American Founder Fathers (Selection)

Source for biographies: Encarta

Washington

Adams

Madison

Jefferson

Hamilton

Presidents (Whitehouse.gov)

Washington, George (1732-1799), first president of the United States (1789-1797) and one of the most important leaders in United States history. His role in gaining independence for the American colonies and later in unifying them under the new U.S. federal government cannot be overestimated. Laboring against great difficulties, he created the Continental Army, which fought and won the American Revolution (1775-1783), out of what was little more than an armed mob. After an eight-year struggle, his design for victory brought final defeat to the British at Yorktown, Virginia, and forced Great Britain to grant independence to its overseas possession.

With victory won, Washington was the most revered man in the United States. A lesser person might have used this power to establish a military dictatorship or to become king. Washington sternly suppressed all such attempts on his behalf by his officers and continued to obey the weak and divided Continental Congress. However, he never ceased to work for the union of the states under a strong central government. He was a leading influence in persuading the states to participate in the Constitutional Convention, over which he presided, and he used his immense prestige to help gain ratification of its product, the Constitution of the United States.

Although worn out by years of service to his country, Washington reluctantly accepted the presidency of the United States. Probably no other man could have succeeded in welding the states into a lasting union. Washington fully understood the significance of his presidency. “I walk on untrodden ground,” he said. “There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn in precedent.” During eight years in office, Washington laid down the guidelines for future presidents.

Washington lived only two years after turning over the presidency to his successor, John Adams. The famous tribute by General Henry Lee, “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” accurately reflected the emotions that Washington’s death aroused. Later generations have crowned this tribute with the simple title “Father of His Country.”

George Washington was born on his father’s estate in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on February 22, 1732. He was the eldest son of a well-to-do Virginia farmer, Augustine Washington, by his second wife, Mary Ball. The Washington family was descended from two brothers, John and Lawrence Washington, who emigrated from England to Virginia in 1657. The family’s rise to modest wealth in three generations was the result of steady application to farming, land buying, and development of local industries.

Young George seems to have received most of his schooling from his father and, after the father’s death in 1743, from his elder half-brother Lawrence. The boy had a liking for mathematics, and he applied it to acquiring a knowledge of surveying, which was a skill greatly in demand in a country where people were seeking new lands in the West. For the Virginians of that time the West meant chiefly the upper Ohio River valley. Throughout his life, George Washington maintained a keen interest in the development of these western lands, and from time to time he acquired properties there.

George grew up a tall, strong young man, who excelled in outdoor pursuits, liked music and theatrical performances, and was a trifle awkward with girls but fond of dancing. His driving force was the ambition to gain wealth and eminence and to do well whatever he set his hand to.

His first real adventure as a boy was accompanying a surveying party to the Shenandoah Valley of northern Virginia and descending the Shenandoah River by canoe. An earlier suggestion that he should be sent to sea seems to have been discouraged by his uncle Joseph Ball, who described the prospects of an unknown colonial youth in the British Navy of that day as such that “he had better be put apprentice to a tinker.”When he was 17 he was appointed surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, the first public office he held.

In 1751 George had his first and only experience of foreign lands when he accompanied his half-brother Lawrence to the island of Barbados in the West Indies. Lawrence was desperately ill with tuberculosis and thought the climate might help, but the trip did him little good. Moreover, George was stricken with smallpox. He bore the scars from the disease for the rest of his life. Fortunately this experience gave him immunity to the disease, which was later to decimate colonial troops during the American Revolution.

Lawrence died in 1752. Under the terms of his will, George soon acquired the beautiful estate of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County, one of six farms then held by the Washington family interests. Also, the death of his beloved half-brother opened another door to the future. Lawrence had held the post of adjutant in the colonial militia. This was a full-time salaried appointment, carrying the rank of major, and involved the inspection, mustering, and regulation of various militia companies. Washington seems to have been confident he could make an efficient adjutant at the age of 20, though he was then without military experience. In November 1752 he was appointed adjutant of the southern district of Virginia by Governor Robert Dinwiddie.

During the following summer, Virginia was alarmed by reports that a French expedition from Canada was establishing posts on the headwaters of the Ohio River and seeking to make treaties with the Native American peoples. Governor Dinwiddie received orders from Britain to demand an immediate French withdrawal, and Major Washington promptly volunteered to carry the governor’s message to the French commander. His ambition at this time was to secure royal preference for a commission in the regular British army, and this expedition promised to bring him to the king’s attention.

Washington took with him a skillful and experienced frontiersman, Christopher Gist, together with an interpreter and four other men. Reaching the forks of the Ohio, he found that the French had withdrawn northward for the winter. After inconclusive negotiations with the Native Americans living there, who were members of the Iroquois Confederacy, he pressed on and finally delivered Dinwiddie’s message to the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf, not far from Lake Erie. The answer was polite but firm: The French were there to stay. Returning, Washington reached Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, to deliver this word to the governor in mid-January 1754, having made a hard wilderness journey of more than 1600 km (1000 mi) in less than three months. With his report he submitted a map of his route and a strong recommendation that an English fort be erected at the forks of the Ohio as quickly as possible, before the French returned to that strategic position in the spring.

Dinwiddie, who was himself a large stockholder in companies exploiting western lands, acted promptly on this suggestion. He sent William Trent with a small force to start building the fort. Major Washington was to raise a column of 200 men to follow and reinforce the advance party.

This was Washington’s first experience with the difficulties of raising troops while lacking equipment, clothing, and funds. Apparently he thought his efforts worthy of some recognition and successfully applied to Dinwiddie for a lieutenant colonel’s commission. He left Alexandria, Virginia, early in April with about 150 poorly equipped and half-trained troops.

Before he had advanced very far, Washington received news that the French had driven Trent’s men back from the Ohio forks. He did not turn back, but pushed on to establish an advanced position from which, when reinforced, he hoped to turn the tables. He set part of his men to work building a log stockade, which he named Fort Necessity. On May 27, 1754, he surprised a French force in the woods and routed it after a short battle. The French commander, Ensign Joseph Coulon, Sieur de Jumonville, was killed in the clash, and Washington took prisoners back to Fort Necessity. He had won his first victory.

The French, on hearing of Jumonville’s death, sent out a larger force. Unfortunately for Washington, these troops reached Fort Necessity before he had received either the men or the supplies he expected from Virginia. On July 3 the fort was attacked by the French and some Iroquois who had allied with them, beginning what would be called the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The fort did not have the soldiers or arms to hold out. However, the French offered surrender terms that were not humiliating: The Virginians were to abandon the fort and withdraw to their own settlements, leaving two hostages for good faith. Washington’s papers and journal were taken, and he was to sign a surrender document. Washington accepted the terms on July 4 after the surrender document was translated for him and did not appear to contain any offensive statements.

Back in Williamsburg, Washington had become famous. The victory over Jumonville was applauded, and he was not blamed for surrendering his fort to superior forces. The expedition was written up in a British magazine and thereby came to the attention of the king, George II. The magazine quoted Washington as saying that he found “something charming” in the sound of the bullets whizzing past his head at the Jumonville skirmish. At this the king remarked, “He would not say so if he had been used to hear many.”

There were two repercussions that caused Washington some regrets. First, he found that his translator had been mistaken. An accurate translation of the surrender document showed it to contain the phrase “assassination of Sieur de Jumonville,” implying that Washington had killed the French commander dishonorably. Secondly, the French published a translation of Washington’s journal. But it was heavily edited and the emphasis changed to make it appear that the French soldiers were merely on a diplomatic mission. Representatives of King George inquired into the matter but were satisfied that Washington had acted correctly. He was not held to account for the mistake of his translator.

Washington had succeeded in getting the king’s attention, but he did not get the royal commission he hoped for. The king’s military advisers, while admitting his “courage and resolution,” believed that officers in the British regular army were better qualified to lead troops against the French. Later in 1754, the Virginia military was reorganized in accordance with that opinion, now made policy: Regular army officers coming from Britain would now have command over officers who held colonial commissions. This meant that Washington might find himself reporting to officers he outranked and who had less experience than he had. Finding that possibility intolerable, he resigned his commission. However, a strong British force under Major General Edward Braddock arrived early in 1755 with orders to drive the French from Fort Duquesne, which they had built at the forks of the Ohio. Washington’s local military reputation was such that Braddock invited him to join the staff as a volunteer aide-de-camp.

The advance was slow, and the British soldiers were not at their best in forest warfare. On July 9, 1755, the column was surprised and routed by the French and their Native American allies, only 11 km (7 mi) from Fort Duquesne. The British troops, in Washington’s words, were “immediately struck with such a deadly Panick that nothing but confusion prevail’d amongst them.” Braddock was mortally wounded. Washington did his best to try to rally the regulars and to use a few Virginia troops to cover the retreat. His coolness and bravery under fire enhanced his reputation.

The western frontier of Virginia was now dangerously exposed, and in August 1755, Governor Dinwiddie appointed Washington commander in chief of all the colony’s troops, with the rank of colonel. For the next three years, Washington struggled with the bitter and endless problems of frontier defense. He never had enough resources to establish more than a patchwork of security, but he acquired valuable experience in the conduct of war with the logistical and political problems peculiar to American conditions. In the fall of 1758 he had the satisfaction of commanding a Virginia regiment under British General John Forbes, who recovered Fort Duquesne from the French and renamed it Fort Pitt.

With Virginia’s strategic objective attained, Colonel Washington resigned his commission and turned his attention to the quieter life of a Virginia planter. In January 1759 he married Martha Dandridge Custis, a charming and wealthy young widow.

As a planter, Washington showed eager interest in improving the productivity of his fields and the quality of his livestock. He read all available works on progressive agriculture and constantly experimented in crop rotation. He invested in new implements and used new methods and fertilizers. He found that planting only tobacco, the chief cash crop of Virginia, did not pay. It was too dependent on the weather, the state of the British market, and the honesty of the British agents who managed the overseas end of the transactions. He developed fisheries, increased his production of wheat, set up a mill and an ironworks, and taught his slaves cloth-weaving and other handicrafts.

During his years as a gentleman farmer, Washington matured from an ambitious youth into the patriarch of the Washington clan and a solid member of Virginia society. He remained somewhat shy and reserved throughout his life. He was sensitive and emotional, with a violent temper that he usually held firmly in check. But most of all he was a man of great personal dignity. His connection with the wealthy and powerful Fairfax family, through his half-brother Lawrence’s marriage, perhaps as much as his own energies, made him a wealthy landowner and, from 1759 to 1774, a member of the House of Burgesses, the lower chamber of the Virginia legislature. In all, as Washington prospered and his responsibilities grew, his character was enriched and grew to keep pace.

Washington’s perspective broadened, and he became involved in the protests of Virginians against the restrictions of British rule. He became yearly more convinced that the king’s ministers and British merchants and financiers regarded Americans as inferior and sought to control “our whole substance.” His wartime experience had given him ample evidence of the contempt felt by British military men for colonial officers. Now he began to see the deepening division between the true interests of the American people and the view held of those interests in Britain. As a member of the House of Burgesses he opposed such measures as the 1765 Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on the colonies without consulting them, and he foresaw that British policy was moving toward doing away with self-government in America altogether.

Washington’s anti-British feelings were strengthened by the introduction of the Townshend Acts in 1767. These acts imposed more unpopular taxes. His voice joined in Virginia’s decision in 1770 to retaliate by banning taxable British goods from the colony. His belief in the colonies’ right of free action resounds in his words written to Virginia statesman George Mason: “... as a last resource ...Americans should be prepared to take up arms to defend their ancestral liberties from the inroads of our lordly Masters in Great Britain.”

By 1774, when the spirit of American resistance was well developed, Washington had become one of the key Virginians supporting the colonial cause. He was elected to the First Continental Congress, an assembly of delegates from the colonies to decide on actions to take against Britain. Although he did not enter much into debate, his viewpoint was uniformly sound and acceptable. However, he knew that more than paper resolutions would be needed to safeguard American liberties, and he spent the winter of 1774 and 1775 organizing militia companies in Virginia.

When Washington attended the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, he appeared in the blue and buff uniform of the Fairfax County militia. These colors were later adopted for the army of the colonies, called the Continental Army. As he entered the hall, the country was already ringing with the news from Massachusetts, where the battles at Lexington and Concord had been fought, and the only British army in the colonies was besieged in Boston by the militia of the surrounding towns (see American Revolution).

On June 15, 1775, the Continental Congress unanimously elected George Washington as general and commander in chief of its army. He was chosen for two basic reasons. First, he was respected for his military abilities, his selflessness, and his strong commitment to colonial freedom. Secondly, Washington was a Virginian, and it was hoped that his appointment would bind the Southern colonies more closely to the rebellion in New England. Congressman John Adams of Massachusetts was the moving spirit in securing the command for Washington. He realized that, although the war had begun in Massachusetts, success could come only if all 13 colonies were united in their protest and in their willingness to fight.

On June 25, 1775, Washington set out for Massachusetts, and on July 3, he halted his horse under an elm on the common in Cambridge, drew his sword, and formally took command of the Continental Army. In his general order of the following day, Washington’s emphasis was on unity: “... it is to be hoped that all distinction of colonies will be laid aside, so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole, and the only contest be, who shall render, on this great and trying occasion, the most essential service to the common cause in which we are all engaged.” To this high ideal of unity in a common cause, Washington remained unswervingly loyal through many trials and disappointments. Indeed, he was to become the living symbol of a national unity that at times seemed to have little actual substance.

Washington found his army in high spirits due to the heavy losses inflicted on the British troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17. He was pleased at what had been done toward entrenching the semicircular American front, but he was appalled at the disorganization and lack of discipline among his soldiers and the officers’ ignorance of their duties. Also, he soon realized that the term of service of most of his men was soon to expire, producing for him the double task of trying to train one army while raising another to take its place.

Washington began at once to impress these difficulties on Congress, pointing to the need for longer terms of enlistment. He asked for better pay, which alone could induce men to enlist for the necessary term. Almost immediately he came up against Congress’s fear that a standing army would bring with it the peril of a military dictatorship. The legislators only gradually understood that the immediate peril of political dictatorship by the king’s ministers was much more real than a possible future threat of a military dictator.

However, Washington did the best he could with the available means. He took stern measures to restore discipline. Insubordination and desertion were punished by flogging with the cat-o’-nine-tails. A few deserters, especially those who repeated the offense, were hanged. The worst problem of supply was the shortage of gunpowder. It hampered all of Washington’s plans for months, and appeals to neighboring colonies brought little help.

Meanwhile, the only British army in North America remained cooped up in Boston throughout the winter. There was no real fighting, but Washington was preparing a surprise for Sir William Howe, the British commander. During the winter 50 heavy cannon from the captured British Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York were dragged by sled to Boston. In a brilliant move, Washington mounted the cannon on Dorchester Heights, which commanded the city. Howe, recognizing that his position was untenable, evacuated the city by sea on March 17, 1776. From there the British went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Howe awaited reinforcements from across the Atlantic. The rebellious American colonies were, for the time being, entirely free of British troops.

Amid much public praise and rejoicing, Washington arrived in New York City, which was the obvious objective of the British forces now gathering in Nova Scotia. Having seen to the immediate measures necessary for the defense of that city, he proceeded to Philadelphia with the aim of persuading Congress to rectify the enlistment situation. This time he came in the bright glow of victory, which gave authority to his arguments.

Congress not only authorized three-year enlistments for the future, but also voted bounties for the enlistees. In addition, a permanent Board of War and Ordnance was created to deal with military matters in place of the makeshift committees that had previously held this responsibility. However, these measures, although wise, proved of no immediate help to Washington in meeting what was then his chief military problem: the forthcoming British attack on New York City.

British ships carrying the first units of Howe’s army of 20,000 arrived in New York Bay on June 29, 1776, and the troops began landing on Staten Island. By mid-August the British force, which included German mercenaries (soldiers serving merely for the pay), had increased to more than 30,000, backed by a powerful naval squadron. Howe moved slowly, and this gave Washington time to gather a considerable force of militia from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Even so, his total strength was not more than 18,000, and at least half of these had little or no training.

Washington feared that Howe’s opening move might be to send ships straight up the Hudson River to land a strong force behind the city. However, the British general chose to begin his operations by landing on Long Island. The only American fortifications there were at Brooklyn Heights, covering the approaches to the East River and Manhattan Island. Some 9000 American troops, about half of Washington’s total force, were on Long Island when 20,000 British and German troops began landing at Gravesend Bay on August 22. About 4000 of the Americans were deployed well in front of the Brooklyn Heights fortifications to observe and delay the enemy’s progress.

These troop placements have been more severely criticized than any other military act of Washington’s career, since they exposed his army to the danger of being destroyed piece by piece. Howe, moving deliberately, made a surprise attack on the 4000 men in forward positions and hurled them back in headlong flight to Brooklyn Heights, with the loss of more than one-third of their number. Had Howe instantly followed through by throwing his whole force against the American lines on the heights, he would certainly have overwhelmed them, and Washington would have lost half his army. However, by not doing so, he gave Washington a chance to retrieve his original error, a chance Washington seized and exploited (see Long Island, Battle of).

During the next 24 hours, working desperately against time—for at any moment the British warships might block his line of retreat—Washington gathered all the barges, boats, and small craft he could and assigned men from Colonel Glover’s Massachusetts regiment to operate them. During the night of August 29, under Washington’s personal command and direction, the entire American force on Long Island, with all its stores, artillery, and equipment, was ferried across the East River to Manhattan without a single casualty.

Thus Washington brilliantly redeemed his original error, and his later conduct of the war showed that he was fully capable of learning from experience. Never again did he offer battle to a British army under conditions that denied him full freedom of action to preserve his own army should the battle turn against him. Howe finally decided to occupy New York City on September 15. To avoid being outflanked, Washington fell back and fought delaying actions at Harlem Heights and then, in October, at White Plains (see White Plains, Battle of).

During the last two months of 1776, Washington was in constant retreat. He stationed a force under Major General Heath near West Point, New York, to guard the vital entrance to the highlands of New York state. He then withdrew across the Hudson into New Jersey and moved slowly southwestward to the Delaware River at Trenton. There he collected all available boats and crossed the river into Pennsylvania on December 8, just as the advance guard of the pursuing British column entered the town.

This was the darkest hour of the new American republic. Howe proclaimed complete victory. Congress shared his view and fled south from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Washington, with only a remnant of his army, some 3000 men, seemed already defeated and of no further account.

On December 13, 1776, Major General Charles Lee was captured in New Jersey by a British patrol. The command of his troops passed to Brigadier General John Sullivan, who immediately marched south to join Washington. This raised the commander’s total force to about 6000. Thus reinforced, Washington planned a victory that would electrify the entire country. The British had pulled back most of their troops to winter in New York City, leaving scattered garrisons of German mercenaries in New Jersey. These German troops were called Hessians because most of them were hired from the German state of Hessen-Kassel. The nearest of these Hessian garrisons to Washington’s camp was at Trenton and consisted of about 1200 men. Washington decided to capture this force and set the morning of December 26 for the attack. He was reasonably sure that lonely troops in a foreign land would have had much alcohol to drink to celebrate Christmas Day, and would still be groggy from the effects. This was a good time to surprise them.

On December 25, despite a raging storm, Washington led his small army of 2500 across the ice-clogged Delaware. The surprise was complete. The Hessians’ scattered attempts at resistance collapsed in minutes, and the garrison at the next post fled in haste on receiving the news. Washington was able to recross the Delaware with his prisoners and booty without interference. But he considered Trenton only a beginning because he now received fresh troops that doubled the size of his forces. These were Pennsylvania militiamen who had been induced to extend their enlistments after Washington pledged his own money to cover their pay. On December 29, with 5000 men, he again crossed the Delaware.

Washington’s objective now was to force the British to withdraw from New Jersey altogether and to station his army in a secure position in the hills near Morristown, New Jersey, on the flank of the British route to Philadelphia. Attacked at Trenton by a British force under General Charles Cornwallis, he withdrew during the night of January 2, 1777. He then circled around the British flank and, near Princeton, severely defeated three British regiments marching to reinforce Cornwallis. Washington then again eluded the main body of British troops and moved north to Morristown. By attacking Cornwallis’s supply lines, he forced the British to retreat to New York City. Thus the British were compelled to abandon all but a small corner of New Jersey to American control. See also Princeton, Battle of.

