Chapter 11The Trials and Travails of the

Jeffersonian RepublicPart 2

Jeffersonian Restraint•Jefferson pardoned those serving under The Sedition Act.

•In 1802, he enacted a new law that returned the years needed for an immigrant to become a citizen from 14 to 5.

•He also immediately got rid of the excise tax, but otherwise left the Hamiltonian system intact.

•Albert Gallatin, new secretary of the treasury, reduced the national debt substantially while balancing the budget.

•By shrewdly absorbing the major Federalist programs and practically leaving them all intact, T.J. showed that a change of regime need not be disastrous for the exiting group.

The “Dead Clutch” of the Judiciary •However, despite his principles, Jefferson quickly realized how difficult it was to stick to them once in office, and he often found himself reversing his stand on several political issues that he had previously championed on becoming President.

•The Judiciary Act, passed by the Federalists in their last days of Congressional domination in 1801, created judgeships with Federalist-backing men, to prolong their legacy.

•Jefferson and his followers opposed John Adams’ last-minute appointment of new federal judges mainly because it was an obvious attempt by a defeated party to entrench itself in the government.

•In 1804, Jefferson tried to impeach the Supreme Court justice, Samuel Chase, but when the vote got to the Senate, there were not enough votes, and to this day, no attempt to alter the Supreme Court has ever been tried through impeachment.

•The significance of that case is that judicial independence and the separation of powers had been preserved.

John Marshall (aka MISTER Chief Justice, Himself)

• The Chief Justice who carried out, more than any other official, the ideas of Alexander Hamilton concerning a powerful federal government was John Marshall, a lifelong Federalist.

• John Marshall, as chief justice, helped to strengthen the judicial branch by asserting the doctrine of judicial review – the Supreme Court’s power to declare the constitutionality (or lack thereof) of congressional legislation.

• The case of Marbury vs. Madison involved the question of who had the right to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional.

Jefferson, a Reluctant Warrior Jefferson had a natural fear of a large, strong, standing military, fearing that such a military could be turned on the people. So, he reduced the militia to 2,500 men, and navies were reduced back to peacetime footing.

However, the pirates of the North African Barbary States were still looting U.S. ships, and in 1801, the pasha of Tripoli indirectly declared war when he cut down the flagstaff of the American consulate.

Thus, Jefferson, in his first major foreign policy decision, reluctantly send the infant navy to the Mediterranean Sea off the shores of Tripoli. There fighting continued with the North African pirates for four years until Jefferson succeeded in obtaining a treaty of peace from Tripoli in 1805 for $60,000.

The gunboats used in the Tripolitan War fascinated Jefferson, and he spent money to build about 200 of them. Since they were small, but unable to fight against large ships, however, it showed building them to be a poor decision (the “mosquito fleet”).

The Louisiana Godsend In 1800, Napoleon secretly induced the king of Spain to cede the Louisiana territory to France.

Then, in 1802, Spaniards at New Orleans withdrew the right of deposit guaranteed by the Pinckney Treaty of 1795. Such deposit privileges were vital to the frontier farmers who floated their goods down the Mississippi River to its mouth to await oceangoing vessels. In fact, they talked of marching on New Orleans which would’ve plunged the U.S. into a war with Spain and France.

•So, in 1803, Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France to attempt to buy New Orleans and as much land to the east of the river for a total of $10 million, tops.

•Instead, Napoleon offered to sell New Orleans and the land west of it, Louisiana, for only $15 million, thereby abandoning his dream of a French North American Empire. America quickly accepted the incredible deal!

Why would Napoleon, the greatest conqueror of modern times, acquiesce to the infant United States?

• Napoleon’s decision to sell Louisiana was because: - He needed cash to renew his war with Britain.

- The failure to quell the revolution in Santo Domingo (Haiti) led by Toussaint L’Ouverture - which had failed due to the decimation of his troops by yellow fever.

- He hoped that the territory would one day help America to thwart the expansionist ambitions of the British.

- Ultimately, he did not want to drive America into the arms of Britain.

Touissant L’Ouverture: The Caribbean George Washington

Louisiana in the Long View

The purchase created a mindset of acquisition of foreign territory through purchase.

In the spring of 1804, Jefferson sent William Clark and Meriwether Lewis to explore all the way to Oregon and the Pacific. Along with a Shoshoni woman named Sacajawea, the two spent 2 1/2 years exploring the new territory, where they marveled at the expanses of buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and the landscape.

•The expedition yielded:

-a rich harvest of scientific observations.

-maps of the previously uncharted territory.

-knowledge of the Indians of the region.

-and hair-raising adventure stories.

•Other explorers, like Zebulon Pike, trekked to the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1805-06 and ventured to the southern portion of Louisiana, Spanish land in the Southwest, and sighted what came to be known as Pike’s Peak.

Lewis & Clark Expedition

Meriwether Lewis is……Coach K!

The Aaron Burr Conspiracies •Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s first-term vice president, had been dropped from the cabinet in Jefferson’s second term. Incredibly, Burr joined with a group of Federalist extremists to plot the secession of New England and New York from the United States!

•Alexander Hamilton, though no friend of Jefferson, exposed and foiled the conspiracy. Incensed, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel and killed him, blowing out the brightest mind of the remaining Federalist party.

In 1806, Burr was arrested for treason, but the necessary two witnesses were nowhere to be found.

The Louisiana Purchase ultimately nurtured a deep sense of loyalty among the West to the federal government, and a new spirit of nationalism surged through