FEDERALIST ERA

• CHAPTER 4

FORMING THE GOVERNMENT

• Since all of this was brand new, some ideas that we take for granted had to be developed.

• First question was, who was to help the President? The solution was called the Cabinet. The Cabinet is a group made up of all the heads of all the departments of the government, such as State, Treasury, etc.

Does the Bill of Rights apply to the States as well as the Federal

Government?

• When the Constitution was first written, it was written to apply only to the Federal government. The reason for this was that the central government’s power was what everyone feared, so they wrote the Constitution to only apply to it.

• Later, the Bill of Rights in incorporated, or added to the constitutions of the states. But this is much later.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON• Alexander Hamilton was one

of the most impressive individuals in Washington’s cabinet. He was the Secretary of the Treasury and so he was in charge of the nation’s finances.

• Hamilton was a strong Federalist, so he believed that the central government should be strong so that it could assist the financial growth of the country.

• To do this, Hamilton wanted the Federal government to take on the war debts of the states

THE WAR DEBT

• Each individual state had paid for its’ own part in the Revolution. The way they did this was to see Bonds.

• Bonds are notes that the government sells to its’ citizens promising to pay a high interest rate at a later date.

• For example, if the state sold you a bond for $5 today, all you had to do was to hold onto it for 2 years and then the state would give you $20 dollars when you redeemed it.

• The states sold millions of dollars worth of bonds to its’ citizens. It did this to pay for the war, but it also made the citizens want the state to succeed so they would get paid back. This is called a vested interest.

HAMILTON’S PLAN

• Hamilton wanted the Federal government to assume the debts of the states. He had a couple of reasons for wanting to do this.

• First, he wanted the states in a position of owing something to the Federal government.

• Second, the wealthy people of each state held most of the bonds. Hamilton wanted the upper classes to support the Federal Government in the future and also to buy more bonds to expand the government.

JEFFERSON AND MADISON OPPOSE HAMILTON’S PLAN

• Thomas Jefferson believed that the central government should remain weak and the states should have the most power. He opposed the Constitution, he was a leading Anti Federalist. He was head of the Democratic/Republicans, a political party dedicated to small government.

• Jefferson opposed Hamilton’s plan because he said the Constitution wouldn’t allow it and because it would make the states weaker.

• Madison had different reasons for opposing the plan. • First of all, Madison was from Virginia and Virginia had already paid off its’ bonds, so the assumption of the debt

would not help it. • Second, Madison said that northerners owned 80% of the bonds and the money would be used to pay off the

north’s debts. The tax money used to pay for this would come from southern states that had already paid off their debt.

• Lastly, speculators or people that take a business or investment risk now for future profit, had bought up most of the bonds. If the Federal government assumed the debt, it would simply be paying off gamblers.

The Compromise• The Capital of the United States in 1790 was in New York. The

capital was too small and plans were being made to build a new capital on neutral ground. The last thing left was to decide where. The Northerners obviously wanted it in the North, just as the Southerners wanted it in their territory.

• Jefferson wanted the capital to be in the South.• Hamilton knew this and proposed a compromise to Jefferson.• If Jefferson and his party, the Democratic/Republicans would

support the Federal assumption of the state debts, then Hamilton and the Federalists would support the building the new capital in Virginia

• Jefferson agreed and in July of 1790, the deal went through.• Hamilton got his plan and Jefferson got his city, Washington D.C.

THE NATIONAL BANK

• Also as part of his plan, Hamilton also wanted to create a National Bank to store the nations’ tax dollars, to issue and support currency (money) and to make loans or subsidize new businesses.

• Madison opposed the bank. He said that the Constitution was a document of Enumerated Powers and that the power to create a National Bank was not on the list.

• Enumerated Powers are powers that are listed in the Constitution.

The National Bank

• Hamilton responded to Madison’s opposition by saying that there were enumerated powers, but there are also implied powers.

