In his play, The History Boys, Alan Bennett wrote the following: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” I experienced such a moment this week. It began with a random encounter with a somewhat famous letter penned in 1823 by Thomas Jefferson and sent to his long-time political enemy yet his even-longer friend, John Adams. That led me to refresh my memory of the tumultuous times of our early republic. It was a reminder for me of the fact that we too often do not learn very much from the lessons of history and that these lessons are the most important lesson that history has to teach.
The Federalist Era lasted roughly from 1789 to 1801, when the Federalist Party dominated and shaped American politics. This era saw the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and the growth of a strong centralized government. The period also was characterized by foreign tensions and conflict with France and England, as well as by internal opposition from the rival Democratic-Republicans.
Sound somewhat familiar?
The U.S. Constitution had been drafted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and ratified by a majority of the states in 1788, taking effect in 1789. The winning supporters of the ratification of the Constitution were known as Federalists, and the political party later adopted this name. Anti-Federalists, on the other hand, opposed the Constitution in 1788, in part because it lacked a Bill of Rights and because they believed it provided for an overly powerful central government at the expense of state sovereignty and personal liberties.
Sound familiar?
The dynamic force behind the Federalist Party during George Washington’s presidency was Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton devised a complex, multifaceted program to achieve his vision of a strong centralized government and diverse economy. One of his policies was the assumption of each state’s debts from the Revolutionary War. “A national debt,” Hamilton concluded, “will be to us a national blessing… powerful cement to our union.” He also proposed a novel system of taxes and tariffs to pay for the debt and a Bank of the United States to handle the finances and centralize the fiscal resources of the federal government. Hamilton also designed policies that encouraged manufacturing and commerce, leading to the growth of a wealthy, urban merchant class.
In order to build support for his programs, Hamilton led a coalition anchored by prominent Northeastern businessmen and financiers. This coalition grew into the Federalist Party to express support for a strong central government and to legitimize their claims that they were the true champions of the Constitution. The Federalist-dominated Congress and President Washington approved Hamilton’s policies, which broadly interpreted the powers of the federal government under the “necessary and proper” clause of the Constitution.
Hamilton faced mounting opposition from those who claimed that his economic policies favored wealthy commercial interests. Many of Hamilton’s opponents believed that his proposed plans went far beyond the powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution. This faction, led by Jefferson and Madison, thus characterized themselves as the legitimate heirs of the American Revolution. They believed that opposition to Hamilton’s policies was necessary to prevent the subversion of republican principles. To this end, Jefferson, Madison, and their supporters in Congress began to call themselves Democratic-Republicans.
This party disagreed with the Federalists on both internal and external issues. Democratic-Republicans opposed the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain and generally supported the French Revolution. Furthermore, Democratic-Republicans adhered to a stricter interpretation of the Constitution and believed that state sovereignty was paramount to the powers of the federal government. Adopting Jefferson’s vision of yeoman agriculture as the backbone of the American economy, Democratic-Republicans were suspicious of the primacy of bankers, industrialists, merchants, and other monied interests in Hamilton’s economic plans. The party supported states’ rights against a potentially tyrannical large, centralized government that they feared the Federal government could easily become.
During the election of 1796, unlike the prior elections of Washington, of which the outcome had been a foregone conclusion, each party campaigned heavily for its nominee. The campaign was an acrimonious one, and partisan rancor over the French Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion fueled the divide. Federalists attempted to identify the Democratic-Republicans with the violence of the French Revolution, while the Democratic-Republicans accused the Federalists of favoring monarchism and aristocracy. Democratic-Republicans sought to identify candidate John Adams with the policies developed by fellow Federalist Alexander Hamilton during the Washington administration, which they declaimed were too much in favor of Great Britain and a centralized national government. Paradoxically, Hamilton himself opposed Adams and worked to undermine his election.
In the election, Federalist John Adams defeated Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson by a narrow margin of only three electoral votes. Jefferson received the second-highest number of electoral votes and was elected vice president according to the prevailing rules of electoral college voting. This election marked the formation of the first party system and established a permanent rivalry between Federalist New England and the Republican South, with the middle states holding the balance of power.
Despite its contentions, the 1796 election marked the first peaceful transfer of power between administrations. Washington, who had been reelected in 1792 by an overwhelming majority, refused to run for a third term, thus setting a precedent for future presidents. The following four years, however, would be the only time that the president and vice president of the United States were from different parties. It caused much discord between Adams and Jefferson, with Jefferson leveraging his position as vice president to attack President Adams’ policies and Adams alienating Jefferson from all cabinet and policy decisions.
The 1796 election provided the impetus for the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On January 6, 1797, Representative William L. Smith of South Carolina presented a resolution on the floor of the House of Representatives for an amendment that would allow the presidential electors to designate which candidate would be president and which would be vice president. Although this amendment was not adopted until after the 1800 election, the events of 1796 signaled to Congress that some minor adjustments to the Constitution were necessary in order to make the electoral system more efficient and to prevent opposing political factions from holding executive positions at the same time.
