The
Federalist Party was an American political
party in the period 1792 to 1816, the era of the
First Party System, with remnants lasting
into the 1820s. The Federalists controlled the federal government
until 1801. The party was formed by
Alexander Hamilton, who, during
George Washington's first term, built a
network of supporters, largely urban, to support his fiscal
policies. These supporters grew into the Federalist Party, which
wanted a fiscally sound and strong nationalistic government and was
opposed by the
Democratic-Republicans. The
United States' only Federalist president was
John Adams; although
George Washington was broadly sympathetic
to the Federalist program, he remained an independent his entire
presidency.
The Rise of the Federalist Party
President George Washington nominated his former
Aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton, to the office
of
Secretary of
the Treasury. Hamilton wanted a strong national government with
financial credibility. Hamilton proposed the ambitious
Hamiltonian economic program
that involved assumption of the state debts incurred during the
Revolutionary War,
creating a
national debt and the means
to pay it off, and setting up a national bank.
James Madison, Hamilton's ally in the
fight to ratify the United States
Constitution, joined with
Jefferson
in opposing Hamilton's program.
By 1790 Hamilton started building a nationwide coalition. 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, then, "brought strong responses
across the country. In the process, what began as a capital faction
soon assumed status as a national faction and then, finally, as the
new Federalist party."
By 1792 or 1794 newspapers started calling Hamilton supporters
"Federalists" and their opponents "Democrats", "Republicans",
"Jeffersonians" (people who supported Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd
president), or "Democratic-Republicans". Jefferson's supporters
usually called themselves "Republicans" and their party the
"Republican Party." The Federalist party became popular with
businessmen and New Englanders; Republicans were mostly farmers who
opposed a strong central government. The
Congregationalists and the
Episcopalians supported the
Federalists; most the
Presbyterians,
Baptists, and other minority denominations
tended toward the Republican camp. Cities were usually Federalist;
frontier regions were heavily Republican. These are
generalizations; there are special cases: thePresbyterians of
upland North Carolina, who had immigrated just before the
Revolution, and often been Tories, became Federalists.
The state networks of both parties began to operate in 1794 or
1795. Patronage now became a factor. The
winner-take-all election system
opened a wide gap between winners, who got all the patronage, and
losers, who got none. Hamilton had over 2000 Treasury jobs to
dispense, while Jefferson had one part-time job in the State
Department, which he gave to journalist
Philip Freneau to attack the federalists. In
New York, however,
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. He was re-elected without opposition in
1792. The
Democratic-Republicans 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 for
William Branch Giles, Congressman from
Virginia, to introduce what would have repudiated the Treasury
Secretary and destroyed the Washington Administration. Hamilton
brilliantly defended his administration of the nation's complicated
financial affairs, which none of his critics could decipher until
the arrival in Congress of the brilliant Republican
Albert Gallatin in 1793.
Federalists immediately claimed the Hamiltonian program had
restored national prosperity, as shown in one 1792 anonymous
newspaper essay:
To what physical, moral, or political energy shall this
flourishing state of things be ascribed?
There is but one answer to these inquiries: Public
credit is restored and ESTABLISHED.
The general government, by uniting and calling into
action the pecuniary resources of the states, has created a new
capital stock of several millions of dollars, which, with that
before existing, is directed into every branch of business, giving
life and vigor to industry in its infinitely diversified
operation.
The enemies of the general government, the funding act
and the National Bank may bellow tyranny, aristocracy, and
speculators through the Union and repeat the clamorous din as long
as they please; but the actual state of agriculture and commerce,
the peace, the contentment and satisfaction of the great mass of
people, give the lie to their assertions.
Party strength in Congress
Many Congressmen were hard to classify in the first few years, but
after 1796 there was less uncertainty.
Source:
Kenneth C. Martis,
The Historical Atlas of
Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989
(1989); the numbers are estimates by historians.
The affiliation of many Congressmen in the earliest years is an
assignment by later historians. The parties were slowly coalescing
groups; at first there were many independents. Cunningham noted
that only about a quarter of the House of Representatives, up until
1794, voted with Madison as much as two-thirds of the time, and
another quarter against him two-thirds of the time, leaving almost
half as fairly independent.
