Transcript Age of Jefferson 1800

The Jeffersonian Era ,
1800–1816
Agenda of Powerpoint
• Based on Newman Chapter 7
• Focus: Louisiana Purchase/ War of 1812
• What is added….
– “Revolution of 1800”
– Haitian Revolution
• What is not included….
– “John Marshall and the Supreme Court” (next ppt)
– Aarron Burr & Duel with Hamilton
p205
1800 Jefferson wins… barely
(pg224-226)
– Jefferson’s victory was dampened by an
unexpected Democratic- Republican deadlock:
• Jefferson, the presidential candidate, and Burr, the
vice-presidential candidate, received the same
number of electoral votes for the presidency
• Under the Constitution the tie could be broken only
by the House of Representatives
• Tie broken by Hamilton who saw Jefferson as lesser of
two evils
• Controversy causes 12th Amendment: Changes
Electoral College procedure to elect a specific
candidate for both the president and vice president
(rather than top 2nd highest vote becoming VP)
The Jeffersonian “Revolution of 1800”
– It was no revolution in the sense of the word
– What was “revolutionary” was the peaceful and
orderly transfer of power despite the acrimony
• This was a remarkable achievement for a raw young
nation
– Jefferson’s mission:
• to restore the republican experience
• To check the growth of government power
• To halt the decay of virtue
– “We are all Federalists…. We are all Democratic
Republicans.”
Jefferson as 1st Democratic President
– Remakes the presidency as the “common man”
• Contrasted to the elegant atmosphere of Federalist
Philadelphia, the former temporary capital
• He spurned a horse-drawn coach and strode by foot
to the Capitol from his boardinghouse
• He extended democratic principles to etiquette
– Established the rule of pell-mell at official dinners—that is,
seating without regard to rank.
• He was shockingly unconventional in receiving guests
• He started the precedent of sending messages to
Congress to be read by a clerk
Jefferson as 1st Democratic President
• At the outset Jefferson was determined to
undo the Federalist abuses:
– The hated Alien and Sedition Acts had expired
– Pardoned the “martyrs” who were serving
sentences under the Sedition Act
• and the government remitted many fines
– Jeffersonians enacted the new naturalization law
of 1802:
– It reduced the requirement of 14 years of residence back to
the requirement of 5 years.
HOWEVER .. Jefferson faces realities office
– He cherished his image as the scholarly, scientific
private citizen, who philosophized in his study
faced the harsh realities of office
– International affairs called on him to take actions
more aligned with the Federalists and more
“loose” construction of the Constitution
– The open-minded Virginian was therefore
consistently inconsistent; it is easy to quote one
Jefferson to refute the other.
Louisiana Purchase: (pg 234-237)
• European War backdrop…
• Napoleon Bonaparte induced the king of Spain to
cede to France the immense trans-Mississippi region
of Louisiana, including New Orleans area
• The Spaniards at New Orleans withdrew the right to
deposit guaranteed America by Pinckney’s Treaty of
1795 (see p. 193)
• This cause great concern in the American west
believing this was first step towards a French takeover
of area west of the Mississippi River.
• Hoping to quiet the clamor of the West, Jefferson in
1803 sent James Monroe to Paris to join with Robert
R. Livingstone, the regular minister there
Louisiana Purchase
– They were instructed to buy New Orleans and as
much land as possible for $10 million
– Napoleon suddenly decided to sell all Louisiana
and abandon his dream of a New World empire
– He failed in his efforts to reconquer the sugar-rich island of
Santo Domingo (Haiti) Rebellious enslaved Africans
– This soured Napoleon’s view on expanding his Empire in the
Americas
– To French it was the Louisiana garage sale
– Uses $ from sale to fight his European War
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Jefferson’s Constitutional Dilemma
• US reps sign treaties on April 30, 1803,
ceding Louisiana to the United States for
about $15 million (WITHOUT APPROVAL)
– BUT this and additional treaties opened up an
immeasurable tract entirely to the west—
doubling the size of the United States.
– This forces Jefferson to go against his
constitutional principles of “strict construction”
– Jefferson submitted the treaties to the Senate, while
admitting privately to his aides that he believed the
purchase was in fact unconstitutional.
Practical benefits vastly outweigh
Jefferson’s philosophical concerns
• America secured the western half of the richest river
valley in the world
• And laid the foundation of a future major power
• The transfer established valuable precedents for
future expansion on the basis of equal membership
• This was imperialism with a new and democratic face
• It also contributed to making operational the
isolationist principles of Washington’s Farewell
Address.
