Alright so starting out in unit 4 we are now talking about the young Republic
so this is the nation after Washington after Adams and
How is the nation expanding and growing in the first 30 years of the 19th century?
So with the election of 1800 Aaron Burr Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are all the major candidates up against one another
Which you can imagine based on our discussions before
Aaron Burr doesn't really like Jefferson Jefferson and Adams really don't like each other so it becomes a very contentious election
Thomas Jefferson ended up becoming the third President of the United States after the House of Representatives decided the election
Because there was a time
Jefferson and Aaron Burr had exactly the same amount of votes 73 John Adams followed was 65
Pinckney was 64 and John Jay with 1
so this is really important because the vote got split and
when the vote got split
Obviously you have this tie come about so the House of Representatives actually had to come in and be like hey
We we actually need to decide this the Electoral College wasn't enough
So Jefferson, Juan, Aaron Burr was angry and Adams
Adams really lost because those Alien and Sedition Acts
It was what it was he kind of did it to himself?
It was the first time that the House of Representatives had to decide an election and it took days
It was not the last time though. It happened in 1824 with Jackson vs. John Quincy Adams
And then also Hays versus Tilden in 1876 so fun facts there
So after realizing that there was a flaw in the electoral college
Congress fixed the flaw by passing the twelfth amendment which calls for having the electors cast the same ballot for president and vice president
So this is why we now have the concept of the presidential ticket as opposed to
First place gets president second place gets vice-president
So Jefferson's administration
He became the first president to take the oath of office in DC because DC was still being built during the other two presidencies
It's known as the revolution of 1800 because it's the first peaceful
transition of political power from one political party to the next you have it moving from the Federalists to the
democratic-republicans
Jefferson believed in free trade with Europe especially France that shouldn't be very shocking after we've talked so much about Jefferson's love for France
He shrank the size of the federal government, but then he doubled the size of the United States
So he was a bit of a dichotomy there
he cut costs wherever and whenever possible because he
Didn't like spending a whole lot of money at his inauguration. He said we are all
Republicans we are all Federalists Adams actually snuck out of DC and didn't hear this olive branch extended
He stayed mad at Jefferson for 12 more years
So it was a really nasty campaign against one another and it really harmed their friendship
So this is what DC looked like mapped out
When they were planning it
So you can see on the map how the Potomac River and everything blends in the streets are on a grid pattern
You can see where Georgetown is actually laid out there
So this was the early plan for the city and the city actually looks very similar to this early plan
and
DC was founded on July 16 1790 and established by the Constitution to serve as the nation's capital
This location was a compromise with Hamilton in the northern states wanting the new federal government to assume
Revolutionary War debts and TJ in the southern states wanted the capital placed in a location that was friendly to slaveholding
agricultural interests so compromise
Okay, John Marshall he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by John Adams
He was appointed after John Jay retired and the Federalists lost the executive and the legislative branches
So they wanted to hold on to the judicial. He also fun fact was Jefferson's cousin
He ended up serving on the Supreme Court for over 30 years and he strengthened the power of the Supreme Court and the federal government
One of the first major cases of the Supreme Court is known as Marbury vs. Madison in 1803
So John Adams signed the appointments of 16 new federal judges late on the last day of his administration
They're known as the midnight judges
so they were an attempt by Adams to keep Federalist judges in place before leaving office and
Jefferson refused to seat the very late judges on
Some of the appointments were never delivered and Jefferson believed that since they weren't but they were invalid
So Marbury was one of these midnight judges who didn't get his appointment and the Judiciary Act of 1789
Required that the appointments be delivered and Marbury sued to enforce his provision
well
Then came the Judiciary Act of 1801
Which was during a lame-duck period of Congress before the new Republicans were sworn in in March
So that's roughly November to March that this lame-duck Congress
Can just pass laws and it doesn't really like effect them because they're not gonna be re-elected
So John Marshall delivered the court's decision in Marbury vs. Madison
Marshall did believe that Marbury deserved his commission, but not under the provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 because it was
Unconstitutional to tional therefore the Act was void and so his Marbury's claimed
So by doing this Marshall and the Supreme Court were able to use the power of judicial review
Which is just a massive expansion of judicial power
This is just one of Marshalls decisions to expand the power of the Supreme Court and it's a lasting decision
Judicial review is the power of the Supreme Court to decide whether or not specific laws are valid this made the court a
Co-equal branch because it sent the executive and legislative branches a message that the judicial branch had the power to effect
legislation
So this was a huge check of their power and an establishment of the fact that the Supreme Court would be powerful
So Jefferson and his republicanism
Democratic Republicans were also called Jeffersonian Republicans. They believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and
Limited federal government, they were Pro farmers Pro states rights
Jefferson's big policies were to eliminate the excise taxes
Remember that whiskey tax and lower the national debt and reduce the size of the military by about 50%
But then
He's starting to expand his power. So background info TJ sent delegates to France to buy New Orleans for ten million dollars
Spain ended the port of entry rights at the mouth of the Mississippi River and secretly handed over the Louisiana territory to Frances Napoleon
Who was dreaming of reestablishing an empire in North America?