Effects of foreign affairs
International affairs — the
French Revolution and the subsequent war
between royalist Britain and republican France — decisively
shaped American politics in 1793–1800, and indeed threatened to
entangle the nation in wars that "mortally threatened its very
existence." The French revolutionaries
guillotined King
Louis XVI in January 1793, leading the British to declare war
to restore the monarchy. The King had been decisive in helping
America achieve independence. 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. Many of those executed had been
friends of the United States, such as the
Comte D'Estaing, whose fleet
defeated the British at
Yorktown.
(
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, and as enemies of the
republican values. The level of rhetoric reached a fever
pitch.
Paris in 1793 sent a new minister,
Edmond-Charles Genêt (known as
Citizen Genêt), who systematically mobilized pro-French
sentiment and encouraged Americans to support France's war against
Britain and Spain. Genêt funded local
Democratic-Republican
Societies that attacked Federalists. He hoped for a favorable
new treaty and for repayment of the debts owed to France. Acting
aggressively, Genêt outfitted privateers that sailed with American
crews under a French flag and attacked British shipping. He tried
to organize expeditions of Americans to invade Spanish Louisiana
and Spanish Florida. When Secretary of State Jefferson told Genêt
he was pushing American friendship past the limit, Genêt threatened
to go over Washington's head and rouse public opinion on behalf of
France. Even Jefferson agreed this was blatant foreign interference
in domestic politics. Genêt's extremism seriously embarrassed the
Jeffersonians and cooled popular support for promoting the French
Revolution and getting involved in its wars. Recalled to Paris for
execution, Genêt kept his head and instead went to New York, where
he became a citizen and married the daughter of Governor Clinton.
Jefferson left office, ending the coalition cabinet and allowing
the Federalists to dominate.
The
Jay Treaty in 1794–95 was the effort
by Washington and Hamilton to resolve numerous difficulties with
Britain. Some of these issues dated to the Revolution; such as
boundaries, debts owed in each direction, and the continued
presence of British forts in the
Northwest Territory. In addition America
hoped to open markets in the British Caribbean and end disputes
stemming from the naval war between Britain and France. Most of all
the goal was to avert a war with Britain — a war opposed by
the Federalists, that some historians claim the Jeffersonians
wanted.
As a neutral party, the United States argued, it had the right to
carry goods anywhere it wanted. The British nevertheless seized
American ships carrying goods from the
French West Indies. The Federalists
favored Britain in the war, and by far most of America's foreign
trade was with Britain; hence a new treaty was called for. The
British agreed to evacuate the western forts, open their West
Indies ports to American ships, allow small vessels to trade with
the French West Indies, and set up a commission that would
adjudicate American claims against Britain for seized ships, and
British claims against Americans for debts incurred before 1775.
One possible alternative was war with Britain, a war that America
was ill-prepared to fight.
The Republicans wanted to pressure Britain to the brink of war (and
assumed that America could defeat a weak Britain). Therefore they
denounced the Jay Treaty as an insult to American prestige, a
repudiation of the French alliance of 1777, and a severe shock to
Southern planters who owed those old debts, and who were never to
collect for the lost slaves the British captured. Republicans
protested against the treaty, but the Federalists controlled the
United States Senate and they
ratified it by exactly the necessary ⅔ vote, 20–10, in 1795. The
pendulum of public opinion swung toward the Republicans after the
Treaty fight, and in the South the Federalists lost most of the
support they had among planters.
Rebellion
The
excise tax of 1791 caused grumbling
from the frontier including threats of
tax resistance. Corn, the chief crop on the
frontier, was too bulky to ship over the mountains to market,
unless it was first distilled into whiskey. This was profitable, as
the United States population consumed,
per capita, relatively large quantities of
liquor. After the excise tax, the backwoodsmen complained the tax
fell on them rather than on the consumers. Cash poor, they were
outraged that they had been singled out to pay off the "financiers
and speculators" back East, and to salary the federal revenue
officers who began to swarm the hills looking for illegal
stills.
Insurgents shut the courts and hounded federal officials, but
Jeffersonian leader
Albert Gallatin
mobilized the western moderates, and thus forestalled a serious
outbreak. Washington, seeing the need to assert federal supremacy,
called out 13,000 state militia, and marched toward Pittsburgh to
suppress this
Whiskey Rebellion.
