The Federalists in the South 1789–1800
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 1968 Prologue to Democracy: The Federalists in the South 1789–1800 Lisle A. Rose Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Rose, Lisle A., "Prologue to Democracy: The Federalists in the South 1789–1800" (1968). United States History. 78. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/78 'Prologue to 'Democracy This page intentionally left blank 'Prologue to 'Democracy The Federalists in the South, 1789-1800 University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, 1968 COPYRIGHT © 1968 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PRESS Printed in the U.S.A. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 67-29342 for Jt(ari6eth This page intentionally left blank ~cknowledgments This study was begun at Berkeley in the autumn of 1963 as a doctoral dissertation under the direction of Charles Sellers. I am indebted to Professor Sellers and to Professor Paul Goodman of the University of California, Davis, for their many valuable comments and criticisms. Professor George C. Rogers of the University of South Carolina was generous enough to share his detailed knowledge of the South Carolina Federalists with me and also to indicate to me some invaluable manuscript sources which I might other wise have overlooked. Mr. James Broussard of Duke Univer sity was also helpful in pointing out the value of various manuscript collections, as were the staffs of all of the libraries in which I worked. I also feel a profound sense of gratitude to the Frederick Jackson Turner prize committee for their comments. Lastly, my wife, Maribeth, has contributed so much in the way of time, encouragement, good humor, and incisive editorial criticism to the project that a dedication seems scant recognition. Of course, I am solely responsible for the errors of fact and interpretation which remain. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation was more than generous in underwriting much of my graduate education. In partic ular, the Foundation provided a travel and research grant for 1964-1965. Quotations from the Adams Papers in this volume and in the doctoral dissertation from which it has emerged are from the microfilm edition, by permission of the Massachu setts Historical Society. This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments I vii Introduction I xi I. The Founding of a Political Interest, 1789-1793 I 1 II. The Friends of Government, 1789-1794 I 48 III. Crises and Collapse, 1795-1796 I 85 IV. Reconstruction, 1797 I 139 V. At the Flood, 1798 I 167 VI. Defense and Diversion, 1799 I 205 VII. 'The Violent Spirit of Party': The Election of 18oo I 232 VIII. Southern Federalists and the Party System, 1789-18oo I 283 Appendix I 293 A Note on Sources I 304 Index I 309 This page intentionally left blank Introduction In the past fifty years historians have recognized increasingly that the formation of the first American party system at the close of the eighteenth century represented a major landmark in the expansion of political democracy in the United States.1 Growing conflict between Federalists and Republicans for control of the national government precipitated intense partisan efforts to gain the active support and enduring loyalty of the electorate. From these early struggles modern party organizations and effective techniques of mass appeal slowly evolved. Such developments stimulated popular inter est in government affairs and led to the political awakening of an appreciable portion of the formerly dormant electorate2 with a corresponding erosion of traditional elitist patterns of political behavior and practice. The nationwide political party thus became the vessel of democracy, the agency 1 See, for example, Charles A. Beard, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1915), 465-67; Noble E. Cun ningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organiza tion, 1789-1801 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957), vii, 259; William Nisbet Chambers, Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776-1809 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), 4-208 passim; Richard P. McCormick, The Second American Party System (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), 19-31. 2 J. R. Pole, "The Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790-1807," New Jersey His torical Society Proceedings, LXXI (January, 1953), 38-45; "Suffrage and Representation in Massachusetts, A Statistical Note," William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, XIV (October, 1957 ), 560-92, XV (July, 1958 ), 412-16; "Election Statistics in Pennsylvania, 1790-1840," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LXXXII (January, 1958), 217-19; "Representa tion in Virginia from the Revolution to Reform," Journal of Southern History, XXIV (February, 1958), 31-34; "Election Statistics in North Carolina to 1861," ibid. (May, 1958), 227-28. xii / Introduction through which the governed finally removed the traditional deferential barriers separating them from their government and their governors. Until quite recently the Federalists usually have been dealt with rather harshly. Students of this period have regarded them primarily as a negative reference group. Focusing upon the social status, partisan rhetoric, and unsavory activities of some party members near the end of the 1790's, several generations of scholars have dismissed the Federalists as hopeless reactionaries in a great age of liberal political change.3 Historians have demonstrated that after 1790 in several key states those men who supported the Federalist cause represented the older, entrenched, ruling elites, and that individuals within these classes quite naturally exalted 3 Sixty years ago John Spencer Bassett put the Federalist achievements and failures into a rigid perspective which subsequent scholarship has not changed materially. "The downfall of Federalism [in 1800] came because the party had outlived its usefulness. Its function of giving strength to the Union in the early days of 'the experiment' had been performed. It was the party of the superior classes, of men who were supposed not to be influ enced by passions and who had strong purposes and conservative instincts. It had solved the problems of the effective organization of a new government; but other questions were now at hand concerning internal affairs. Should the people be trusted with a large share of government? The Federalists recoiled at the prejudice and violence of the masses, declaring that incom petence could not be trusted. They sought to restrain the violent; they expressed open contempt; and they developed a party selfishness which they wished others to believe was patriotism. They fell into factions and dreamed mad dreams of expansion till at last they gave the masterly leader of men who opposed them an opportunity to organize a majority of the people against their supremacy. So much did they bring into contempt the idea of government by the superior classes, that no capable politician since 1800 has dared to place his cause on any other ground than the will of the people." The Federalist System, 1789-1801 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906), 295-96. Recently David Hackett Fischer, in an impressive study of Federalism in the Jeffersonian era, has reemphasized the elitist proclivities of the "Federalists of the Old School" in such forceful terms as to leave the inescapable impression that they were incapable of contributing anything significant to the American democratic tradition. The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 1-28, 22~10 passim. Introduction I xiii the ideal of exclusivist governance and condemned demo cratic aspirations.4 When partisan rhetoric and social status were viewed in conjunction with the reactionary practices of the high Federalist faction in 1799 and 1800, the unpleas ant stereotype of the party was complete: Federalists on both the state and the national levels were members of a loose, unstable coalition of self-seeking notables, wholly ignorant of the meaning and uses of modern party practice and ultimately unable, through weakness and incompetence, to retain either their rule or the supremacy of their values. According to this view, the election of 1800 inevitably con stituted a revolution in practice and ideals, if not in policy and measures. In the case of southern Federalists, neglect has been added to stigma. The early-and undeniably correct-impression of contemporaries that Federalism was given a far more hospi table reception in New England than in the South5 has doomed the southern wing of that party to suffer a decided 4 Fischer, The Revolution of American Conservatism; Charles S. Sydnor, American Revolutionaries in the Making: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia (New York: Collier Books, 1962). Sydnor's book was first published as Gentlemen Freeholders (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952). Paul Goodman, The Democratic Republicans of Massachusetts: Poli tics in a Young Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964). 5 Tobias Lear to George Washington, August 5, 1792, Edmund Randolph to Washington, June, 1793, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress, Vols. 255, 261. Subsequent scholars quickly seized upon this impression and concluded that early party divisions were wholly sectional in nature. In their view, the central struggle of the 1790's was between "Federalist" Massachusetts and "Republican" Virginia for control of the Union, and this seemed to preclude the need to examine in detail Federalist strength and activity below the Potomac. James Schouler, History of the United States of America under the Constitution (7 vols.; New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1880-1899), I, 181; Bassett, Federalist System, 161; Beard, Jeffersonian Democracy, 126, 151, 229, 242, 373ff., 397-98ff.