The Federalist Party was a conservativeMultiple sources:
and nationalist American political party and the first known political party in the United States. It dominated the national government under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton from 1789 to 1801. The party was defeated by the Democratic-Republican Party in 1800, and it became a minority party while keeping its stronghold in New England. It made a brief resurgence by opposing the War of 1812, then collapsed with its last presidential candidate in 1816, although it lasted for a few years afterwards.
The party appealed to businesses who favored banks, national over state government, and maintaining an army and navy. In world affairs, the party preferred Great Britain and strongly opposed involvement in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The party favored centralization, federalism, modernization, industrialization, and protectionism.
The Federalists called for a strong national government that promoted economic growth and fostered friendly relationships with Great Britain in opposition to Revolutionary France. The Federalist Party came into being between 1789 and 1790 as a national coalition of bankers and businessmen in support of Hamilton's fiscal policies. These supporters worked in every state to build an organized party committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government. The only Federalist president was John Adams. George Washington was broadly sympathetic to the Federalist program, but he remained officially non-partisan during his entire presidency. The Federalist Party controlled the national government until 1801, when it was overwhelmed by the Democratic-Republican opposition led by President Thomas Jefferson.
Federalist policies called for a national bank, tariffs, and good relations with Great Britain as expressed in the Jay Treaty negotiated in 1794. Hamilton developed the concept of implied powers and successfully argued the adoption of that interpretation of the Constitution. The Democratic-Republicans led by Jefferson denounced most of the Federalist policies, especially the bank and implied powers, and vehemently attacked the Jay Treaty as a sell-out of American interests to Britain. The Jay Treaty passed and the Federalists won most of the major legislative battles in the 1790s. They held a strong base in the nation's cities and in New England. They factionalized when President Adams secured peace with France, to the anger of Hamilton's larger faction. The Jeffersonians won the presidential election of 1800, and the Federalists never returned to power. They recovered some strength through their intense opposition to the War of 1812, but they practically vanished during the Era of Good Feelings that followed the end of the war in 1815.
The Federalists left a lasting legacy in the form of a strong federal government. After losing executive power, they decisively shaped Supreme Court policy for another three decades through Chief Justice John Marshall.Ronald P. Formisano (2001), The Concept of Political Culture
Background The term "Federalist" was previously used to refer to a somewhat different coalition of nationalists led by Washington, which advocated replacing the weaker national government under the Articles of Confederation with a new Constitution in 1789. This early coalition included Hamilton and James Madison.Morris The Forging of the Union: 1781–1789 pp 267–97.
The Federalists of this time were rivaled by the Anti-Federalists, who opposed the ratification of the Constitution and objected to creating a stronger central government.Banner, To the Hartford Convention (1970); Wood (2009) pp. 216–17. The critiques of the Constitution raised by the Anti-Federalists influenced the creation of the Bill of Rights. Federalists responded to these objections by promising to add a bill of rights as amendments to the Constitution to satisfy these concerns, which aided in securing acceptance and ratification of the Constitution by the states. The new United States Congress, initially with a Federalist majority, submitted to the states a series of amendments to guarantee specific freedoms and rights; once ratified, these would become the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
History Origins (1789–1792)
Upon taking office in 1789, President Washington nominated his wartime chief of staff Alexander Hamilton to the new office of Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton wanted a strong national government with financial credibility, and he proposed the ambitious Hamiltonian economic program that involved the assumption of the state debts incurred during the American Revolution. This created a national debt and the means to pay it off, and it set up a national bank along with tariffs, with James Madison playing major roles in the program. Parties were considered to be divisive and harmful to republicanism, and no similar parties existed anywhere in the world.Chambers, William Nisbet (1963). Political Parties in a New Nation.
By 1789, Hamilton started building a nationwide coalition (a "Pro-Administration" faction), realizing the need for vocal political support in the states. He formed connections with like-minded nationalists and used his network of treasury agents to link together friends of the government, especially merchants and bankers, in the new nation's dozen major cities. His attempts to manage politics in the national capital to get his plans through Congress brought strong responses across the country. In the process, what began as a capital faction soon assumed status as a national faction and then as the new Federalist Party.Chambers, William Nisbet (1963). Parties in a New Nation. pp. 39–40. The Federalist Party supported Hamilton's vision of a strong centralized government and agreed with his proposals for a national bank and heavy government subsidies. In foreign affairs, they supported neutrality in the war between France and Great Britain.Miller, John C. (1960). The Federalist Era 1789–1801. pp 210–228.