Map 11-3 p215
Louisiana in the Long View
• The Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery:
• 1804 Jefferson sent his personal secretary,
Meriwether Lewis, and army officer William Clark to
explore the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase
• The exploration took 2 ½ years and yielded a rich
harvest of scientific observation, maps, knowledge of
the Indians in the region, and hair-raising wilderness
adventure stories
• The explorers demonstrated the viability of an
overland trail to the Pacific
Jefferson as a Reluctant “Commander and
Chief” (pg. 233-34)
• First action of Jefferson was to reduce the
military establishment:
• A mere police force of 25,000 officers and men
• War across the Atlantic was not part of Jefferson’s
vision of a separate agrarians society.
• BUT the REALITY was Pirates of the North African
Barbary States (see Map 11.2) made a national
industry of blackmailing and plundering merchant
ships that ventured into the Mediterranean.
Jefferson as a Reluctant
“Commander and Chief”
• The showdown came in 1801-1805, the
Tripolitan War:
• He sent the infant army to the “shores of Tripoli”
• Four years of intermittent fighting
• He succeeded in extorting a treaty of peace from
Tripoli in 1805; bargain price of $60,000—a sum
representing ransom payment for captured
Americans
• He advocated a large number of little coastal craft
• Also 200 tiny gunboats were constructed
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Meanwhile in Europe….(pg. 238-240)
• After selling Louisiana, Napoleon deliberately
provoked a renewal of his war with Britain
• This war would continue an awesome
conflict that raged on for eleven long years.
• The first two years of war a maritime United
States enjoyed great success in supplying
commercial trade with both sides
• This would not last for long
A Precarious Neutrality (pg238-240)
• 1806 London issued a series of Orders in
Council closing European ports under French
control to foreign shipping, including
American, unless the vessels stopped at a
British port
• Napoleon struck back, ordering the seizure
of all merchant ships, including American,
that entered British ports
• American vessels caught in the middle
A Precarious Neutrality
• Impressment—
– the forcible enlistment of sailors:
– Crude form of conscription by the British
– Had been employed for centuries
– Some 6,000 bona fide U.S. citizens were
impressed by the “piratical man-stealers” of
Britain from 1808 to 1811
– Much more significant than in 1794 war
A Precarious Neutrality
• The Chesapeake affair:
• A royal frigate overhauled a U.S. frigate, the
Chesapeake, ten miles of the coast of Virginia
• The British captain bluntly demanded the surrender
of four alleged deserters
• The American commander, though totally unprepared
to fight, refused the request
• The British warship fired three devastating broadsides
at close range: 3 Americans were killed and 18
wounded
• Four deserters were dragged away,
• Britain was clearly in the wrong, as the London
Foreign Office admitted
• But London’s contrition availed little
The Embargo Act of 1807 (pg. 240 to 242)
• “National honor would not permit a slavish
submission to British and French mistreatment.”
• The warring European nations depended heavily on
United States for raw materials and foodstuffs
• Jefferson thought that if America voluntarily cut off
its exports, the offending powers would have to bow
• Congress issued the Embargo Act late in 1807: The
law forbade the export of all goods from the United
States, whether in American or foreign ships
• This embargo embodied Jefferson’s idea of “peaceful
coercions”
The Hated Embargo Act of 1807
– Why the embargo act failed after 15 months:
• Jefferson underestimated the determination of the
British.
• He overestimated the dependence of both
belligerents on America’s trade.
• He miscalculated the unpopularity of such a selfcrucifying weapon and the difficulty of enforcing it.
– An enormous illicit trade mushroomed in 1808, especially
along the Canadian border
– The embargo had the effect of reviving the moribund
Federalist party
• The Embargo Act was repealed and the NonIntercourse Act formally opened trade with all
nations, except Britain and France
A silver lining of the Embargo Act:
• The resourceful Yankees reopened old
factories and erected new ones:
• The real foundations of modern America’s industrial
might were laid behind the protective wall of the
embargo
• Followed by nonintercourse and the War of 1812
• Jefferson, the avowed critic of factories, may have
unwittingly done more for American manufacturing
than Alexander Hamilton, industry’s outspoken
friend.