The rebellion evaporated in late 1794 as Washington approached,
personally leading the army (only two sitting Presidents have
directly led American military forces, Washington during the
whiskey rebellion and Madison in an attempt to save the White House
during the war of 1812 ). The rebels dispersed and there was no
fighting. Federalists were relieved that the new government proved
capable of overcoming rebellion, while Republicans, with Gallatin
their new hero, argued there never was a real rebellion and the
whole episode was manipulated in order to accustom Americans to a
standing army.
Angry petitions flowed in from three dozen
Democratic-Republican
Societies created by Citizen Genêt. Washington attacked the
societies as illegitimate; many disbanded. Federalists now
ridiculed Republicans as "democrats" (meaning in favor of
mob rule) or "Jacobins" (a reference to
The Terror in France).
Washington refused to run for a third term, establishing a two-term
precedent that was to stand until
1940 and
eventually to be enshrined in the Constitution as the
22nd
Amendment. Washington warned in his
Farewell Address against
involvement in European wars, and lamented the rising North-South
sectionalism and party spirit in politics that threatened national
unity. The party spirit, he lamented:
serves always to distract the Public Councils, and
enfeeble the Public Administration.
It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies
and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against
another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.
It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption,
which find a facilitated access to the government itself through
the channels of party passions.
Thus the policy and the will of one country are
subjected to the policy and will of another.
Washington refused to consider himself a member of any party,
although in retrospect he is usually regarded as a Federalist
because of greater tendency to side with Hamilton than with
Jefferson.
Newspaper editors at war
To strengthen their coalitions and hammer away constantly at the
opposition, both parties sponsored newspapers in the capital
(Philadelphia) and other major cities. On the Republican side,
Philip Freneau and
Benjamin Franklin Bache
blasted the administration with all the scurrility at their
command. Bache in particular targeted Washington himself as the
front man for monarchy who must be exposed. To Bache, Washington
was a cowardly general and a money-hungry baron who saw the
Revolution as a means to advance his fortune and fame, Adams was a
failed diplomat who never forgave the French their love of
Benjamin Franklin and who carved a crown
for himself and his descendants, and Alexander Hamilton was the
most inveterate monarchist of them all. The Federalists, with twice
as many newspapers at their command, slashed back with equal
vituperation;
John Fenno and "Peter
Porcupine" (
William Cobbett) were
their nastiest pensmen, and
Noah
Webster their most learned; Hamilton subsidized the Federalist
editors, wrote for their papers, and in 1801 established his own
paper, the
New York Evening
Post. Though his reputation waned considerably following
his death,
Joseph Dennie ran three of
the most popular and influential newspapers of the period,
The
Farmer's Weekly Museum, the
Gazette of the United
States and
Port Folio.
John Adams administration, 1797–1801
John Adams
Hamilton distrusted Vice President Adams (and Adams felt the same
way about Hamilton), but was unable to block his claims to the
succession. The
election of 1796 was the
first partisan affair in the nation's history, and one of the more
scurrilous in terms of newspaper attacks. Adams swept New England
and Jefferson the South, with the middle states leaning to Adams.
Thus Adams was the winner by a margin of three
electoral votes, and
Jefferson, as the runner-up, became Vice President under the system
set out in the Constitution prior to the ratification of the
12th
Amendment.
Foreign affairs continued to be the central concern of American
politics, for the war raging in Europe threatened to drag in the
United States. The new President was a loner, who made decisions
without consulting Hamilton or other High Federalists. Benjamin
Franklin once quipped that Adams was a man always honest, often
brilliant, and sometimes mad. Adams was popular among the
Federalist rank and file, but had neglected to build state or local
political bases of his own, and neglected to take control of his
own cabinet. As a result his cabinet answered more to Hamilton than
to himself.
