Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff
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THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

he Constitution, which went into effect in 1788, was intended to correct the flaws of the Articles of Confederation by strengthening the national government and weakening the state governments. Yet despite the Constitution's ratification, most Americans retained a strong suspicion of government power. How the new federal system would operate in practice could only be established over time and through experience. Thus launching the new government was filled with peril. The Revolution had strengthened the ideology of republicanism, but Americans with different political, social, and economic visions of the Republic's future interpreted republicanism differently. This conflict, which was central to the struggle over ratification of the Constitution, intensified after 1789. And once again, when war resumed between Britain and France in this period, the United States found its rights and independence challenged by these two nations. The first years under the Constitution represented a further working out of domestic and international problems that harkened back to the Revolution and its meaning for the American people.

OVERVIEW

This chapter covers the tumultuous 1790s, the first decade of the Republic's existence under the new Constitution. The chapter opens by describing the violence that attended efforts to collect the federal Whiskey Tax of 1791 from frontier farmers in western Pennsylvania. One of the central purposes of the chapter is to describe the basic division in the United States between the commercial and semi-subsistence economies, and how this division was central to the development of two competing political parties.

1789: A Social Portrait

As the new government began operation in 1789, the Republic could be said to be divided roughly between commercial and semi-subsistence areas of the country. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur celebrated the life of semi-subsistence farm families, where wealth was fairly evenly distributed and where people tried to provide as much of their own food and wants as they could. They had only limited contact with regions beyond their local community, seldom saw cash, and functioned in a largely barter economy. Benjamin Franklin, by contrast, came to symbolize the world of commerce. In his writings, he praised the marketplace and upheld the commercial side of America; he showed how urban economies and commercial farm families were tied to larger markets, where specialized goods or services were sold and the social distance between the rich and the poor was more striking.

Americans who participated in the commercial economy held different attitudes about wealth and opportunity than did those who lived in semi-subsistence areas. Urban merchants and workers as well as commercial farmers generally supported the Constitution during the debate over ratification, while semi-subsistence farmers tended to oppose it, fearing too much concentration of power in the hands of aristocrats and urban merchants. Content with their lives, and harboring the traditional fear of taxes, debt, and intrusive government, they wanted to preserve their society as it was and basically just be left alone.

The New Government

Americans put their faith in George Washington, who more than any individual personified the Republic. Washington organized the executive branch into Departments and created a cabinet of advisors. The most important positions in the cabinet went to Alexander Hamilton, as secretary of the treasury, and Thomas Jefferson, as secretary of state. To mollify opponents of the Constitution, Congress approved and the states ratified a series of amendments to safeguard certain basic liberties. These first ten amendments became known as the Bill of Rights.

A strong nationalist, Hamilton emerged as the dominant figure in the cabinet. He worked to strengthen the power of the federal government by assuming the states' remaining Revolutionary war debts and funding, or paying, the outstanding federal debt. These were known as the policies of funding and assumption. Congress finally approved these policies along with the decision to locate the permanent capital on the Potomac River. Eager to tie the wealthy to the new government, Hamilton also proposed that Congress charter a national bank to aid the Treasury in its transactions, a protective tariff to stimulate manufacturing, and a series of internal or excise taxes (the one on whiskey was most controversial). Congress eventually approved most of Hamilton's recommendations. His argument that the Constitution gave the national government implied as well as explicit powers and that the document had to be interpreted loosely persuaded Washington to sign the bill creating the national bank.

While these ideas appealed especially to citizens active in the commercial life of the nation, they stimulated fears among other Americans. Eventually the Republican party, organized by James Madison and headed by Thomas Jefferson, opposed the policies of the Federalists. Republicans feared that a corrupt aristocracy would come to dominate American society, that financial speculators, wealthy bankers, and unprincipled politicians would gain power, as had happened in Great Britain with the powerful Bank of England. They endorsed a strict construction of the Constitution, and wanted a less active federal government.

Expansion and Turmoil in the West

Washington tried to remain above the hostility developing between Jefferson and Hamilton, but Hamilton succeeded in gaining the president's support to send an army against citizens in western Pennsylvania. There, a whiskey rebellion had arisen against Hamilton's excise tax, an effort to raise money for the federal government and assert its power. Hamilton had overreacted, for the army encountered little resistance and easily restored order.

The Washington administration also sought to tie the West more firmly to the Union by defeating the Miami Confederacy and opening new tracts of land in the Ohio valley to white settlement. Thomas Pinckney also negotiated a favorable treaty with Spain that allowed western farmers to use the Mississippi River to ship their produce.

The Emergence of Political Parties

Political parties emerged slowly, because the ideology of republicanism taught Americans to fear parties. But the sharp controversy over Hamilton's domestic policies led to the formation of the first national parties in American history. The Federalists, led by Hamilton and Washington, took shape first. In general, Federalists believed in order and hierarchy and supported a loose construction of the Constitution (in order to allow the federal government to actively encourage commerce and manufacturing). Eventually the Republican party, organized by Madison and headed by Jefferson, opposed the policies of the Federalists.

Differences over foreign policy were also crucial to the formation of parties. The French Revolution became the focus of controversy in the United States. When monarchical England and republican France went to war, Washington pursued a neutral course. The Federalists, however, favored Britain, while the Jeffersonians backed France. Efforts to settle the differences between the U.S. and Britain failed, particularly on issues of trade, neutral rights, and impressment. The U.S. gained little from Jay's Treaty (1795), which tied the nation economically to Britain. Debate over the treaty was bitter and further stimulated the creation of rival parties.

In 1796 Washington announced that he would not seek another term. In the first contested presidential election in American history, John Adams, the Federalist candidate, defeated Jefferson, who in an odd turn of events was elected vice president.

The Presidency of John Adams

Differences over America's role in European affairs continued during the administration of Federalist John Adams. The major events of these years--the XYZ Affair, the Quasi-War with France, the Federalist-sponsored Alien and Sedition Acts, and the Republican response in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions--all were linked to the debate over America's diplomatic course. They also demonstrated the violence and bitterness in politics during the 1790s.

The Federalists increasingly lost support because of their suppression of civil liberties and their aristocratic disdain for the masses. The party was also hurt by an increasingly fierce personal feud between Adams and Hamilton. Thus in 1800 Jefferson was victorious over Adams (although the House had to break the tie between him and his vice-presidential running mate, Aaron Burr). Despite the threat of violent tumult and even civil war, power passed peacefully from one administration and party to another. Under Washington's firm leadership the Federalists had made the Constitution a workable instrument of government and established economic policies and principles of foreign affairs (particularly of neutrality) that even Jefferson's Republicans would continue.

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