At Morristown, during the remainder of the winter, Washington’s chief concern was recruitment. Although recruits came in slowly, Washington had the satisfaction of knowing that they could now be fitted into the framework of a permanent army organization. The Continental Army was entirely Washington’s creation. He had overcome every obstacle, using the lessons of painful experience as skillfully against his opponents in Congress as against those on the battlefield.

Howe wasted the first six months of 1777 on feeble skirmishing in northern New Jersey. Washington met this with bold action. Then, in July, when British General John Burgoyne was deep in the wilderness of northern New York state and fully committed, Howe loaded 14,000 troops aboard ship and sailed for Philadelphia, leaving Burgoyne to face inevitable disaster.

Washington could not expect to keep Howe out of Philadelphia, but for the sake of morale he would not give up the city without a fight. In a defensive battle at Brandywine Creek on September 11 a turning movement by Cornwallis rolled up Washington’s right flank, but American Major General Nathanael Greene’s division fought a stout rear-guard action to cover the withdrawal of the defeated units (see Brandywine, Battle of the). This spoke well for the improved quality of Washington’s Continental Army. Howe moved on to Philadelphia without any serious attempt to follow up his success.

On October 5, Washington made a surprise attack on the British at Germantown, west of Philadelphia, and gained initial successes that could not be maintained because of fog, confusing orders, and stout British resistance (see Germantown, Battle of). But Washington’s boldness in launching this attack so soon after his defeat at Brandywine Creek produced a favorable effect both at home and in France. The news of Brandywine and Germantown reached Paris in December and gave the French government ministers enough confidence in Washington to recommend to King Louis XVI that he sign a treaty of alliance with the United States. Soon afterward came news that Burgoyne had surrendered at the Battle of Saratoga, and the French king’s lingering doubts were overcome.

Howe’s army passed the winter in fairly comfortable quarters in Philadelphia. Washington’s army wintered under conditions of extreme privation at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where they could observe any move Howe made. It was during this winter that a coalition of Congress members and discontented officers tried to replace Washington with General Horatio Gates, in a scheme known as the Conway Cabal. However, the cabal’s end result was to establish Washington’s influence in the Continental Congress on a stronger foundation than before.

On May 1, 1778, Washington heard the news that transformed the nature of the war: A treaty of alliance had been signed between the United States and the king of France. Washington’s reaction was immediate: “If there is war between France and Britain, Philadelphia is an ineligible situation for the Army under Sir William Howe.” This remark is the first definite evidence of the idea taking form in Washington’s mind: to catch a British army in a situation where it could be hemmed in by a superior land force, with its escape or reinforcement by sea cut off. Washington did not know it, but blockading the British army in Philadelphia was exactly the enterprise that the French admiral the Comte d’Estaing, already at sea, had in mind. General Sir Henry Clinton, who took control of the British forces when Howe resigned that spring, was forewarned of the aim of the French fleet and withdrew his men and equipment to New York City. Washington ordered an attack on the retreating British at Monmouth, New Jersey, on June 28, 1778, but the attack failed because of the perfidy of General Charles Lee, who had been released and had resumed his command. Lee ordered his troops to retreat, an action that was revealed many years later as part of a plan of betrayal that he had agreed to with the British while they held him prisoner (see Monmouth, Battle of).

A letter written by Washington contains a striking description of the military situation in the summer of 1778: “It is not a little pleasing ... to contemplate that after two years’ manoeuvring and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes ... both armies are brought back to the very place they set out from, and that the offending [British] army at the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for defense.”

Washington was aware of the negative effect produced in Britain by the utter collapse of British military efforts in America. His strategy became one of infinite patience, avoiding at all costs any serious disaster to his army, keeping the French firmly convinced of American reliability, and watching and planning to present the British with one more defeat comparable to Saratoga. Then the will of the British people to sustain the American war might well suffer a complete collapse.

During 1779, Washington strengthened the positions that held the main British army in New York City. He also sent a strong expedition to lay waste the land of the Iroquois, whose British-incited raids on the frontier had become intolerable. But there was little he could do to stem British successes in the south. Savannah, Georgia, was lost in 1778 and Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, in 1779, and Cornwallis had 5000 troops in the South to “reduce the Carolinas to the King’s obedience.”

In July 1779 a French force of 6000 under the Comte de Rochambeau arrived, escorted by a naval squadron under Admiral de Ternay. Washington’s note discussing future operations began with a most significant sentence: “In any operations and under all circumstances, a decisive naval superiority is to be considered as a fundamental principle ....” This superiority was finally attained for the siege of Yorktown more than a year later.

The victory at Yorktown was one of Washington’s greatest triumphs. He had been forced to check his strong urge for a “vigorous offensive” until the second French fleet arrived. This happened in the late summer of 1781, and Washington with great energy coordinated a sea and land operation against Cornwallis’s force that trapped it in the city. With the British surrender on October 19, Washington obtained the victory he hoped would end the war. The following March the House of Commons, a chamber of Britain’s Parliament, declared its unwillingness to support the war in America.

Washington’s judgment, patience, and soldierly fortitude had established the military foundation on which U.S. independence was to be erected. However, his duties as commander in chief were not yet ended. Although hostilities had virtually ceased by April 1782, Washington knew that the British king, George III, had yielded to the wishes of the House of Commons reluctantly. He was most anxious that there should be no visible relaxation of American vigilance while the peace negotiations dragged along their weary course. “There is nothing,” he wrote, “which will so soon produce a speedy and honorable peace, as a state of preparedness for war.”

Washington rejected, with anger and abhorrence, a suggestion, which had some support in the army, of establishing a monarchy with himself as king. In March 1783, with Congress still dawdling, anonymous letters appeared calling a meeting of officers. Washington promptly broke this up by calling a meeting on his own authority. He begged the officers to do nothing “that would tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated throughout Europe for its fortitude and patriotism.” His appeal averted what might have been serious trouble.

Peace was officially proclaimed on April 19, 1783, but not until November 25, as the last British boats put off to the ships, did Washington’s troops enter New York City. On December 4, Washington took leave of his principal officers at Fraunces Tavern and departed at last for home and the peace and quiet of a planter’s life. He stopped at Annapolis, Maryland, where Congress was temporarily meeting, to take his leave of the civilian power he had always so meticulously obeyed and to surrender his commission as commander in chief. He reached Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve of 1783. There he hoped ardently, as he wrote in a letter at the time, to remain “a private citizen, under the shadow of my own vine and my own figtree [and] move gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my fathers.”

At Mount Vernon, Washington found himself confronted by financial problems. After eight years of relative neglect, Mount Vernon needed much rebuilding and there was little capital to do it with. During the dark war years of 1778 to 1780, Washington had refused pay for his services and had unhesitatingly poured almost all of his private fortune into the purchase of loan certificates issued by Congress to finance the war. This paper was of dubious value, either then or later. But he made no complaint and firmly refused offers of a grant or other stipend from Congress.

Washington spent a busy summer in 1784 devoting himself to his farms, making improvements on his mansion, and entertaining countless visitors, some uninvited and unwelcome. Then in the fall he visited his lands in the Ohio River valley, where he held more than 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres). He found some of his property settled by squatters, who refused to move, and he could not reach his holdings near the mouth of the Kanawha River because of Native American unrest. On his return journey he looked over the terrain of the region where the Potomac River’s headwaters are nearest those of the Monongahela. This investigation reflected his interest in creating a system of canals and portages that would give access, through the mountains, to the broad Western lands.

At Mount Vernon again in October 1784, Washington became absorbed in this new project. A combination of waterways and roads connecting the Potomac with the Ohio valley would benefit the nation by hastening settlement of the western lands, increasing trade, and binding the settlers closer to the United States.

Washington asked the Virginia legislature to pass measures providing for a company managed jointly with Maryland to make the Potomac navigable. The legislature complied with Washington’s request and appointed him as Virginia’s representative in negotiations with Maryland. After conferences at Annapolis he had the satisfaction of seeing his proposal embodied in identical bills passed by the two state legislatures to create the Potomac Company, complete with an appropriation of money to get the plan under way.

Washington’s own careful preparation, and rough but effective surveys of the region of the headwaters, had played an important part in achieving this agreement in little more than three months.

The two-state agreement had been necessary because, under the Articles of Confederation by which the United States was then governed, Congress could do nothing of much importance without the consent of the states affected. Washington was deeply troubled about the national government’s weakness and disunity. In 1785 he wrote: “The Confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance.” Problems had arisen that the central government should have settled but could not: Rhode Island and Connecticut were not paying their taxes on imported goods. The British placed commercial sanctions against the United States and refused to remove their troops from forts along the northern frontier. This indicated to Washington that Britain hoped to force eventual resubmission of the 13 states to British authority.

The forts enabled the British to control the Great Lakes and thus threatened the hundreds of U.S. settlers north of the Ohio. Washington, who knew the western country better than most Americans of his day, realized that an increasing flood of settlers would be crossing the Appalachian Mountains to seek new opportunities. Unless the U.S. government gave the settlers protection and provided a ready access to markets on the Atlantic seaboard, they might eventually seek protection and markets from the British. Without a strong central government and assured revenues, the United States could do none of these things.

The Potomac Company laws were immediately followed by an agreement between Virginia and Maryland assuring freedom of navigation on the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay on a basis of complete equality. The commissioners who met at Alexandria, Virginia, to draft the details of this pact were greeted by Washington and invited to adjourn to the quiet comfort of Mount Vernon. There, in March 1785, they signed the agreement. It included, apparently at Washington’s suggestion, a provision for annual consultations between representatives of the two legislatures to deal with commercial questions.

This provision was the seed from which the Constitutional Convention grew. In the Maryland legislature, ratification of the Mount Vernon Conference agreements resulted in a suggestion that Pennsylvania and Delaware be invited to the next annual conference to widen the program of development. When this idea reached Richmond, Virginia, state legislator James Madison suggested a meeting of all the states. An invitation was accordingly sent by the Virginia legislature to all the other states suggesting an early meeting to consider the trade of the United States, and “how far a uniform system in their commercial regulation may be necessary for their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object as ... will enable the United States in Congress effectually to provide for the same.”

The meeting convened in Annapolis in September 1786. Although all the states had accepted the invitation, only five sent delegates. However, among the 14 delegates who came to Annapolis were 2 to whom Washington had fully opened his mind. These were Madison and Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s trusted wartime aide. The delegates at Annapolis sent out a summons for a convention to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to consider measures “to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.”

Washington was shocked over news of Shays’ Rebellion, an insurrection led by debt-ridden farmers against the government of Massachusetts in 1786. A letter from his old comrade Henry Knox, now secretary of war, indicated that the federal government was almost helpless to deal with the insurrection. Washington wrote to Madison at Richmond urging that Virginia make haste to set a good example in seeking a stronger central government. “Without some alteration in our political creed, the superstructure we have been seven years raising at the expense of so much blood and treasure, must fall. We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion.”

The Virginia legislature answered this appeal swiftly. Virginia would set an example. Its delegates would go to Philadelphia instructed to seek “a general revision of the federal system,” and the legislature unanimously chose Washington to lead the delegation. Washington was bitterly reluctant to be dragged from his long-sought retirement, but now many who had his friendship and respect appealed to their old commander in chief to lead them again.

At Philadelphia, Washington was elected president of the convention. In the weary days of labor and successive crises that followed, he made little public contribution to the debates. He kept scrupulously to the impartiality he believed was the duty of the presiding officer. Off the floor, however, it was otherwise. His deep concern for the future of the nation was somehow conveyed not only to his fellow delegates, but to the country at large. “To please all is impossible,” Washington wrote, “and to attempt it would be vain”; and to New York delegate Gouverneur Morris he said, “If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hands of God.” On September 17, 1787, the convention’s work was done. The completed Constitution of the United States received the formal signatures of the delegates, and the convention adjourned.

The next day Washington started for home, bent once more on quiet withdrawal from the turmoil of public life, but already disturbed by suggestions that he and only he could fill the new office that the Constitution, when ratified, would create; that of president of the United States.

Ratification by nine states was required before the new government could be organized, and Washington, whatever his qualms about the presidency, threw himself with vigor into the struggle. He was convinced that the Constitution was the best that could be hoped for at the time, and his anger was roused by those, especially in his own Virginia, who wanted to call a new convention and start all over again. He was startled to find, from many sources, that the most appealing argument in favor of the Constitution was simply that George Washington had signed and approved it. To Washington himself the issue was simple. The choice lay between ratification of the proposals of the convention, or “a continued drift toward ruin.” He hammered home this point at every opportunity. Through the spring and early summer of 1788 the struggle dragged on in 13 state capitals. In June the great decision became final when New Hampshire produced the ninth and decisive ratification of the Constitution.

Under the terms of the Constitution, the formal election for president was done by electors, who were collectively called the Electoral College. Each elector was to vote for the two persons he considered most qualified; the winner would be the president, and the runner-up would be the vice president. The electors themselves were chosen January 7, 1789, by the direct vote of the people in some states, and by the legislature in other states. The electors met in each state on February 4 and unanimously voted for George Washington, who thereby became president. Their second choice, far from unanimous, was John Adams of Massachusetts. This pleased Washington because he had feared that the vice presidency might go to Governor George Clinton of New York, who favored drastic amendment of the Constitution. Washington, considering these amendments dangerous, had allowed word to go out that votes for Adams would be agreeable to him because he considered Adams to be a “safe man” and a strong supporter of the Constitution. Also, Washington still had a lingering hope that, after getting the new government well started, he might resign from office and hasten home to Mount Vernon. He could not reconcile this hope with his conscience unless a man he considered safe was next in line of succession.

“My movements to the chair of government,” he wrote to Henry Knox, “will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of execution .... I am sensible that I am embarking the voice of the people and a good name of my own on this voyage; but what returns will be made for them, Heaven alone can foretell.” Washington’s state of mind was probably not improved by the embarrassing fact that he had to borrow $600 from a wealthy neighbor to pay a few pressing debts and meet the expenses of his removal to New York City, where the seat of government was still provisionally maintained.

In mid-April Congress sent Washington official notice of his election as president. His journey northward was one continuous triumphant progress. On April 30, 1789, Washington took the oath of office on the portico of Federal Hall, on Wall Street, New York City, in the presence of Vice President Adams, both houses of the newly organized Congress of the United States, and an enormous throng of cheering townsfolk. Immediately thereafter he delivered his inaugural address to Congress, a short and modest effort that contained only one specific political suggestion. He suggested that, while Congress must decide how far it would go in proposing amendments to the Constitution, its members “would carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience.”

Washington knew that there was a widespread wish to add a Bill of Rights to the original Constitution, specifying in plain words the inalienable rights of individual citizens, and this he approved. But he also knew that an attempt might be made to bring forward amendments eliminating the clauses that gave Congress power to levy taxes, including customs duties on imports, and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states. These provisions had been hotly debated in the convention, and although adopted, were bitterly disliked by such powerful political figures as Clinton and Virginia statesman Patrick Henry. To Washington, however, they provided the means of regaining fiscal stability and restoring the national credit, and were therefore indispensable.

Feeling as strongly as he did on these points, it is significant that Washington should have used such restraint in letting Congress know of his sentiments. He held himself in check because he was resolved above all else not to overstep the limits of his branch of government, the executive, as established by the Constitution. He scrupulously respected the independence of the legislative and judicial branches of government. He was especially anxious to set no precedents that would start a dangerous trend toward monarchy or any form of dictatorship, but at the same time he was determined to be a strong president, not merely a figurehead.

If Washington entered on his first days as president with anything like a basic political philosophy, it perhaps was developed from his dealings with Congress during the war. He learned to keep a balance between the views and interests of the propertied class, naturally conservative in its tendencies, and the more liberal outlook of the farmers and artisans who made up the bulk of the population. His own background, both political and economic, inclined him to the conservative viewpoint. He was aware of this tendency and tried to give recognition to more liberal points of view as he set about organizing the executive branch.

Under the Constitution, Congress moved slowly at first, with long debates on most subjects and a tendency to be jealous of its prerogatives. But a satisfactory tariff (tax on imports) bill, promising to provide the government with an adequate source of revenue, came to Washington for signature in June. Congress also called on the executive branch to submit to the next session a plan for disposing of the national debt. The controversial decision on the location of the permanent seat of government was also postponed to the next session, and ten constitutional amendments, to be known as the Bill of Rights, were approved for consideration by the states. None of these was objectionable to the president. By September, as the session was drawing to a close, bills had been passed establishing the three executive departments represented in the president’s Cabinet: State, Treasury, and War. Provision was also made for a federal judiciary comprising a Supreme Court of one chief justice and five associate justices, and 13 district courts. An attorney general was to be the government’s principal law officer. Here were Washington’s first really important appointments, and he chose with care. Typically, although he had some preliminary discussions and had his mind pretty well made up, he made no specific offer until the offices legally existed.

For his immediate circle of advisers, Washington sought to maintain a balance between liberals and conservatives. The Cabinet members, who were the heads of their departments, were called secretaries. As secretary of the treasury he chose Alexander Hamilton, whose views on government finance Washington fully approved. As secretary of war his unhesitating choice was his faithful friend Henry Knox, who had held that appointment under the Confederation. Both these men had conservative views: For liberal balance, Washington offered the post of attorney general to Edmund Randolph of Virginia. Randolph, a lawyer of high repute, had performed brilliantly as one of the leaders in the Constitutional Convention, but refused to sign the finished document because he thought it “insufficiently republican” in tenor. Later, however, he supported ratification. The remaining choice, that of secretary of state, troubled Washington. He knew that another well-tried friend, John Jay of New York, who had handled foreign affairs under the old government, wanted, and expected to be asked, to continue in that task. However, the wealthy Jay would have overbalanced Washington’s advisers to the conservative side, with resultant criticism and difficulties. To resolve the dilemma, Washington nominated Jay as chief justice of the Supreme Court and left the State Department post vacant for the time being. He was awaiting the return home of his fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, who was at that time U.S. diplomatic representative to France.

Although Washington did not know Jefferson intimately, Jefferson’s fame as the drafter of the Declaration of Independence had given him national prestige. More importantly, Washington foresaw U.S. foreign policy as based on continued French support against the British, and Jefferson’s five years in Paris provided the right background for guiding such a policy. Also, it was well known that Jefferson had pronounced liberal leanings in domestic affairs. Thus, the political equilibrium of the executive branch would be maintained.

The first session of the 1789 Congress saw two important foreign policy precedents established by President Washington. He had thought of his constitutional power to negotiate treaties “with the advice and consent of the Senate [the upper house of Congress]” as perhaps requiring him to appear personally before the Senate to seek such advice before starting to negotiate a treaty. He tried this procedure once, in connection with a proposed treaty with the Creek nation. But the senators argued over every little detail, and Washington went away muttering that he would never try this again. He concluded instead that it was better for the chief executive to carry through the delicate process of treaty negotiation first, and then submit the finished product for the Senate’s advice and consent. This procedure has been followed ever since.

Also, Washington initiated the convenient practice of using nonpermanent executive agents, who did not require confirmation by the Senate, in the conduct of informal or preliminary negotiations with foreign powers. In the first use of this method, Washington requested Gouverneur Morris, then traveling in Europe, to sound out the view of the British ministry regarding a commercial treaty with the United States.

While Congress was in recess in the fall of 1789, Washington made arrangements to move to a larger house, which was made ready by the following February. The details of his social routine were by this time fairly well established. He received visitors only by appointment except at two receptions each week for those who desired merely to pay their respects. He made no visits himself. Mrs. Washington held a weekly reception of her own, at which the president usually appeared for a time.

There was some objection to the ceremony the president thought appropriate to his office. His use of six cream-colored horses to draw his carriage on occasions of ceremony, the servants in his hall with powdered hair, and his elaborate dinners were all criticized as exhibiting monarchical tendencies. For the support of his establishment the president had a salary fixed by Congress at $25,000 a year. Determined to make no profit from public service, Washington saw to it that expenses slightly exceeded this sum.

When Congress reconvened in January 1790, by far the most important business was the financial plan submitted by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. It called for the paying of arrears in interest on the national debt and the funding of the principal. It also proposed the assumption by the national government of the war debts of the individual states. Payment of the foreign debt was to be supported by negotiating new loans abroad at lower interest rates. Revenue from higher tariffs on some items and an excise tax on spirits distilled in the United States would meet the interest on the domestic debt.