Hamilton proposed to fund the national and state debts, and Madison and John J. Beckley began organizing a party to oppose it. This "Anti-Administration" faction became what is now called the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Madison and Thomas Jefferson.Miller, John C. (1960). The Federalist Era 1789–1801. pp 84–98. This party attracted many Anti-Federalists who were wary of a centralized government.
Rise (1793–1796) By the early 1790s, newspapers started calling Hamilton supporters "Federalists" and their opponents "Republicans", "Jeffersonians", or "Democratic-Republicans". Jefferson's supporters usually called themselves "Republicans" and their party the "Republican Party"."Democrat" became a negative term after 1793, with the Terror in the French Revolution; this lasted until the middle of Madison's presidency, and the Federalists continued to use it to describe their opponents. Dahl, Robert A. (2005). "James Madison: Republican or Democrat?". Perspectives on Politics. 3#3: 439–448. Malone, Dumas. Jefferson. 3:162. The Federalist Party became popular with businessmen and New Englanders, and Republicans were mostly farmers who opposed a strong central government. Cities were usually Federalist strongholds, whereas frontier regions were heavily Republican.Manning J. Dauer, The Adams Federalists, chapter 2. The Congregationalists of New England and the Episcopalians in the larger cities supported the Federalists, while other minority denominations tended toward the Republican camp. Urban Catholics were generally Federalists.Renzulli, L. Marx (1973). Maryland: The Federalist Years. p 142, 183, 295.
The state networks of both parties began to operate in 1794 or 1795, and patronage became a factor. The winner-takes-all election system opened a wide gap between winners, who got all the patronage, and losers who got none. Hamilton had many lucrative Treasury jobs to dispense—there were 1,700 of them by 1801.White, Leonard D. (1948). The Federalists. A Study in Administrative History. p. 123. Jefferson had one part-time job in the State Department, which he gave to journalist Philip Freneau to attack the Federalists. In New York, George Clinton won the election for governor and used the vast state patronage fund to help the Republican cause.
Washington tried and failed to moderate the feud between his two top cabinet members.Miller, The Federalist Era 1789–1801 (1960). He was re-elected without opposition in 1792. The Democratic-Republicans (as they were now known) nominated New York's Governor Clinton to replace Federalist John Adams as vice president, but Adams won. The balance of power in Congress was close, with some members still undecided between the parties. In early 1793, Jefferson secretly prepared resolutions introduced by Virginia Congressman William Branch Giles designed to repudiate Hamilton and weaken the Washington Administration. Hamilton defended his administration of the nation's complicated financial affairs, which none of his critics could decipher until the arrival in Congress of Republican Albert Gallatin in 1793.
Federalists counterattacked by claiming that the Hamiltonian program had restored national prosperity, as shown in one 1792 anonymous newspaper essay:The Gazette of United States, 5 September 1792 in Beard, Charles A. (1915). Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. p. 231.
Jefferson wrote on 12 February 1798:
French Revolution The French Revolution and the subsequent war between royalist Britain and republican France decisively shaped American politics in 1793–1800 and threatened to entangle the country in wars that "mortally threatened its very existence".Elkins and McKitrick, ch 8; Sharp (1993) p. 70 for quote The French revolutionaries guillotined King Louis XVI in January 1793, and subsequently declared war on Britain. The French king had been decisive in helping the United States achieve independence, but now he was dead and many of the pro-American aristocrats in France were exiled or executed. Federalists warned that American republicans threatened to replicate the horrors of the French Revolution and successfully mobilized most conservatives and many clergymen. The Republicans, some of whom had been strong Francophiles, responded with support even through the Reign of Terror, when thousands were guillotined, though it was at this point that many began backing away from their pro-France leanings.Elkins and McKitrick pp. 314–316 on Jefferson's favorable responses. Many of those executed had been friends of the United States, such as the Comte D'Estaing, whose fleet had fought alongside the Americans in the Revolution (Lafayette had already fled into exile, and Thomas Paine went to prison in France). The republicans denounced Hamilton, Adams and even Washington as friends of Britain, as secret monarchists, aristocrats and as enemies of the republican values. The level of rhetoric reached a fever pitch.Marshall Smelser (Winter 1958), "The Federalist Period as an Age of Passion", American Quarterly 10, 391–459.Smelser (1951), "The Jacobin Phrenzy: Federalism and the Menace of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", Review of Politics 13 pp. 457–482.