THE JEFFERSONIANS

Lesson 26: 1801-1825

The Election of 1800 saw incumbent

President John Adams running against Thomas

Jefferson

Adams had chosen Charles Pinckney for vice-president, and

Jefferson had selected Aaron Burr.

Both candidates began to write letters to

famous citizens and newspapers explaining

their viewpoints.

Neither went around the country to

campaign.

Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in 1800 with 73 electoral votes.

In case of a tie in the presidential election, the House of Representatives has the duty of selecting the

president.

The House tried 35 times to vote to break the tie, but continued to remain tied themselves.

Federalists tried to prevent Jefferson from being elected by supporting Aaron Burr in the tiebreaker

vote.

Eventually Alexander Hamilton urged federalists to support Thomas Jefferson.

After Jefferson became president, the Congress passed the 12th Amendment which called for the president

and vice-president to be elected on separate ballots.

Toward the end of Adam’s presidency, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801.

This act reorganized the federal courts and required more judges.

President Adams appointed hundreds of judges to fill the new positions before he left office, and made John Marshall the Chief

Justice of the Supreme Court.

This shut out Jefferson from picking judges that would agree with him.

Each judge Adams picked had to have his commission delivered to him. When Jefferson took over, some of the commissions had

not been delivered.

The judges were called “midnight judges” because it took Adams until midnight of his final night in office to appoint all the judges.

Jefferson told Secretary of State Madison to stop the deliveries of those commissions that had not been sent yet.

One of the judges that didn’t get his commission was William

Marbury.

He took his case to the Supreme Court hoping to be given his commission to be a judge.

John Marshall, the new Supreme Court Chief Justice, did not allow

Marbury to become a judge.

In doing so, Marshall made the Supreme Court much stronger by

introducing the concept of judicial review in the court case

of Marbury v. Madison.

Marshall established three ideas when he expanded the power of the Supreme Court:

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

The Constitution must be followed when there is a disagreement between it and any

other law.

The Supreme Court can nullify any law it thinks is unconstitutional.

All three expanded the power of the federal government, something that Jefferson

would not have approved of.

In the early 19th Century (1800’s), many Americans began to seek a new life in the

West.

Pioneers began to go over the Appalachians into the lands of Kentucky

and Tennessee.

To the West of the Mississippi River was the Louisiana Territory, which was owned

by the Spanish.

The Spanish had taken it from the French in the French and Indian War.

Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain had allowed the U.S. and its farmers and pioneers the right to use and trade on the Mississippi

River.

During President Jefferson’s presidency, Spain decided to stop letting Americans use

the Mississippi River.

Jefferson discovered that the Spanish were going to give Louisiana back to the French.

Jefferson worried about the Americans being cut off from the Mississippi River, and that their expansion west would be stopped.

Jefferson sent Robert Livingston, the minister (ambassador) to France, to offer Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France,

$10 million for New Orleans and West Florida.

Napoleon had plans for an empire in the Americas and in Europe.

Santo Domingo was an island in the Caribbean controlled by the French.

Napoleon needed it as a naval base for his ships.

Enslaved Africans and other servants on Santo Domingo were inspired by the French Revolution and began to revolt against

plantation owners.

Led by Toussaint-Louverture, the rebels took control of Santo Domingo and renamed it Haiti.

Without control of Santo Domingo, Napoleon changed his mind about an empire in the

Americas.

Napoleon was fighting the British back in Europe, and no longer had need of Louisiana.

Robert Livingston and James Monroe, a representative for Jefferson in France were

shocked when French foreign minister Charles Talleyrand said that all of Louisiana was now for

sale.

Napoleon wanted cash to fight his wars more than the Louisiana Territory.

Monroe and Livingston agreed to a price of $15 million for all of Louisiana.

Jefferson decided that the treaty-making powers of the president were enough to allow him to

finalize the deal with Napoleon.

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States and would allow farmers and pioneers plenty of land to settle for several

decades.

The land purchased by Jefferson was virtually unexplored.

Jefferson asked Congress to provide money for an expedition (exploration mission) into the

western lands.

Jefferson was interested in science and nature, but also was focused on exploring the new

lands for future forts and strategic resources.

Jefferson was also curious if there was a Northwest Passage, or a water route that

would allow Americans to sail to Asia.

Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson’s assistant, was chosen to lead the expedition.

William Clark, a friend of Lewis’s was chosen to be co-leader.

Lewis and Clark were both educated men. They knew how to survey and explore land and

record their findings.

They assembled a crew of men that were expert sailors,

gunsmiths, carpenters, scouts, and cooks.

A couple of men who had French and Native American

ancestors served as interpreters for the expedition.

Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis in 1804.

They kept records and made notes of all findings along their

journey.

Along the journey, Lewis and Clark met many Native Americans.

One such Native American was a

Shoshone woman named Sacagawea.

She served as a guide and interpreter for Lewis

and Clark.

She helped Lewis and Clark to reach the Pacific Ocean a year and a half after they had first set

out.

Many ships were victims of the Barbary Pirates.

The pirates came from the Barbary States of northern Africa.

Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis were all Barbary states.

These pirates sailed the Mediterranean Sea and demanded tribute, or protection money, in

order to safely travel through the Mediterranean.

The ruler of Tripoli tried to raise the amount of tribute that the United States paid to try to make more money off of American trade.

President Jefferson refused to pay more money to the pirates, provoking Tripoli to declare war

on the United States.

Jefferson sent the brand new U.S. Navy to blockade Tripoli.

One of the ships, the Philadelphia, was captured by the pirates.

The crew was captured and jailed, but the captain, Stephen Decatur,

managed to burn the Philadelphia to prevent the pirates from using it

against the U.S.

Eventually the fighting ended and the crew of the Philadelphia was

returned. It cost the U.S. $60,000 for the crew to be returned.

Americans no longer had to pay tribute however after fighting off the

Barbary Pirates.