In the spring of 1790, Washington was felled by a severe cold and then by influenza. For several days it was thought that he could not live. The illness and the anxiety it caused throughout the country underlined Washington’s importance to the new nation. Abigail Adams, wife of the vice president, wrote: “It appears to me that the union of the states and consequently the permanency of the government depend under Providence upon his life. At this early day when neither our finances are arranged nor our government sufficiently cemented to promise duration, his death would ... have ... the most disastrous consequences.”

At the time of Washington’s illness the question of the location of the permanent seat of government arose again and became entangled with the debate over Hamilton’s proposed financial legislation. The result was perhaps the first example in congressional history of the practice of logrolling. This expression came from the frontier and originally referred to the help that settlers gave each other in building their log cabins. Jefferson helped Hamilton by lending support to Hamilton’s financial proposals, and Hamilton in turn supported Jefferson’s efforts to locate the seat of government on the Potomac River.

The seat-of-government proposal was passed in July 1790. Philadelphia was to serve as the capital until 1800, when a federal district on the Potomac would be established. The finance bill, a simplified form of Hamilton’s original draft, but embodying its essential features except for the excise tax on whiskey, came to Washington for signature on August 2. Washington was pleased with both accomplishments and with the teamwork developed by his Cabinet members on these issues.

This harmony, however, was to prove short-lived. Hamilton, requested by Congress to report to the next session any further action necessary to establish the public credit, had his next step well in mind. In December 1790 he submitted a proposal for the chartering of a national bank with a capital stock of $10 million. A dispute immediately arose over whether Congress had the power to charter a bank. The text of the Constitution did not say so explicitly, and argument was heated. Along with the bank proposal, Hamilton asked again for an excise tax on distilled spirits, the production of which was rising rapidly. The bank bill won final passage in February 1791, amid protests by opponents that it was unconstitutional. With the bill presented to him for signature, Washington now had to decide the question. He consulted his advisers, and this time Jefferson and Hamilton locked horns.

Jefferson asserted that the bank bill was unconstitutional because the Constitution nowhere vested Congress in plain words with power to charter a bank. Hamilton’s opposing view was vigorously expressed: The Constitution did give Congress wide powers in such matters as taxation, payment of the public debt, coining of money, and regulation of commerce. To Hamilton a national bank was essential for the effective exercise of these powers.

Here for the first time was at issue the great question of rigid versus flexible interpretation of the Constitution that has been the subject of heated partisan dispute through much of the life of the United States. Washington set down nothing in writing on this point, but he had frequently made clear his unshakable belief that a strong central government was essential to the survival of the United States. A strong government required reasonable freedom of action because unexpected situations were certain to arise. Washington signed the bill in February 1791, creating the first Bank of the United States. The excise bill was passed on March 1 and also approved.

The French Revolution, which had begun in 1789, soon brought on the general European conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars. American sentiments were deeply divided. The Hamiltonians generally supported Britain while the Jeffersonians sided with America’s ally, France. In North America not only were the British constantly at work stirring up trouble and distributing arms to Native Americans on the northwestern frontier, but their allies, the Spanish governors at New Orleans, kept close contact with the southwestern Native American peoples and intrigued with various American adventurers who dreamed of wilderness empires.

Washington realized that the United States was still too weak to risk war if it could honorably be avoided. “The public welfare and safety,” he declared, “enjoin a conduct of circumspection, moderation and forebearance.” Most Americans resented British hostility. Washington hoped for eventual conciliation with Spain, expansion of trade with the Spanish West Indies, and free navigation of the Mississippi River.

France was a special case. By the wartime treaty of 1778, France and the United States were allies. But France was now in the throes of revolution, and its future was uncertain. Moreover, by 1792, the excesses of the revolutionary party in France seemed likely to result in war between France and Britain. For Washington this situation was complicated by strong partisan enthusiasm among many Americans for the cause of the French Revolution.

On Washington’s 60th birthday, which was marked by nationwide celebrations, he seems to have hoped that he was about to enter on his last year in public office. He sought to persuade himself that the deepening differences between his two principal advisers, Jefferson and Hamilton, did not imply personal animosity, though he had to admit that these differences were fundamental, representing basically differing philosophies of government. This realization troubled Washington all the more because in his own concept of federal government public servants should work in amity for the public good, whether in the executive branch or in Congress. He regarded partisan contests, which he called faction, with horror. However, during 1792, Washington became convinced that faction was becoming an established element of American political life and that his two chief advisers had to be regarded as rival leaders whose political differences could not be reconciled. The Hamiltonians evolved into the Federalist Party, and the Jeffersonians organized what was to become the Democratic-Republican Party.

As the 1792 election drew near, the President’s advisers were unanimous in their opinion that the times were too perilous for the nation to risk a transfer of the executive power to a new president. Washington must be president for a second term. About this time an event occurred that caused him to agree. He vetoed a plan to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives because, he believed, it was unconstitutional. It favored the Northern states over the Southern and, although Washington carefully avoided any mention of this in listing his objections, a congressional uproar resulted that was divided along sectional lines. Washington told Jefferson that he was anxious over this growing tendency of the North and South to part ways on political matters. He expressed fear that this might eventually bring about the dissolution of the Union. Jefferson’s answer was firm: “North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on.” Washington saw himself as an impartial administrator whose enormous personal popularity could be used to channel sectional feeling into a trust in the federal government. Therefore he could not allow himself to do what he most wanted to do: publish a farewell address and retire from public life. Instead he said nothing on the subject, with the inevitable result that he was again the unanimous choice of the electors in the 1792 presidential election. Adams was again elected vice president.

 On March 4, 1793, in a brief ceremony, Washington was inaugurated for his second term of office. Just two weeks after the inauguration, news reached Philadelphia of the execution in France of King Louis XVI. Two weeks later came the word that Washington had feared: Revolutionary France had declared war on Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Already the president had indicated the course he desired to take by asking both Jefferson and Hamilton for suggestions on how to maintain a strict neutrality and to prevent “the citizens from embroiling us with either France or England.” He propounded specific questions: Should he issue a proclamation of neutrality? Should the treaties of 1778, concluded with Louis XVI, be renounced or suspended? Should he receive Citizen Genêt, the newly appointed diplomat from the French republic? See Genêt, Edmond Charles Édouard.

As Washington must have foreseen, his advisers did not agree. The result was uneasy compromise. American neutrality was proclaimed in a document that did not actually use the word. The new diplomat would be received. The treaties stood, but they should be cautiously interpreted. A storm of criticism beset these decisions from every quarter.

Genêt did not add to Washington’s peace of mind. After landing at Charleston, South Carolina, he commissioned some privateers and set up a French court of admiralty to dispose of British prizes. These proceedings enraged Washington and brought furious protests from the British diplomatic representative. Genêt arrived in Philadelphia as a celebrity. He was soon busy organizing groups called democratic societies, which he cheerfully described as a means of appealing to the people of the United States against the “unfriendly” attitude of their president.

Probably nothing in his public life aroused Washington’s opposition more than these societies, the aim of which, he said flatly, was “nothing less than subversion of the Government of these States.”He treated Genêt with icy courtesy during three months of Genêt’s mounting insolence and effrontery. When Genêt, against specific prohibition, sent an armed French privateer to sea from the port of Philadelphia, Washington demanded that the French government recall the diplomat to France. This was done; but Washington, fearing that Genêt would be executed by his own government on returning home, let him stay in the United States as a private citizen.

In late August 1793 a dispatch arrived from the American diplomat in London, Thomas Pinckney. It informed Washington of a British order in council of June 8, 1793, that directed British warships to seize cargoes of grain or flour bound for France in neutral ships. This was, from the British viewpoint, a perfectly logical act. To Americans, however, the British order was an outrageous invasion of neutral rights. When the news spread, angry mobs demonstrated near Washington’s house in Philadelphia. However, these riots ended with the sudden outbreak of yellow fever in the city. Washington took a house in Germantown for his temporary use and carefully considered whether he had the constitutional right to ask Congress to meet in any place other than that appointed by law.

The last days of 1793 brought the end of Jefferson’s service as secretary of state. His desire to retire from public life could no longer be denied. He was succeeded by Edmund Randolph, who had developed into Washington’s closest adviser after the breach between Jefferson and Hamilton became complete. William Bradford, a Pennsylvanian, took over Randolph’s post as attorney general.

In the spring of 1794 the danger of war with Britain increased. British warships were seizing all neutral vessels trading with the French West Indies, and Washington approved a 30-day embargo on all sailings from U.S. ports to avoid further encounters. However, a report soon came that the British government had rescinded the order affecting trade with the French West Indies. This dangerous situation had produced one desirable result: Congress agreed to authorize the construction of six frigates. These were the first additions to the navy since the revolution.

Tensions still ran high, and a constructive effort to preserve the peace seemed urgent. Washington resolved to send a special envoy to London to try to find some basis of agreement with the British ministers. His choice fell on Chief Justice John Jay. There were immediate protests from Jeffersonians, and Secretary of State Randolph insisted that Jay should not be empowered to negotiate a commercial treaty. Washington stood firm and left Jay free to use his own judgment, though he himself seems to have laid strong emphasis on securing British agreement to evacuate the northern frontier posts.

Jay sailed from New York on May 12, 1794. A week later came news that the British commander at Detroit, one of the posts in question, had sent troops to erect a fort on the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio. Farther south, the frontier difficulties followed familiar patterns: Kentuckians were clashing with the Spaniards in the Mississippi River Valley, and Georgian squatters were pushing ever deeper into territory that by treaty belonged to the Creek.

Bad news also came from western Pennsylvania, where three of Genêt’s democratic societies had become focal points of rebellion over the excise tax on whiskey. Officers collecting the tax met with increasing resistance. The house of the district inspector of excise was burned, and gatherings of armed people took place. Washington could not “suffer the laws to be trampled upon with impunity, for there is an end to representative government.” He saw the threat of western uprising as “the first formidable fruit of the democratic societies.” Governor Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania reported that the state could not muster enough militia to suppress the rebellion. Washington therefore summoned the militias of New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, providing a total force of some 15,000. When these troops moved into the affected area, resistance immediately collapsed. The Whiskey Rebellion was over by the end of November.

Meanwhile, Washington was cheered by the news that Major General Anthony Wayne won a decisive victory over a coalition of northwestern Native American peoples at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near the present site of Toledo, Ohio, on August 20, 1794. This battle and the systematic devastation of their fields and villages that followed broke the power of these nations for a generation.

As Congress adjourned in March 1795, Washington was still anxiously awaiting word from Jay. Unofficial word from ship captains and travelers indicated that a treaty with Britain had been negotiated. Speculation in Jeffersonian newspapers about the terms of the treaty proclaimed it a sellout of U.S. interests. When Washington received the text of Jay’s Treaty, together with Jay’s bleak statement that “to do more was not possible,” he realized that the treaty would be exceedingly unpopular. Viewed in terms of meeting U.S. hopes, its only real accomplishment was a firm promise to evacuate the northwestern forts by June 1, 1796. But, in Washington’s view, the treaty accomplished his basic purpose in sending Jay to Britain. It provided solid insurance against a disastrous war with Britain if only the Senate could be induced to ratify it. Its concessions to British maritime policy were heavy, but, with Wayne’s victory, the treaty consolidated the U.S. hold on the great Northwest Territory. Improved relations with the world’s greatest sea power in turn provided assurance of American commercial prosperity and preservation of Hamilton’s structure of national credit.

On June 8, 1795, Washington called the Senate into special session to consider the treaty. After 16 days of fierce debate behind closed doors, the treaty was approved by a vote of 20 to 10, exactly the two-thirds majority needed. Meanwhile the country was swept by a violent outburst against the treaty as its provisions became known.

But all of this was unimportant compared to the terrible blow that now befell Washington. It came without warning, on his return to Philadelphia from a brief visit to Mount Vernon. He was confronted by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering and Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr., with what seemed irrefutable proof that Secretary of State Randolph, his lifelong friend, had been secretly seeking money from the French diplomat Joseph Fauchet in return for using his influence against Jay’s Treaty.

Washington decided that he must sign the treaty at once, before bringing Randolph’s guilt or innocence under examination. He signed it on August 18, 1795, against Randolph’s strong objections. The next day he presented Randolph with the evidence against him in the presence of Pickering and Wolcott. Randolph resigned, angrily proclaiming his innocence.

Later that year Fauchet found out why Randolph had left. He protested that Randolph had done nothing dishonest and that his report to his government, from which the suspicion of betrayal had come, had been misunderstood. But this was not enough to remove the cloud of suspicion, and Randolph never again held federal office. He returned to his successful law practice and continued to be a leading figure in Virginia. His name was not completely cleared until after his death in 1813.

On February 22, 1796, Washington received the Treaty of San Lorenzo, concluded with Spain by Thomas Pinckney the previous October. By the terms of this document the Spanish government granted U.S. citizens unrestricted use of the Mississippi River “in its whole breadth, from the source to the ocean,” with a privilege of tax-free export of goods through the port of New Orleans. Spain also made a satisfactory agreement on the boundaries of West Florida and promised to discourage Native American raids on the frontier. This complete reversal for Spanish policy was a diplomatic triumph. Delivered to the Senate on February 26, it was approved by unanimous vote on March 3.

Washington was less happy over the conclusion of a treaty with the dey of Algiers. Algiers was one of the Barbary states, which had practiced piracy against ships on the Mediterranean Sea for nearly 300 years. The dey had held ten captured American sailors for ransom since 1785. The treaty accomplished the release of American captives and bound the dey to cease attacks on American shipping in the Mediterranean. However, it subjected the United States to the humiliation of paying a ransom of $800,000 for the prisoners and an annual tribute of $24,000 as the price of continued security against piracy. When some in Congress saw in this an excuse for suspending work on four of the six new frigates, Washington declared grimly that he regarded the paying of bribes to pirates as a national degradation that could only be removed by sufficient naval armament.

Still another treaty that was ready for submission to the Senate was the one concluded by General Wayne with the Shawnee, Miami, and other Native American peoples of the northwest. In it the tribes gave up their long-maintained claim to the Ohio River as their eastern boundary and opened vast areas of Ohio and southern Indiana to white settlers.

As Jay’s Treaty approached its last congressional hurdle, the appropriation of the necessary funds for its implementation, the Jeffersonian majority demanded that Washington submit to the House of Representatives (Congress’s lower chamber) copies of Jay’s instructions and all related correspondence. To avoid setting a precedent, Washington replied, “It is perfectly clear to my understanding that the assent of the House of Representatives is not necessary to the validity of a treaty .... A just regard to the Constitution and to the duty of my Office ... forbids a compliance with your request.”

Debate on the appropriations dragged on until April 29. On that day the question was voted on by the House sitting as the committee of the whole, with the result a tie, 49 to 49. The deciding vote of the chairman, Frederick Muhlenberg, himself a Jeffersonian, carried the measure.

Although Washington did not announce it publicly until September 1796, he was determined that under no conditions would he allow his name to be put forward for a third term. He had guided his country for eight years, averted the danger of a ruinous war, opened the economic gateways of the West, and established precedents that would prove true bulwarks of the Constitution. It was time for the transfer of power, by constitutional means, to other hands.

Washington embodied the reasons for his decision not to run again, together with much thoughtful advice to his fellow citizens, in his famous Farewell Address. Parts of the address were written by Hamilton and Madison, and there is no doubt that both were of great help to the president in preparing it. But in its final form it represents the thoughts and character of George Washington.

... it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness .... The name of American, which belongs to you in our national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations .... The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government .... Let me ... warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally .... A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume ....
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports .... Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit .... Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all ....
The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave .... The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible ....

 

Washington attended the inauguration of President John Adams on March 4, 1797, and left Philadelphia two days later for Mount Vernon. There he wrote to an old friend that he did not intend to allow the political turmoil of the country to disturb his ease. “I shall view things,” he said, “in the light of mild philosophy.”

But he did not always adhere to this resolve. He strongly opposed the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, which were an attempt to limit federal powers in line with Jefferson’s beliefs. These resolutions seemed to Washington a formula for the dissolution of the Union. In that year also, he accepted the nominal command of the army should the undeclared hostility with France develop into open war. The last journeys of his life, in 1799, were to the army camp at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), and to Philadelphia to consult on army matters.

Early on the morning of December 14, 1799, Washington awoke with an inflamed throat. His condition rapidly worsened. He was further weakened by medical treatment that included frequent blood-letting. He faced death calmly, as “the debt which we all must pay,” and died at 11:30 that night.

In the national mourning that followed, many tributes were paid to Washington. President Adams called him “the most illustrious and beloved person which this country ever produced.” Adams later added: “His example is now complete, and it will teach wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men, not only in the present age but in future generations as long as our history shall be read.”

Adams, John (U.S. president) (1735-1826), second president of the United States (1797-1801) and one of the great figures in American history. In the years before the American Revolution (1775-1783) he joined with other patriots in resisting British rule. When the revolution began, Adams was among the first to propose American independence. He served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence and then helped persuade the Second Continental Congress to adopt the declaration.

Adams served the patriot cause in Congress and in diplomatic missions abroad. Together with Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, Adams helped negotiate the treaty that ended the American Revolution. When George Washington became the new nation's first president in 1789, Adams became the first vice president.

Adams ranks as one of the greatest of American political philosophers. His A Defense of the Constitutions of Governments of the United States of America (3 volumes, 1787-1788) and Discourses on Davila (1805) contributed profoundly to American political thought. In addition to his formal works, Adams wrote letters and papers that provide a vivid account of his life and the events that led to the founding of the United States.

John Adams was the eldest son of John Adams, a farmer, and Susanna Boylston Adams, whose Boston family included several noted physicians. Young Adams was born and raised in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, on the farmland his great-grandfather had cleared 100 years earlier. Throughout his life, Adams felt a deep attachment for the Adams farm and for the town of Braintree.

Adams attended school in Braintree, and at the age of 16 he entered Harvard College. After graduating in 1755, he took a teaching position in Worcester, Massachusetts, and continued to study. Latin, history, and law were the subjects that particularly interested him, and he soon abandoned his early plans to become a clergyman. He turned instead to the law. A disciplined scholar, he gained a knowledge of government and law that was probably unexcelled in colonial America.

In 1758 Adams began to practice law in Braintree. He slowly gained recognition as an able lawyer, first in Braintree, then in Boston. During this period, Adams also met many influential men who would later join with him as leaders of the Massachusetts colony.

In 1764 after a courtship of three years, Adams married Abigail Smith, daughter of a Weymouth, Massachusetts, minister. The couple had five children. One of them, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president of the United States.

The marriage lasted 54 years, until the death of Abigail Adams in 1818. Between 1774 and 1784 the Adamses saw very little of each other, because John Adams was continuously serving the young nation, first in the Continental Congress and later abroad. But in 1784 Abigail joined her husband in Europe and thereafter remained at his side, serving him as a confidante and offering him sound political advice.

Adams spent the early part of his career practicing law in Braintree and developing his interest in government.

At that time the American colonists were loyal subjects of Great Britain. Although there were political disputes and complaints, they were no more than the everyday disagreements between government and the governed. There were laws regulating trade and imposing duties on imports to America, but they were rarely enforced.

All this changed, however, when the Seven Years' War ended in 1763. The war—actually a series of worldwide conflicts, some of which involved defending the American colonies from the French and their Native American allies—had been costly for Britain, and its government was determined to make the colonies bear a portion of the financial burden. Britain not only enforced the old trade laws more strictly, but also enacted a series of new laws in 1764 and 1765. One of these laws, the Stamp Act, provoked bitter opposition among many colonists, including Adams.

The Stamp Act required a tax on all legal documents, licenses, contracts, newspapers, pamphlets and other papers, signifying the paid tax with a stamp. Adams drew up a set of resolutions protesting the stamp tax. The resolutions were adopted by the Braintree town meeting and then, virtually without change, by 40 other towns in Massachusetts.

Adams's argument against the Stamp Act was based on English law. He insisted that the act was not binding on the colonies because they were not represented in Britain's Parliament and had not consented to the tax levy. Adams did not support separation or independence from Britain at this time. He only argued that British subjects in the colonies were entitled to the rights guaranteed to British subjects elsewhere.

Almost overnight, John Adams became well known throughout the colonies. When the Boston town meeting drew up a petition against the Stamp Act, Adams was called on for assistance. He was one of the three delegates who presented the petition to the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

The colonists won a temporary victory in 1766, when the Stamp Act was repealed. In the following year, however, they were again aroused by a new series of laws, called the Townshend Acts. One of the acts imposed duties, or import taxes, on glass, lead, tea, and other commodities. The colonists responded with a boycott of British goods and with violence against British customs officials.