• For example, the Constitution says that the government has the power to tax. Hamilton said that if they had that power, they would also have to have a place to put the money, they couldn’t keep it in the White House.

• Implied powers are powers needed to actually do the things that enumerated powers ordered the government to do.

WASHINGTON’S PRESIDENCY

• Because he was the first president, Washington spent a lot of time setting precedents or patterns for later presidents

• He was president for two terms (8 years) and no other president had more than 2 terms except for Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and the Second World War. He held office for 12 years and after him an amendment was passed to limit presidents to two terms.

• He set the pattern for calling him “Mr. President”. His aides thought about calling him “your lordship” but Washington thought that was too much like what they fought the Revolution to get away from, so he just made it “Mr. President” and it has been ever since.

• One of the most enduring things he did was give a Farewell Address.

• In his Farewell, Washington warned against “getting involved in foreign entanglements”. What he was talking about was staying out of European wars. What happened is that the US maintained what is called an “isolationist” policy for the next 100 years.

ADAMS’ PRESIDENCY

• The second president was John Adams. He had been the First Vice President.

• He was a dedicated Federalist. He was more activist than Washington, which means that he used the office more.

• He was presented with a number of problems that no one had predicted.

• The first was how to deal with the French.

The XYZ Affair and the Quasi War

• The French and British were involved in another war. Both of them were stopping US ships at sea and seizing or impressing sailors that they said were deserters from the French or British navy. Sometimes this was true, sometimes not but it was still humiliating to the US.

• Adams sent Charles Pinckney, Elbridge Gerry and John Marshall to Paris to negotiate for the end to this process.

• They had to meet with the French Foreign Minister, Talleyrand. Talleyrand and others demanded a bribe to get the negotiations going.

• The Americans refused and sent a letter to Adams describing this. This event was called the XYZ Affair. This made relations between the US and France worse.

• At this time, the US was fighting an undeclared war with the French at sea.

THE ALIEN AND SEDITION ACT1798

• The elections in 1798 were particularly vicious. Both sides accused each other of corruption and the Federalists accused the Republicans with being Pro-French.

• Because it was so vicious, the newspapers got involved and some attacked the President.

• The Federalists passed a series of laws that made it illegal to prints “malicious or scandalous” against the government.

• The government arrested 15 newspaper editors, all of whom were Democratic/Republicans.

• This was obviously in violation of the 1st Amendment right of freedom of the press, but no one knew what to do.

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

• The issue of the Sedition Act was that it was obviously unconstitutional, but up to now, no one knew who could declare a law unconstitutional.

• Was it the President? Was it the Congress? Was it the Court?

• Thomas Jefferson and James Madison thought they knew who could decide – the states.

• Each of them went back to their home states, Virginia and Kentucky and wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.

• The Resolutions said that the states and ONLY the states could decide if a law was constitutional and, if not, declare it NULL.

The Election of 1800• The election of 1800 was special for a

number of reasons.• First, it was the first of the new, 19th

century• Second and most important, it was

obvious that Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans were going to win the Presidency and the Congress.

• This was important because the Federalists, who supported a strong central government, had been in office for the last 12 years. Now the Democratic/Republicans, who were in favor of a weak central government were going to be in charge.

• Jefferson called this election a “revolution” because it was going to be a change as big as the American Revolution.

JOHN MARSHALL• The longest serving Chief Justice in

Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Court for over three decades (a term outliving his own Federalist Party) and played a significant role in the development of the American legal system. Most notably, he established that the courts are entitled to exercise judicial review, the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. Thus, Marshall has been credited with cementing the position of the judiciary as an independent and influential branch of government. Furthermore, the Marshall Court made several important decisions relating to federalism, shaping the balance of power between the federal government and the states during the early years of the republic. In particular, he repeatedly confirmed the supremacy of federal law over state law and supported an expansive reading of the enumerated powers

MARBURY V. MADISON1803

• Marbury v. Madison was the first time the Supreme Court declared something "unconstitutional," and established the concept of judicial review in the U.S. (the idea that courts may oversee and nullify the actions of another branch of government). The landmark decision helped define the "checks and balances" of the American form of government.

