United States

A party opposed to Hamilton’s fiscal policies began to form in Congress. With Madison at its centre and with support from Jefferson, it soon extended its appeal beyond Congress to popular constituencies. Meanwhile, the French Revolution and France’s subsequent declaration of war against Great Britain, Spain, and Holland further divided American loyalties. Democratic-Republican societies sprang up to express support for France, while Hamilton and his supporters, known as Federalists, backed Britain for economic reasons. Washington pronounced American neutrality in Europe, but to prevent a war with Britain he sent Chief Justice John Jay to London to negotiate a treaty. In the Jay Treaty (1794) the United States gained only minor concessions and—humiliatingly—accepted British naval supremacy as the price of protection for American shipping.

English caricature of Thomas Paine's involvement in the French Revolution.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Washington, whose tolerance had been severely strained by the Whiskey Rebellion and by criticism of the Jay Treaty, chose not to run for a third presidential term. In his Farewell Address (see original text), in a passage drafted by Hamilton, he denounced the new party politics as divisive and dangerous. Parties did not yet aspire to national objectives, however, and, when the Federalist John Adams was elected president, the Democrat-Republican Jefferson, as the presidential candidate with the second greatest number of votes, became vice president. (See primary source document: Right of Free Elections.) Wars in Europe and on the high seas, together with rampant opposition at home, gave the new administration little peace. Virtual naval war with France had followed from American acceptance of British naval protection. In 1798 a French attempt to solicit bribes from American commissioners negotiating a settlement of differences (the so-called XYZ Affair) aroused a wave of anti-French feeling. Later that year the Federalist majority in Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which imposed serious civil restrictions on aliens suspected of pro-French activities and penalized U.S. citizens who criticized the government, making nonsense of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free press. The acts were most often invoked to prosecute Republican editors, some of whom served jail terms. These measures in turn called forth the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, drafted respectively by Madison and Jefferson, which invoked state sovereignty against intolerable federal powers. War with France often seemed imminent during this period, but Adams was determined to avoid issuing a formal declaration of war, and in this he succeeded.

Taxation, which had been levied to pay anticipated war costs, brought more discontent, however, including a new minor rising in Pennsylvania led by Jacob Fries. Fries’s Rebellion was put down without difficulty, but widespread disagreement over issues ranging from civil liberties to taxation was polarizing American politics. A basic sense of political identity now divided Federalists from Republicans, and in the election of 1800 Jefferson drew on deep sources of Anti-Federalist opposition to challenge and defeat his old friend and colleague Adams. The result was the first contest over the presidency between political parties and the first actual change of government as a result of a general election in modern history.

The Jeffersonian Republicans in power

Jefferson began his presidency with a plea for reconciliation: “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.” (See First Inaugural original text.) He had no plans for a permanent two-party system of government. He also began with a strong commitment to limited government and strict construction of the Constitution. All these commitments were soon to be tested by the exigencies of war, diplomacy, and political contingency.

Thomas Jefferson, portrait by an anonymous artist, 19th century; in the National Museum of Franco-American Cooperation, Blérancourt, France.Giraudon/Art Resource, New York

Louisiana PurchaseThe Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.