Napoleon then decided to sell the territory to the US
Napoleon offered the whole territory for fifteen million dollars
Which is two hundred and thirty three million dollars in today's money back then for three cents per acre
Forty-two cents per acre today. It's eight hundred square miles and it's actual worth today is over 1.2 trillion dollars
Although the Constitution doesn't say that the president could purchase foreign land
Jefferson agreed to the deal which is a very loose interpretation and hypocritical
And he says it's implied powers
He said this supports Jefferson's view of an agrarian society of farmers by giving them more land
I mean it literally doubled the size of the US after the Senate ratified it
So the explorers that were sent off to look at the new Louisiana territory were Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea
So Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore
Lewis led what he called the Corps of Discovery from st
Louis Missouri to the Pacific coast, so Lewis was a personal secretary to Jefferson and Clark was an Army officer
This was a scientific exploration of the trans-mississippi West the Corps of Discovery
was twenty-eight men who accompanied Lewis and Clark and they left in May of 1804 to the Pacific and
Returned or and made it to the Pacific in November 1805 barely surviving the Rocky Mountains and running extremely low on food and supplies
Their exploration gave us maps knowledge of the Indians Overland Trail to the Pacific Jefferson
Wanted to find the Northwest Passage. He wasn't willing to give up on that yet
The US also claimed the Pacific Northwest thought that the Missouri River went all the way to the Pacific
So Sacagawea became the interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark
She had a knowledge of trails and the mountain passes which helped with the success of the expedition
She also became a diplomat for Lewis and Clark and many tribes had never seen white men before
So she was seen as peaceful, especially when she was carrying her baby. So the discoveries were incredibly helpful to
the new nation and also to
establishing our claims in Louisiana territory
Okay, now we're getting back a little bit to politics and Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, so
yeah, Bert was a federalist and
The Federalists were afraid that the Louisiana territory would become dominated by the Jeffersonian Republicans
They tried to elect vice president Aaron Burr as the governor of New York as an independent
Hamilton said Burr was quote a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government
Jefferson ended up endorsing the Republican candidate and burr lost burr blamed Hamilton for his loss
So
burr challenged Hamilton to a duel on July 11th 1804
Hamilton fired first but intentionally missed as a demonstration of his religious and moral principles
Burr shot Hamilton in the hip the bullet ripped through his liver and lodged in his spine and he ended up dying the next day
Moving on to other
international disputes
The Barbary pirates the u.s
Made numerous blackmail or tribute payments to the Barbary pirates in exchange for the captured American ships and cruise
So remember we talked about the Barbary pirates during Washington's administration
This is a continuation of those problems in 1801. The ruler of Tripoli upped his blackmail demands and declared war on the u.s
Jefferson sent warships to blockade Tripoli
Finally in 1805 this whole blockade and issue ended with lieutenant
Stephen dekha, tour slipping into Tripoli Harbor and lighting the Philadelphia which was a u.s. Ship on fire
Causing the Tripoli ruler to settle for sixty thousand dollars ransom for the release of the ship's crew
Which was a lot less than he was asking for
So you can see the
Barbary pirates taking the white men into slavery and
the attacks on the ships
So Napoleon
Fought Britain and most of continental Europe in the anglo-french war
So this was all going on while we were trying to establish our nation in
1806 British warships began seizing American merchant ships headed for France
And so Congress responded with the non importation Act which banned British goods in 1806
The British were still impressing American sailors, even though they promised they would stop
the Chesapeake incident happened in 1807
so Napoleon announced that the French warships would blockade the posts of Great Britain the ports of Great Britain Great Britain responded that they would
No longer allow any foreign ships to trade with French controlled islands in the Caribbean
Soon after British warships appeared along the American coast stopping and searching US merchant vessels as they headed to the Caribbean or Europe
So the impressment of sailors was when British warships stopped us vessels
Boarded them and kidnapped sailors that they claimed were British citizens in the Chesapeake incident the British warship
Leopard stopped the Chesapeake eight miles off the Virginia coast
The Chesapeake's captain refused to let them aboard to search the ship and the leopard opened fire without warning which killed three
Wounded 18 and then the British seized four men
So then after that came the embargo act in December of 1807
Jefferson and Madison the Secretary of State mistakenly thought that the embargo would stop Great Britain and France from violating US rights
The value of US exports plummeted from 48 million dollars in 1807 to 9 million dollars in 1808
Americans were really angry. It essentially stopped all exports of American goods
Greatly hurt the American shipping and caught economy New Englanders hated Jefferson. They called him mad Tom and it end up getting repealed in 1809
Which ultimately leads to the election of 1808 between Madison Pinckney and Clinton which we will cover in our next notes