Alien and Sedition Acts
After an American delegation was insulted in Paris in the
XYZ affair (1797), public opinion ran strongly
against the French. An undeclared "
Quasi-War" with France from 1798 to 1800, saw each
side attacking and capturing the other's shipping. It was called
"quasi" because there was no declaration of war, but escalation was
a serious threat. The Federalists, at the peak of their popularity,
took advantage by preparing for an invasion by the French Army.To
silence Administration critics, the Federalists passed the
Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The
Alien Act empowered the President to deport such aliens as he
declared to be dangerous. The Sedition Act made it a crime to print
false, scandalous, and malicious criticisms of the federal
government, but it conspicuously failed to criminalize criticism of
Vice President Thomas Jefferson. Several Republican newspaper
editors were convicted under the Act and fined or jailed, and three
Republican newspapers were shut down. During this period, Jefferson
and Madison secretly wrote the
Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions passed by the two states' legislatures, that
declared the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional, and insisted
the states had the power to
nullify federal
laws.
Undaunted, the Federalists created a
navy, with new
frigates, and a large new army, with Washington in
nominal command and Hamilton in actual command. To pay for it all
they raised taxes on land, houses and slaves, leading to serious
unrest. In one part of Pennsylvania the
Fries' Rebellion broke out, with
people refusing to pay the new taxes. John Fries was sentenced to
death for treason, but received a pardon from Adams. In the
elections of 1798 the Federalists did very well, but the tax issue
started hurting the Federalists in 1799.
Early in 1799, Adams decided to free himself from Hamilton's
overbearing influence, stunning the country and throwing his party
into disarray by announcing a new peace mission to France. The
mission eventually succeeded, the "Quasi-War" ended, and the new
army was largely disbanded. Hamiltonians called Adams a failure,
and in turn Adams fired Hamilton's supporters still in the
cabinet.
Hamilton and Adams intensely disliked one another, and the
Federalists split between supporters of Hamilton ("High
Federalists") and supporters of Adams. Hamilton became embittered
over his loss of political influence and wrote a scathing criticism
of Adams' performance as President of the United States in an
effort to throw Federalist support to
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney;
inadvertently this split the Federalists and helped give the
victory to Jefferson.
Election of 1800
Adams' peace moves proved popular with the Federalist rank and
file, and he seemed to stand a good chance of reelection in 1800.
If the
Three-Fifths
Compromise had not been enacted, he most likely would have won
reelection since many Federalist legislatures removed the right to
select electors from their constituents in fear of a Democratic
victory. Jefferson was again the opponent and Federalists pulled
out all stops in warning that he was a dangerous revolutionary,
hostile to religion, who would weaken the government, damage the
economy, and get into war with Britain. The Republicans crusaded
against the Alien and Sedition laws, and the new taxes, and proved
highly effective in mobilizing popular discontent.
The election hinged on New York: its
electors were selected by
the
legislature, and
given the balance of north and south, they would decide the
presidential election.
Aaron Burr
brilliantly organized his forces in New York City
in the spring elections for the state
legislature. By a few hundred votes he carried the city—and
thus the state legislature—and guaranteed the election of a
Democratic-Republican President. As a reward he was selected by the
Republican
caucus in Congress as their vice
presidential candidate. Hamilton, knowing the election was lost
anyway, went public with a sharp attack on Adams that further
divided and weakened the Federalists.
Because the Republicans failed to plan by instructing at least one
of their electors to vote for Jefferson but not Burr in the
electoral college, Burr and Jefferson received the same vote, 73
each, so it was up to the House of Representatives to break the
tie. There the Federalists were strong enough to deadlock the
election, with some talk of their throwing their support to elect
Burr. Hamilton considered Burr to be a scoundrel and threw his
weight into the contest, allowing Jefferson to take office. (This
unintended complication led directly to the proposal and
ratification of the
12th
Amendment.) "We are all republicans—we are all federalists,"
proclaimed Jefferson in his
inaugural address.
His patronage policy was to let the Federalists disappear through
attrition. Those Federalists such as
John Quincy Adams (John Adams' own son)
and
Rufus King willing to work with him
were rewarded with senior diplomatic posts, but there was no
punishment of the opposition.