During these contentious times, public rancor and rabid journalism mobilized a great deal of opposition among the electorate, resulting in Adams’s defeat in the 1800 election and the first Democratic-Republican presidential administration under Thomas Jefferson. Often referred to as the “Revolution of 1800,” this transfer of power from one party to another was the first in American history.
Again, sound familiar?
The peaceful transition calmed contemporary fears about possible violent reactions to a new party taking the reins of government. The passing of political power from one political party to another without bloodshed also set an important precedent. The election did prove even more divisive than the 1796 election, however, as both the Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties waged a mudslinging campaign unlike any seen before. Because the Federalists were badly divided, the Democratic-Republicans gained political ground. After their defeat in the election, the Federalists slowly declined.
There is much about our past that mirrors what we see today. Oh, if we could only possess the wisdom and civility today as did ultimately prevail with these two great leaders over two hundred years ago when philosophical opponents traveled full circle and arrived on the solid ground of respect and civility as their moral compass. Jefferson and Adam, though long-time adversaries, were enlightened and great-hearted enough to realize that honest differences do not have to destroy personal friendships.
When he learned of scurrilous and false stories that were about to be released by some of his supporters to “draw a curtain of further separation” between them, in 1823 Jefferson wrote the following letter to Adams:
To: John Adams
Monticello, October 12, 1823
I do not write with the ease which your letter of September 18th supposes. Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious. But while writing to you, I lose the sense of these things in the recollection of ancient times, when youth and heath made happiness out of everything. I forget for awhile the hoary winter of age, when we can think of nothing but how to keep ourselves warm., and how to get rid of our heavy hours until the friendly hand of death shall rid us all at once. Against this tedium vice, however, I am fortunately mounted on a hobby, which indeed, I should have better managed some thirty or forty years ago, but whose easy amble is still sufficient to give exercise and amusement to an octogenary rider. This is the establishment of a University, on a scale more comprehensive and in a country more healthy and central than our old William and Mary, which these obstacles have long kept it in a state of languor and inefficiency. But the tardiness with which such works proceed may render it doubtful whether I shall live to see it go into action.
Putting aside these things, however, for the present I write this letter as due to a friendship coeval with our government, and now attempted to be poisoned, when too late in life to be replaced by new affections. I have for some time observed in the public papers dark hairs and mysterious innuendos of a correspondence of yours with a friend, to whom you have opened your bosom without reserve, and which was to be made public by that friend or his representative. And now it is said to be actually published. It has not yet reached us, but extracts have been given, and such as seemed most likely to draw a curtain of separation between you and myself. Were there no other motive than that of indignation against the author of this outrage or private confidence, whose shaft seems to have been aimed at yourself more particularly, this would make it the duty of every honorable mind to disappoint that aim, by opposing to its impression a sevenfold shield of apathy and insensibility. With me, however, no such armor is needed. The circumstances of the times in which we happen to live, and the partiality of our friends at a particular period, placed us in a state of apparent opposition, which some might suppose to be personal also; and there might not be wanting those who wished to make it so, by filling our ears with malignant falsehoods, by dressing up hideous phantoms of their own creation, presenting them to you under my name, to me under yours, and endeavoring to instill in our minds things concerning each other the most destitute of truth. And if there had been, at any time, a moment when we were off our guard, and in a temper to let the whispers of these people make us forget what we have known of each other for so many years, and years of so much trial, yet all men who have attended to the working of the human mind, who have seen the false colors under which passion sometimes dresses the actions and motive of others, have seen also those passions subsiding with time and reflection, dissipating like the mists before the rising sun, and restoring to us the sight of all things in their true shape and colors. It would be strange indeed if, at our years, we were to go back to an age to hunt up imaginary or forgotten facts, to disturb the repose of affections so sweetening to the evening of our lives. Be assured, my dear Sir, that I am incapable of receiving the slightest impression from the effort now being made to plant thorns on the pillow of age, worth, and wisdom, and so sow tares between friends who have been such for near half a century. Beseeching you then, not to suffer your mind to be disquieted by this wicked attempt to poison its peace, and praying you to throw it by among the things which have never happened, I add sincere assurances of my unabated and constant attachment, friendship and respect.
Less than three years later, as he lay on his deathbed, John Adams mumbled these words: “Thomas Jefferson survives!” Little did he know that, at this same moment, some five hundred miles away at Monticello, his friend, Thomas Jefferson, was dying as well. On July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the birth of the nation they helped to create, two great patriots, sometimes adversaries, and all-time friends departed this world together.
Don’t you wish that this sounded familiar today?
Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards. ― Ted Koppel
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque