United States: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson

Washington, Adams, and Jefferson

The first person to be elected President under the Constitution was the hero of the Revolution, George Washington. Washington introduced many government practices and institutions, including the cabinet. Jay's Treaty (1794) allayed friction with Great Britain. Hamilton, as Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, promulgated a strong state and attempted to advance the economic development of the young country by a neomercantilist program; this included the establishment of a protective tariff, a mint, and the first Bank of the United States as well as assumption of state and private Revolutionary debts. The controversy raised by these policies bred divisions along factional and, ultimately, party lines.

Hamilton and his followers, who eventually formed the Federalist party, favored wide activity by the federal government under a broad interpretation of the Constitution. Their opponents, who adhered to principles laid down by Thomas Jefferson and who became the Democratic Republican or Democratic party, favored narrow construction—limited federal jurisdiction and activities. To an extent these divisions were supported by economic differences, as the Democrats largely spoke for the agrarian point of view and the Federalists represented propertied and mercantile interests.

Extreme democrats like Thomas Paine had ebullient faith in popular government and popular mores; Joel Barlow, too, envisioned a great popular culture evolving in America. From such optimists came schemes for broad popular education and participation in government. Men like John Adams had mixed views on the good sense of the masses, and many more conservative thinkers associated the “people” with vulgarity and ineptitude. The Federalists generally represented a pessimistic and the Democrats an optimistic view of man's inherent capacity to govern and develop himself; in practice, however, the values held by these two groups were often mixed. That a long road to democracy was still to be traveled is seen in the fact that in the late 18th cent. few but the economically privileged took part in political affairs.

The Federalists were victorious in electing John Adams to the presidency in 1796. Federalist conservatism and anti-French sentiment were given vent in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and in other acts. Deteriorating relations with France were seen in the XYZ Affair and the “half war” (1798–1800), in which U.S. warships engaged French vessels in the Caribbean. The so-called Revolution of 1800 swept the Federalists from power and brought Jefferson to the presidency. Jefferson did bring a plainer and more republican style to government, and under him the Alien and Sedition Acts and other Federalist laws were allowed to lapse or were repealed.

Jefferson moved toward stronger use of federal powers, however, in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase (1803). In foreign policy he steered an officially neutral course between Great Britain and France, resisting the war sentiment roused by British impressment of American seamen and by both British and French violations of American shipping. He fostered the drastic Embargo Act of 1807 in an attempt to gain recognition of American rights through economic pressure, but the embargo struck hardest against the American economy, especially in New England.

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