Jefferson had a very successful first term, typified by the
Louisiana Purchase, which was
ironically supported by Hamilton but opposed by most Federalists at
the time as un-constitutional. Shortly before Hamilton's death,
some Federalist leaders (see
Essex
Junto) began courting Jefferson's Vice-President and Hamilton's
arch-nemesis Aaron Burr in an attempt to swing New York into an
independent confederation with the New England states, which along
with New York were supposed to secede from the United States after
Burr's election to Governor. However, Hamilton's influence cost
Burr the governorship of New York, a key in the Essex Junto's plan,
just as Hamilton's influence had cost Burr the Presidency nearly 4
years before. Hamilton's thwarting of Aaron Burr's ambitions for
the second time was too much for Burr to bear. Hamilton had known
of the Essex Junto (whom Hamilton now regarded as apostate
Federalists), and Burr's plans and opposed them vehemently. This
opposition by Hamilton would lead to his fatal duel with Burr in
July, 1804.
The thoroughly disorganized Federalists hardly offered any
opposition to Jefferson's reelection in 1804, after his successful
first term (by this point, the Federalists were now largely without
a strong leader after the untimely
death of
Alexander Hamilton and with Aaron Burr
now a fugitive of the law). In New England and in some districts in
the middle states the Federalists clung to power, but the tendency
from 1800 to 1812 was steady slippage almost everywhere, as the
Republicans perfected their organization and the Federalists tried
to play catch-up. Some younger leaders tried to emulate the
Democratic-Republican tactics, but their overall disdain of
democracy along with the upper class bias of the party leadership
eroded public support. In the South, the Federalists steadily lost
ground everywhere.
Federalists in opposition
Jefferson administration
The Federalists continued for several years to be a major political
party in New England and the Northeast, but never regained control
of the Presidency or the Congress. With the death of Washington and
Hamilton (the latter losing to Burr in a
duel),
and the retirement of Adams, the Federalists were left without a
strong leader, and grew steadily weaker. A few younger leaders did
appear, notably
Daniel Webster.
Federalist policies favored factories, banking, and trade over
agriculture, and thus became unpopular in the growing Western
states. They were increasingly seen as aristocratic and
unsympathetic to democracy.
In the South the party had lingering support
in Maryland
, but
elsewhere was crippled by 1800 and faded away by 1808.
Massachusetts and Connecticut were the party strongholds. One
historian explains how well organized the party was in Connecticut:
It was only necessary to perfect the working methods of
the organized body of office-holders who made up the nucleus of the
party.
There were the state officers, the assistants, and a
large majority of the Assembly.
In every county there was a sheriff with his
deputies.
All of the state, county, and town judges were
potential and generally active workers.
Every town had several justices of the peace, school
directors and, in Federalist towns, all the town officers who were
ready to carry on the party's work.
Every parish had a "standing agent," whose anathemas
were said to convince at least ten voting deacons.
Militia officers, state's attorneys, lawyers,
professors and schoolteachers were in the van of this "conscript
army."
In all, about a thousand or eleven hundred dependent
officer-holders were described as the inner ring which could always
be depended upon for their own and enough more votes within their
control to decide an election.
This was the Federalist machine.
After 1800 the major Federalist role came in the judiciary.
Although Jefferson managed to repeal the
Judiciary Act of 1801 and thus dismiss
many Federalist judges, their effort to impeach Supreme Court
Justice
Samuel Chase in 1804 failed.
Led by the last great Federalist,
John
Marshall as
Chief
Justice from 1801 to 1835, the Supreme Court carved out a
unique and powerful role as the protector of the Constitution and
promoter of nationalism.
President Jefferson imposed an embargo on Britain in 1807; the
Embargo Act of 1807 prevented
all American ships from sailing to a foreign port. The idea was
that the British were so dependent on American supplies that they
would come to terms. For 15 months the Embargo wrecked American
export businesses, largely based in the Boston-New York region,
causing a sharp depression in the Northeast. Evasion was common and
Jefferson and Treasury Secretary Gallatin responded with tightened
police controls more severe than anything the Federalists had ever
proposed. Public opinion was highly negative, and a surge of
support breathed fresh life into the Federalist party. The
Republicans (slowly assuming the name "Democratic-Republicans")
nominated Madison for the presidency in
1808. Federalists, meeting
in the first-ever national convention, considered the option of
nominating Vice President
George Clinton as their own
candidate, but balked at working with him and again chose
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
their 1804 candidate. Madison lost New England but swept the rest
of the country and carried a (Democratic-)Republican Congress.