In 1768 Adams moved his family to Boston and busied himself with his growing law practice. He found time, nevertheless, to help the patriot cause. Adams drafted a circular letter, sent by the Massachusetts legislature to the other colonies, protesting the Townshend Acts. He also gave legal assistance to Boston patriots who resisted the British authorities.

The royal governor, aware of Adams's ability and growing influence, offered him the post of advocate general in the admiralty court. Adams declined the appointment, recognizing it as a bribe to bring him over to the side of the British government.

Adams generally supported the popular resistance to the British government, but he did not condone violence or mob action. Adams was greatly disturbed by the Boston Massacre of 1770, an incident in which five men were killed after unruly demonstrators provoked British troops into firing into the crowd. When Adams was asked to defend the British soldiers who were charged with murder as a result of this clash, he promptly accepted. With the help of two other lawyers he won acquittal for all but two of the men. His reputation as a patriot was such, however, that his defense of the British soldiers seems not to have damaged his political career. In June 1770 while he was preparing for the trial, the Boston town meeting elected him to the Massachusetts legislature.

Adams served in the legislature for only a few months. That winter, illness forced him to leave politics. After nearly three years in Boston, Adams returned with his family to Braintree. He was determined to “throw off a great part of the load of business both public and private.” He returned to Boston late in 1772 to look after his law business but still intended to remain “disengaged from public affairs with a fixed resolution not to meddle with them.”

Political events, however, soon brought Adams back into public life. In a series of articles in the Boston Gazette, Adams fought Britain's plan to place Massachusetts judges in the pay of the king. He also opposed the royal governor, who challenged the power of colonial legislatures. As always, his arguments were founded on his sure knowledge of the law, and they were still aimed at reconciliation with Britain. However, in December 1773, Adams supported what became known as the Boston Tea Party, where patriots dumped British tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea tax and the monopoly on the importation of tea that Britain had given to the East India Company. Thereafter he firmly supported the patriotic measures that led step by step to American independence.

In 1774 Adams attended the First Continental Congress, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a member of the Massachusetts delegation. Twelve of the thirteen British colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia were represented in the Congress. They met to respond to the British laws known as the Intolerable Acts, which placed even greater restrictions on colonial life. Like most members of Congress, Adams was there to uphold the rights of the colonies but not to propose independence. Even the most radical of the delegates, like his cousin Samuel Adams, were not ready for a complete break. “There is no man among us,” John Adams told Congress, “that would not be happy to see accommodation with Britain.” Nevertheless, he urged Congress to take a strong stand in view of Britain's violations of citizens' rights in the colonies.

Although Congress made a united protest against British misrule, Adams was not satisfied. Congress had, by one vote, rejected a proposal known as the Galloway Plan, which would have provided for a union of the colonies under one government. Adams returned to Braintree, still insisting that “an American Legislature should be set up without delay.”

When John Adams set out in May 1775 for Philadelphia and the opening of the Second Continental Congress, the American Revolution had begun with the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other New England delegates arrived in Philadelphia ready to press for action against Britain. They wanted the colonies to mobilize for war and to set up a confederation of independent colonies. Finding many delegates hesitant to act, Adams, who was always intolerant of delay, became impatient and irritable. Trying to remain calm, he observed philosophically: “America is a great unwieldy body. Its progress must be slow. It is like a large fleet sailing under convoy. The fleetest sailors must wait for the dullest and the slowest.”

After two weeks, when nothing had been accomplished, Adams could hold back no longer. He addressed Congress in blunt terms. Before talking of peace with Britain, he said, Congress should adopt a program to set up an independent government in each colony. It should use the New England militiamen, who were then blockading the British in Boston, as the basis for a Continental Army, and should name a commander-in-chief who would be responsible to Congress. Finally, Adams proposed, Britain should be told of these steps. Then, if the war continued, the colonies should seek alliances and support in France, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Only one of Adams's proposals was adopted. A Continental Army was authorized, and Colonel George Washington of Virginia was named commanding general. Adams had recommended Washington not only because he had military training, but also because he was from the South. Adams felt that, to form a national army, the South as well as the North should be represented in it. Therefore the New England troops had to have a Southern commander.

Early in 1776, Adams saw another of his proposals enacted. On May 6, he and his allies in Congress presented a resolution urging all the colonies to form independent governments. The resolution, which to Adams was the most important of his proposals, was passed on May 15.

In June 1776 Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, moved that Congress declare “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” The resolution was referred to a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and John Adams.

Jefferson wrote the declaration and Adams was spokesman for it when it was presented to Congress. A great debate preceded the final vote. There were many reluctant delegates who still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, but Adams won most of them over. On July 4, 1776, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. In a letter to his wife written on July 3, the day after Lee's resolution was approved, Adams wrote that "The second day of July…will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance…with pomp and parade, with…guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other…”

At the Second Continental Congress, Adams also served as chairman of the Board of War and Ordnance. It was charged with supplying troops, raising money for their pay, and naming officers of the army. Responsible for the actual conduct of the war, this committee took most of Adams's time until 1777.

Late in 1777 Congress elected Adams commissioner to France. When he joined the other members of the diplomatic mission, however, he learned that their important work had been completed. France had extended recognition to the United States, and treaties of friendship and commerce had been signed. Adams remained in Paris for a year, studying European political affairs and sending detailed reports to Congress. Because he was also minister plenipotentiary (diplomat with broad powers) to the Netherlands, he made his first attempt to obtain a loan for the colonies from that country.

At the end of 1778, on Adams's recommendation, Congress abolished the commission and named Benjamin Franklin as American diplomatic representative to France. Finding himself without official appointment, Adams returned home.

At home, Adams took a leading part in the Massachusetts constitutional convention. The constitution adopted by Massachusetts was largely his work and became the model for those of many other states. Although it has been amended many times, this constitution is still in use today. Before its final approval in 1780, however, Adams was again sent to Europe.

On his second mission, Congress sent Adams to Paris with full power to negotiate a treaty to end the war with Great Britain. He was also authorized to negotiate a commercial agreement with Britain and to become the U.S. diplomatic representative to that country when peace was concluded. However, Britain refused to discuss peace if it meant American independence. France, another party to the talks, wanted the United States to be independent of Britain but subservient to French interests.

Adams was instructed to make no agreements without prior French approval. However, the French soon learned that Adams would not compromise U.S. rights. He quarreled often with the French foreign minister, and after a few fruitless months left for the Netherlands to try again to secure a loan.

In July 1782 after long and difficult negotiations, Adams secured a $2 million loan from Dutch bankers, and in October the Netherlands recognized U.S. independence. Adams then negotiated a treaty of friendship and commerce.

Adams returned to Paris that same month because Britain was at last willing to negotiate. He was joined by Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, whom Congress had appointed to serve with Adams on the U.S. peace commission. For a time there were further delays because France still insisted on prior approval of any peace agreement. Jay urged, with Adams's support, that the U.S. commission ignore its instructions and conclude tentative articles of peace without French oversight. Franklin reluctantly agreed, and soon a treaty was negotiated.

The final Treaty of Paris, officially ending the American Revolution, was not signed until September 3, 1783. Adams made an important contribution by helping to set the boundaries between the United States and Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Superior. He also secured U.S. fishing rights in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Adams continued to live in France after the treaty was signed. He negotiated a second loan from the Netherlands and then, in 1785, became the first American diplomatic representative to Britain. He found the British cordial to himself and his family but cool and skeptical toward the country he represented. Frustrated in his attempts to carry out the terms of the peace treaty, Adams asked Congress to recall him. His service in Britain and his career as a diplomat ended in February 1788.

The Constitution of the United States had been drafted in 1787 and ratification by the states had begun. Under its provisions, members of the Electoral College, who were chosen by the states, voted in February 1789 to choose a president and vice president. At that time, each elector cast two votes. When the votes were tallied, the person who got the most votes became president and the runner-up became vice president. (The system was later changed to permit separate choices for president and vice president.) In 1789 all 69 electors voted for George Washington, electing him president. John Adams received the second largest number, 34 votes, and became the first vice president of the United States.

Adams took office on April 30, 1789. He served as vice president under Washington for eight years. The office, which was intended to provide a head of government in case of the president's death, did not suit the spirited Adams. He regarded the vice presidency as unworthy of his abilities, calling it “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.”

Adams did exert some influence by casting tie-breaking votes in his role as president of the Senate, the newly created upper house of the Congress of the United States. In 20 such votes, on a variety of issues, Adams consistently supported Washington's policies. He helped to decide on U.S. neutrality in a new war between France and Britain and the adoption of reprisals against Britain for interfering with American shipping. He also supported financial measures proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

During his vice presidency, Adams was part of the beginning of the political party system in the United States. President Washington regarded himself as president of the entire nation and deplored the division of the country into partisan groups. His Cabinet, however, fostered the very divisions he sought to prevent. The Federalists, led by Hamilton, favored a strong central government. They soon became the Federalist Party. The anti-Federalists or Republicans (later to become the Democratic-Republican Party), under Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, sought more power for the individual states and urged that all citizens be given a voice in government.

Adams had begun his career as a defender of the rights of the people. He did not, however, share Jefferson's belief in people's basic goodness, and he feared tyranny of the masses as much as tyranny of a monarch. The disorder and bloodshed of the French Revolution (1789-1799) confirmed his fear of unbridled popular rule. “It has been said,” he wrote in a postscript to his Davila papers, “that it is extremely difficult to preserve liberty … It is so difficult, that the very appearance of it is lost over the whole earth, excepting one island (England) and North America.” Now Adams stressed the necessity of a balanced government with “an independent executive authority, an independent senate, and an independent judiciary power, as well as an independent house of representatives.” In time, although he was a close friend of Jefferson's, Adams found himself siding with the Federalists.

The Federalist Party, however, was by no means united. Adams and Hamilton, although they often supported the same policies, were divided on basic issues. Adams did not share Hamilton's belief in a government controlled by a small group of wealthy aristocrats.

In 1796 Washington, who had twice been unanimously elected president, declined to run for a third term. For the first time in the history of the United States the office of president was contested. The election of 1796 set the pattern for all future U.S. elections. There were rival candidates and rival parties. The chief contenders were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Hamilton supported Thomas Pinckney, former diplomatic representative to Great Britain. A fourth contender was Aaron Burr, one of the leaders of the Tammany Society, a political machine in New York City. Adams and Pinckney were Federalists. Jefferson and Burr were Republicans.

Most of New England stood firmly behind Adams but was willing to support Pinckney for vice president. Some New England electors then decided they would vote for Adams but not for Pinckney. This would ensure that Adams got a majority of the electoral votes. Hamilton argued against this move, insisting that Jefferson might become vice president.

Fortunately for Adams, New England held firm and withheld many votes from Pinckney. Some Federalist electors in other sections of the country switched their votes to Pinckney and, if New England had followed Hamilton's advice, Pinckney would have won. The final vote stood: Adams, 71; Jefferson, 68; Pinckney, 59; and Burr, 30. It was the only time the nation had a president and vice president from different political parties.

John Adams was inaugurated as president at Federal Hall, Philadelphia, on March 4, 1797. Philadelphia was then the nation's capital. Adams spent only the last few months of his presidency at the new capital, Washington, D.C.

President Adams was immediately confronted with a number of pressing issues. The most urgent was a threat of war with France. For four years the United States had remained neutral in the struggle between France and Britain. Britain, however, had a policy of seizing neutral ships—including those of the United States—that traded with France. To stop this seizure of American ships, the United States negotiated Jay's Treaty of 1794, which appeased Britain by giving it various trading concessions. The treaty was unpopular in the United States; moreover, it enraged the French, who believed the Americans were aiding the British. Early in 1797 the French began attacking American shipping, and by June they had seized 300 American ships. France had broken relations by sending the U.S. diplomatic representative home. Many American leaders now saw war as the only option.

Adams would not find it easy to continue Washington's policy of neutrality, although he had consistently supported it. Many Federalists did not shy away from war with France. Hamilton, especially, supported war with France. Jefferson and his followers, on the other hand, defended France's actions and urged support of France against England. Adams called a special session of Congress to deal with the French question. In his message to Congress he urged a peaceful policy. He proposed that a new mission be sent to negotiate the differences with France and that the U.S. Army and Navy be kept ready in case negotiations should fail. His recommendations were well received, and a three-man diplomatic mission was dispatched to France.

The French government did not receive the new mission. Instead the diplomats were approached by agents of Charles Talleyrand, the French foreign minister. The agents proposed that the United States could make reparations for its alleged injuries to France by paying Talleyrand a huge bribe and financing a large loan to the French government. These terms were so exorbitant and dishonorable that the American diplomats rejected them. When Adams, who had been waiting anxiously for news, got their report, he tried to keep it secret. But Jefferson's pro-French Republicans accused Adams of suppressing information that was favorable to France and thereby driving America into war with that country.

Adams finally let the report be published. The names of the French agents were changed to X, Y, and Z, but the details were left unchanged. Jefferson now found himself on the defensive as anti-French feeling rose over the XYZ Affair, as it was called. He argued that there was no reason to believe that the agents were actually speaking for the French government. Hamilton, although out of office, took advantage of the growing antagonism toward France to advocate war. Still controlling a faction of the Federalists in Congress and in the Cabinet, he was able to influence Congress to renounce all the treaties it had made with France during the American Revolution. Congress also ordered an expansion of the army, created the Department of the Navy, and commissioned the building of naval fighting ships. George Washington was called out of retirement to lead the army, with Hamilton as his second in command. By the end of 1798 more than a dozen American men-of-war had been launched, and an undeclared naval war with France had begun. Adams did not like the vast military preparations, but he complied with the nation's wishes.

The rift between Adams and Hamilton slowly grew during this period of international crisis. Adams favored a strong stand against France, so that the French government would respect the United States. He was willing to fight, but he preferred to avert war. Hamilton would profit from a war because it would discredit his rival Thomas Jefferson, who had always been friendly toward France. Until the beginning of 1799, Adams seemed to be allowing Hamilton to have his way.

Gradually, however, Adams lost trust in his own Cabinet. Thus, he consulted no one before announcing a new policy toward France. On February 18, 1799, he named a new diplomatic representative, with full treaty powers, to France. His choice was William Vans Murray, then diplomatic representative to the Netherlands.

The Federalists were outraged, but the country welcomed Adams's move. Hamilton, taken by surprise, could not oppose it without seeming to want war. Adams's enemies in the Cabinet held up the departure of Murray and the two other members of his peace commission. Finally, in another independent and unexpected act, Adams issued final instructions and ordered the commission to sail without further delay.

Negotiations with France were long and complex, but they ended in an agreement. Adams had succeeded in preventing war. In so doing, however, he had won the hatred of Hamilton.

In 1798 Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, which seriously limited the right of free speech and dissent in the United States. Their purpose was to curb anti-administration criticisms by Jeffersonian newspaper editors and to ensure Federalist success at the polls. The laws were proposed by the Federalists in Congress. Although Adams signed the laws, he did not enforce them vigorously. Nevertheless he came to be associated with them in the public mind. They resulted in an outpouring of protest throughout the country that greatly aided the Jeffersonian Republicans.

Two members of Adams's Cabinet whom he had come to distrust were Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and Secretary of War James McHenry, who were more loyal to Hamilton than they were to their president. Often, they ignored Adams's orders and acted on directives from Hamilton. In May 1800 Adams forced the resignation of McHenry and fired Pickering. The price of Adams's refusal to be dominated by Hamilton was a split in the Federalist ranks that contributed to his defeat in the election of 1800.

The presidential nominations of 1800 were made in caucuses (party meetings) in Congress. The Federalists, because of the influence of New England members, named John Adams and diplomat Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina as their candidates. The Republicans, who had begun to call themselves Democratic-Republicans, nominated Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

By this time, Hamilton completely opposed Adams and campaigned for Pinckney. Without the main Federalist support, Adams lost, but Jefferson and Burr tied with 73 electoral votes each. The tie-breaking vote was decided by the House of Representatives, which eventually elected Jefferson as president.

Adams was stunned. He felt repudiated by the country he had served so long and so ardently. The leaders of his own party had turned against him. On the day of Jefferson's inauguration, Adams left the executive mansion in Washington, D.C., alone. He was too hurt to observe the courtesy of attending his successor's inauguration.

One of Adams's last official acts was to fill a large number of lifetime judgeships with Federalist judges. These were the so-called “midnight judges,” whose appointments angered Jefferson's party because Adams named them after the election. Among them was Secretary of State John Marshall, whom Adams appointed Chief Justice of the United States. Marshall's 30-year tenure firmly established the prestige of the judicial branch of the government and strengthened the federal government much as Adams and the Federalist Party would have wished it to be strengthened.

Adams spent his last 25 years on his farm in Massachusetts. Although he never again participated in public life, he remained interested in and informed about the affairs of his country. The career of his son John Quincy Adams gave him great pleasure, and he lived to see him elected president of the United States in 1824.

As the years passed, the bitterness that had developed during Adams's administration spent itself. The American people came to appreciate his patriotism and integrity. In 1812 Adams and Jefferson were reconciled. They began a correspondence, covering their favorite subjects of history, philosophy, and religion, that continued for the remainder of their lives.

Adams died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. His last words were “Jefferson still lives.” But Jefferson himself had died only a few hours before.

More links: www.americanpresidents.org

Madison, James (1751-1836), fourth president of the United States (1809-1817) and one of its founding fathers. In a distinguished public career that covered more than 40 years, he worked for American independence, helped to establish the government of the new nation, and went on to participate in that government as congressman, secretary of state, and ultimately president. Madison’s work on the Constitution of the United States gave him his best opportunity to exercise his great talents and is generally considered his most valuable contribution. His intense concern for religious and intellectual freedom led him to seek the strongest possible safeguards of individual liberty. More than any other person, Madison can be considered responsible for making the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution.

Madison was the eldest child of James and Eleanor Conway Madison. He later characterized his forebears in these terms: “In both the paternal and maternal line of ancestry [they were] planters and among the respectable though not the most opulent class.” He was born in 1751 in the home of his maternal grandmother and stepgrandfather, on the Rappahannock River near what is now Port Conway, Virginia. Shortly after the christening, his mother brought him to his father’s estate in nearby Orange County, Virginia, where he grew up. Madison later inherited his father’s estate, Montpelier, and lived there the rest of his life.

Like most plantation children of colonial times, young James received his earliest schooling at home, probably largely from his grandmother, Mrs. Frances Taylor Madison. When he was about 12, he was enrolled in the school of Donald Robertson in King and Queen County. After “three or four years” with Robertson, he studied for “a year or two” under the Reverend Thomas Martin and in 1769 enrolled in the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

Already well prepared in the classics, Madison concentrated on the study of history, government, and public law. He found considerable revolutionary sentiment stirring at the college and became a leading member, although probably not a founder as is sometimes claimed, of the American Whig Society, a club greatly interested in discussing current public controversies. In 1771 he received his degree and, after some months of postgraduate study, returned home to Virginia.

From 1772 to 1775, Madison remained in his father’s home at Montpelier in poor health, convinced that he would not have a long life. It has been suggested that he suffered from hypochondria, a condition in which he experienced the symptoms of a disease but none was diagnosed. Uncertain about a career, he devoted his time to extensive reading in literature, theology, and law. Before long a growing interest in political and religious freedom led him into a serious study of public law and of the forms and principles of government. He wrote a friend early in 1774 of the change in his tastes. He used to have, he wrote, “too great a hankering after those amusing studies. Poetry, wit, and criticism, romances, plays, etc., captivated me much; but I begin to discover that they deserve but a small portion of a mortal’s time, and that something more substantial, more durable, more profitable, befits a riper age.”

By the spring of 1774, when the colonies were deep in protest against British domination, Madison was emerging from his long period of isolation and melancholy. He felt that his health was returning and with it a zest for taking part in the events that were absorbing so many able people of the time. His own position was already clear. He was committed to republican government and to separation of the American colonies from Great Britain.

In December 1774 Madison was elected a member of Orange County’s committee of safety, which exercised certain governmental functions as provided by the Continental Congress, a council of 12 of the 13 colonies. The committee was also responsible for local defense. Madison wrote at the time: “We are very busy at present in raising men and providing the necessaries for defending ourselves.”

