AP U.S. History 4.2: The Rise of Political Parties and the Era of Jefferson

In the 1790s, arguments over the national government and the states, economic policy and foreign policy had produced two parties. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, supported a strong government with federal institutions playing a leading role. The Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, favored a weaker, less active federal government that left more authority to the states. Jefferson's election did not end those arguments. In the early 1800s the parties kept debating the tariff, the powers of the federal government and relations with European powers.

In his inaugural address Jefferson listed what he called the essential principles of the government. Some are about the balance of power: "the support of the State governments in all their rights" beside "the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor." Some are about the world: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." Others are about the economy: "a wise and frugal Government" and "encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid."

A list like this is a party leader's program, stated as if everyone already shared it.

Sources: Jefferson's First Inaugural Address (Avalon Project); The Two-Party System (National Archives).

Relations with European powers became the hardest test. During the Napoleonic Wars the warring powers interfered with American ships and trade, and a British warship attacked the American frigate Chesapeake. In December 1807 the Embargo Act restricted the nation's foreign trade. (The date and the wartime setting are from the course framework's suggested sources for this topic.)

On November 8, 1808, Jefferson defended the embargo to Congress. He blamed "the belligerent nations, whose disregard of neutral rights has been so destructive to our commerce," and credited the embargo with "saving our mariners and our vast mercantile property." He also reported that "Some small and special detachments have been necessary to maintain the laws of embargo on that portion of our northern frontier which offered peculiar facilities for evasion." And cut off from foreign trade, Americans began "to apply a portion of our industry and capital to internal manufactures and improvements," which Jefferson expected "protecting duties," a tariff, to sustain.

The other party saw it differently. Centered in seaports, the Federalists opposed the War of 1812 because it disrupted trade, and in 1814 their Hartford Convention proposed amendments to the Constitution, among them that "Congress shall not have power to lay any embargo on the ships or vessels of the citizens of the United States, in the ports or harbors thereof, for more than sixty days."

Sources: Jefferson's Eighth Annual Message (Avalon Project); The Two-Party System (National Archives); Hartford Convention amendments (Avalon Project).

Nothing in the Constitution's text gave the Supreme Court the power to strike down a law. Chief Justice John Marshall's Court claimed it. In 1801, outgoing President John Adams had issued William Marbury a commission as a justice of the peace, and the new Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver it. In Marbury v. Madison (1803) the Court held that the part of the act establishing the federal courts that would have let it order the commission delivered conflicted with the Constitution. For the first time it declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress and signed by the President. "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is," Marshall wrote, and "a law repugnant to the constitution is void." This is judicial review.

Later decisions put federal law ahead of state law. In 1818 Maryland taxed the Second National Bank, which Congress had established in 1816. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) the Court ruled that "the States have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress." In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) it held that "Commerce among the states cannot stop at the external boundary line of each state."

Sources: Marbury v. Madison; McCulloch v. Maryland; Gibbons v. Ogden (National Archives).

On April 30, 1803, the United States bought 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River from France for $15 million and doubled its size.

The purchase raised a question about federal power. Jefferson was generally a strict interpreter of the Constitution, and he wondered whether the government was authorized to acquire new territory at all. He drafted an amendment that began: "The province of Louisiana is incorporated with the U. S. and made part thereof." When Napoleon threatened to take back the offer, Jefferson set his doubts aside.

The government then sought influence and control over the new land through exploration and diplomacy. Jefferson had asked Congress in January 1803, before the purchase, to fund an expedition west; much of the land it would cross became American in the purchase. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were instructed to seek new trade routes and to establish relations with the western American Indian nations. Other expeditions followed. In 1806 Jefferson reported: "Very useful additions have also been made to our knowledge of the Mississippi by Lieutenant Pike, who has ascended to its source."

Sources: Louisiana Purchase Treaty (National Archives); Jefferson's draft amendment (Avalon Project); Jefferson's message on exploring the West (National Archives); Sixth Annual Message (Avalon Project).