Madison dropped the Embargo, opened up trade again, and offered a
carrot and stick approach. If either France or Britain agreed to
stop their violations of American neutrality, the U.S. would cut
off trade with the other country. Tricked by Napoleon into
believing France had acceded to his demands, Madison turned his
wrath on Britain, and the
War of 1812
began.
Madison administration
Thus the nation was at war during the
1812 presidential
election, and war was the burning issue. In their second
national convention, the Federalists — now the peace
party — nominated
DeWitt
Clinton, the dissident Democratic-Republican
mayor of New York City, and an
articulate opponent of the war. Madison ran for reelection
promising a relentless war against Britain and an honorable peace.
Clinton, denouncing Madison's weak leadership and incompetent
preparations for war, could count on New England and New York. To
win he needed the middle states and there the campaign was fought
out. Those states were competitive and had the best-developed local
parties and most elaborate campaign techniques, including
nominating conventions and formal
party
platforms. The
Tammany Society in
New York City went all out for Madison; the Federalists finally
adopted the club idea in 1809. Their
Washington Benevolent
Societies were semi-secret membership organizations which
played a critical role in every northern state in holding meetings
and rallies and mobilizing Federalist votes. New Jersey went for
Clinton, but Madison carried Pennsylvania and thus was reelected
with 59% of the Electoral votes.
Opposition to the War of 1812
The
War of 1812 went poorly for the
Americans for two years. Even though Britain was concentrating its
military efforts on its
war with
Napoleon, the United States
still failed to make any headway on land, and was effectively
blockaded at sea by the
Royal Navy.
The
British raided and burned Washington, D.C.
in 1814 and sent a force to capture New
Orleans
.
The war was especially unpopular in New England: the New England
economy was highly dependent on trade, and the British blockade
threatened to destroy it entirely. In 1814, the British finally
managed to enforce their blockade on the New England coast, so the
Federalists of New England sent delegates to the
Hartford Convention in December
1814.
During the proceedings of the Hartford Convention, secession from
the Union was discussed, though the resulting report listed a set
of grievances against the Democratic-Republican federal government
and proposed a set of Constitutional amendments to address these
grievances. It also indicated that if these proposals were ignored,
then another convention should be called and given "such powers and
instructions as the exigency of a crisis may require". The
Federalist Massachusetts Governor had already secretly sent word to
England to broker a separate peace accord. Three Massachusetts
"ambassadors" were sent to Washington to negotiate on the basis of
this report.
By the
time the Federalist "ambassadors" got to Washington, the war was
over and news of Andrew Jackson's
stunning victory in the Battle of New Orleans
had raised American morale immensely. The
"ambassadors" slunk back to Massachusetts, but not before they had
done fatal damage to the Federalist Party. The Federalists were
thereafter associated with the disloyalty and parochialism of the
Hartford Convention, and destroyed as a political force. They
fielded their last presidential candidate (
Rufus King) in
1816, and their last
serious vice-presidential candidate (
Richard Stockton) in
1820. With its
passing partisan hatreds and newspaper feuds on the decline, the
nation entered the "
Era of Good
Feelings", marked by the absence of all but one political
party.
After the dissolution of the final Federalist congressional
caucus in 1825, the last traces of Federalist activity came in
Delaware
state
politics in the late 1820s, where in 1826 Governor Charles Polk, Jr. was elected, the last
significant Federalist office holder in the United States, and as
late as 1828 won control of the legislature.
Interpretations
The Federalists were dominated by businessmen and merchants in the
major cities who supported a strong national government. The party
was closely linked to the modernizing, urbanizing, financial
policies of Alexander Hamilton.
These policies included the funding of the
national debt and also assumption of state debts incurred during
the Revolutionary War, the incorporation of a national Bank of the
United States
, the support of manufactures and industrial
development, and the use of a tariff to fund the Treasury.
In foreign affairs the Federalists opposed the French Revolution,
engaged in the "Quasi War" (an undeclared naval war) with France in
1798–99, sought good relations with Britain and sought a strong
army and navy. Ideologically the controversy between Republicans
and Federalists stemmed from a difference of principle and style.