In 1776 Madison was elected a delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention. Madison later wrote that, being young and inexperienced, he played only a small part in the proceedings. He was much too modest, for he served on the committee that prepared a declaration of rights and he drafted a plan of government for the new state. At this time he worked closely with Virginia legislator Thomas Jefferson in a great effort to establish religious freedom as a part of Virginia law. Madison wrote the article of the declaration of rights that asserted the right of all “to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.” However, it was not until 1786 that, through Madison’s leadership, the Virginia legislature enacted Jefferson’s monumental Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.

When the Virginia constitution went into effect in June 1776, Madison, along with the other delegates to the convention, became a member of the legislature, the General Assembly. The following spring, however, he failed to be reelected by his Orange County constituents. His refusal to indulge the people’s expectation to be wooed with whiskey for their votes is generally blamed for Madison’s loss of the election.

A year later, although he did not seek the office, he was returned to the assembly. In the meantime he had been appointed to the governor’s council. Madison gained valuable experience in practical government while he was serving on the council, although he characterized this administrative body as being “the grave of all useful talents.”

In December 1779 Madison was elected to the Continental Congress. He took his seat with the Virginia delegation in March 1780, just four days after his 29th birthday. He was not only the youngest man in Congress but at the beginning probably the least imposing. He was slight, reserved, and hesitant in taking the floor to speak. But these drawbacks did not prevent his making a speedy and accurate appraisal of the condition of the country, and after the first few months he assumed a leading role in Congress.

In 1781 major hostilities with Britain came to an end, and the independence of the United States was assured. However, there was still much to be decided regarding the new nation’s form of government and its relations with its neighbors. Madison favored strengthening the central government by giving it the power to enforce its financial requisitions on the states and to levy import duties. He led the fight in support of Virginia’s claims to western territories. In negotiations with Spain over navigational rights on the Mississippi River, he urged firmness against Spain’s demands for control of all shipping upon it. When Madison left Philadelphia at the end of 1783, he had established himself as an able and farsighted politician.

Before leaving Congress for home, Madison suffered a deep personal disappointment. He had fallen in love with Catherine Floyd, the young daughter of another congressional delegate. In April 1783 he wrote to Jefferson that he had “sufficiently ascertained her sentiments.” He hoped to be married at the end of the year. But Miss Floyd broke the engagement, and Madison returned to Montpelier for a solitary winter of reading and study.

In the spring of 1784 Madison again ran for election to the Virginia assembly, and won. He served nearly three years there, pursuing the same objectives he had fought for in Congress. He advocated strengthening the federal government, which was an unpopular position in Virginia, as it was in most of the states. He consistently supported measures, at both state and national levels, that would best safeguard the rights of the individual. Madison also continued to oppose any connection between church and state. He wrote a brilliant objection against a proposed assessment for support of the Anglican Church in Virginia. He succeeded not only in defeating the assessment, but in winning passage of Jefferson’s bill for religious liberty, which had been rejected in 1779.

Madison was also greatly concerned about the problem of regulating commerce between the states. He was largely responsible for calling a conference between Maryland and Virginia to discuss navigation rules for the Potomac River, the border between the two states. The discussions failed because other states on the river were not represented. Madison and his supporters then proposed a resolution in the Virginia assembly inviting all the states to meet to discuss the question of uniform commercial regulations. The meeting was held in September 1786 in Annapolis, Maryland.

Madison saw a grave danger to national unity in the conflicting interests that dominated the different regions and states after the struggle against Britain. He believed that uniform rules should be established among the states to govern trade and commercial relations, and he felt that only the federal government could effectively enforce these rules. Madison and many others strongly believed that the Articles of Confederation, the legal framework under which the national government was operating, should be amended to expand the powers of Congress. But he was pessimistic about winning support for amending the Articles at the Annapolis Convention.

Madison attended the Annapolis Convention as a delegate from Virginia. Only four other states sent representatives. It was agreed to call another convention of all the states, this time to draw up a national constitution. The Virginia assembly unanimously approved the new convention, which was scheduled to be held in Philadelphia in May 1787, and Madison was named one of the delegates.

In February 1787 Madison returned briefly to Congress, primarily, he said, to preserve American access to the Mississippi River. He did help to halt the negotiations with Spain, which had taken a direction that would have led to the cession of American navigational rights which the United States had on the Mississippi.

Madison was one of the first delegates to arrive in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention, three weeks before the convention opened. He came equipped with two papers he had written earlier that spring, a Study of Ancient and Modern Confederacies; and Vices of the Political System of the United States, drawn from his comprehensive reading and his eleven years of experience in government. When his fellow delegates from Virginia arrived, Madison was ready to outline for them his plan of government.

Madison proposed a government with strong central powers, including a national judiciary and an elected national executive, and with authority to veto legislation of individual states. Primarily he sought to provide the central government “with positive and complete authority in all cases which require uniformity” and to prevent abuse of this authority by making the government responsible to the people. He favored a two-chamber legislature and a system of representation that would give the larger states an influence in proportion to their size.

Madison’s ideas were presented to the convention by Virginia’s Governor Edmund Randolph, in the so-called Virginia Plan or Large-State Plan. The Small-State Plan, urging equal representation in Congress for all states regardless of population, was proposed by New Jersey. Madison became the leading spokesman for the Virginia Plan and, despite strong opposition, for the Virginia delegation also.

The convention compromised between the Virginia and New Jersey plans: the states would be represented according to size in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, but would have equal voting power in the upper chamber, the Senate. This represented a defeat for Madison. He feared government by a minority and foresaw that the small states would be able to wield disproportionate power.

Madison kept a detailed journal of the convention’s proceedings. He had been in constant attendance, and this Journal of the Federal Convention, published in 1840, is the most complete record of the historic meeting. “It happened,” he remarked, “that I was not absent a single day, nor more than a fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech unless a very short one.” His purpose was to preserve “the history of a Constitution on which would be staked the happiness of a people great even in its infancy, and possibly the cause of liberty throughout the world.”

In the year following the Constitutional Convention, Madison worked to get the new Constitution accepted. In Congress his efforts helped defeat attempts to amend the Constitution and speeded its referral to the states for ratification. Also, while in New York with the Congress, Madison made plans with fellow constitutional supporters Alexander Hamilton and John Jay for a series of articles explaining and defending the Constitution. These were published in the newspapers with the aim of counteracting the attacks that had been launched against the Constitution in the nation’s press.

The first of these articles, later known collectively as The Federalist, was published in October 1787. Over the next ten months, the first 77 of the 85 separate essays appeared in newspapers in New York and other localities over the signature “a Citizen of New York” and, later, “Publius.” Madison is usually credited with the authorship of at least 26 of them.

The tenth essay of the series is perhaps the best known of those written by Madison. In it he explains the proper relationship of government to the many varied and conflicting interests that characterize a democratic society, and he analyzes the origin of these differences. He believed that political differences grew primarily out of varying economic interests and that the basic cause of the friction among the American states was not the differences in size but the conflicts between slave and free states, between plantation and merchant states, between debtor and creditor states. This view of society made Madison a forerunner of the so-called economic-interpretation school of history that became dominant in the 20th century. However, he believed that a strong Constitution could help to reduce such conflicts and prevent economic exploitation.

Madison had not planned to participate in Virginia’s ratification convention. But opposition to the new Constitution had mounted in the state, and Madison’s friends urged him to assist in the fight for adoption. In the spring of 1788 Madison left New York for Virginia. He ran for delegate from Orange County and was elected to the June convention.

At the convention, Madison found some of the most powerful and most eloquent of Virginia’s statesmen opposed to the Constitution, including Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Monroe. But, as in Philadelphia, Madison had come well prepared. He knew every article of the proposed Constitution and was familiar with all the arguments used against it. When point-by-point examination of the Constitution began, Madison spoke constantly in its defense and offered full explanations.

Though ill, Madison took the floor 35 times in the first four days of this examination. His arguments were those of The Federalist. His manner of speaking was restrained, while that of Patrick Henry, his chief adversary, was flamboyant. Madison spoke always to the point, with the pertinent facts at hand.

It was Madison’s thorough acquaintance with the affairs of Congress that overwhelmed Henry’s final attempt to block ratification. When his opponent warned the convention that the treaty powers under the proposed Constitution would result in the loss of the Mississippi River to Spain, Madison replied that a majority of the states were already committed to retaining American navigation rights. By this disclosure, Madison reassured the delegates from the western territories of Virginia and obtained their support for the Constitution. In the final tally the convention approved ratification by a vote of 89 to 79.

After the convention adjourned, the Virginia assembly returned Madison to Congress, then in its final session under the Articles of Confederation. However, largely through the efforts of Patrick Henry, Madison failed to win a seat in the new U.S. Senate. He thereupon ran for election to the House of Representatives from his home district. He was opposed by James Monroe. However, in February 1789, Madison was easily elected to the first of the four consecutive terms that he served in the House.

The eight years of Madison’s service in Congress saw the beginning of the two-party system in the United States. The chief causes of the split between the founding fathers were relations with Britain and differing views on the powers to be granted the federal government. Hamilton headed the Federalist group (later the Federalist Party), mostly Northerners, who favored accommodation with Britain and a strong central government. Jefferson was the chief spokesman for those who opposed friendship with Britain and sought to limit the power of the federal government. Madison began his career in Congress as leader for Hamilton’s administrative program. However, as Hamilton’s financial schemes became more obviously pro-Northern and pro-industrial, Madison opposed these plans. By the end of his congressional career, he was a leader of the anti-Federalists, or Democratic-Republican Party, in Congress.

Madison automatically assumed a role of leadership. In the first term of the new Congress, he introduced its first piece of business, a measure to raise revenues for paying off the national debt. He successfully defended the measure, which imposed a series of import taxes, against vigorous opposition by representatives who proposed changing the measure to benefit local interests. Madison emphasized that the import taxes were desirable as a means of raising money, not of regulating the flow of goods. He believed that “commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic.”

Soon after passage of the revenue bill, Madison advanced and fought for two other important measures in the House. The first proposed to set up executive departments of the government. The second, introduced on June 8, 1789, presented a series of nine amendments to strengthen the Constitution. These were largely designed to guarantee personal liberty, including religious freedom and freedom of the press. Madison led the debate for his amendments and saw most of them approved. They formed, with the Tenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.

In the 1790 session of Congress, Madison began to be alienated from the Federalists. He took issue with portions of Hamilton’s plan for securing the country’s credit. He urged that any profits made by present holders of notes or certificates of the nation’s indebtedness be shared with the original holders of such bills, that is, those who actually loaned the money. Otherwise, people who purchased these bills from the original creditors could make a large profit. Madison strongly, and probably rightly, feared the possibility of large gains to speculators who would buy the bills on news of a federal funding. However, he was defeated on this point.

Madison also fought Hamilton’s proposal that the federal government assume the states’ debts incurred during the revolution. Although he had advocated a similar measure in 1783, Madison now would not accept it. He felt that certain states, among them Virginia, that had retired a large part of their wartime debt would be made to pay more than their share. He also feared the consequences of concentrating financial power in one place. But before long he conceded that “I suspect that it will yet be unavoidable to admit the evil in some qualified shape.” The assumption bill was soon passed. The South’s support was won by the promise, agreed to by Jefferson, if not Madison, that the national capital would be located in the South. The establishment of the capital in Washington, D.C., was the result of this compromise.

The breach between Hamilton and Madison soon widened further. When Hamilton introduced a bill to charter a national bank, early in 1791, Madison organized and led the opposition to it. He also objected to new tariff (import tax) measures proposed by Hamilton, always taking the position that the Constitution did not sanction the powers that Hamilton’s followers assumed. In fact, Hamilton’s measures hardly went beyond what Madison himself had proposed in the Continental Congress. But now Madison feared that Hamilton’s program would enhance the power of the North. The national spirit that had inspired many American statesmen, including Madison, during the revolution and the formation of the new government was beginning to yield to regional allegiances.

Madison’s parting with his former Federalist friends was complete by 1792, when the second American presidential election was held. Madison did not support John Adams for the vice presidency. In fact, all the electoral votes of Virginia, then the largest of all the states, were cast for an anti-Federalist candidate. From this time on, Madison joined his political life to that of Thomas Jefferson and became openly and bitterly critical of Hamilton and his views. Relations between President George Washington and Madison now grew cool, though the president had regularly consulted Madison on basic policies during his first term.

The friendship of Madison and Jefferson was one of the most remarkable in American history. They first met in the Virginia legislature in 1776. But, according to the unassuming Madison, this meeting was “rendered slight by the disparity between us,” and he did not become closely acquainted with Jefferson until 1779, when Jefferson was governor of Virginia. From about 1782 on, they met frequently and corresponded on a wide variety of subjects. But until 1789 they were still, wrote Madison, “for the most part separated by different walks in public and private life.”

Beginning about 1790, however, Madison’s political career closely followed Jefferson’s. In their personalities and modes of thinking they were very different, but they complemented one another. Statesman Henry Clay said that he preferred Madison and thought him the nation’s most distinguished political writer and, after Washington, its greatest statesman. Clay regarded Jefferson as having greater genius; Madison, greater judgment and common sense. He considered Jefferson “a visionary and theorist, often betrayed by his enthusiasm into rash and imprudent and impractical measures,” while he viewed Madison as “cool, dispassionate—practical, safe.”

The antagonism between Federalists and anti-Federalists became sharpest in the realm of foreign affairs. Like Jefferson, Madison was sympathetic to the French Revolution (1789-1799). Hamilton, on the other hand, mistrusted it. Throughout the wars between France and Britain, the Federalists’ sympathies were with Britain, while those of Jefferson and Madison were with France. In 1793 President Washington firmly declared America’s intention of remaining neutral in the foreign war. Madison saw this position as a “most unfortunate error” and a sign of the pro-British tilt of the administration’s foreign policy. In a series of five letters published in the Gazette of the United States, Madison, under the name Helvidius, assailed Hamilton’s defense of neutrality. U.S. neutrality made it impossible to carry out certain provisions of the U.S. treaty with France signed during the American Revolution. Referring to Hamilton’s views, published previously in the Gazette, Madison wrote with greater anger than was his habit: “Several pieces...lately published...have been read with singular pleasure and applause by the foreigners and degenerate citizens among us, who hate our republican government and the French Revolution.”

Instead of neutrality, Madison urged a policy of retaliation with “commercial weapons” against any interference with American shipping and foreign commerce. Jay’s Treaty with Britain, negotiated late in 1794 to agree on shipping rights, did not satisfy Madison. It allowed liberal trading rights to Britain without making changes to the British regulations that limited American trade to Britain. He opposed the legislation necessary to implement it.

The issue of the U.S. position in the conflict between France and Britain was to dominate much of Madison’s future political career, first as secretary of state and later as president. However, in his last term in Congress the Federalist Party was firmly in control, and Madison wielded little influence. In fact, Madison did not seek reelection in 1796.

During his third term in Congress, at the age of 43, Madison married a young widow, Dolley Payne Todd. Both had lived in Philadelphia for several years and certainly knew each other, but their friendship did not begin until the spring of 1794. Madison sought a formal introduction, and Dolley excitedly wrote to a friend, “Thou must come to me. Aaron Burr [then a U.S. senator] says that the great little Madison has asked to be brought to see me this evening.” Their marriage took place on September 15 of the same year.

Though childless, the marriage was a happy one. Dolley was a woman of great personal warmth and social ease. She made domestic life so attractive that Madison even contemplated permanent retirement from politics. In fact, at the end of the congressional session in 1797, he returned to Montpelier, intending to devote his life to farming.

But Madison’s retirement lasted only two years, after which he was once more elected to the Virginia legislature. He had continued to observe the affairs of government with keen and partisan interest, and he was in frequent touch with his political friends. With Jefferson serving as vice president and broadening the influence of the Republican Party, as the anti-Federalists by then were known, Madison’s involvement was unlikely to diminish.

In 1798 Madison joined Jefferson in opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts passed under President John Adams’s Federalist administration. He regarded these acts, which were adopted to restrain partisans and sympathizers of the French Revolution, as unconstitutional and a grave threat to civil liberties. With Jefferson and other Republicans, Madison agreed to combat the acts. He drew up the Virginia Resolutions, condemning the Alien and Sedition Acts as infractions of the federal government’s constitutional powers. Jefferson composed a similar though more extreme set of resolutions, asserting that a state could refuse to apply such laws, for the legislature of Kentucky. Both states adopted their respective resolutions, later known as the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. But they took no action on them, and no similar action was taken by other states.

When Jefferson became president in 1801, he appointed Madison to the highest post in his Cabinet. From 1801 to 1809, Madison served as both secretary of state and chief adviser to his old friend.

The extent to which Madison personally formulated American foreign policy is not clear. Jefferson generated many ideas, and began some actions himself. For example, Jefferson, working with ambassadors reporting directly to him, managed the Louisiana Purchase, which finally assured the United States access to the Mississippi. Yet Madison was more than secretary of state to the president. The two men exchanged views on all subjects and were always in essential agreement.

When Madison took over the Department of State, its staff numbered fewer than a dozen, and his administrative duties were not extensive. However, the international problems confronting him were formidable. They concerned primarily America’s relations with the warring nations of Europe.

Since the beginning of hostilities between France and Great Britain, American shippers had been transporting much of the seaborne trade of those countries, particularly between Europe and the French and British islands of the West Indies. However, Britain and France had declared a blockade against each other’s ports. American ships headed to or from those ports were often stopped by the British or French navy and their cargoes confiscated. Further, sailors on American vessels were frequently removed and forcibly inducted, or impressed, into service with the British navy (see Impressment).

While Madison was secretary of state, both sides increased their interference with American shipping. For a variety of reasons the British were regarded as the greater offenders, and many people in the United States urged an aggressive policy, even to declaring war on Britain. Others favored negotiations in the hope that an accommodation could be reached.

In 1803 Madison began writing a series of letters to French and, more often, British authorities, protesting against illegal interference with American shipping. This “diplomacy by correspondence,” though well grounded in theory and legal argument, had little effect. Madison’s efforts were ridiculed by Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke as a “shilling pamphlet hurled against eight hundred ships of war.” Attempts to negotiate failed to stop the impressment of American sailors or the confiscation of American cargoes.

Finally, still determined not to be provoked into war, Madison and Jefferson introduced the Embargo Act of 1807, which ordered all trade into and out of American ports to be halted. Since this ban was difficult to enforce and in any event did not intimidate either Britain or France, it eventually had to be abandoned. Harassment of American shipping continued into Madison’s own administration.

It was no surprise that Madison’s party named him to succeed Jefferson. A dissident faction called the Quids opposed him and nominated James Monroe. But Madison kept the support of all but a small group of the Republicans and easily defeated the Federalist candidate, diplomat Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. He received 122 electoral votes to Pinckney’s 47. George Clinton, vice president under Jefferson, had 6 votes. Clinton also became Madison’s vice president.

Madison was sworn into office by Chief Justice John Marshall on March 4, 1809. A great inaugural ball, the first of its kind, celebrated his assumption of the presidency. Though elated by his triumph and the honor accorded him, Madison felt greatly the responsibility that had fallen on him.

An observer wrote that Madison was “extremely pale and trembled excessively” as he began his inaugural address, “but soon gained confidence and spoke audibly.” His remarks reflected the “peculiar solemnity” of the “existing period.” He stressed that “the present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel and that of our own country full of difficulties.” Madison’s address emphasized his ardent desire for peace, but made it clear that he would not tolerate continued foreign interference. Its tone foreshadowed the course he would follow in dealing with such interference.

The eight years of Madison’s presidency were dominated by continuing and growing tensions between the United States and the governments of France and Britain, and finally by open warfare with Britain. When Madison took office, the Embargo Act of 1807 had been replaced by the Non-Intercourse Act, which reopened trade with countries other than France and Britain. By 1810 it was apparent to Madison that the American trade boycott was having no effect. American ships were being seized at a greater rate, if anything, by both countries. In May 1810, therefore, the Non-Intercourse Act was repealed, and the United States resumed trade with both France and Britain. But if one of them dropped its restrictions on American shipping, Madison was authorized to again prohibit trade with the other.

U.S.-British relations deteriorated further when the president received what he was led to regard as complete assurance that France was renouncing its policy of intercepting American ships. Unaware that he was being tricked by France, Madison declared in November 1810 that trade with Britain was to be halted. Although negotiations with British ambassadors continued in hope of a peaceable settlement, they were now almost certainly doomed to fail.

