4. THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC GETS UP AND RUNNING

LEADERSHIP SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF THE REPUBLIC

Washington's Vice President John Adams was barely elected as the next President.  

Adams was a small man with very big ambitions – but also very measured in the way he worked out the moral lines of events going on around him, and what he expected of himself in response.  He was always subject to a battle that raged within between the strict Puritan structuring he underwent growing up – and his desire to prove himself as a man ahead of the times.  His father was disappointed that John's Harvard education led not to the ministry but instead to the law – the son seeing in the law a better road to the greatness that he hungered for so deeply. 

But his Puritan side would put his law practice under moral restraints that lawyers do not usually worry about.  Thus it was that Adams provided the defense in court of the Redcoats who fired on the Boston mob that was assaulting them, potentially putting him in great disfavor with the Bostonians – but instead earning a degree of admiration for his bravery, such that took him several steps down the road of greatness that he sought.

Then speaking and publishing strong defenses of the rights of the colonies to oppose the King's attack on their long-standing ability to govern themselves fully, he put himself out in the lead of the growing movement against the king. This earned him the appointment as a Massachusetts delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, the latter which asked him to head up a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence. The fact that he let Jefferson take the initiative rather than he himself in actually providing the original draft – and thus Jefferson gaining fame forever for doing so – would remain for Adams a perpetual torment!

Adams served on a number of committees of Congress over the next years.  Then from 1778 onward he was sent back and forth (along with Franklin) to Paris to develop a working alliance with the French.  And he too was part of the discussions that produced the Treaty of Paris formally ending the war in 1783.  But in the meantime, he had also been working with the Dutch to coordinate with them their role in supporting American independence – and Dutch banks in helping post-war America financially.   Then in 1785 he was sent to London as America's first Ambassador to the Court of St. James (as that position has always been known).  While there, he contributed his own excellent writings in support of the adoption of the new American Constitution (which, because he was in England at the time, he had no direct part in drawing up).

By this time he was so well known in America that he came in second in the Presidential vote – and thus, by the understanding at the time, the recipient of the position as America's first Vice President.  But as& Adams would come to discover, it was a position with a title only, and no real political power or importance of any kind.  But finally it did put him in position to run for the presidency when Washington stepped down.

And thus in 1796 he was elected President (barely) over his competitor Jefferson – and only when the election was placed in the hands of the House of Representatives because no candidate had a majority of votes.  In the House, Hamilton and his Federalist supporters finally decided that they disliked Jefferson more than they disliked Adams!  Thus in electing Adams to the presidency, this made runner-up Jefferson the new Vice President – and Hamilton even more greatly disliked by Jefferson and his Republicans.  In the end this action in support of Adams put Hamilton on the Republican hate list.^[3] 

Adams as President.  In any case, with Adams as President, he had to face the fact that it was now the French who were seizing American ships – embarrassing Jefferson and the pro-French Republicans.  Hamilton and the Federalists now called for war against the French.  It was all that Adams could do to keep tempers cooled down – especially with the "XYZ Affair" that scandalized Americans when Americans were sent to try to solve this problem, but were told they would first have to pay enormous bribes to French agents (self-identified only as X, Y and Z) in order to get discussions going.  They refused.  Consequently, Americans became even more enraged at hearing of the French behavior.

Then in 1798, Congress passed (and unfortunately Adams signed) the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts, which branded as punishable "traitors" anyone (principally Jefferson's Republicans) who supported France – or who opposed the position of the President or the heavily Federalist Congress.  They would be subject to expulsion from the country.

By the next year (1799) it seemed as if America was actually at war with France (the "Quasi War") on the high seas.  And with a large sweep of the 1798 congressional elections by the Federalists, the demand for an actual declaration of war was now very strong. 

It was at this point the doctrine of "nullification" began to be discussed openly by the Republicans – as they claimed that sovereign rights in the new Federation belonged with the States and the people, not the Federalist-dominated Congress.  And any laws that Congress might want to pass (such as the Alien and Sedition Laws) could simply be nullified by a decision of the states.  The congressional majority of course ignored the challenge.  But the right of nullification by the states of decisions made in the nation's capital would be heard all the way up to the outbreak of the Civil War some 60 years later.

In the end, to avoid war at all costs, Adams sent an envoy to Paris to work out some kind of understanding with the French that could reduce diplomatic tensions.  The envoy came back with a treaty in which the French agreed to leave American ships alone – a treaty which Adams signed – understanding that this would hardly satisfy the war-hungry Federalists, nor bring the angry Republicans back to a cooperative spirit in Congress. In fact, he understood that by signing it he was undercutting any chance he had of victory in the elections coming up only a month away.  He was right.  But it was a brave thing to do – sparing the country from a war it did not need to fight.

One final act of Adams just as he was about to leave office was the rush to sign some six dozen appointments to positions in the Federal Judiciary – including the all-important appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court the Virginian (but, exceptional for the Virginian group, a very strong Federalist), John Marshall.  This action would not only upset the wave of new Republicans voted to Congress – but would put at the head of the American judiciary an individual who in so many ways would rewrite the American Constitution with respect to the role that the Federal Courts would come to play in the nation's political affairs – putting in the hands of the Supreme Court justices powers never intended by the Constitution's original Framers.

Anyway, having completed his service as the country's second president, Adams slipped quietly out of the new capital at Washington, D.C., as America's new president, Jefferson, was sworn into office there.

