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CHAPTER 8 Securing the Republic, 1790–1815
This chapter concentrates on the political history of the new nation as it enlarged its boundaries and solidified its
independence. Starting with George Washington’s inauguration, the chapter explains how the founding fathers
believed that the preservation of liberty and freedom for the republic relied on the success of the American
experiment in self-government. Contrasting views as to how America should develop economically and how its
government should operate emerged with the formation of America’s first political parties in the early 1790s.
Federalists supported Alexander Hamilton’s program for economic growth, while Republicans embraced Thomas
Jefferson’s vision of an agrarian republic. These different points of view fostered political debates that enlarged the
public sphere. The chapter also explores the rights of women as a way of illustrating expanding ideas about who
and France led to economic crises at home and a cry for war from the War Hawks. In addition, British support for
the activities of Tecumseh, a Shawnee urging a united Indian response to white American encroachment on Indian
lands, alarmed War Hawks. President James Madison, Jefferson’s immediate successor, declared war against Great
Britain in 1812, and although the war ended by preserving the status quo, it did solidify American independence and
freedom from Britain for good. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature) includes “On the Equality of
the Sexes” (1790), a piece by Judith Sargent Murray asking for increased rights for women. Another document,
from the “Address of the Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania” (1794), calls for an enlargement of the
public sphere. In the Who Is an American? section, Tecumseh, a Native American leader, speaks to the Osage
(1810) about the need for a pan-Indian identity in the face of an expanding American nation.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction: George Washington’s Inauguration
a. His speech expressed the revolutionary generation’s conviction that it had embarked on an enormous
experiment in forming a republican model of government.
II. Politics in an Age of Passion
A. Hamilton’s Program
1. As secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton’s long-range goal was to make the United States a
major commercial and military power.
2. His program had five parts:
a. Create creditworthiness by assuming state debts
3. He also proposed creation of a national army to deal with uprisings like Shays’s Rebellion.
B. The Emergence of Opposition
1. Opposition to Hamilton’s plan was voiced by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
a. Hamilton’s plan depended on a close relationship with Britain.
b. Opponents believed the United States’ future lay westward, not with Britain.
c. Opponents feared threats to freedom and corruption.
C. The Jefferson-Hamilton Bargain
1. At first, opposition to Hamilton’s program arose almost entirely from the South.
2. Hamilton argued that the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution justified his program.
capital on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia.
D. The Impact of the French Revolution
1. The French Revolution became very radical by 1793, and France went to war with Britain.
2. Despite its radicalism, Jefferson and his followers wanted to support France’s attempt at self-
government.
2. Washington dispatched 13,000 troops to western Pennsylvania to put down the rebellion.
a. He accompanied them part of the way.
G. The Republican Party
1. Republicans were more sympathetic to France and had more faith in democratic self-government.
a. The party was led by Jefferson and Madison.
2. Political language became more and more heated.
a. Each party charged the other with betraying the principles of the American Revolution.
H. An Expanding Public Sphere
1. The political debates of the 1790s expanded the public sphere.
2. Newspapers and pamphlets were a primary vehicle for political debate.
a. William Manning’s The Key of Liberty is one example.
I. The Democratic-Republican Societies
1. Supporters of the French Revolution and critics of the Washington administration formed nearly fifty
Democratic-Republican Societies in 1793–1794.
2. The societies argued that political liberty meant not simply voting at elections but also constant
involvement in public affairs.
a. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature) includes an address from the Democratic-
Republican Society of Pennsylvania (1794) defending freedom of speech in criticizing the
administration of President George Washington.
3. Societies disappeared by 1795, but their outlook and organization were absorbed into the Republican
Party.
4. The Republican Party gained support from political dissenters emigrating from the British Isles.
J. The Rights of Women
1. The expansion of the public sphere offered women an opportunity to take part in political discussions, read
newspapers, and hear orations.
2. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
the Equality of the Sexes,” arguing for equal educational opportunities for women.
III. The Adams Presidency
A. The Election of 1796
1. Adams won with seventy-one electoral votes, and Jefferson, with sixty-eight electoral votes, became
vice president.
