Revolution & Foundation:XYZ and the Revolution of 1800

“Revolution and Blood”(Political Science 565)

Essays

• HARD COPY due in class, Wednesday Oct. 10• 5-7 pages• Prompts posted at course website:

adamgomez.wordpress.com/teaching/polisci565

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Prompts• 1. Argue for or against the constitutionality of the Alien Acts. Your

argument must reference the Constitution and the Alien Acts themselves, and may also refer to the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers.

• 2. Does the Federalist or Anti-Federalist/Jeffersonian position better match Thomas Paine's political thought? To what extent are his ideas represented in the US Constitution? Respond with reference to at least Paine, the Constitution, and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers.

• 3. What relationship(s), if any, exist between morality and democratic/republican government in the political thought of the Founding and Constitutional eras? Respond with reference to at least four texts from the course so far (the Federalist and Anti-Federalist count as one text each).

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Essays

• Your paper must have:• A thesis statement

• One to three sentences, in the first paragraph• Clearer is better. Thesis should be argumentative:

– “In this paper I will discuss the causes of the Civil War.” -- NOT a thesis statement.

– “Slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War.” -- Acceptable.

– “The primary cause of the Civil War was slavery, which produced economic, political, and moral conflicts between North and South that ultimately could not be resolved by peaceful means.” -- Better.

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Essays• Double spaced• No works cited page required• Page numbers

• 5 page minimum, less will count against grade• Paragraphs.

– Seriously, you have to have paragraphs.• Also, no swearing or text abbreviations.

– For heaven’s sake, people.• Citations

– Ok to cite lecture. Refer to it by lecture number– Best to show you’ve done the reading by citing parts of text not quoted in

lecture– MUST cite & quote the texts appropriate to your chosen prompt.

• Use embedded citations, like this (Paine, 25) or (Washington, Farewell Address) or (Constitution, Article I, Section 2)

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Essays

• Standard margins, font size, line spacing, etc.– Your grader was an undergraduate once, he knows

about Courier New and big margins.• While grammar is not a major element in your

grades, it does matter.– If your I don’t understand what you’re saying, I don’t

understand what you’re saying.• Papers MUST be submitted to turnitin.com

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XYZ Affair & the Quasi-War

• 1789: French Revolution begins– Tensions rise w/US gov’t

• 1792: French Revolutionary Wars begin– France vs. Europe

• France & Britain seize ships of neutral nations that trade w/their enemies– 1796: Jay Treaty w/Britain ends this practice,

increases tensions w/France– Federalists favor Britain, Democratic-Republicans

favore France

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XYZ Affair & the Quasi-War• March 1797: France refuses to accept Charles Pinckney as

ambassador• May 1797: special commission to France: Charles Pinckney, John

Marshall, Elbridge Gerry– Baron Jean-Conrad Hottinguer (“X”) meets Pinckney

• In return, for ending attacks on American ships, demands large loan to French gov’t, £50,000 bribe to French foreign minister Charles Talleyrand – Demand repeated by Talleyrand associates Pierre Bellamy (“Y”) and

Lucien Hauteval• During brief peace in Revolutionary Wars, France threatens open

war if conditions not met– Pinckney: “No, no, not a sixpence!”– Commission returns to US without peace

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XYZ Affair & the Quasi-War• Releasing documents to Congress, Adams codes

French names X, Y, and Z• Democratic-Republicans (Jeffersonians) in Congress

demand full release of documents, which triggers wave of popular anti-French sentiment, damaging Democratic Republicans in 1798 elections

• Alien & Sedition Acts intended to prevent foreign subversion, damage Democratic-Republicans

• Quasi-War: undeclared naval war between US & France, 1798-1800• Adams makes peace, but too late to save his

administration

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John Adams• 1735-1826• Lawyer, revolutionary, diplomat,

Washington’s vice president– MA delegate to Continental

Congress, argued for independence• Negotiated peace w/Britain• President, 1797-1801

– Jefferson VP– Fell out w/Jefferson, bitter conflict

w/Hamilton– Major achievement the avoidance of

all-out war w/France• Congregationalist

– Christian deist• Founding figure of Adams political

family• Father of John Quincy Adams

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Adams Inauguration• The Articles of Confederation proved impractical for a country the

size of the US• Moral & political consequences:

– “Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences--universal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.”

