11 The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic 1800–1812 Timid men . prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty. n the critical presidential contest of 1800, the fi rst Iin which Federalists and Democratic-Republicans Federalist and Republican functioned as two national political parties, John Ad- Mudslingers ams and Thomas Jefferson again squared off against each other. The choice seemed clear and dramatic: Ad- In fi ghting for survival, the Federalists labored under ams’s Federalists waged a defensive struggle for strong heavy handicaps. Their Alien and Sedition Acts had central government and public order. Their Jefferso- aroused a host of enemies, although most of these crit- nian opponents presented themselves as the guardians ics were dyed-in-the-wool Jeffersonians anyhow. The of agrarian purity, liberty, and states’ rights. The next Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist party, robbed of its dozen years, however, would turn what seemed like a glorious war with France, split openly with President clear-cut choice in 1800 into a messier reality, as the Adams. Hamilton, a victim of arrogance, was so indis- Jeffersonians in power were confronted with a series of creet as to attack the president in a privately printed opportunities and crises requiring the assertion of fed- pamphlet. Jeffersonians soon got hold of the pamphlet eral authority. As the fi rst challengers to rout a reigning and gleefully published it. party, the Republicans were the fi rst to learn that it is The most damaging blow to the Federalists was the far easier to condemn from the stump than to govern refusal of Adams to give them a rousing fi ght with consistently. France. Their feverish war prep ara tions had swelled This icon will direct you to interactive activities and study materials on The American Pageant website: www.cengage.com/history/kennedy/ampageant14e 224 Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_11.indd 224 11/14/08 11:10:54 AM Federalists Versus Republicans 225 navy” were called “John Adams’s Jackasses.” Adams The Reverend Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), himself was known, somewhat ironically, as “the Fa- president of Yale College, predicted that in the event ther of the American Navy.” of Jefferson’s election, Thrown on the defensive, the Federalists concen- the Bible would be cast into a bonfi re, our trated their fi re on Jefferson himself, who became the “holy worship changed into a dance of [French] victim of one of America’s earliest “whispering cam- Jacobin phrensy, our wives and daughters paigns.” He was accused of having robbed a widow and dishonored, and our sons converted into the her children of a trust fund and of having fathered nu- merous mulatto children by his own slave women. (Jef- disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of ferson’s long-rumored intimacy with one of his slaves, Marat. Sally Hemings, has been confi rmed through DNA test- ” ing. See “Examining the Evidence,” p. 227.) As a liberal in religion, Jefferson had earlier incurred the wrath of the orthodox clergy, largely through his successful struggle to separate church and state in his native Vir- the public debt and had required disagreeable new ginia. Although Jefferson did believe in God, preachers taxes, including a stamp tax. After all these unpopular throughout New Eng land, stronghold of Federalism mea sures, the war scare had petered out, and the coun- and Congregationalism, thundered against his alleged try was left with an all-dressed-up-but-no-place-to-go atheism. Old ladies of Federalist families, fearing Jef- feeling. The military prep ara tions now seemed not only ferson’s election, even buried their Bibles or hung them unnecessary but extravagant, as seamen for the “new in wells. Washington and Jefferson Compared, 1807 This pro-Federalist, anti-Jefferson cartoon accuses Jefferson of sympathizing with French Revolutionary despotism. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_11.indd 225 11/14/08 11:10:56 AM 226 Chapter 11 The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic, 1800–1812 The Empire State fell into the Jeffersonian basket, and The Jeffersonian with it the election, largely because Aaron Burr, a mas- “Revolution of 1800” ter wire-puller, turned New York to Jefferson by the narrowest of margins. The Virginian polled the bulk Jefferson won by a majority of 73 electoral votes to 65 of his strength in the South and West, particularly in (see Map 11.1). In defeat, the colorless and presumably those states where universal white manhood suffrage unpopular Adams polled more electoral strength than had been adopted. he had gained four years earlier—except for New York. Decisive in Jefferson’s victory was the three-fi fths clause of the Constitution. By counting three-fi fths of the slave population for the purposes of congressional 1800 and Electoral College representation, the Constitution gave white southern voters a bonus that helped Jeffer- son win the White House. Northern critics fumed that Jefferson was a “Negro President” and an illegitimate VT 4 NH MA embodiment of the “slave power” that the southern NY 6 16 12 states wielded in the nation. RI Jeffersonian joy was dampened by an unexpected 4 PA CT deadlock. Through a technicality Jefferson, the presi- DR-8/F-7 NJ 9 NORTH- 7 dential candidate, and Burr, his vice-presidential run- INDIANA WEST DE TERRITORY TERR. 3 ning mate, received the same number of electoral votes VA for the presidency. Under the Constitution the tie could 21 MD KY DR-5/F-5 be broken only by the House of Representatives (see 4 NC Art. II, Sec. I, para. 2). This body was controlled for sev- TN R-13/F-4 eral more months by the lame-duck Federalists, who 3 SC preferred Burr to the hated Jefferson.* Voting in the 8 GA House moved slowly to a climax, as exhausted repre- MISSISSIPPI 4 TERRITORY sentatives snored in their seats. The agonizing deadlock was broken at last when a few Federalists, despairing of electing Burr and hoping for moderation from Jef- ferson, refrained from voting. The election then went to the rightful candidate. John Adams, as fate would have it, was the last Fed- eralist president of the United States. His party sank slowly into political oblivion and ultimately disap- Candidate (Party) Electoral Vote peared completely in the days of Andrew Jackson. Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) 73 53% Jefferson later claimed that the election of 1800 was Burr 73 53% a “revolution” comparable to that of 1776, and histori- Adams (Federalist) 65 47% Pinckney 64 46% ans have sometimes referred to the Revolution of 1800. Jay 1 But the election was no revolution in the sense of a Map 11.1 Presidential Election of 1800 (with electoral massive popular upheaval or an upending of the politi- vote by state) New York was the key state in this elec- cal system. In truth, Jefferson had narrowly squeaked tion, and Aaron Burr helped swing it away from the through to victory. A switch of some 250 votes in New Federalists with tactics that anticipated the political York would have thrown the election to Adams. Jeffer- “machines” of a later day. Federalists complained that son meant that his election represented a return to Burr “travels every night from one meeting of Republi- what he considered the original spirit of the Revolution. cans to another, haranguing . them to the most zeal- ous exertions. [He] can stoop so low as to visit every low In his eyes Hamilton and Adams had betrayed the ide- tavern that may happen to be crowded with his dear fellow citizens.” But Burr proved that the price was worth it. “We have beat you,” Burr told kid-gloved Feder- *A “lame duck” has been humorously defi ned as a politician whose alists after the election, “by superior Management.” political goose has been cooked in the recent elections. The possi- bility of another such tie was removed by the Twelfth Amendment Interactive Map in 1804 (see the Appendix). Before then, each elector had two votes, with the second-place fi nisher becoming vice president. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_11.indd 226 11/14/08 11:10:59 AM The Thomas Jefferson–Sally Hemings Controversy ebate over whether Thomas Jefferson had sex- ton’s biography of Jefferson revealed that among Dual relations with Sally Hemings, a slave at Mon- Jefferson’s white descendants, it was said that his ticello, began as early as 1802, when James Callender nephew had fathered all or most of Sally’s children.