2. His presidency was beset by crises.
B. The “Reign of Witches”
1. The Alien and Sedition Acts limited civil liberties.
2. The main target was the Republican press.
a. Ten were convicted, including a congressman and several newspaper editors.
C. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
D. The “Revolution of 1800”
1. Jefferson defeated Adams in the 1800 presidential campaign.
2. A constitutional crisis emerged with the election.
a. Jefferson and Burr finished tied, with seventy-three electoral votes.
b. The House decided the election, with Hamilton swinging votes to Jefferson.
E. Slavery and Politics
1. Jefferson’s election as president was aided by the three-fifths clause, which gave a disproportionate number
of electoral votes to southern states.
2. The first Congress received petitions calling for emancipation, which set off a long sectional debate in
that body.
3. In 1793, Congress adopted a law to enforce the Constitution’s fugitive slave clause.
F. The Haitian Revolution
1. Events during the 1790s underscored how powerfully slavery defined and distorted American freedom.
2. A successful slave uprising led by Toussaint L’Ouverture established Haiti as an independent nation in
1804.
a. Adams, hoping to gain Haiti’s sugar trade, supported the revolution.
b. Jefferson, however, sought to quarantine and destroy Haiti.
G. Gabriel’s Rebellion
1. A slave rebellion was attempted in Virginia in 1800.
2. The conspiracy was rooted in Richmond’s black community.
3. Gabriel spoke the language of liberty forged in the American Revolution and reinvigorated during the
1790s.
4. Gabriel and twenty-five others were executed before the rebellion started.
5. Virginia’s slave laws became stricter.
IV. Jefferson in Power
1. Jefferson’s inaugural address was conciliatory toward his opponents.
2. However, he hoped to dismantle as much of the Federalist system as possible.
A. Judicial Review
1. John Marshall, a strong believer in national supremacy, was chief justice of the Supreme Court.
2. Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the precedent of the Court’s power of judicial review relative to
federal laws.
3. Fletcher v. Peck (1810) extended judicial review to state laws.
B. The Louisiana Purchase
1. To purchase Louisiana, Jefferson had to abandon his conviction that the federal government was limited
C. Lewis and Clark
1. Lewis and Clark’s objective was both scientific and commercial.
2. Their journey from 1804 to 1806 brought invaluable information and paved the way for a
transcontinental country.
D. Incorporating Louisiana
1. In 1803, New Orleans was the only part of the Louisiana Purchase territory with a significant non-
Indian population.
2. Louisiana’s slaves had enjoyed far more freedom under the rule of Spain than they would as part of the
liberty-loving United States.
E. The Barbary Wars
1. European wars directly influenced the livelihood of American farmers, merchants, and artisans.
a. Jefferson hoped to avoid foreign entanglements.
a. This was the United States’ first encounter with the Islamic world.
F. The Embargo
1. War between France and Great Britain hurt American trade.
a. Britain resumed impressment.
2. The Embargo Act resulted in a crippled U.S. economy.
a. It was replaced with the Non-Intercourse Act.
G. Madison and Pressure for War
1. Macon’s Bill no. 2 allowed trade to resume.
2. War Hawks called for war against Britain.
a. They wished to annex Canada, and some southern War Hawks wanted Florida.
V. The “Second War for Independence”
A. The Indian Response
1. Jefferson hoped to move Indians west of the Mississippi River.
2. By 1800, nearly 400,000 Americans lived west of the Appalachian Mountains.
3. The period from 1800 to 1812 was an “age of prophecy” among Indians as they sought to regain their
autonomy.
B. The War of 1812
1. Madison asked for war for the sake of national pride.
2. The government found it difficult to finance the war.
3. Americans enjoyed few military successes.
a. The British invaded Washington, D.C., and burned the White House.
4. Eventually, Britain compensated millions of dollars for the loss of slave property.
C. The War’s Aftermath
1. The conflict confirmed the ability of a republican government to conduct a war without surrendering its
institutions.
2. More importantly, the war completed the conquest east of the Mississippi River
a. Never again would the British or Indians threaten American control of this region.
b. American settlers poured into the Midwest and the future states of Alabama and Mississippi.
