Union and Democracy

etween the Alleghanies and the sea was as yet imperfectly subdued. Great tracts of wilderness separated communities beyond the fall-line of the rivers. Intercourse was incredibly d

t is difficult to say which were greater, the perils by land or by sea. Writing from Philadelphia in 1790, William Smith, of South Carolina, described the misfortunes of his fellow Congressmen in trying to reach the seat of government, as follows: "Burke was shipwrecked off the Capes; Jackson and Mathews with great difficulty landed at Cape May and traveled one hundred and sixty miles in a wagon to the

hazardous. Travelers who made the journey from Boston to New York by stage-coach accounted themselves lucky if they reached their destination in six days, for no bridges spanned any of the great waterways and the crossing by ferry

entucky, in sixteen days, and to Nashville, Tennessee, in twenty-two days. The cost of these posts, like the cost of traveling, was in many cases prohibitive. The rate for a letter of a single sheet was

et the leisure, to engage in active politics. Politics was the occupation of those who commanded leisure and some accumulated wealth. The voters of the several States touched each other only through their leaders. In these early years national parties were hardly more than divisions of a governing class.

ed into an irreconcilable antagonism. The one group was thought to be British in its sympathies, the other Gallic. In the eyes of his opponents, the Republican was no better than a de

njoy, who say the minority aim at place only, not at the overthrow of government. They aim at setting mobs above law, not at the filling places which have known legal responsibility. The struggle against them is therefore pro aris et focis; it is for our rights and liberties." Such a state of mind can be understood only by a diligent reading of the newspapers and political tract

ns was precarious. War with France they bitterly opposed, but were powerless to prevent. The path of opposition was made all the more difficult by the well-known attitude of conspicuous

o years, to order out of the country all such aliens as he deemed dangerous to public safety or guilty of treasonable designs against the Government. Failure to leave the country after due warning was made punishable by imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years and by exclusion from citizenship for all time. A third act conferred upon the President the further discretionary power to remove alien enemies in time of war or of threatened war. Finally, the Sedition Act added

rupt hirelings and subsidized presses was paralyzing the efforts of the Administration to defend national rights. That there was great provocation for the act cannot be denied. The tone of the press ge

tt of all Federalists, was indicted for publishing a letter in which he maintained that under President Adams "every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for pow

Madison, then a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, secured the adoption of a set of resolutions of similar purport which he had drafted. Both sets of resolutions condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts as unwarranted by the letter of the Constitution and opposed to its spirit. Bot

matter in such a train as that we may not be committed absolutely to extremities, and yet may be free to push as far as events will render prudent." What they desired was such an affirmation of principles as should rally their followers and arrest the usurpation of power by their opponents. The fundamental position assumed is that the Federal Government is one of limited powers and that citizens must look to their State Governments as bulwarks of their civil libe

ic energies and sacrifices," he wrote to Madison. "The engine is the press. Every man must lay his purse and pen under contribution." The response was immediate and hearty. Not only were political pamphlets printed and distributed from Cape Cod to the Blue Ridge, but an astonishing number of newspapers were founded to disseminate Republican doctrine. The three or four years before the presidential election of 1800 are marked by an unprecedented jo

nties which were ardently Republican; hence the outbreak could be denounced plausibly enough as the result of Jacobin teachings. In some alarm the Administration dispatched troops to quell the riots, and prosecuted the leaders with relentless vigor. Fries was condemned to death, and the President's advisers would have carried out the decree of the court, "to inspire the malevolent and factious with terror"; but President Adams persisted in pardoning Fries, holding wisely that th

were followed by a series of trials for seditious libel in the spring term of the federal courts. All the individuals indicted were either editors or printers of Republican newspapers. The impression created by these prosecutions was,

e church." From the Federalist point of view these editors were "lying Jacobins," incendiaries, anarchists. "Should Jacobinism gain the ascendency," an orator at Deerfield, Massachusetts, warned his auditors, in the midst of the elections of 1800, "let every man arm himself, not only to defend his property, his wife, and children, but to secure h

was so steadfast in the Federalist faith that the Republicans gave up all hope of contesting the control of the legislatures. After an electioneering tour through Connecticut, Aaron Burr is said to have remarked that they might as

rying the legislative districts of the city for the Republicans fell to Aaron Burr, past-master of the art of political management and first of the long line of political bosses of the great metropolis. How he concentrated the party vote upon a ticket which bore such names as those of George Clinton, Horatio Gates, an

By general consent Jefferson became for the second time the candidate of his party for the Presidency. On May 11, the Republican members of Congress met

arles C. Pinckney for the Vice-Presidency; but rumor had it that many Federalists would be glad to see Pinckney outstrip Adams,-a hope which in the course of the summer was frankly avowed by Hamilton. In a letter which he had privately printed

nnsylvania, they won seven of the fifteen electoral votes of that State. In Maryland they divided the electoral vote evenly with their opponents. In North Carolina, they secured four of the twelve votes; but in South Carolina they were completely discomfited. Instead of carrying his own State for

e information that Jefferson and Burr had an equal number of votes in the electoral college. Adams was defeated, to be sure, but was Thomas Jefferson elected? Neither Jefferson nor Burr had "the highest number of votes" which the Constitution required for an election. The House of Representatives, therefore, must choose between them. But the House w

as needed to elect, inasmuch as the delegations of two States were evenly divided. The result was the same on thirty-five successive ballots. On the thirty-sixth, February 17, Jefferson received the votes of ten States and Burr of four. The

to Hamilton. "We had several caucuses. All acknowledged that nothing but desperate measures remained, which several were disposed to adopt, and but few were willing openly to disapprove. We broke up each time in confusion and discord, and the manner of the last ballot was arranged but a few minutes before the ballot was take

en collectively, the events of 1800 do constitute a revolution-the first party revolution in American history. For a season it seemed as though the Republican party was to be denied the right to exist as a legal opposition, entitled to attain power by persuasion. At the risk of incurring the suspicion of disloyalty, if not of treason, the Republicans clung tenaciously to the

e then identical. Even those who knew the court life of Europe marveled at the display of wealth and fashion at this republican court. Of this social world, the "President and his Lady" were not merely the titular and official leaders, but the real leaders. Between the Virginia

nment and private speculators were trying to convert into a fitting abode for the National Government. There were few comfortable private dwellings. Most of the houses were mere huts occupied by laborers. Great tracts were left unfenced a

gland spirit of the President's wife was appalled at the prospect of having to employ thirty servants to keep the apartments in order and to tend the fires which had everywhere to be kept up to drive away the ague. The ordinary conveniences were wanting. For lack of a yard, Mrs. Adams made a drying-room out of the gr

udiciary. The justices of the Supreme Court objected to circuit duty and urged the erection of a circuit court with a permanent bench of judges. Such a reform was inevitable, it was said; therefore let the Federalists find what consolation they might from the possession of these new judgeships. Patriotism,

circuits. The amount of patronage which thus fell into the President's hands was very considerable, though it was grossly exaggerated by Republicans. The partisan press pictured Pre

GRAPHI

reported in F. Wharton, State Trials of the United States during the Administrations of Washington and Adams (2 vols., 1846). F. T. Hill, Decisive Battles of the Law (1907), gives an interesting account of the trial of Callender. Two special studies should be mentioned: E. D. Warfield, The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 (1887), and F. M. Anders