By April 1811 Madison had sufficiently mended his relations with Monroe, his rival in the 1808 election, to obtain Monroe’s services as secretary of state. He placed Monroe in charge of negotiations with Britain. A number of issues were discussed, but to Madison the crucial one was that Britain drop its restrictions on American shipping. The talks proceeded with some success over the next year. But in his third annual message, in November 1811, Madison asked Congress to put the United States “into an armour and an attitude demanded by the crisis.”

War had now become likely with Britain. This was due, however, as much to the American ambition to expand U.S. territory into British-held lands in the West, into Canada, and into Spanish Florida as to the controversy over shipping rights. Madison’s annexation of a part of Florida is believed to have strengthened these ambitions. The most prominent members of the expansionist movement were Henry Clay, then a congressman from Kentucky, and John C. Calhoun, a congressman from South Carolina. They were the leaders of the war hawks, as the militant expansionist and anti-British forces in Congress were called. They accused Britain of provoking Native American attacks on American frontier communities. In November 1811 American troops under Indiana Governor William Henry Harrison fought the Shawnee nation at the Battle of Tippecanoe near the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers. Although Madison had not personally authorized the use of troops, he used the occasion to rally support in Congress for military preparations. War with Britain then became all but certain.

In March 1812 some American ships bound for Lisbon, Portugal, were destroyed by French frigates. But Madison’s action against British trade interference had gathered too much momentum. “Let it not be said,” Madison reasoned, “that the misconduct of France neutralizes in the least that of Britain.” He made it clear that nothing but revocation of Britain’s restrictions on trade could now alter his policy. On March 31 he was quoted as saying “that without an accommodation with Britain Congress ought to declare war before adjourning.”

Early in April, Madison learned that no concession toward settlement was forthcoming from Britain. He promptly asked Congress to place an embargo against Britain and implied that if American grievances were not satisfied during the embargo period, stronger measures would be employed.

Madison’s demand was interpreted as a prelude to war. The embargo was passed promptly by Congress, and it expired on June 1. On that date, no satisfactory solution having been offered, Madison addressed his war message to Congress. He told Congress that “our commerce has been plundered in every sea,” that Britain was intent on destroying American commerce “not as supplying the wants of her enemies, which she herself supplies; but as interfering with the monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation.” Madison also made an allusion to British participation in recent Native American uprisings and to other “injuries and indignities ... heaped on our country.” He also condemned the hostile acts of France, but recommended that action on these be postponed for the moment. Madison concluded: “We behold ... on the side of Britain a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Britain.” He asked Congress to decide whether the United States should remain at peace under these circumstances as “a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the government.” On June 18 Madison signed a declaration of war passed by both houses of Congress.

Ironically, and unknown to Madison, Britain had in fact revoked its restrictions on American shipping on June 16. The action had come after France’s public repeal of its decrees restricting American trade, which had supposedly been effected more than a year before.

When the long-anticipated war with Britain came, the United States was ill prepared. Madison’s warning to put the nation “into an armour” had not been heeded. The president did not possess the qualities necessary for organizing an effective war machine, and he did not quickly enough find those who did. His attempts to take a personal role in conducting the affairs of the War and Navy departments led only to ridicule.

Madison’s efforts were also hampered by opposition to the war from various quarters. The Federalists had been against war with Britain from the start. Northerners generally showed no enthusiasm for taking over Spanish Florida. Southerners similarly regarded a conquest of Canada as merely adding to the strength of the North. Throughout the war the New England states balked at contributing their financial and military share. Northern opposition resulted in the so-called Hartford Convention, where representatives of the northeastern states seriously discussed a separate peace with Britain.

The widespread lack of enthusiasm for the war, combined with early military reverses, made the presidential election of 1812 an especially hard-fought one. Madison was opposed by Governor De Witt Clinton of New York. Clinton, though a Republican, drew his support from the Federalists and from dissident members of Madison’s own party. The war was the primary issue of the campaign. Madison was criticized for carrying on the war and was also condemned for not pursuing it more successfully. He replied by expressing a desire for peace but asking the country’s support in a “just and necessary” war.

Although his support was less than in 1808, Madison was reelected: 128 electoral votes to 89 for Clinton. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts served as Madison’s vice president in his second term.

Meanwhile the War of 1812, which New England Federalists bitterly called “Mr. Madison’s War,” proceeded. The U.S. Navy fought valiantly in the first year of the war, winning several notable victories. In 1813, however, the superior British navy captured many American ships and prevented those remaining from leaving port.

Until 1814 American land forces had only one victory, led by General Harrison, of Tippecanoe fame. His troops forced the British back into Canada after they had occupied the city of Detroit. Toward the middle of 1814 the American army began to show some competence and won several battles. American troops successfully defended Fort McHenry, outside Baltimore, in September of that year. That battle inspired American lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key to write a poem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which would years later become the national anthem. On January 8, 1815, after the war had officially ended, General Andrew Jackson won a decisive victory over British forces at New Orleans.

During the war, however, the British occupied large areas of the Midwest. They also took the city of Washington and burned the White House. On August 24, 1814, Madison joined his armies retreating from the capital. For four days the president rode about the countryside near Washington, endeavoring to maintain contact with the commanders of his forces. On August 27 he returned to the capital, which had been devastated and abandoned by the British.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1814, Madison had dispatched Henry Clay, along with statesmen John Quincy Adams and Albert Gallatin, to hold peace talks with the British at Ghent (Gent), Belgium. On his instructions they negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed on December 24, 1814. The primary concession Madison won was surrender by Britain of American territory captured during the war.

“Mr. Madison’s War” did not accomplish its purposes. Impressment of American sailors and the rights of neutral shipping were not discussed in the peace treaty. No new territories were gained. But fighting the war created among the people a new awareness of the United States as a national entity. Madison had convinced the country that the United States could declare war and negotiate peace with another sovereign nation, and that American warriors and ships could hold their own against those of a great power. Madison was widely honored for seeing the nation through this test.

The final two years of Madison’s presidency were marked by a growing prosperity and a spirit of expansion in the United States. Madison himself appeared to be swept along by the nationalistic feeling of the times. Although he persisted in a strict interpretation of federal powers under the Constitution, he felt it appropriate now to sign into law several pieces of legislation he had vigorously fought against in earlier years. Among these were a bill creating a national bank and a tariff act designed to protect American industries from foreign competition. Thus, at the end of his political career, Madison became reconciled to some of the measures over which he and Hamilton had so strongly differed years before.

The conclusion of his second term marked the end of Madison’s long years of service in the federal government. In the years that remained to him, Madison emerged from the privacy of family life in Montpelier on only a few occasions. At the age of 78 he participated in the Virginia convention to write a new state constitution. He also consistently supported Jefferson’s work in founding the University of Virginia. A member of its board until Jefferson’s death in 1826, Madison succeeded his friend as the university’s rector. When South Carolina objected to a new tariff and threatened to nullify it within its borders, Madison spoke out vigorously, denying that the Constitution allowed any state to exclude itself from laws passed by the U.S. Congress. Although the proponents of nullification based their doctrine on the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, Madison particularly disavowed any applicability of his own arguments in the Virginia Resolutions to the present situation.

Madison’s final years were troubled with chronic illness, but the quickness of his mind was unimpaired. His interest and concern for the nation he had helped to found continued undiminished. The deaths of Jefferson and Monroe, the longtime friends and associates of both his private and public life, saddened his old age. During his last years, Madison was confined to his home, where he died in 1836.

More links: www.americanpresidents.org, James Madison: His Legacy

Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826), third president of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence. He was one of the most brilliant individuals in history. His interests were boundless, and his accomplishments were great and varied. He was a philosopher, educator, naturalist, politician, scientist, architect, inventor, pioneer in scientific farming, musician, and writer, and he was the foremost spokesman for democracy of his day.

As president, Jefferson strengthened the powers of the executive branch of government. He was the first president to lead a political party, and through it he exercised control over the Congress of the United States. He had great faith in popular rule, and it is this optimism that is the essence of what came to be called Jeffersonian democracy.

Jefferson swore his hostility, he said, to “every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” During his lifetime he sought to develop a government that would best assure the freedom and well-being of the individual.

Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter Jefferson, was a prosperous Virginia planter. His mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, was a member of the old and distinguished Randolph family of Virginia. In 1743 the Jeffersons moved to western Goochland County, where Peter Jefferson had acquired 162 hectares (400 acres) of undeveloped land. He named his estate Shadwell. At first the family lived in a simple log cabin.

Thomas Jefferson was born in this cabin in 1743. A year after his birth, Albemarle County was formed from the western portion of Goochland County. Peter Jefferson soon became a leader in the new county. He was a justice of the peace, a magistrate, and commander of the county militia. Although young Jefferson was accepted into the Virginia aristocracy through his mother's family, it was his father, a self-made man, whom he especially admired.

In 1745, William Randolph, a cousin of Mrs. Jefferson and a close friend of the family, died. His will requested that Peter Jefferson move to his estate, manage the house and land, and supervise the education of Randolph's four children. The Jeffersons remained at Randolph's estate, known as Tuckahoe, for seven years.

Thomas was five years old when he began his education under the family tutor at Tuckahoe. In 1752 the Jeffersons returned to Shadwell and again started work on a plantation home. Thomas, however, spent little time at Shadwell. Almost immediately he was sent to Dover, Virginia, where he studied Latin with the Reverend William Douglas until 1757, when his father died. He was then sent to the school of the Reverend James Maury at Hanover, Virginia, and spent two years studying Greek and Latin classics, history, literature, geography, and natural science.

Jefferson was a tall, slender boy with sandy hair of a reddish cast and fair skin that freckled and sunburned easily. A serious student, he also enjoyed the lighter aspects of the education of a Virginia gentleman. He learned to dance and play the violin and became an excellent horseman. Weekends and holidays he spent either at Shadwell entertaining guests or at his friends' plantations.

In March 1760 Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary in Virginia's capital city, Williamsburg, and soon came under the influence of Dr. William Small. Jefferson became a favorite of the doctor, who taught mathematics, natural history, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. Jefferson also continued his study of classical literature.

After two years at William and Mary, Jefferson left to study law with Dr. Small's friend George Wythe, the most learned lawyer in Virginia. Jefferson was very fond of Wythe and called him “my second father.” Even while reading law, Jefferson had many other interests. He studied French, Italian, and English history and literature. He was keenly interested in the new scientific theory of inoculation and traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to have himself inoculated against smallpox.

In 1767, after five years of work and study under Wythe, Jefferson was admitted to the practice of law in Virginia. He was reasonably successful as a lawyer, but he did not earn enough to support a Virginia gentleman. Jefferson's main source of income, like that of most other Virginia lawyers, was his land.

Throughout his years of law practice, Jefferson spent much time supervising the Shadwell plantation. In this occupation, as in his studies, he was most methodical. He observed the growth of his plants and trees, keeping records of them in a special garden book. A careful observer of his environment, he kept a lifelong record of such things as temperature, weather, expenses, recipes, and anything else that struck him as noteworthy. “There is,” he once wrote, “not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”

The year of his admission to practice law, Jefferson began work on his mountaintop estate, Monticello, near what is now Charlottesville, Virginia. Jefferson designed the mansion himself in the classical style of architecture.

On New Year's Day, 1772, Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton, a 24-year-old widow. Patty, as Jefferson called her, shared her husband's love of music and played the harpsichord and piano. The marriage was a happy one despite Mrs. Jefferson's ill health. Of their six children, only two, both of them girls, lived to maturity. Martha Jefferson died in 1782. The death of his wife had a profound effect on Jefferson and probably influenced his return to politics, which he had considered abandoning.

By the time of his marriage, Jefferson had for several years been a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. This was the lower chamber of the Virginia legislature, which was called the General Assembly. He was elected in 1768 and took his seat at Williamsburg in the spring of 1769. As a burgess, Jefferson took an active part in the events that led to the American Revolution (1775-1783). He belonged to the so-called radical group that was in opposition to the conservative planters of the Tidewater region. Many of his democratic views came from his experience as a resident of the western part of the colony, near the frontier, where he saw the colonists carve a civilization out of the wilderness. This strengthened his lifelong belief that people could and should govern themselves.

Jefferson was a poor speaker, but his literary talents made him a highly valued member of committees when resolutions and other public papers were drafted. He emerged as the recognized author of the patriot cause in Virginia and indeed in the whole of the colonies. Jefferson's first public paper, however, was considered too stiff and formal, and it was rewritten. The paper was a response to the greeting of the new governor, Lord Botetourt, to the General Assembly. Jefferson, who never took criticism graciously, remembered the incident with annoyance for many years.

In 1769 Jefferson joined his fellow burgesses in opposing the Townshend Acts. These laws passed by the British Parliament required the colonies to pay duties on paint, lead, paper, and tea. They also made changes in colonial administration that disturbed the colonists. The Massachusetts legislature appealed to the other colonies for concerted action against the laws. Virginia responded with resolutions protesting the acts. Governor Botetourt, learning of the resolutions, dissolved the General Assembly. However, the burgesses moved their meeting to the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, where Jefferson and the others signed an association, or pledge of action. Drafted by Burgess George Mason and introduced by Burgess George Washington, the document went far beyond any previous protest. It bound its signers not to buy a number of imported goods until the Townshend duties were abolished.

Faced with the prospect of a boycott, Great Britain lifted most of the offensive duties. Thus the colonists were quieted so effectively, Jefferson said, that they “seemed to fall into a state of insensibility to our situation.” He, however, was not deceived. He noted that the tea tax still held and that Parliament still claimed the right “to bind us by their laws in all cases whatsoever.”

In 1773, in retaliation for the burning of the British ship Gaspée near Providence, Rhode Island, the British government ordered a special court of inquiry and threatened to send the perpetrators to Britain for trial. Jefferson and his brother-in-law Dabney Carr were among the burgesses who protested the British threats. They met secretly with burgesses Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee and a few others to consider a plan of action. Carr drew up a set of resolutions proposing a committee of correspondence for Virginia. The committee was to keep in touch with other colonies on matters of common interest. Other resolutions challenged the legality of the court of inquiry and protested the threat “to transmit persons accused of offenses committed in America to places beyond the seas to be tried.” The resolutions were passed by the General Assembly. Although the committee of correspondence did not include Jefferson or other so-called radicals, the first step had been taken toward communication and joint action on grievances by all the colonies.

Early in 1774 the colonies were angered by the passage of what were called the Intolerable Acts. One of these, the Boston Port Act, closed Boston Harbor in retaliation for a protest incident, the so-called Boston Tea Party, where angry colonists dumped British tea into Boston Harbor. Virginia protested the Boston Port Act, and Jefferson was one of the burgesses who suggested that the day the act went into effect should be declared “a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer.” Because of this resolution, the General Assembly was again dismissed, this time by Lord Dunmore, who had replaced Botetourt as governor.

Virginians immediately elected their dismissed burgesses as delegates to a convention to consider the grievances of the colonies. As delegate from Albemarle County, Jefferson wrote a series of resolutions later titled A Summary View of the Rights of British America. In defining the grievances with Great Britain, Jefferson denied that Parliament had any authority over the colonies, and he attacked the restrictive acts passed by Parliament as a deliberate plan to destroy colonial freedom. Jefferson also accused the king of rejecting the best laws passed by colonial legislatures, of preventing the outlawing of slavery in the colonies, of permitting his governors to dissolve colonial assemblies, and of sending in armed forces without having the right to do so. Jefferson said the colonists were “a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate.”

On his way to Williamsburg, where the convention was to meet, Jefferson became ill. He was unable to go on but sent his Summary View to be presented by fellow Burgess Peyton Randolph. The younger delegates applauded Jefferson's work, but for the time being “tamer sentiments were preferred,” as Jefferson put it. The Summary View was set aside in favor of a more tactfully phrased remonstrance to Parliament. However, Jefferson's work was published in Philadelphia and England, and Jefferson's talents as a writer and political thinker came to the attention of American patriots outside of Virginia.

In March 1775 Jefferson was a delegate to a Virginia convention held at Richmond to approve the decisions made at the First Continental Congress, an assembly of representatives from the different colonies that had met the previous fall to organize resistance to Britain. At Richmond it was decided that the colonies must resort to arms against England. Patrick Henry on this occasion made his stirring “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Jefferson supported Henry's call to arms with his first public address. The convention then chose him as an alternate delegate to the Second Continental Congress to serve if the elected delegate, Peyton Randolph, should be unable to attend.

Before the Second Continental Congress convened, events in Virginia reached a crisis. Lord Dunmore, the governor, had angered Virginians by his high-handed conduct. They were further aroused when word came of the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, when Massachusetts militias first took up arms against the British troops. The American Revolution had begun. (See Lexington, Battle of; Concord, Battle of.) Dunmore was frightened and called a meeting of the General Assembly, which both Jefferson and Randolph attended.

At first, Dunmore tried to calm the assembly with assurances that no more taxes would be levied. Instead, he said, they would return to the old system whereby the colonies voluntarily contributed money to Great Britain. However, these assurances came too late to appease the Virginians. Dunmore felt his life was endangered and fled to a British warship. He never returned to Virginia.

The assembly continued to work without him. Jefferson's written reply to the assurances made by Dunmore stated that “the British Parliament has no right to intermeddle with the support of civil Government in the Colonies.” Virginia, Jefferson declared, was now represented in the Continental Congress and would go along with the decisions of the other colonies. His reply, slightly amended, was adopted by the assembly, and Jefferson left for Philadelphia and the meeting of the Continental Congress. Randolph remained in Williamsburg to preside over the assembly.

On June 21, 1775, Jefferson took his seat in Congress. A few days later, John Rutledge of South Carolina was appointed to write a statement explaining the colonists' reasons for making war on Britain. Rutledge's paper was not approved, and Jefferson, who by now had earned wide acclaim as a writer, was asked to write a new draft. His version contained many of the ideas expressed in the Summary View, and it brought forth the same cry of radicalism from the conservatives. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania rewrote Jefferson's paper, and Congress approved it on July 6, 1775.

The following summer, Jefferson sat in Congress as an elected delegate, not as an alternate. It was at this session that he wrote his most famous document, the Declaration of Independence.

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, who was also a congressman from Virginia, proposed a resolution stating “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” Jefferson was one of a committee of five appointed to draft a declaration “to the effect of the said ... resolution.” The committee asked Jefferson to draft the paper, and according to committee member John Adams, Jefferson replied, “Well, if you are decided, I will do as well as I can.” When his draft was completed, Adams, committee member Benjamin Franklin, and Jefferson himself made corrections.

On July 2, 1776, Lee's resolution for independence was passed by Congress. Technically, this was the actual day of American independence. Then the declaration was debated, several changes were made, and some parts were dropped entirely. Jefferson regretted especially the deletion of a long paragraph denouncing the slave trade and the whole institution of slavery as a “cruel war against human nature itself.”

The objective of the declaration, in Jefferson's own words, was to justify American independence “in terms so plain and full as to command their assent.” As an expression of the philosophy of the natural rights of people in an age when absolute monarchs ruled throughout the world, it had an immense impact in America and in Europe as well. Jefferson did not originate the concept of government by consent and the belief that all people are endowed with certain rights that government cannot infringe upon. These ideas came from European philosophers, most notably 17th century British philosopher John Locke. However, in the declaration they were given a practical application for the first time. Furthermore, in Jefferson's words they achieved their most eloquent expression.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted. The bands that had connected America with Great Britain were broken. Within a few days the declaration was being read to people throughout the colonies, and it was received with great rejoicing. The declaration held the essence of Jefferson's ideals, and he spent the rest of his life applying its principles to the new American government.

While Jefferson was writing the declaration, a convention of the General Assembly in Virginia was drafting laws suitable for the state's new republican form of government. Eager to take part in this enterprise, Jefferson resigned from Congress and, in September 1776, returned to Virginia. A congressional appointment as minister to France followed him home. However, he declined the appointment in order to serve in the Virginia convention.

Jefferson was opposed to all forms of tyranny. He also had great faith in the ability to rule by reason. Therefore, in helping to make laws for Virginia, his guiding principle was to place as few restrictions as possible upon the people of the state. Jefferson was a strong advocate of land reform. A few families owned most of the land in Virginia and, because ownership of land was a prerequisite for voting, these same families also controlled the government. By his efforts the old hereditary property laws were modified to enable more people to own land, which led to greater democracy in the state.

