American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

“I am satisfied that the heaping of abuse on me personally, has been with the design and the hope of provoking me to make a general sweep of all Federalists out of office. But as I have carried no passion into the execution of this disagreeable duty, I shall suffer none to be excited. The clamor which has been raised will not provoke me to remove one more, nor deter me from removing one less, than if not a word had been said on the subject. In the course of the summer, all which is necessary will be done; and we may hope that, this cause of offence being at an end, the measures we shall pursue and propose for the amelioration of the public affairs, will be so confessedly salutary as to unite all men not monarchists in principle.” In the same letter he warmly berates the monarchical federalists, saying, “they are incurables, to be taken care of in a madhouse if necessary, and on motives of charity.”

The seventh Congress assembled. Political parties were at first nearly equally divided in the Senate, but eventually there was a majority for the administration. Jefferson then discontinued the custom established by Washington of delivering in person his message to Congress. The change was greatly for the better, as it afforded relief from the requirement of immediate answers on the subjects contained in the message. It has ever since been followed.

The seventh session of Congress, pursuant to the recommendation of President Jefferson, established a uniform system of naturalization, and so modified the law as to make the required residence of aliens five years, instead of fourteen, as in the act of 1798, and to permit a declaration of intention to become a citizen at the expiration of three years. By his recommendation also was established the first sinking fund for the redemption of the public debt. It required the setting apart annually for this purpose the sum of seven millions and three hundred thousand dollars. Other measures, more partisan in their character, were proposed, but Congress showed an aversion to undoing what had been wisely done. A favorite law of the Federalists establishing circuit courts alone was repealed, and this only after a sharp debate, and a close vote. The provisional army had been disbanded by a law of the previous Congress. A proposition to abolish the naval department was defeated, as was that to discontinue the mint establishment.

At this session the first law in relation to the slave trade was passed. It was to prevent the importation of negroes, mulattoes and other persons of color into any port of the United States within a state which had prohibited by law the admission of any such person. The penalty was one thousand dollars and the forfeiture of the vessel. The slave trade was not then prohibited by the constitution, nor was the subject then generally agitated, though it had been as early as 1793, when, as previously stated, an exciting sectional debate followed the presentation of a petition from Pennsylvania to abolish the slave trade.

Probably the most important occurrence under the first administration of Jefferson was that relating to the purchase and admission of Louisiana. There had been apprehensions of a war with Spain, and with a view to be ready Congress had passed an act authorizing the President to call upon the executives of such of the states as he might deem expedient, for detachments of militia not exceeding eighty thousand, or to accept the services of volunteers for a term of twelve months. The disagreement arose over the southwestern boundary line and the right of navigating the Mississippi. Our government learned in the spring of 1802, that Spain had by a secret treaty made in October, 1800, actually ceded Louisiana to France. Our government had in 1795 made a treaty with Spain which gave us the right of deposit at New Orleans for three years, but in October, 1802, the Spanish authorities gave notice by proclamation that this right was withdrawn. Excitement followed all along the valley of the Mississippi, and it was increased by the belief that the withdrawal of the privilege was made at the suggestion of France, though Spain still retained the territory, as the formalities of ceding it had not been gone through with. Jefferson promptly took the ground that if France took possession of New Orleans, the United States would immediately become allies of England, but suggested to Minister Livingston at Paris that France might be induced to cede the island of New Orleans and the Floridas to the United States. It was his belief, though a mistaken one, that France had also acquired the Floridas. Louisiana then comprised much of the territory west of the Mississippi and south of the Missouri.

The Federalists in Congress seized upon this question as one upon which they could make an aggressive war against Jefferson’s administration, and resolutions were introduced asking information on the subject. Jefferson, however, wisely avoided all entangling suggestions, and sent Monroe to aid Livingston in effecting a purchase. The treaty was formed in April, 1803, and submitted by Jefferson to the Senate in October following. The Republicans rallied in favor of this scheme of annexation, and claimed that it was a constitutional right in the government to acquire territory—a doctrine widely at variance with their previous position, but occasions are rare where parties quarrel with their administrations on pivotal measures. There was also some latitude here for endorsement, as the direct question of territorial acquisition had not before been presented, but only hypothetically stated in the constitutional disputations then in great fashion. Jefferson would not go so far as to say that the constitution warranted the acquisition to foreign territory, but the scheme was nevertheless his, and he stood in with his friends in the political battle which followed.

The Federalists claimed that we had no power to acquire territory, and that the acquirement of Louisiana would give the South a preponderance which would “continue for all time (poor prophets they!), since southern would be more rapid than northern development;” that states created west of the Mississippi would injure the commerce of New England, and they even went so far as to say that the “admission of the Western World into the Union would compel the Eastern States to establish an eastern empire.” Doubts were also raised as to the right of Louisianians, when admitted to citizenship under our laws, as their lineage, language and religion were different from our own. Its inhabitants were French and descendants of French, with some Spanish creoles, Americans, English and Germans—in all about 90,000, including 40,000 slaves. There were many Indians of course, in a territory then exceeding a million of square miles—a territory which, in the language of First Consul Napoleon, “strengthens forever the power of the United States, and which will give to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride”—a military view of the change fully justified by subsequent history. Napoleon sold because of needed preparations for war with England, and while he had previously expressed a willingness to take fifty million francs for it, he got sixty through the shrewd diplomacy of his ministers, who hid for the time their fear of the capture of the port of New Orleans by the English navy.

Little chance was afforded the Federalists for adverse criticism in Congress, for the purchase proved so popular that the people greatly increased the majority in both branches of the eighth Congress, and Jefferson called it together earlier for the purpose of ratification. The Senate ratified the treaty on the 20th of October, 1803, by a vote of 24 to 7, while the House adopted a resolution for carrying the treaty into effect by a vote of 90 to 25. Eleven million dollars of the purchase money was appropriated, the remaining four millions being reserved for the indemnity of American citizens who had sustained losses by French assaults upon our commerce—from which fact subsequently came what is known as the French Spoliation Bill.

Impeachment trials were first attempted before the eighth Congress in 1803. Judge Pickering, of the district court of the United States for New Hampshire, was impeached for occasional drunkenness, and dismissed from office. Judge Chase of the U. S. Supreme Court, and Judge Peters of the district court of Pennsylvania, both Federalists, were charged by articles proposed in the House with illegal and arbitrary conduct in the trial of parties charged with political offenses. The Federalists took alarm at these proceedings, and so vehement were their charges against the Republicans of a desire to destroy the judiciary that their impeachments were finally abandoned.

The Republicans closed their first national administration with high prestige. They had met several congressional reverses on questions where defeat proved good fortune, for the Federalists kept a watchful defence, and were not always wrong. The latter suffered numerically, and many of their best leaders had fallen in the congressional contest of 1800 and 1802, while the Republicans maintained their own additions in talent and number.