D. The War of 1812 and the Canadian Borderland
1. The war solidified the border between the United States and Canada.
4. The war also strengthened a growing sense of national identity in Canada.
E. The End of the Federalist Party
1. The Hartford Convention was a meeting of disgruntled Federalists.
2. It asked for:
a. amendment of the three-fifths clause
b. the declaration-of-war vote to be two-thirds
c. the right of a state to “interpose” its authority with regard to federal law that it saw as
unconstitutional
3. Jackson’s victory at New Orleans overshadowed Federalist demands.
a. Within a few years, the party disappeared.
4. Federalists raised an issue—southern domination of government—that long outlived their party.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• Describe how and why political parties arose.
• Explain why Thomas Jefferson thought Alexander Hamilton’s economic system “flowed from principles
adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine and demolish the republic.”
• Who did Gabriel think might support his rebellion and why? How was the language of liberty and freedom
invoked by Gabriel?
• Why was Napoleon willing to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States?
• Describe the ironies of the Jefferson administration. Compare his views toward a strong central government and
• Discuss the views of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson regarding their interpretations of the
Constitution, whether the national government was supreme, and their visions of the future America.
SUPPLEMENTAL WEB AND VISUAL RESOURCES
Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton Biography
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/ham/hamilton.html
This site is a useful resource for exploring Hamilton’s political battles as a constitutional reformer. It also includes his
background and his changing image through time.
James Madison
http://millercenter.org/president/madison
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia hosts this webpage with links to essays on Madison. There is also a fact sheet
about his presidency.
John and Abigail Adams
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/adams
American Experience has a special called John & Abigail Adams. The subtitle, Meet the Original Power Couple, captures the
flavor of this dynamic story.
Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Jefferson’s Blood (PBS Frontline series, 1 hr.)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/
This fascinating documentary proves that Jefferson fathered one or more children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.
Lewis and Clark
www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/
This website contains numerous links related to the 1997 documentary about Lewis and Clark produced by Ken Burns. The
“Into the Unknown” link is for an interactive game where the player gets to be Lewis and Clark.
Tecumseh and Native American Resistance
Tecumseh’s Vision (PBS American Experience series, 2009, 82 mins.)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/
Episode 2 of the acclaimed We Shall Remain series of Native American history examines the pan-Indian movement of the
Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa.
SUPPLEMENTAL PRINT RESOURCES
Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Appleby, Joyce. Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Balieck, Barry. “When the Ends Justify the Means: Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase.” Presidential Studies
Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1992): 679–696.
Bolster, W. Jeffrey. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Cornell, Saul. The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788–1828. Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
Dowd, Gregory. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Georgia Press, 2015.
Read, James. Power versus Liberty: Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Jefferson. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2000.
Skeen, C. Edward. Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1999.
Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812. New York: Vintage Books, 2010.
Taylor, Alan. The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
Thomas, Ray. “ ‘Not One Cent for Tribute’: The Public Addresses and American Popular Reaction to the XYZ Affair.” Journal
of the Early American Republic 34, no. 3 (1983): 389–412.
Tise, Larry. The American Counter-Revolution: A Retreat from Liberty, 1783–1800. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999.
Tucker, Robert, and David Hendrickson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990.
Wallace, Anthony. Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999.
Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
INTERACTIVE INSTRUCTOR ACTIVITIES
1. Classroom Jury: The Duel
Place the duel between Hamilton and Burr in focus by forming a jury of the students to determine which man was morally and
1. Why did the duel take place from Hamilton and Burr’s different perspectives?
2. What did the newspaper media and the public write and think about the duel?
3. What role did national and state politics play in the lives of both men?
4. Which man do you think was “right” morally and politically regarding the duel?
2. Group Debate: The War of 1812
Turn the class into interest groups to answer questions surrounding the causes and impact of the War of 1812 based on the
1. Why does it appear that the war will take place?
2. How will the war potentially impact local Native American populations in the East and West?
3. In what ways will the war shape trade relationships between the U.S. and Europe in the short and long term?
4. Who do you think will win the war? Why?
5. How will the war be remembered by future generations of American, European, and Native American people?
