Chapter Themes


In April 1789 the new national government began its work. Anxiety about the powers of the presidency was kept in check only because of George Washington's reputation for integrity. He suggested few laws to Congress and rarely spoke out against opponents of government policy. Generally he limited his public statements to matters of foreign relations and military affairs, and he deferred to congressional decisions concerning domestic policy whenever possible. Congress too acted cautiously. It created in each state a federal district court that recognized local procedures and established a system of appeal to federal circuit courts. The Bill of Rights as adopted did not strip the national government of any necessary authority but guaranteed personal liberties.

Alexander Hamilton was chosen secretary of the treasury. He moved to stabilize the nation's economy, protect national security, and establish a national rather than a local perspective. Hamilton believed that the federal government's survival depended on building support among politically influential citizens through appeal to their financial interests. His program advocated payment of the domestic debt at full value by funding; federal assumption of state debts; full payment of the foreign debt; and a permanent national debt as an investment for bondholders. Hamilton also called for the creation of a Bank of the United States that could make some of the recently funded debt available for loans. He urged protective tariffs on foreign imports to foster domestic manufacturing. Criticism of Hamilton's plans pointed to the favoritism shown to creditors and to the absence of any constitutional authority for Congress to create a national bank. Hamilton's financial program rescued the nation's credit, but it alienated many southerners and westerners for whom commercial expansion and industrial development held little promise. Western resentment boiled over briefly in Pennsylvania when protest against an excise tax on whiskey erupted into violence. The federal government's vigorous response, however, emphasized its authority.

The most serious perils to the nation's future arose from the collision between the interests of the United States and those of the British, Spanish, and Native Americans. For many Americans an alliance with France seemed to promise support against the combined strength of Britain and Spain. Enthusiasm for France, especially in the South and West, grew after the French Revolution. Settlers and speculators in frontier lands hoped that war in Europe would hobble Britain and Spain. Also, British encouragement of the slave revolt in Saint Domingue frightened the South. In the North, however, merchants' awareness that good relations with Britain were essential for their region's prosperity led to a growing antagonism toward France. French efforts to draw the United States to their support were met with Washington's proclamation of neutrality. The British stepped up their policy of impressment on the seas and encouraged greater Indian resistance. The Americans forced a treaty on the Indians in the Northwest. Some concessions were wrung from the British, although the Jay Treaty failed to address the problem of impressment and was widely unpopular. The Pinckney Treaty with Spain finally won westerners the right of unrestricted access to the Mississippi River.

The 1790s saw the development of economic, regional, and ideological differences into a fully fledged party division. The Federalists were convinced by the mid-1790s that it was unwise and perhaps dangerous to involve the public too deeply in politics. A different understanding of republican ideology influenced Jefferson, Madison, and others alienated by federal measures. Antifederalist (Republican) sentiment ran particularly high in the South. Liberty would be safe only if not concentrated in the hands of a few but diffused among virtuous independent citizens. When President Washington left office at the conclusion of his second term his Farewell Address contained a condemnation of political parties and a caution against the way they might draw the United States into European quarrels.

In the election of 1796 Federalist John Adams won a narrow victory. Responding to French commercial depredations, Adams's efforts to negotiate resulted in the infamous XYZ affair, consequent American outrage, the outfitting of new warships, and apprehension about national security that led the Federalists to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts. Criticism of these repressive Federalist laws came from Virginia and Kentucky. The doctrine of states' rights was first advanced as a means of preventing the national government from violating basic freedoms. Although the doctrines of interposition and nullification were not approved by other states, the nation's leaders increasingly acted as if a crisis were imminent. As the election of 1800 approached, tensions were high. Jefferson and Madison discouraged radicalism that might provoke intervention by the national army. Adams pursued peaceful negotiations to end the quasi-war with France. Sharpening social, economic, and regional differences had helped fuel the clash in party politics, but the nation did achieve an orderly transition of government to a new political party.

At the local level, economic transformations were also taking place. Farm families in the Northeast began to direct more of their surplus production towards a growing urban market. Artisan production also increased, often supported by an ambitious and aggressive class of businessmen who had been merchants and were now investing their profits in factories, ships, government bonds, and backs.

For Native Americans, the situation was bleak. Most of the Indian tribes had suffered severe reductions in population and territory, and their cultural integrity had been weakened and distorted. Efforts to cling to traditional values encouraged whites to see the Indians as incapable of change, a distinct and inferior race that white American society could never absorb. Among black Americans, also, the situation worsened. The trend toward lessening legal and social distance between blacks and whites ended with the century. Abolitionist sentiment ebbed, slavery became more entrenched, and whites demonstrated unmistakable reluctance to accept even free blacks as fellow citizens. The Revolution did not significantly affect the legal position of white women, but it did spark a debate over the role of women in the new republic. Women increasingly choose husbands regardless of family approval, family size decreased and some women began to advocate a new ideology called "republican motherhood." These changes laid the groundwork for the great struggle for female equality in the nineteenth century.