Madison’s Gamble over Macon’s Bill #2
• Madison took the presidential oath on March 4,
1809 as Non-Intercourse acts go into place :
• Macon’s Bill No. 2:
• A dangle—if either Britain or France repealed its
commercial restrictions, America would restore its
embargo against the nonrepealing nations
• Napoleon’s issue a vague decree that he would stop
seizing US ships if Britain also lifted it Orders in
Council
• Madison gambles and repeals French Non-intercourse
Act
• Napoleon has no interest in actually stopping
• Incident shows American weakness
Arrival of the War Hawks
• Twelfth Congress met late 1811
– The older “submission men” had been replaced
with young hotheads, many from the South and
West:
• Dubbed war hawks by their Federalist opponents, the
newcomers were on fire for a new war
• They also wanted to wipe out the renewed Indian
threat for pioneer settlers coming into the transAllegheny wilderness
Tecumseh and the Prophet
• Two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa,
known to non-Indians as “the Prophet,” concluded
the time had come to stem this onrushing tide
• They began to weld together a confederacy of all the
tribes west of the Mississippi
• Frontiersmen and their war-hawk spokesmen became
convinced that the British “scalp buyers” in Canada
were nourishing the Indians’ growing strength
• In the fall of 1811, William Henry Harrison gathered
an army and advanced on Tecumseh’s headquarters.
• The Battle of Tippecanoe made Harrison a national
hero
War of 1812
• War Hawks Win Call for War
– The only way to gain respect was to declare war
– Success against Indians gain western vote for
war; NE wants war to end impressment
– By no means a clear call for war ….
The War of 1812:
– Was a small war, involving 6000 Americans killed
or wounded
– If the American conflict was globally
unimportant, it had huge consequences for the
United States:
• Other nations developed a new respect for America’s
fighting prowess
War of 1812
– Attack on Canada ill-conceived and poorly carried
out
• Highly reliant on militias which were poorly trained
• Americas’ offensive strategy was poorly conceived
• The trio of invading forces that set out for Detroit,
Niagara, and Lake Champlain were all beaten back after
crossing the Canadian border.
– Americans had unexpected success on the water:
• Navy was virtually non-existence compared to most
powerful navy in the world
• But the few American ships better than British ships
• The American frigates, notably the Constitution
• For most of war British navy heavily engaged with France
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Washington Burned
• Success in Europe leds to a second British
force of 4000 landed in the Chesapeake Bay
area in August 1814:
– Onward to Washington some 6000 militiamen
were dispersed at Bladensburg
– They set on fire public buildings, the Capitol and
the White House
– While the White House burned
– British abandoned Washington after freak
hurricane hits
The Defense of Baltimore
• British fleet attacks Baltimore
• Francis Scott Key, a detained American, was
inspired to write “The Star-Spangled Banner”
• A third British blow of 1814, aimed at New
Orleans, menaced the entire Mississippi
Valley:
• Andrew Jackson, fresh from victory at the Battle of
Horseshoe Bend, was placed in command (see Map
12.5 on p. 241)
• His forces were about 7000 various soldiers
New Orleans Defended
• The 8000 British soldiers blundered badly:
– They mistakenly launched a frontal assault on
January 8, 1815
• The attackers suffered the most devastating defeat of
the entire war
• Losing over 2000, killed and wounded in ½ hour
• It was an astonishing victory for Jackson and his men.
• News of the American victory in the Battle of
New Orleans was great encouragement.
• Makes Andrew Jackson war hero.
IV. Federalist Grievances and the
Hartford Convention
• Some New England extremists proposed
secession from the Union:
– Or at least a separate peace with Britain
– Hartford Convention:
• The states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island dispatched full delegations
• New Hampshire and Vermont sent partial
representatives
• 26 men met in secrecy for 3 weeks—Dec. 15, 1814 to
Jan. 5, 1815—to discuss their grievances.
IV. Federalist Grievances and the
Hartford Convention (cont.)
• The Hartford Convention was not radical:
– The convention’s final report was moderate
• It demanded financial assistance from Washington to
compensate for lost trade
• And proposed constitutional amendments requiring a
2/3 vote in Congress before an embargo could be
imposed, new states admitted, or war declared
• Most demands reflected Federalist fears
• Delegates sought to abolish the 3/5 clause
• To limit presidents to a single term
IV. Federalist Grievances and the
Hartford Convention (cont.)
• To prohibit the election of two successive presidents
from the same state– this was aimed at Virginia and
the “Virginia dynasty”
– Three special envoys from Massachusetts carried
these demands to Washington:
• The Harford Convention was the death of the
Federalist party
• The Federalists were never again to mount a
successful presidential campaign (see Map 12.2)
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