The First Party System

Overview

Within a few short years after the ratification of the new Constitution, the leaders of the United States split themselves into two parties: the Hamiltonian Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans. Both factions wanted the new national government to succeed and supported the new Constitution, but their agendas would indeed compete with one another, leading to rancor and debate even within George Washington's hand-picked administration. For much of the 1790s, it would be the Federalists who would have the upper hand, but by the turn of the century there would be a public backlash against their heavy handed policies, thereby launching the Republicans to power in 1800.

Federalists

The Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treasury. To achieve the goal of creating a strong commercial economy, he developed a financial scheme designed to gain the confidence of the Nation's economic elite. Central to his plan was to have the new central government take an active role in promoting business while cultivating the loyalty of America's moneyed men. His agenda included (1) federal taxes (including the excise tax) designed to promote monetary stability and business confidence; (2) the issuance of new federal bonds and to pay present holders of national bonds from the confederation period as well as state bonds; and (3) the creation of a national bank (the Bank of the United States). The final proposal would lead to a constitutional debate that would split the Hamiltonians (Federalists) from the followers of Thomas Jefferson (Republicans).

Jeffersonian Republicans

Thomas Jefferson's professed ideology is commonly referred to as "agrarian republicanism." What he envisioned for America was a society primarily composed of yeoman farmers (economically independent owners of small farms), who would be economically independent of the economic pressures of the market place. Hostile to Hamilton's promarket/ pro- economic growth agenda, Jefferson believed that a successful republic required citizenry who were insulated from the corrupting forces of the marketplace. In other words, Jefferson believed that without individual economic independence, citizens would be tempted to compromise their integrity (civic virtue) and act in their own financial interest and not that of society. Those connected to the market – whether rich, middle class, or poor – were susceptible to vote in ways that would benefit themselves and harm the greater good. Jefferson believed that a society of economically independent land owners – who could live off the land— would be sufficiently insulated from the corrupting forces of the marketplace.

Linked to his concern about the sustainability of personal civic virtue within a market-driven society was Jefferson's aversion to strong central authority. While he did come to support the Constitution (over the Articles of Confederation model), he believed that the National government should remain as small and unobtrusive as possible. For Jefferson, the real threat to natural rights did not come from unruly citizens, but from a central government controlled by moneyed oligarchs. In line with these fears was Jefferson's interpretation of the Constitution, which he believed should be interpreted as narrowly as possible. The constitution, from his perspective, was a check on the growth of central authority. Followers of Jefferson's Ideology would point to the 10th Amendment, that proclaimed that the "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Foreign Policy

Ideology, domestic policy, and the interpretation of the Constitution would be the basis of the Republican-Federalist split, but foreign policy would sharpen the partisan conflict. Beginning in 1793, the United States would be affected by war between Great Britain and republican France. The Federalists were inclined to be sympathetic to the English and opposed to the French for several reasons. First, they were wary of civil disobedience and mob action. The French Revolutionaries' radical agenda that included rioting, seizure of property, and the execution of the aristocracy had a chilling effect on Federalists support of the Franco-version of republicanism. Second, there was, among the "high Federalists," a respect and an affinity for English traditions, culture, and institutions. Last, the Federalists wanted to maintain good trade and credit relations with Great Britain in order to promote the United States' economic growth. Thomas Jefferson and his Republican comrades were more sympathetic to the French cause. The tree of liberty, in their minds, required periodic watering with the "blood of tyrants and patriots," and any excesses of the French revolutionaries were temporary: for the Jeffersonians, the people's virtue was to be trusted. Britain, furthermore, had been America's oppressor and French military support had been key to United States' independence. For these reasons, the Republican Party was inclined to support the French during the course of the Anglo-French and Napoleonic Wars.

The difference in opinion on the Anglo-French conflict would become of consequence when British ships stopped US merchant ships that were trading with the French West Indian colonies and possibly stirring up Native American belligerence along the frontier settlement of the United States. In order to maintain good, but ostensibly neutral relations with England, Washington sent the Federalist supreme court chief justice, John Jay, to England to negotiate a settlement with Great Britain. He would return to America with "Jay's Treaty" in hand, which was ratified by the Senate despite widespread criticism that it was extremely favorable to the British. To hard-lined Republicans, and to the French, Jay's Treaty was an "alliance" between the United States and Great Britain and violated the spirit of the Fanco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce that was made during the American Revolution.

In an attempt to placate the Republicans and appease the French, the Federalist president, John Adams, sent a delegation of American Foreign ministers to negotiate an accord, with the hopes of maintaining United States' neutrality. French officials, however, snubbed the Americans by demanding personal bribes and a loan to the French government before initiating negotiations. This diplomatic slap-in-the-face killed the talks and soured relations. The executive report of this incident deleted the name of the Frenchmen involved in the affair and in their place was the letters "X, Y, and Z." The incident has been therefore dubbed the "XYZ Affair." The XYZ Affair is important because it absolutely poisoned relations and put the France and the United States on the war path. Congress enthusiastically increased its military budget, approved the creation of a department of Navy, and began raising taxes. The Congress also passed the Alien and Setion Acts, which lengthened the naturalization process and limited freedom of the press. Under the Sedition Act, it was illegal to print any criticism of the Federalist John Adams or his policies.

Fearful that the Federalists used the threat of war to achieve their goal of a stronger central government, Jefferson and Madison turned to Republican states for help. In 1798 the Kentucky and Virginia assemblies declared that the constitution did not deny the sovereignty of the individual states and that when the central government violates the constitution, the states have the power to object and overturn unconstitutional laws passed by Congress. In other words, these two stat6es were claiming the power to review congressional and executive policy, a privilege that would later be claimed by the Supreme Court.

While the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions had little effect on the execution of the Sedition act, the pair of proclamations would serve as the basis of secessionists' legal reasoning during the antebellum period. Jefferson and Madison never advocated armed resistance to the Federal government, but their view on the sovereignty of the states would become the basis of John C. Calhoun and the southern states' rights position during the antebellum period.

The Consequence of "War" and Peace

The significance of the events following the XYZ Affair was that the Federalists gained the dubious reputation as being the party of excessive authoritarianism. When Adams found a peaceful resolution to the Quasi War (the Franco- American Accord), the Republican Party was able to put forth a hard hitting campaign that equated the Federalists as advocates of tyranny. The Federalists, it would seem to the majority of Americans, had cynically used the threat of war to expand their party's and the central government's powers. This shift in public mood against the Federalists gave the Republicans a landslide victory in the election of 1800. Jefferson, who won the presidency, proclaimed this outcome to be nothing short of a "Revolution" in which the American people, once again, defeated a tyrannical regime.

Some Key Terms

Agrarian Republicanism, Bill of Rights, Judiciary Act of 1789, Jefferson/Hamilton split, Hamilton's public credit plan, Bank of the United States, Tariffs/Duties, Elastic clause/broad construction, 10th Amendment/narrow construction, French Revolution, U.S. International Policy, Whiskey Rebellion, Jay's Treaty, XYZ Affair, Quasi-War, Alien and Sedition Act, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, Nullification and States Rights, Revolution of 1800,

Copyright ©2009; 2018 D.B. Ryden