^[3]In 1804, Aaron Burr shot and killed Hamilton in a pistol duel over insulting comments Hamilton had made in letters about Burr as Republican candidate to the position of New York governor, comments Hamilton intended to remain private but got printed somehow.

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LIFE SETTLES IN NICELY AT HOME IN THE NEW REPUBLIC

   

  

Philadelphia - 1799
Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia street scene



Tontine Coffee House in New York City – (around 1797)
New York Historical Society

Boston – 1800

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JEFFERSON AS PRESIDENT

And once in office Jefferson began to undo the Federalist legacy – by removing the land taxes imposed on the farmers – making him very popular in the South and the West – and shifting the source of revenue to customs duties imposed on (largely Northern) imports and exports.  He also raised revenue by selling (quite cheaply) Western land to new settlers – another very popular move among Westerners or those headed West – which came at a great cost to the Indians living there of course!   Thus Jefferson built the Republican Party into a great political powerhouse.

To Jefferson's great credit,^[4] it was during the early years of his presidency that America purchased from the French the huge Louisiana territory to the West of the Mississippi (the Indians living there not being consulted on this matter, of course) – blocking the possibility of any European power getting there before the Americans – who were spreading westward rapidly.  This purchase effectively doubled the land claim of the American nation! 

These were the two Americans who actually negotiated
the purchase of the entire Louisiana Territory

And in great part this bargain purchase had been made possible because American public finances had such a very strong credit rating – due to Hamilton's monetary policies, ones that Jefferson had so recently hated intensely!

Lewis and Clark explore this new region.  What it was that America had exactly come to in this Louisiana Purchase was largely unknown to its new owners.  Thus Jefferson commissioned Captain Meriwether Lewis (accompanied by William Clark) and a team of fifty men to explore this new territory (1804-1806).^[5]  They followed the Missouri River West, hoping to find a water route to the Pacific.  But as winter set in they found themselves bogged down in the Dakotas, and thankfully were able to bring on a French fur trapper and his Indian wife Sacajawea to guide them westward.  The next summer they reached the Rocky Mountains, crossed them, and in November finally arrived at the Pacific Ocean.  They wintered there, then in early 1806 began their trek back East, arriving in St. Louis as heroes.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea
Montana House of Representatives

Zebulon Pike
led two additional explorations into the American West 
(1805-1806 and 1806-1807)

To the shores of Tripoli.  Further to his credit, Jefferson had the navy tackle the problem of Muslim pirates operating out of the Mediterranean towns of North Africa.  Jefferson refused to pay tribute any longer (formerly paid out to release hostages or just prevent attacks on American shipping in the Mediterranean), instead sending American ships in concert with the Italian King of Naples against the pirates.  This worked somewhat – but would need the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 before the task could be completed.

The bombardment of the harbor at Tripoli (August 3, 1805)
U.S. Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis

Jefferson takes command of American foreign trade.  But on the negative side of his political balance sheet, Jefferson imposed an embargo on the sale of American goods to Britain, in response to the ongoing British impressment of American sailors – the logic of this move being that this would deprive the British of vital American goods and bring Britain to its senses.  But Jefferson's commercial boycott served only to make America appear to the British to be clearly a French ally – at a time when French dictator Napoleon, who had managed to seize control of nearly all continental Europe, had also placed an embargo on all European trade with Britain – in an effort to collapse the British economy.  So England's response to Jefferson's policy was to become more, not less aggressive, against America – at a time that Jefferson had weakened considerably America's own military capabilities.

Jefferson decided to extend the same restriction against trade with France as well, shutting down pretty much all of America's export business – and nearly collapsing the American economy.

Jefferson cuts back on the navy.  To make bad matters even worse, Jefferson then chose to meet the European challenge by not building more warships (frigates), the likes of which had proven themselves so capably in the war with the Barbary states.  He figured that not having a fighting navy would help keep Americans from making the mistake of wanting to go to war with either France or Britain.^[6]  Instead he chose to build a number of much smaller gunboats.  These would not be terribly effective in defending American shipping overseas, but certainly could be used to help prevent the American smuggling that his embargo encouraged.

Thus it was that Jefferson continued to see himself not as a warrior but as "a man of peace" – unable to understand how international power actually works, and consequently leaving America increasingly vulnerable to European power politics abroad – and vengeful Indians at home.

It is also important to note that for one who had been so loud about protecting "states' rights" against the assumption of autocratic power by an uncontrolled government in Washington, Jefferson had no problems personally acting in such an autocratic fashion when he himself was president (imposing his restrictions on American trade and downsizing America's military defenses).

But of course Jefferson was among the most "enlightened" of Americans, and that justified his autocracy (as "enlightenment" always does!).

But thankfully, just as he was about to leave office in 1809, Jefferson somehow awoke finally to the realization of the magnitude of the disaster his economic policies had produced – and he finally repealed his ill-conceived embargo.  And the American economy soon revived.

^[4]Actually, such credit belongs to his envoys sent to France, Livingston and Monroe, who were originally authorized to purchase (for an amount not to exceed $10 million) only the town of New Orleans located near the mouth of the Mississippi River – but who on their own authority answered with an immediate "yes" when Napoleon offered them the entire Louisiana Territory for $15 million.  In part this came about so easily for the Americans because Napoleon was short on funding at the time and found American money rather than American land more supportive of his ambitions.