United States of America

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4

The First Party Conflict

The financial policies of Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, aroused opposition from those who felt his measures neglected the agricultural class and favoured the bankers and manufacturers. The debates in Congress and elsewhere in 1790 and 1791 over Hamilton’s measures revealed a distinct cleavage in the political and economic ideas of the nation, and this division was soon manifested in the formation of the first two important political parties in US history: the Federalists and the Republicans.

The Federalists advocated a strong federal government existing to serve the national interest, guided by the educated and wealthy classes. The Republicans, whose outstanding leaders were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, believed in the ability of the common people to function as their own governmental officers and advocated strict limitation of federal powers and protection of states’ rights. The Federalist Party was supported by the moneyed and commercial interests, especially merchants in the north-eastern cities; the Republicans were supported mainly by farmers, particularly in the South and West, and by artisans and other urban workers.

The two parties also disagreed strongly on US foreign policy. Republicans sympathized with the ideology of the French Revolution and generally favoured France over Great Britain. Federalists saw the French Revolution as an example of chaotic subversion of established law and order, and favoured strict neutrality. President Washington inclined toward the Federalist viewpoint and in 1793 proclaimed a policy of US neutrality in the ongoing wars between Great Britain and France.

In domestic matters, antagonism between Federalists and Republicans built up steadily after Federalist suppression of the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Tensions finally climaxed in 1798, when the Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws, designed to silence all Republican criticism of Federalist policy, struck Republicans as unconstitutional infringements on the rights of free speech and press, and provided one of the main issues in the presidential election of 1800. The victory of Thomas Jefferson over John Adams signified a repudiation of the Federalist theory that government should be conducted by the “rich, the well born, and the able” and a triumph for the idea that ordinary people were fit to govern themselves. The Federalist Party, although it nominated presidential candidates until 1816, never again won a national election.

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Jefferson’s Presidency

The most important event in Jefferson’s first administration was the acquisition by the United States of the Louisiana territory, a vast area encompassing the lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. Ceded to Spain in 1762 during the French and Indian War, the land had been reacquired by France in 1800 through a secret treaty. The offer of Napoleon Bonaparte to sell the region for a mere $15 million was of such obvious benefit to the United States that in 1803 Jefferson concluded a treaty purchasing Louisiana from France and by this act, doubled the area of the United States. See Louisiana Purchase.

Jefferson was re-elected in 1804. His second administration was marked chiefly by growing tension in foreign affairs. In their intensifying wars against each other, both Britain and France adopted restrictive economic measures that injured neutral commerce, especially that of the United States. To force withdrawal of these measures, Jefferson had Congress pass a number of acts designed to deprive Britain and France of US goods and to exclude their products from the United States; the most important of these measures were the Non-Importation Act (1806), the Embargo Acts (1807, 1808), and the Non-Intercourse Act (1809).

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The War of 1812

These acts, and similar measures taken in the administration of Jefferson’s successor—James Madison, also a Republican—failed to change the policies of Britain and France and resulted in severe financial loss to US merchants and shipowners. Britain aroused special animosity, not only because its policies damaged US commerce, but also because the Royal Navy routinely stopped American merchant ships on the pretext of searching for naval deserters, and pressed many US citizens into service aboard British warships. President Madison hoped to resolve the crisis by diplomacy, but by June 1812 he could no longer resist congressional pressure. He sent Congress a message describing the outrages committed by Britain, and Congress responded with a declaration of war.

The War of 1812 settled none of the issues that had brought it about, but it nevertheless had three important results in the United States. It created a strong feeling of national union and pride; it destroyed the national political influence of the Federalists; and it ended the dominance of American political affairs by European events.

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7

Era of Good Feeling

In the decade following the War of 1812, the powers of the federal government were augmented by several important decisions of the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, that limited various legislative and executive powers of the states. The national territory also expanded during the decade, when Spain ceded Florida (then East Florida) to the United States in 1819; West Florida, a strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico extending westward from East Florida to the mouth of the Mississippi River, had been forcibly annexed by the United States in 1810. In foreign affairs, the strong national spirit was demonstrated chiefly in the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine, a statement of policy by President James Monroe that announced the determination of the United States to prevent any further colonization by European nations in either South or North America. The statement thus implied the United States would aid the South American republics, formed in the first quarter of the 19th century by revolt from Spain, in defence of their independence.

This period of strong national unity, often referred to as the Era of Good Feeling, was, however, a prelude to an era of strife between various sections of the nation over economic, social, and political issues that was destined to continue for four decades and culminate in the American Civil War (1861-1865).

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8

Westward Migration

By this time, the West, the region lying west of the Allegheny Mountains, had been settled by people from the seaboard colonies or states in two successive waves of migration. The first began after the region was secured to Britain from the French by its victory in 1763 in the French and Indian War, and then won from Britain during the American War of Independence; it continued to the end of the 18th century. By the last decade of the century many sections of the frontier territories had become sufficiently populated to enter the Union. Vermont, a frontier region settled chiefly by New Englanders, became a state in 1791; Kentucky, in 1792; Tennessee, in 1796; and Ohio, in 1803. The westward movement slackened during Jefferson’s first administration, which was characterized by business prosperity in the East. When restrictions on business caused economic troubles in the East, beginning about 1806, the westward movement resumed and a second wave of migration took place. It resulted in the addition to the Union of the states of Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), and Alabama (1819).