In terms of style the Federalists distrusted the public, thought
the elite should be in charge, and favored national power over
state power. Republicans distrusted Britain, bankers, merchants and
did not want a powerful national government. The Federalists,
notably Hamilton, were distrustful of "the people," the French, and
the Republicans. In the end, the nation synthesized the two
positions, adopting representative democracy and a strong nation
state. Just as important American politics by the 1820s accepted
the two-party system whereby rival parties stake their claims
before the electorate, and the winner takes control of the
government.
As time went on, the Federalists lost appeal with the average voter
and were generally not equal to the tasks of party organization;
hence, they grew steadily weaker as the political triumphs of the
Republican Party grew.
For economic and philosophical reasons, the
Federalists tended to be pro-British – the United States
engaged in more trade with Great Britain
than with any other country – and vociferously
opposed Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807 and the seemingly
deliberate provocation of war with Britain by the Madison
Administration. During "Mr. Madison's War", as they called
it, the Federalists attempted a comeback but the patriotic euphoria
that followed the war undercut their pessimistic appeals.
After 1816 the Federalists had no national influence apart from
John Marshall's Supreme Court. They
had some local support in New England, New York, eastern
Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. After the collapse of the
Democratic-Republican Party in the course of the
1824 presidential election,
most surviving Federalists (including
Daniel Webster) joined former
Democratic-Republicans like
Henry Clay to
form the
National Republican
Party, which was soon combined with other anti-Jackson groups
to form the
Whig Party.
Some former Federalists like
James
Buchanan and
Roger B. Taney became Jacksonian Democrats. The name
"Federalist" came increasingly to be used in political rhetoric as
a term of abuse, and was denied by the Whigs, who pointed out that
their leader
Henry Clay was the
Democratic-Republican party leader in Congress during the
1810s.
The "Old Republicans," led by
John Randolph of Roanoke, refused
to form a coalition with the Federalists and instead set up a
separate opposition since Jefferson, Madison, Gallatin, Monroe,
John C. Calhoun and Clay had in effect adopted
Federalist principles by purchasing the Louisiana Territory,
chartering the Second national bank, promoting internal
improvements (like roads), raising tariffs to protect factories,
and promoting a strong army and navy after the failures of the War
of 1812.
See also
Bibliography
- Ben-Atar, Doron S., and Liz B. MacMillan, eds. Federalists
Reconsidered (1999)
- Chambers, William Nisbet. Political Parties in a New
Nation: The American Experience, 1776–1809 (1963)
- , the most detailed history of 1790s
- Ferling, John. John Adams: A Life (1992)
- Formisano, Ronald P. "State Development in the Early Republic,"
in Boyd Shafer and Anthony Badger, eds. Contesting Democracy:
Substance and Structure in American Political History,
1775–2000, (2001) pp. 7-35.
- vol 4 of Richard Hildreth, History of the
United States (1851) covering 1790s
- Jensen, Richard. "Federalist Party," in Encyclopedia of
Third Parties (M E Sharpe, 2000)
- Knudson, Jerry W. Jefferson And the Press: Crucible of
Liberty (2006) how 4 Republican and 4 Federalist papers
covered election of 1800; Thomas Paine; Louisiana Purchase;
Hamilton-Burr duel; impeachment of Chase; and the embargo
- details the collapse state by state
- general survey
- Morison, Samuel Eliot. Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1848: The
Urbane Federalist (1969)
- , detailed political history of 1790s
- Sheehan, Colleen. “Madison v. Hamilton: The Battle Over
Republicanism and the Role of Public Opinion” American
Political Science Review 2004 98(3): 405–24.
- Siemers, David J. Ratifying the Republic:
Antifederalists and Federalists in Constitutional
Time(2002)
- general survey
- Theriault, Sean M. "Party Politics during the Louisiana
Purchase," Social Science History 2006 30(2):293-324;
DOI:10.1215/01455532-30-2-293
- Waldstreicher, David. "The Nationalization and Racialization of
American Politics: 1790–1840," in Boyd Shafer and Anthony Badger,
eds. Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American
Political History, 1775–2000, (2001) pp. 37-83.
- Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A history of the Early
Republic, 1789-1815 (2009)
References
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