Jefferson's most noteworthy achievement at the convention was his bill to establish religious freedom and to ensure the separation of church and state. The bill guaranteed, in Jefferson's own words, “that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever.” It guaranteed, too, that no one should suffer in any way for his “religious opinions or belief.” Introduced in 1779, the bill did not become law until 1786, when, through the leadership of Legislator James Madison, it was enacted by the General Assembly.

Jefferson was less successful with his educational program. His “bill for the more general diffusion of knowledge” would have provided schooling for children whose parents could not afford private schools. The bill as written never passed the General Assembly. However, it set forth a philosophy that was eventually embodied in the national institution of the free public school.

During this period, Jefferson managed to spend considerable time with his family. Even in leisure he was never idle. He once more took up building projects at Monticello and continued to develop his land, attempting such exotic plantings as olive and orange trees. Jefferson was a philosopher and at the same time an architect and an inventor. He invented the dumbwaiter, a swivel chair, a lamp-heater, and an improved plow for which the French gave him a medal. He tinkered with clocks, steam engines, and metronomes. He collected plans of large cities and later helped in the planning of Washington, D.C. Scientific subjects always interested him. He entered into a transatlantic correspondence with Giovanni Fabbroni, an Italian naturalist, in order to compare climate and plant life in Virginia and southern Europe. Jefferson also added to his valuable collection of books and bought instruments for making astronomical observations.

By 1779, most Virginians believed that the war was near its end. British General John Burgoyne had surrendered, and 4000 British and German prisoners of war from Burgoyne's command were sent to Virginia. However, General George Washington, the Virginian who commanded the Continental Army, knew that much fighting lay ahead and that the country needed the efforts of its able people. He deplored the retirement to private life of such people as Jefferson. Edmund Pendleton, a Virginia patriot, was more specific. He told Jefferson, “You are too young to ask that happy quietus from the public, and should ... at least postpone it til you have taught the rising Generation the forms as well as the substantial principles of legislation.” Jefferson therefore returned to politics, and in 1779 he was elected governor of Virginia, succeeding Patrick Henry.

The Virginia constitution strictly limited the power of the executive branch of government in order to deny that branch the dictatorial powers previously held by the colonial governors. Jefferson had agreed that the executive office should be merely a tool for carrying out the mandates of the legislature. As governor, however, he found that constitutional restrictions of his power prevented his taking action, and in time of war quick action was needed.

Furthermore, Jefferson was temperamentally unsuited to deal with military matters. He wished only for the immediate end of the war, declaring, “It would surely be better to carry on a ten years' war some time hence than to continue the present [one] an unnecessary moment.” He found it hard to give orders. When generals Nathanael Greene and Horatio Gates urgently begged him for reinforcements to beat back a British attack in the Carolinas, Jefferson agreed to send some soldiers only if they would go “willingly.” He felt that their previous service gave them a right to be consulted.

During Jefferson's administration the war was fought almost entirely in the South. Although Jefferson was warned by Washington that the British were sending a large force to Virginia, he did not take measures to meet the invasion.

In early January 1781 the British attacked Richmond, the new capital of Virginia, and Jefferson, his council, and the General Assembly fled the city.

On June 2, 1781, Jefferson quit the governorship. It was the end of his term, but because of chaotic wartime circumstances no successor had been named. Later in the year, Jefferson was reelected governor by the General Assembly. He declined, recommending instead the election of someone with military experience. Jefferson's administration had not been a success. A committee of the legislature investigated his conduct in office during the British invasion. Although he was exonerated, his reputation was badly tarnished in his home state.

Two days after Jefferson resigned his office, Colonel Banastre Tarleton and his British dragoons made a surprise raid on Monticello and very nearly captured Jefferson, his entire family, and several guests. Although Jefferson's escape was orderly and dignified, his opponents spread a story that he fled on horseback just as the dragoons came into sight. To Jefferson's indignation, the story was told and retold, embroidered in such a way as to make him appear a coward.

Jefferson spent the next two years in retirement at Monticello, concerning himself with agricultural matters and with building his estate. As usual, he continued to make notes on his surroundings. One winter, he put in book form all the information on Virginia that he had been collecting for many years. The work was published in 1785 as Notes on the State of Virginia. It became one of the most famous and respected scientific books of its time and was acclaimed in Europe and America. Jefferson had described and reflected on the natural history, geography, climate, economics, Native Americans, religion, manners, agriculture, politics, and many other aspects of his native state. He discussed also many other subjects. A chapter on politics and government fervently defended the concepts of freedom and equality. Favoring a balance of power among all branches of government, Jefferson criticized the excessive power given the Virginia legislature. He wrote, “173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one.” He also condemned the institution of slavery, describing it as “this great political and moral evil.”

Jefferson's retirement from public life was marred by tragedy. On September 6, 1782, he noted in his account book that “my dear wife died this day at 11-45 am.” After spending the next few months in almost total seclusion, he returned to politics.

In November 1782 Jefferson accepted a congressional appointment as a diplomat with broad authority to Europe. He was to sail to France to take part in peace negotiations with Great Britain. However, his sailing was delayed, and by April 1783 the peace settlement was so nearly concluded that Congress decided not to send him at all. In June, Jefferson was elected as a Virginia delegate to Congress. His skill in drafting public papers was called on again and again, and he contributed to the work of many committees.

Among his most important actions was a proposal for the political organization of the Northwest Territory. This proposal was adopted by Congress in 1784 but was never put into effect. However, the governmental plan called the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was based in large part on his proposal. The Land Ordinance of 1785 was also Jefferson's work. It established the public land policy of the United States for more than 75 years. Jefferson suggested that the United States adopt the decimal system of currency, based on the silver Spanish dollar, using the silver dime and copper cent.

In May 1784 Congress again appointed Jefferson a diplomat. His duties were to take him to France. There he was to help the other ministers, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, in arranging commercial treaties with various European countries. When Franklin retired in 1785, Jefferson replaced him as the U.S. diplomatic representative to France.

One of Jefferson's most important functions in France was to report home how “the vaunted scene of Europe ... struck a savage of the mountains of America.” He was not well impressed. He urged his friend, Congressman James Monroe, to come and see for himself what France was like. “It will make you adore your own country,” he said. “How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people enjoy.”

The France to which Jefferson referred was on the threshold of revolution. Jefferson hailed the idea of revolution in France but hoped it would be peaceful and orderly. When King Louis XVI agreed to convene a national representative body, the Estates-General, Jefferson thought the revolution had accomplished its end. From the opening of the Estates-General on May 5, 1789, he attended every day to observe its deliberations. He suggested to the Marquis de Lafayette, French military leader who fought in the American Revolution, that the king should give the people a charter of rights, and he even drafted a sample ten-point charter. The violence and cruelty of later developments in France distressed him greatly, but he never lost faith in the principles of the French Revolution.

During Jefferson's stay abroad he was frequently consulted on significant developments at home. The most important of these was the Constitution of the United States, drawn up in 1787. To James Madison, who sent him a copy of the proposed Constitution, Jefferson wrote, “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.” Such a bill would clearly state the right of the people to “freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trial by jury ....” Based on Jefferson's suggestions, Madison proposed a Bill of Rights, consisting of the first ten amendments, which was added to the Constitution in 1791.

While abroad, Jefferson toured much of Europe, taking note of its architecture and studying its scientific achievements. However, he longed to return to the United States, and permission finally came in September 1789.

When Jefferson returned to the United States, President Washington asked him to become secretary of state. Although Jefferson was anxious to return to private life, he accepted at the president's urging.

What was to be Jefferson's chief problem for many years soon became apparent. He and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton were completely at odds in their thinking. Jefferson, with his faith in the rational mind and his optimistic view of popular government, placed his trust in the land and the people who farmed it. He believed that the purpose of government was to assure the freedom of its individual citizens. With his fear of tyranny, he distrusted centralization of power and favored instead the spread of power among the federal, state, and local levels of government.

Hamilton, on the other hand, distrusted popular rule. “The people!” he once exclaimed, “the people is a great beast!” Whereas Jefferson favored an economy based on agriculture that stressed individual freedom, Hamilton worked to promote commerce, industry, and a strong central government, under which, he believed, the economy would flourish. He believed that to preserve order and the alliance between business and government, the moneyed class and the wealthy aristocracy should hold all political power. Jefferson retorted, “I have never observed men's honesty to increase with their riches.” The conflict between Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian thought has continued down to the present day. Generally, the American capitalist economy has grown along Hamiltonian lines, while American political institutions and social aims are Jeffersonian in nature.

Soon after Jefferson became secretary of state, he and Hamilton had a disagreement over the debts incurred by the states during the revolution. Hamilton, a New Yorker, wanted the federal government to pay these debts. He believed that this would greatly strengthen the central government. Jefferson objected. Virginia and most of the Southern states had already paid a considerable portion of their war debts and had no wish to pay those of the North. A political compromise resolved the issue. To satisfy Southerners, it was agreed to move the future national capital from Philadelphia to a Southern location on the Potomac River at what is now Washington, D.C. In exchange, Jefferson influenced Southern legislators to vote in favor of Hamilton's proposal that the federal government assume the war debts of the states.

Another matter on which the two men disagreed intensely was the establishment of a national bank. Hamilton advocated such a bank as a means of forging a bond of common interest between business and the federal government. Jefferson felt that a national bank would encourage people to desert agriculture for speculation and give the commercial interests too much power in the federal government.

Jefferson supported his views by a “strict construction” of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which specified 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.” Jefferson argued that since the Constitution did not specifically empower the federal government to establish a national bank, it could not do so. Hamilton, however, argued for a “loose construction” of the Constitution. Relying on the implied-powers clause, which states that Congress can make all laws “necessary and proper” for the execution of its powers, Hamilton argued that the federal government could establish a bank. Jefferson's views were rejected when President Washington signed a bill establishing a national bank.

Out of the divergent political philosophies of Jefferson and Hamilton emerged the first clearly defined political parties in the United States. Hamilton's followers called themselves Federalists, later known as the Federalist Party, and Jefferson's were Republicans, later known as the Democratic-Republican Party. Feelings ran high between the two parties. Jefferson was assailed as an atheist and a demagogue. The Federalists were accused of planning to establish a monarchy along British lines.

Since its defeat in the revolution, Great Britain had refused to sign a trade treaty with the United States. To force Britain to give the United States favorable commercial terms, Jefferson advocated an embargo (suspension of trade) against that country. He also wanted Britain to relinquish the forts in the Northwest Territory, which were held in violation of the peace treaty of 1783. Hamilton opposed an embargo, claiming that the United States would lose so much in customs duties that its finances would crumble. Jefferson did not get his embargo until much later, when he was president.

In 1793 England and France were at war. Jefferson favored France, while Hamilton and the Federalists were committed to England. Both agreed, however, that the United States should stay out of the European war. Hamilton pressed President Washington to make an open declaration of neutrality. Jefferson felt that it would be neither wise nor constitutional for the president to make such a proclamation. However, Jefferson yielded to Hamilton in order to attain a goal he considered more important: the recognition of the republican government of France. This was achieved by accrediting the French diplomatic representative to the United States, Citizen Genêt (see Genêt, Edmond Charles Édouard).

Unfortunately, Genêt repeatedly violated the neutrality of the United States and finally threatened to make a direct appeal for the support of the American people. Jefferson eventually was forced to agree that Genêt should be recalled.

The Genêt incident was one of many frustrations that Jefferson encountered as secretary of state. Late in 1793, despite President Washington's pleas, he resigned. In January 1794 he returned to his beloved Monticello, believing that he was leaving public life for good.

Even in retirement, Jefferson kept a close watch on political affairs. Federalist victories were a source of great concern to him, and his Republican allies in Congress looked to him for leadership. Jefferson was greatly distressed with Jay's Treaty, negotiated with Great Britain in 1794 by John Jay, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The treaty was intended to resolve remaining differences with Britain, including trade restrictions in the West Indies. However, the treaty had failed to win all the desired concessions for the United States, and the section dealing with West Indian trade was humiliating. Angry with Washington for having supported the treaty, Jefferson wrote his friend Philip Mazzei:

In place of that noble love of liberty, and republican government which carried
us triumphantly thro' the war, an Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance as they have already done the forms of the British government.

 

He added a barely concealed indictment of President Washington, calling him a Samson who let his head be shorn by England. Mazzei was so indiscreet as to publish the letter, and Washington never again regarded Jefferson as his friend.

In the election year of 1796, Washington announced that he would not seek a third term. Jefferson was prevailed upon to accept the Republican nomination for president. John Adams, nominated by the Federalists, polled three more electoral votes than Jefferson. According to the system of election then prevailing, Adams became president of the United States and Jefferson vice president.

Jefferson was 54 years old when he became vice president. His duties were not clearly set forth in the Constitution, and to Jefferson it appeared that he had only to preside over the Senate. This he did ably. He also wrote the Manual of Parliamentary Practice, a book of parliamentary rules (published in 1801), many of which still apply to both houses of Congress. In other matters, Jefferson had little to do with the Federalist administration of President Adams.

Party friction was increased by the XYZ Affair in 1797 and 1798. Jay's Treaty, so unpopular at home, had also had repercussions abroad. The French government considered it a sellout to the British, despite the American declaration of neutrality, and therefore felt justified in interfering with United States-British trade. By the summer of 1797, France had seized 300 American ships and broken off diplomatic relations. There was talk of war, especially among the pro-British Federalists.

President Adams sent a three-man diplomatic team to France in an effort to negotiate a solution. The French government did not receive the diplomats. Instead they were approached by agents of Charles Talleyrand, the French foreign minister. The agents proposed that the United States could make reparations for its alleged injuries to France by paying Talleyrand a huge bribe and financing a large loan to the French government. These terms were so exorbitant and dishonorable that the American diplomats rejected them. When Adams, who had been waiting anxiously for news, got their report, he tried to keep it secret. But Jefferson's pro-French Republicans raised a great outcry. They accused Adams of suppressing information that was favorable to France and thereby driving America into war with that country.

Adams finally let the report be published. The names of the French agents were changed to X, Y, and Z, but the details were left unchanged. Jefferson now found himself on the defensive as anti-French feeling rose over the corrupt proposal. He argued that there was no reason to believe that the agents were actually speaking for the French government. But the antagonism toward France continued to grow and was exploited by the Federalists to the damage of the Republican Party.

Through his control of the Federalist Party, Hamilton rallied the United States to take action against France. Congress renounced all the treaties it had made with France during the American Revolution. It ordered an expansion of the army, created the Department of the Navy, and commissioned the building of naval fighting ships. George Washington was called out of retirement to lead the army, with Hamilton as his second in command. By the end of 1798 more than a dozen American men-of-war had been put to sea and an undeclared naval war with France had begun.

During this period of war fever in the United States, the Federalists passed a number of bills for national defense and for the suspension of trade between the United States and France. They also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts placed many restrictions on noncitizens and prohibited criticism of the president or the government of the United States. They effectively muzzled the Republican press, which had been critical of President Adams and the Federalist-dominated Congress. Even Hamilton thought the provisions of these bills excessive. Republicans were enraged. Indeed, Republican leaders Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe believed that the XYZ Affair had been invented by the Federalists to whip up anti-French feeling and to assure the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

In June 1798, while the Alien and Sedition Acts were still being considered by Congress, Jefferson left Philadelphia. He felt that there was no effective action he could take in Adams's Federalist administration.

At Monticello, Jefferson secretly drafted what were to be called the Kentucky Resolutions, in which he declared that the federal government was not “the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself.” On the contrary, Congress was merely a creation of the states and was subject to the “final judgment” of the states. He concluded that “whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” Here was the first statement of the doctrine of nullification. Jefferson's primary purpose was to defend human rights and civil liberties, which he believed were violated by the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Kentucky legislature adopted the Kentucky Resolutions, and similar resolutions were passed in Virginia. They were not acted upon, the Alien and Sedition Acts expired in 1801, and the furor died away. Later, however, the nullification doctrine was used by supporters of states' rights to deny what the Federalists thought the Constitution had settled: that the federal government was the primary government of the land. Opponents of nullification argued that it would break up the federal Union. Southern politicians invoked nullification in their 19th-century rivalry with the Northern states, an antagonism that finally reached its climax in the American Civil War (1861-1865).

The Republicans again nominated Jefferson for president in 1800. For vice president they nominated Aaron Burr, who had built up a strong Republican following in New York state. President Adams and Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina were the Federalist candidates.

The Federalists campaigned against Jefferson as an infidel who would destroy religion and set up the Goddess of Reason in its place, as extremists in the French Revolution had attempted to do. However, the political tide in the United States was swinging away from the aristocratic Federalists to those advocating a more democratic form of government, and the Republicans won a clear victory. Jefferson and Burr each polled 73 electoral votes. Adams, hampered by the opposition of Hamilton, came next with 65 votes.

The tie in the electoral vote caused one of the gravest crises in American constitutional history. The electors, in voting for Jefferson or Burr, had not specified whether their vote was for president or vice president. Therefore, despite his being his party's vice presidential candidate, Burr had as many votes for the office of president as Jefferson had.

The Constitution provides that in case no candidate in a presidential election wins a majority of the electoral votes, the election must go to the House of Representatives, where each state has one vote. To win, Jefferson or Burr had to have the support of a majority of the 16 states. To further complicate matters, this was a lame-duck Congress, meaning that many of its members had been defeated in the recent election and were in office only because their terms had not expired. Congress was dominated by Federalists who had to choose between two Republican candidates. From February 11, when the voting began, to February 16, neither Jefferson nor Burr could win the required nine states. Because he disliked Burr even more than he did Jefferson, Hamilton favored Jefferson, but most Federalists abhorred Jefferson. The crisis was resolved when a group of Federalists, led by James A. Bayard of Delaware, came to the realization that if an orderly transfer of government power was to be achieved, the majority party must have its choice as president. Therefore, on February 17 the deadlock was broken. On the 36th ballot, Jefferson won the support of ten states and was elected president. Burr, who had the support of only four states, became vice president.

As a result of this election, the 12th Amendment was added to the Constitution. This amendment specified that electors were to “name in their ballots the person voted for as president, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as vice president.”

Jefferson was inaugurated on March 4, 1801, the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. Dressed in plain, dark clothes, he walked from his boarding house to the chambers of the Senate of the United States in the still-uncompleted Capitol building, where he was to give his inaugural address. Jefferson was accompanied by a small crowd of people and a company of artillery. The outgoing president, John Adams, considered Jefferson a dangerous radical and did not attend the inauguration.

Jefferson's inaugural address, one of a small number of truly memorable addresses by presidents of the United States, attempted to dispel the notion held by many conservatives that democracy would lead to mob rule and anarchy. “The will of the majority in all cases is to prevail,” Jefferson said. However, “the minority possess their equal rights which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” Jefferson sought also to unite the country. “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,” he proclaimed. Furthermore, his program was moderate enough to win the support of both parties.

Nevertheless, President Jefferson did reverse some Federalist programs. Both he and his secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, felt that a national debt was undesirable. By cutting certain appropriations, especially for the army and navy, they balanced the budget and reduced the debt. Jefferson also made good a Republican campaign promise to repeal internal duties. This was greeted with approval in the West, where in 1794, Washington had had to use force to collect a hated excise tax on whiskey.

During his last days in office President John Adams was determined to ensure Federalist control of the judiciary. The lame-duck Congress had obliged by creating 16 new circuit courts and permitting Adams to appoint as many justices of the peace for the District of Columbia as he felt necessary. In all, about 200 offices were created and filled by loyal Federalists. In addition, Adams appointed his secretary of state, John Marshall, a Federalist from Virginia, to be chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Jefferson, terming these “midnight appointments” an “outrage in decency,” succeeded in having the circuit judgeships abolished. He also reduced the number of justices of the peace from 42 to 30. Furthermore, Jefferson ordered his secretary of state, James Madison, to withhold those commissions that had not yet been delivered. One of Adams's appointees, William Marbury, brought a suit in the Supreme Court for a writ to compel Madison to deliver his commission. In 1803 Chief Justice Marshall ruled that the section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that authorized the Court to issue such a writ was unconstitutional and that, although Marbury was entitled to his commission, the Supreme Court could not force Madison to give it to him. Thus Marshall established the doctrine of judicial review, whereby the Supreme Court has the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.