LOUISIANA PURCHASE

• The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of 828,800 square miles of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803.

• The U.S. paid 15 million dollars for the Louisiana territory.

LOUISIANA PURCHASE

Napoleon was preparing to invade Russia in 1802 and he needed money.

He had inherited the Louisiana Territory in America after he conquered Spain.

He thought at first that he would set up a new empire in America, so he sent an army to Santo Domingo to prepare. The army was destroyed by malaria and the slave armies of Toussaint l’Overture, so he decided to sell the Louisiana Territory.

Jefferson wanted to buy New Orleans because it controlled all the trade on the Mississippi River.

He was offered the whole of the Louisiana Territory for 15 million dollars.

At first Jefferson wasn’t sure he had the constitutional authority to buy the land, but the deal was too good to pass up.

CORPS OF DISCOVERY1805

LEWIS AND CLARK

• The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 sparked interest in expansion to the West Coast of the American continent. The United States did not know precisely what it was buying and France was unsure of how much land it was selling. A few weeks after the purchase, President Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of western expansion, had Congress appropriate $2,500 for an expedition.

LEWIS AND CLARK• In 1803, President

Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery as a scientific expedition to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase.

• The expedition's goal was "to explore the Missouri River and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, In addition, the expedition was to learn more about the Northwest's natural resources,

• Jefferson selected U.S. Army Captain Meriwether Lewis–his aide and personal friend–to lead the Corps of Discovery. Lewis selected William Clark as his partner.

LEWIS AND CLARK

• They left St. Louis in 1804 on the Missouri River.

• The expedition collected specimens plants and animals and were the first white men to see the Great Plains, The Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide.

• It is one of the greatest adventures in history.

THE WAR OF 1812• Back in the east, things were not going so

well.• British impressment of US sailors was

causing a problem• Another problem was that as the US

expanded west, they put pressure on the British forts that were still in the wilderness.

• This expansion was the primary reason for the War of 1812.

• It was a war without resolution to a large extent. The British captured and burned Washington D.C.

• Andrew Jackson, a frontier aristocrat, used frontiersmen to defeat the British forces at the Battle of New Orleans.

• This made Andrew Jackson a national hero and eventually led to his being elected president.

• The other big result of the War of 1812 was a sense of Nationalism or National Pride in America. This was the first time the people of the US had actually felt they were part of something important.

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS

• The Era of Good Feelings (1817–25) was a period in United States history in which partisan bitterness abated.

• It lasted approximately 1816-1824, during the administration of U.S. President James Monroe, who deliberately downplayed partisanship.

• The political bitterness declined because the Federalists had largely dissolved and were no longer attacking the president, then causing an era of good feeling because there was only one political party, the Democratic/Republicans.

PROTECTIVE TARIFFS

• A tariff is a tax placed on imported and/or exported goods, sometimes called a customs duty.

• A revenue tariff is set with the intent of raising money for the government.

• A protective tariff, usually applied to imported goods, is intended to artificially inflate prices of imports and "protect" domestic industries from foreign competition.

McCulloch v. Maryland• McCulloch v. Maryland, (1819), was a landmark decision by the

Supreme Court of the United States. • The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a

branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland.

• Though the law was generally applicable to all banks it was obvious that it specifically targeted the U.S. Bank.

• The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution which allowed the Federal government to pass laws not expressly provided for in the Constitution's list of express powers

• This fundamental case established the following two principles:– The Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing

the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. The idea of Implied Powers was reinforced.

– State action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.

MONROE DOCTRINE1823

• The Monroe Doctrine is a United States policy that was introduced on December 2, 1823, which stated that further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed by the United States of America as acts of aggression requiring US intervention. The Monroe Doctrine asserted that the Western Hemisphere was not to be further colonized by European countries.

• It was actually written by the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams.