The history of the United States from 1789 to 1815 was marked by the nascent years of the American Republic under the new U.S. Constitution. George Washington was elected the first president in 1789. On his own initiative, Washington created three departments, State (led by Thomas Jefferson), Treasury (led by Alexander Hamilton), and War (led at first by Henry Knox). The secretaries, along with a new Attorney General, became the cabinet.
Based in New York City, the new government acted quickly to rebuild the nation's financial structure. Enacting Hamilton's program, the government assumed the Revolutionary War debts of the states and the national government, and refinanced them with new federal bonds. It paid for the program through new tariffs and taxes; the tax on whiskey led to a revolt in the west; Washington raised an army and suppressed it with minimal violence. The nation adopted a Bill of Rights as 10 amendments to the new constitution. Fleshing out the Constitution's specification of the judiciary as capped by a Supreme Court, the Judiciary Act of 1789 established the entire federal judiciary. The Supreme Court became important under the leadership of Chief Justice John Marshall (1801–1835), a federalist and nationalist who built a strong Supreme Court and strengthened the national government.
The 1790s were highly contentious. The First Party System emerged in the contest between Hamilton and his Federalist party, and Thomas Jefferson and his Republican party. Washington and Hamilton were building a strong national government, with a broad financial base, and the support of merchants and financiers throughout the country. Jeffersonians opposed the new national Bank, the Navy, and federal taxes. The Federalists favored Britain, which was embattled in a series of wars with France. Jefferson's victory in 1800 opened the era of Jeffersonian democracy, and doomed the upper-crust Federalists to increasingly marginal roles. The Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon in 1803 opened vast Western expanses of fertile land, which exactly met the needs of the rapidly expanding population of yeomen farmers whom Jefferson championed.
Madison's administration declared war on Britain in 1812, sparking the War of 1812. The Americans declared war due to a variety of reasons, including disputes with Britain over impressment and British support for Tecumseh's confederacy, which was then embroiled in a war with the United States over American settlement in the Northwest Territory. A major American war aim was the invasion of Canada; Secretary of State James Monroe said in June 1812, "It might be necessary to invade Canada, not as an object of the war but to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion." The first few years of the war saw the Americans launch several failed invasions of Canada, while blockades by the Royal Navy devastated the American economy. However, the Americans saw more military successes in 1813, while three British invasions of the US in 1814 ended in failure; the war also saw the death of Tecumseh and the defeat of his confederacy. The Federalists, who had opposed the war to the point of threatening secession, were viewed as traitors after the War of 1812 ended in 1815 with the Treaty of Ghent. The remaining Indians east of the Mississippi River were kept on reservations or moved via the Trail of Tears to reservations in what later became Oklahoma.
Federalist Era
Washington administration: 1789–1797
George Washington, a renowned hero of the American Revolution, commander of the Continental Army, and president of the Constitutional Convention, was unanimously chosen as the first president of the United States under the new U.S. Constitution. All the leaders of the new nation were committed to republicanism, and the doubts of the Anti-Federalists of 1788 were allayed with the passage of a Bill of Rights as the first ten amendments to the Constitution in 1791.
The first census enumerated a population of 3.9 million. Only 12 cities had populations of more than 5,000; most people were farmers.
The Constitution assigned Congress the task of creating inferior courts. The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the entire federal judiciary. The act provided for the Supreme Court to have six justices, and for two additional levels: three circuit courts and 13 district courts. It also created the offices of U.S. Marshal, Deputy Marshal, and District Attorney in each federal judicial district.Charles Warren, "New Light on the History of the Federal judiciary Act of 1789." Harvard Law Review 37.1 (1923): 49-132. online The Compromise of 1790 located the national capital in a district to be defined in the South (the District of Columbia), and enabled the federal assumption of state debts.
The key role of Secretary of the Treasury was awarded to Washington's wartime aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton. With Washington's support and against Thomas Jefferson's opposition, Hamilton convinced Congress to pass a far-reaching financial program that was patterned after the system developed in England a century earlier. It funded the debts of the Revolutionary War, set up a national bank, and set up a system of tariffs and taxes. His policies linked the economic interests of the states, and of wealthy Americans, to the success of the national government, and enhanced the international financial standing of the new nation.
Most Representatives of the South opposed Hamilton's plan because they had already repudiated their debts and thus gained little from it. There were early signs of the economic and cultural rift between the Northern and Southern states that was to burst into flames seven decades later: the South and its plantation-based economy resisted a centralized federal government and subordination to Northeastern business interests. Despite considerable opposition in Congress from Southerners, Hamilton's plan was moved into effect during the middle of 1790. The First Bank of the United States was thus created that year despite arguments from Thomas Jefferson and his supporters that it was unconstitutional while Hamilton declared that it was entirely within the powers granted to the federal government. Hamilton's other proposals, including protection tariffs for nascent American industry, were defeated.
The Whiskey Rebellion broke out in 1794 when settlers in the Monongahela Valley of western Pennsylvania protested against the new federal tax on whiskey, which the settlers shipped across the mountains to earn money. It was the first serious test of the federal government. Washington ordered federal marshals to serve court orders requiring the tax protesters to appear in federal district court. By August 1794, the protests became dangerously close to outright rebellion, and on August 7, several thousand armed settlers gathered near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Washington then invoked the Militia Law of 1792 to summon the militias of several states. A force of 13,000 men was organized, and Washington led it to Western Pennsylvania. The revolt immediately collapsed without violence.
Foreign policy unexpectedly took center stage starting in 1793, when revolutionary France became engulfed in war with the rest of Europe, an event that was to lead to 22 years of fighting. France claimed that its 1778 alliance with the U.S. meant that the U.S. was bound to come to their aid. The Washington administration's policy of neutrality was widely supported, but the Jeffersonians strongly favored France and deeply distrusted the British, who they saw as enemies of republicanism. In addition, they sought to annex Spanish territory in the South and West. Meanwhile, Hamilton and the business community favored Britain, which was by far America's largest trading partner. The Republicans gained support in the winter of 1793–94 as the Royal Navy impressed alleged deserters serving on American merchantmen, but Anglo-American tensions were resolved with the Jay Treaty of 1794, which opened up 10 years of prosperous trade in exchange for which Britain would hand over eight forts in what was technically American soil. The Jeffersonians viewed the Treaty as a surrender to British interests, and mobilized their supporters nationwide to defeat the treaty. The Federalists likewise rallied supporters in a vicious conflict, which continued until 1795 when Washington publicly intervened in the debate, using his prestige to secure ratification. By this point, the economic and political advantages of the Federalist position had become clear to all concerned, combined with growing disdain for France after the Reign of Terror and Jacobin anti-religious policies. Jefferson promptly resigned as Secretary of State. Historian George Herring notes the "remarkable and fortuitous economic and diplomatic gains" produced by the Jay Treaty.
Continuing conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson, especially over foreign policy, led to the formation of the Federalist and Republican parties. Although Washington warned against political parties in his farewell address, he generally supported Hamilton and Hamiltonian programs over those of Jefferson. The Democratic-Republican Party dominated the Upper South, Western frontier, and parts of the middle states. Federalist support was concentrated in the major Northern cities and South Carolina. After Washington's death in 1799, he became a symbolic hero of the Federalists.
Emergence of political parties The First Party System between 1792 and 1824 featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: The Federalist Party, which was created by Alexander Hamilton and was dominant to 1800; and the rival Republican Party (Democratic-Republican Party), which was created by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and was dominant after 1800. Both parties originated in national politics but moved to organize supporters and voters in every state. These comprised "probably the first modern party system in the world" because they were based on voters, not factions of aristocrats at court or parliament. The Federalists appealed to the business community, the Republicans to the planters and farmers. By 1796, politics in every state was nearly monopolized by the two parties.
Jefferson wrote on February 12, 1798:
Two political Sects have arisen within the U. S. the one believing that the executive is the branch of our government which the most needs support; the other that like the analogous branch in the English Government, it is already too strong for the republican parts of the Constitution; and therefore in equivocal cases they incline to the legislative powers: the former of these are called federalists, sometimes aristocrats or monocrats, and sometimes tories, after the corresponding sect in the English Government of exactly the same definition: the latter are stiled republicans, whigs, jacobins, anarchists, disorganizers, etc. these terms are in familiar use with most persons.