During his first term as president, Jefferson attempted to replace Federalist officeholders with Republicans. He especially wanted to end the Federalists' control of the judiciary. In 1804 John Pickering, a district judge from New Hampshire, was impeached and removed from office because of insanity. A more formidable opponent was Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. An outspoken Federalist, Chase often made scathing attacks from the bench on Jefferson and the Republican Party. In 1805 he was impeached and tried before the Senate. Just before Jefferson began his second term, Chase was acquitted. Thereafter, Jefferson resigned himself to an unelected and independent judiciary controlled by the Federalists.

Jefferson had long opposed paying tribute to protect American shipping from the pirates who operated from the Barbary states on the coast of northern Africa. As diplomatic representative to France he had tried but failed to persuade European countries to join with the United States in an attack on the pirate bases.

In 1801 the pasha (ruler) of Tripoli, one of the Barbary states (in what is now Libya), demanded tribute money beyond the amount fixed by treaty. When Jefferson refused the demand, war ensued. Jefferson sent warships to blockade Tripoli, and Stephen Decatur, a young naval officer, distinguished himself in several daring actions. However, the war with Tripoli did not end until 1805, when Captain William Eaton captured the Tripolitan town of Darnah and the pasha agreed to make peace. The payment of tribute to Tripoli came to an end. However, the United States continued to have trouble with pirates from other Barbary states.

Jefferson's chief accomplishment as president was the Louisiana Purchase. The huge territory of Louisiane (in English, Louisiana), stretching from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, was claimed as a possession by France in 1682. Because Louisiana was so large, its resources—although as yet mostly undiscovered—were thought to be of great value.

In the early years of the United States, Louisiana was of concern chiefly because it bordered the Mississippi River, which was vital to U.S. trade. In 1762 France had ceded Louisiana to Spain, which was too weak to offer a serious threat to American commerce. In 1800, however, rumors spread that Spain was about to cede Louisiana back to France. Jefferson was alarmed. Relations between the United States and France were still unfriendly, and France had the power to cut off American shipping at Louisiana's capital, New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi. There was, said Jefferson, “one single spot” on the globe, “the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.”

In 1802 the rumored cession was confirmed. Jefferson called the resulting crisis “the most important the United States have ever met since independence.” He sent James Monroe to help Robert R. Livingston, the American diplomatic representative to France, negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. Congress appropriated $2 million for the purchase.

In April 1803, one day before Monroe arrived in Paris, Talleyrand made Livingston a startling offer. The French emperor, Napoleon I, was willing to sell not only New Orleans, he said, but the whole of Louisiana as well. A treaty dated April 30, 1803, set the terms of the purchase: $15 million, which included $3.75 million to pay for American claims against France.

At the end of June, news of the treaty reached the United States. Jefferson was very eager to acquire the entire territory, but, viewing it from his strict-construction point of view, he questioned whether the Constitution permitted such a purchase. He wanted to amend the Constitution to make the transaction clearly legal.

Very soon, however, Jefferson changed his mind about waiting for an amendment. His envoys in France wrote that Napoleon already regretted his offer and might back out if given time. Furthermore, many Federalists opposed the purchase and were ready to seize on Jefferson's own doubts about its constitutionality to prevent its ratification. Jefferson therefore asked the Senate to ratify the treaty at once. The Senate did so on October 20, although every Federalist voted against it.

It then appeared that Spain, which had not yet actually turned over Louisiana to France, might challenge the purchase. Jefferson proceeded swiftly and firmly to establish American rights. He ordered out troops from the Mississippi Territory, Tennessee, and Kentucky. This show of force discouraged Spanish resistance, and Spain formally ceded Louisiana to France. On December 20, 1803, the flag of the United States flew over New Orleans.

Jefferson had dreamed of the exploration of the West from the time he was secretary of state. As a scientist he wanted to know about the land and its inhabitants. He realized the importance of such exploration for the future expansion of the United States.

In January 1803, half a year before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson proposed his idea to Congress. In order to conceal its expansionist aims from England, France, and Spain, he suggested that the journey be presented as a “literary pursuit.” Congress gave its approval. Jefferson chose his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead the expedition, and Lewis selected William Clark, a frontiersman, as his coleader. Jefferson instructed them to observe and note down the physical features, topography, soil, climate, and wildlife of the land and the language and customs of its inhabitants. In 1806 Lewis and Clark returned with their valuable journals. They had successfully breached the mountain barrier of the West, built a fort on the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, and mapped and explored much of the American Northwest. Moreover, they had secured the friendship of a number of Native American peoples and given the United States a claim to the Oregon country.

Jefferson's interest in the new Western territory did not end with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In 1804 and 1806 he sent out expeditions to explore the Red River to its source. When these met with Spanish resistance, he shifted his interest to the north. In 1805 he sent Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike to discover the source of the Mississippi River, and in 1806, Pike was sent out to explore the Arkansas River to its source.

Jefferson believed that the president's dress and manners should reflect the republican simplicity and informality of the country. Pomp and show reminded him too much of the European courts. In fact, Jefferson worked so hard to avoid ostentation that he began to dress not merely plainly, but sloppily. As for manners, he refused to observe the rules of protocol in seating his dinner guests. First come, first served was the rule in the presidential mansion, the White House. Jefferson explained:

In social circles, all are equal, whether in, or out, of office, foreign or domestic; and the same equality exists among ladies and gentlemen ...”pell mell” and “next the door” form the basis of etiquette in the societies of this country.

 

The new British diplomatic representative to the United States, Anthony Merry, and his wife were shocked and insulted when the president received them in worn clothing and slippers. In December 1803 at a formal dinner in the White House, no one offered to escort Mrs. Merry to dinner. In the dining room, Merry and his wife had to scramble for places at the table in competition with the other guests. The Marquis d'Yrujo, the Spanish diplomat, had the same experience. He and Merry agreed that this treatment was an insult to them and to their countries. The two diplomats and their wives sought to retaliate. At their parties, for instance, no one escorted the wives of the Cabinet members to the dinner table. This social war greatly enlivened Washington. The president refused to retreat from his pell mell rule, and Merry and Yrujo became increasingly angry and receptive to the plottings of Jefferson's opponents, the Federalists and Aaron Burr.

Jefferson's policy toward Native Americans reflected less his humanitarian instincts than it did his understanding of the needs of the settlers on the expanding western frontier. When, in 1803, the Choctaw nation was persuaded to sell its lands on the Mississippi, Jefferson wrote to General Henry Dearborn, his secretary of war, that the Choctaw “are poor and will probably sell ... so as to be entitled to an annual pension, which is one of the best holds we can have on them.” Through Jefferson's efforts, 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of land were bought from the Native Americans for $142,000. As a result of this land grabbing, the Native Americans who remained east of the Mississippi River began to rally behind the Shawnee chief Tecumseh. Tecumseh, with his brother Tenskwatawa, who was known as the Shawnee Prophet, promised to rid the Native Americans of the white people forever.

Jefferson was renominated for the presidency by a caucus (political meeting) of Republican senators and congressmen. However, Vice President Burr was dropped from the ticket in favor of George Clinton, who had served a record six terms as governor of New York. The Federalists chose Charles C. Pinckney to oppose Jefferson. This election was very different from the election of 1800, when many Federalists were convinced that Jefferson was the candidate of anarchy, atheism, and revolution. In the landslide of 1804, Jefferson polled 162 electoral votes to Pinckney's 14 and won every state but Connecticut and Delaware.

On March 4, 1805, Jefferson again walked to the yet unfinished Capitol building for his second inaugural address, which was to be far different from his first. As he himself noted in the margin of the text:

The former one was an exposition of the principles on which I thought it my duty to administer the government. The second then should naturally be ... a statement of facts showing that I have conformed to those principles. The former was promise: this is performance.

 

The accomplishments of Jefferson's first term in office and the resounding Republican victory in the election of 1804 greatly weakened the Federalist Party. During his second term, opposition within his own party, led by Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke, proved to be Jefferson's major problem.

Randolph first split with the administration over its handling of the Yazoo fraud. In 1795 a group of land speculators, many of them from the North, bribed the Georgia legislature into selling them the greater part of its western land claims, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi, for only $500,000. The area was called the Yazoo tract because the Yazoo River runs through it. The next year the citizens of Georgia elected a new legislature, which promptly invalidated the sale. In 1802 Georgia relinquished its western land claims to the federal government. In 1804 and again in 1805 Jefferson recommended that Congress pass a law to reimburse the original speculators out of receipts from land sales on the Yazoo tract. Both times, Randolph, who felt Jefferson was unduly considerate of the corrupt land speculators, successfully led the opposition against the bill.

Randolph's complete break with the administration came in the winter of 1805 and 1806, when Jefferson asked Congress to appropriate $2 million for an unspecified diplomatic purpose. This purpose, as Randolph construed it from a private conversation with Jefferson, was to bribe Napoleon into forcing Spain to sell Florida to the United States. Randolph did not approve of secret diplomacy and denounced these “backstairs” negotiations to acquire Florida. Randolph was unable to block the appropriation, although nothing ever came of the proposed deal with Napoleon. However, Randolph gathered around him a group of Federalists and dissident Republicans, called Quids. This group was able to prevent Jefferson from accomplishing much of his legislative program during his second term.

In 1804 Aaron Burr was defeated for the governorship of New York. His failure was due primarily to the opposition of Alexander Hamilton. Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, killed him, and was forced to flee to the frontier. His political career was ruined.

Burr next became involved in a plot, the purpose of which is still unclear. He seems to have intended either to separate the Louisiana Territory from the United States or to seize Mexico from Spain. Indeed, his story seems to have varied with his audience. However, his plan was betrayed by his accomplice, General James Wilkinson. In a letter to Jefferson, Wilkinson revealed Burr's “deep, dark, wicked” plot to seize Louisiana. Burr was captured and brought to Richmond for trial in 1807. Jefferson, who had long distrusted his former vice president, was anxious to see him convicted of treason. However, he was again thwarted by Chief Justice Marshall, who presided at the trial. Marshall, intent on establishing the independence of the judiciary, excluded much of the evidence that did not meet the constitutional definition of treason, and to Jefferson's disgust Burr was acquitted.

As the European war continued, the United States found it increasingly difficult to maintain its neutrality. Napoleon blockaded Britain, trying to stop its sea trade, and Britain issued orders that prohibited trade with the rest of Europe. Also, the British, badly in need of sailors, stopped American vessels and removed sailors they claimed were British deserters. Often the sailors were British, but occasionally Americans were also forcibly enlisted, or impressed, into the British service (see Impressment).

In June 1807 the United States frigate Chesapeake was stopped by the British ship Leopard. When the Chesapeake refused to permit a search, the Leopard fired upon it. The helpless American ship was thereupon forced to surrender four of its men. One was a British deserter, but three were Americans. Many Americans wanted to go to war against Britain over this incident. However, Jefferson was determined to avoid war, feeling he could bring Britain to terms by applying economic pressure.

In December 1807 the Embargo Act was put into effect. American ships were forbidden to sail from American ports to any European port. Jefferson believed that England and France could not survive without American trade. However, he had greatly underestimated the effect of the embargo on the United States itself. All parts of the country were affected, especially the industrial and commercial North. Shipbuilders, sailors, manufacturers, and merchants denounced the embargo. The Southern planters also suffered financially. Exports stopped, and produce prices fell. U.S. revenue at the time was derived almost entirely from customs duties. With the stoppage of international trade the national income dropped from $16 million in 1807 to a little more than $7 million in 1809. Indeed, the embargo did more damage to the American economy than to England's or France's.

Americans did their best to evade the embargo. Smuggling flourished along the Atlantic coast and over the Canadian border in the Northeast. The harassed president wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin:

This embargo law is certainly the most embarrassing one we have ever had to execute. I did not expect a crop of so sudden and rank growth of fraud and open opposition by force could have grown up in the United States.

 

The Federalists assailed the Embargo Act as not only ruinous, but unconstitutional as well. According to Jefferson's own strict interpretation of the Constitution, the federal government did not have the power to impose such a restriction on commerce during peacetime. However, Jefferson ignored the constitutional aspects of the embargo and sought, instead, means to enforce it. Opposition continued to grow, even in his own Cabinet. Therefore, in March 1809, a few days before he left office, Jefferson had the Embargo Act repealed. The less stringent Non-Intercourse Act, pertaining only to England and France, was adopted in its place.

Jefferson was again offered the Republican presidential nomination in 1808. Unwilling to see the presidency become “an inheritance,” he declined. He wanted, he said, to follow “the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor,” George Washington. The Republicans thereupon chose Jefferson's political protégé James Madison, who went on to win the presidential election of 1808. As Jefferson's term drew near its end, he wrote his old friend, French economist Pierre du Pont de Nemours:

Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to ... commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions. I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation.

 

At the age of 65, Jefferson was at last free to return to his beloved mountaintop estate in Virginia. He devoted much of his energy to repairing and rebuilding his estate, but he yet found time to design houses for his friends. He furnished Monticello with rare and beautiful objects and with his own remarkable inventions, so that the estate was much talked about and frequently visited. He also worked to advance agricultural science, and he filled his account books with observations of all kinds.

Jefferson's leisure time was spent in reading. Ancient history especially interested him, but he also continued his study of philosophy, religion, and law. In 1815 he sold his 6500-volume collection to the federal government as the nucleus of the restored Library of Congress, which was being built up again after its destruction in the British burning of Washington in the War of 1812. However, immediately afterward, Jefferson set about buying a new collection.

Political differences had long ago broken up the friendship between Jefferson and John Adams. Now, a mutual friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, brought about a reconciliation. Jefferson and Adams began a lively correspondence that touched on many subjects. “I cannot write volumes on a single sheet,” Adams wrote plaintively, “but these letters of yours require volumes from me.”

The founding of the University of Virginia was probably the most important work of Jefferson's later years. Architecturally designed by Jefferson and based on his plans and recommendations, the university opened its doors in 1825. It accepted not only wealthy students, but also capable students too poor to pay. Free public education had always been one of Jefferson's dreams, and he managed to accomplish it on the university level, although not on lower levels.

Occupied as he was with private projects, Jefferson always remained interested in national affairs. Many years before, as a congressman, he had tried to outlaw slavery in new states. He failed, as did others who came after him, and the issue eventually became the main grievance between the slaveholding South and the antislavery North. In 1820 Congress tried to reconcile the opposing sides with the Missouri Compromise, which allowed slavery only in new states created south of a line at 36°30' north latitude. Jefferson’s correspondence about the Missouri question clearly shows that he believed a terrible struggle over slavery still lay ahead.

Jefferson and his friend Adams, both of whom had played such great parts in the winning of independence, died on Independence Day, July 4, 1826. Jefferson left detailed instructions for his burial in the graveyard of his estate. A simple monument was to mark his resting place. He specified that the monument was to be made of coarse stone so that “no one might be tempted hereafter to destroy it for the value of the materials.” He wrote his own epitaph:

Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom
And Father of the University of Virginia

 

These achievements were to be inscribed on the monument, and “not a word more ... because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered.”

Jefferson's wishes were carried out, but vandals later overturned and broke the stone. A careful reproduction now marks Jefferson's grave.

More links: www.americanpresidents.org, Monticello (the home of T.J.), Library of Congress, Jefferson digital Archive, PBS.org

Hamilton, Alexander (1757?-1804), American statesman, best known for his fiscal policies settling the finances of the American Revolution, for his role as the principal author of The Federalist papers, and for his advocacy of a strong central government.

Hamilton was born on the West Indian island of Nevis on January 11, 1757, the illegitimate son of James Hamilton, a Scottish trader, and Rachel Faucett Lavien. In 1769, after the death of his mother and the bankruptcy of his father, he entered the countinghouse of David Beckman and Nicholas Cruger at Saint Croix, where he exhibited a precocious ability to comprehend the complexities of commerce and accounting. With the aid of funds advanced by friends to further his education, he studied (1772-74) at a grammar school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and then entered King's College (now Columbia University).

Hamilton first entered the revolutionary movement in 1774 at a public meeting in the “fields” (now City Hall Park) in New York City, with a speech urging the calling of a general congress of the colonies. In the winter of 1774-1775, he also wrote anonymously two pamphlets, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the Calumnies of Their Enemies and The Farmer Refuted, in answer to the Loyalist pamphlets signed “Westchester Farmer.”

On the outbreak of war, Hamilton became a captain of artillery and served with distinction in the battles of Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton. His courage and ability won him the notice of General Nathanael Greene, who introduced him to George Washington with a recommendation for advancement. In March 1777, Washington made Hamilton his aide-de-camp and personal secretary. By virtue of his administrative skills, he acquired great influence with Washington, but he longed for active military service. In 1781 he resigned from Washington's staff after a dispute with the general, but he remained in the army and was able to command a New York regiment of light infantry at the decisive battle of Yorktown.

In 1780 Hamilton had married Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip John Schuyler, a member of an influential New York family. At the close of the Revolution Hamilton left the army to study law at Albany, New York. He served in the Continental Congress in 1782-83 and then returned to the practice of law, becoming one of the most prominent lawyers in New York City.

In 1786 Hamilton took a leading part in the Annapolis Convention, called to consider the problems of interstate commerce and other matters not covered by the Articles of Confederation, and at this time he also drafted the resolution that led to the assembling of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. At the convention Hamilton was unable to play a significant role. His desire for a strongly centralized federal government, including a president for life, was not shared by the other convention delegates, and his two fellow delegates from New York were Anti-Federalists who were able to outvote him on every measure. Hamilton then turned his energies to securing the ratification of the Constitution in New York; for this purpose he enlisted the help of John Jay and James Madison in writing the essays that were subsequently collected and published under the title of The Federalist. Just how many of the 85 essays were written by Hamilton has long been a matter for dispute, but there is little doubt that he wrote at least 51, and they remain the works by which he is best known.

Shortly after the establishment of the new government in 1789, President Washington appointed Hamilton the first secretary of the treasury. The nation's finances were in disorder, public credit was at a low ebb, and the economies of the states were still adjusting to the changes resulting from independence. In 1790 Hamilton submitted to the Congress a report on the public credit that provided for the funding of national and foreign debts of the United States, as well as for federal assumption of the states' revolutionary debts. After some controversy, Hamilton's proposals were adopted, as were his subsequent reports calling for the establishment of a national bank and the encouragement of American manufactures by means of bounties and protective tariffs. In foreign affairs his role was almost as influential. He persuaded Washington to adopt a policy of neutrality after the outbreak of war in Europe in 1793, and in 1794 he wrote the instructions for the diplomatic mission to London that resulted in the Anglo-American agreement known as Jay's Treaty.

Hamilton returned to law practice in New York City in 1795. He remained active in politics, however, and throughout 1795-1796 he defended Jay's Treaty in the essays he wrote under the pseudonym of “Camillus.” Washington continued to consult Hamilton on a regular basis, particularly with the final drafting of his farewell address, which was released to the public in September 1796. In 1798, at the insistence of Washington, President John Adams reluctantly appointed Hamilton inspector general of the army when war with France seemed imminent. Thereafter, Hamilton and Adams quarreled bitterly and publicly. The resulting factionalism in the Federalist Party contributed significantly to its defeat by the Republican Party in 1800.

The presidential election of 1800, however, had to be decided in the House of Representatives because Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr had received an equal number of votes in the electoral college. On this occasion Hamilton exerted his influence in favor of Jefferson rather than Burr, whom he regarded as a dangerously unprincipled adventurer. In 1804 Burr was a candidate for governor of New York State and Hamilton again did his best to thwart Burr's ambitions. After this defeat, Burr provoked a quarrel with Hamilton in order to force him into a duel. Hamilton felt obliged to accept the challenge, and he and Burr met on July 11, 1804, at Weehawken, New Jersey, on the spot where Hamilton's eldest son had been killed in a duel three years earlier. Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the next day.

Apart from his contributions to The Federalist and his reorganization of the U.S. financial system in the 1790s, Hamilton is best remembered for his consistent emphasis on the need for a strong central government in order to foster the development of a great and powerful American nation. His advocacy of the doctrine of “implied powers” to advance a broad interpretation of the Constitution has been invoked frequently to justify the extension of federal authority, and it has greatly influenced a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

See also Constitution of the United States; Continental Congress; Federalist, The; Federalist Party; Political Parties in the United States.

More links: A. Hamilton on the Web

Presidents on Coins (www.arlington.k12.ma.us)