• Civic order & personal virtue exist for Adams in a feedback loop

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Virtue and Government

• In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity. Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. – Popular virtue as basis of good gov’t

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Threat of Foreign Corruption• In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to

ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. – If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and

that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good.

– If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations.

• It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance.

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XYZ Speech• With this conduct of the French government it will be proper to take into

view the public audience given to the late minister of the United States on his taking leave of the Executive Directory. The speech of the president discloses sentiments more alarming than the refusal of a minister, because more dangerous to our independence and union, and at the same time studiously marked with indignities toward the government of the United States.– It evinces a disposition to separate the people of the United States from the

government, – to persuade them that they have different affections, principles, and interests

from those of their fellow citizens whom they themselves have chosen to manage their common concerns,

• and thus to produce divisions fatal to our peace. – Such attempts ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince

France and the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, and interest.

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Need for a Navy• A naval power, next to the militia, is the natural

defense of the United States. The experience of the last war would be sufficient to shew that a moderate naval force, such as would be easily within the present abilities of the Union, would have been sufficient to have baffled many formidable transportations of troops from one state to another, which were then practiced. – Our sea coasts, from their great extent, are more easily

annoyed and more easily defended by a naval force than any other. With all the materials our country abounds; in skill our naval architects and navigators are equal to any, and commanders and sea men will not be wanting.

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Alien & Sedition Acts• Naturalization Act

– Extended period of residence needed for alien residents to become citizens from 5 to 14 years

• Alien Friends Act– Authorized President to arrest & deport any alien thought to be dangerous to

the peace & safety of US. Activated June 25, 1798, expired after two years.• Alien Enemies Act

– Authorized President to arrest & deport resident aliens if their home countries are at war with the US. Activated July 6, 1798, remains in effect.

• Sedition Act– Made it a crime to organize against the gov’t, or to “write, print, utter, or

publish” “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government, President, or Congress of the US

– 25 arrests, 10 convictions– Called Washington incompetent, called Adams “blind, bald, crippled,

toothless, querulous”

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Jefferson, Kentucky Resolution• “No power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or

freedom of the press, being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the states, or the people; that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech, and of the press, may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use, should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed– in addition to the general principle, as well as the express declaration,

that powers not delegated are reserved, another and more special provision inserted in the Constitution from abundant caution, has declared, "that the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808."

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Jefferson, Kentucky Resolution• the friendless alien has been selected as the

safest subject of a first experiment; but the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed; for already has a Sedition Act marked him as a prey: – That these and successive acts of the same character,

unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these states into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against republican governments, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron• Secession

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Jefferson, Kentucky Resolution• That they will view this as seizing the rights of the states, and

consolidating them in the hands of the general government, with a power assumed to bind the states, not merely in cases made federal, but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent; – that this would be to surrender the form of government we have

chosen, and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that the co-states, recurring to their natural rights not made federal, will concur in declaring these void and of no force, and will each unite with this commonwealth in requesting their repeal at the next session of Congress.• Nullification• Madison less forcefully expresses same sentiments

– “Interposition”

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“Revolution of 1800”• Realignment election• Democratic-Republicans organized, Federalists

divided into factions– Adams faction vs. Hamilton’s “High Federalist” faction

• Vicious personal attacks• D-Rs plan to use divided electoral votes to give

Jefferson the presidency, Burr the VP– Plan botched, tie goes to House, Presidency to

Jefferson• First peaceful transfer of power between parties

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Jefferson’s First Inaugural• “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though

the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. – Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind.

Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.

• And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”

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• “During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; – that this should be more felt and feared by some and

less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”

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• “I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”– “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from

injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

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Principles of Governing• Equality before the law• Peace abroad, no entangling alliances• Protection of rights of states• “as the most competent administrations for our domestic

concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies”

• “The preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad”

• “A jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided”

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Principles of Governing• “Absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority,”

– “the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism”

– Though “that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

• Limited Spending, low taxes• Encouragement of agriculture

– Economy & virtue• “freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of

person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected”

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Principles of Governing

• “These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. – They should be the creed of our political faith, the

text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”

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• “Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs.”

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