THE AGE OF JEFFERSON

1800-1816

Essential Question• With respect to the

Constitution, Jeffersonian Republicans are usually characterized as strict constructionists who were opposed to the broad constructionism of the Federalists. To what extent was this characterization of the two parties accurate during the presidencies of Jefferson and Madison?

The Jefferson Administration• Continue Neutrality• Reduced:

– Military (3,000)– Bureaucracy– Repealed excise taxes– National Debt

• Maintained:– National Bank– Debt-repayment plan

• President Thomas Jefferson believed that the United States should be a nation of independent farmers. When France offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, Jefferson wanted to seize the opportunity to double the size of the nation and to provide future generations with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of new farmland. But Jefferson was a strict constructionist—he believed that the federal government had no powers other than those specifically listed in the Constitution—and the Constitution did not authorize the president to buy territory from foreign nations. The problem of Louisiana forced Jefferson to decide which principle was more important.

Western Expansion• Importance of Mississippi River

– Spain closes New Orleans (1802)

• Louisiana Purchase (1803)– Negotiations:

• $10 million for New Orleans and part of Florida

• Reply? $15 million for all of Louisiana

– Constitutional?– Lewis and Clark Expedition

(1804-1806)

The Marshall Court

• Adams’ “Midnight Judges”– Impeachment attempts

• Marbury v. Madison (1803)– Judicial review

Partisan Squabbles

• Election of 1804– Federalist Conspiracy– Burr vs. Hamilton

• The Duel• Burr’s Treason

Foreign Affairs

• Barbary Pirates– Navy @ Tripoli (1801-

1805)

• Challenges to Neutrality– Chesapeake Affair (1807)– Embargo of 1807

• The Barbary pirates, who had been marauding off the coast of Africa for centuries, encountered a new enemy in the early 19th century: the young United States Navy.

• The North African pirates had been a menace for so long that by the late 1700s most nations paid tribute to ensure that merchant shipping could proceed without being violently attacked.

• In the early years of the 19th century, the United States, at the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, decided to halt the payment of tribute. A war between the small and scrappy American Navy and the Barbary pirates ensued.

• A decade later, a second war settled the issue of American ships being attacked by pirates. The issue of piracy off the African coast seem to fade into the pages of history for two centuries until resurfacing in recent years when Somali pirates clashed with the U.S. Navy.

THE PRESIDENCY OF JAMES MADISON

1809-1817

Madison Administration

• Election of 1808• Commercial Warfare– Non-intercourse Act of

1809– Macon’s Bill No. 2 (1810)

• Napoleon’s Deception

British–American Tensions• Causes:

– Impressment– Western Expansion

• Battle of Tippecanoe (1811)

• New States & Congressmen– “War Hawks”

» Clay & Calhoun

• Declaration of War (June, 1812)

The War of 1812• A Divided Nation

– Election of 1812• Declining Federalist Party

– Opposition to War• New England Merchants, “Old” Democratic-

Republicans, Federalists

• The War– Invasion of Canada– Perry’s Navy

• Battle of the Thames• “Old Ironsides”

– Chesapeake Campaign• Burning of Washington• Baltimore Saved (Ft. McHenry)

– Southern Campaign• Battle of New Orleans

• Hartford Convention (1814)– Death of the Federalists

• Treaty of Ghent (1814-1815)– “Not one inch of territory ceded or lost”

Legacy of the War• US Gains Respect of Other Nations• US accepts Canada as part of British

Empire• Decline and death of the Federalist Party

– Although precedent for nullification and secession set

• Continued decline and decimation of American Indians

• Blockade served as catalyst for industrial self-sufficiency

• Emergence of war heroes (Jackson, Harrison)

• Growth of Nationalism and Western Expansion – “Era of Good Feelings”