.S.
government encouraged assimilation to white culture;
some converted to Christianity but kept their cultural
practices.