Conspiracy Theories
In a distant echo of today's Republican conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, Jefferson and his political allies accused Hamilton and the Federalists of harboring secret sympathies for Great Britain and designs on replacing the Constitution with a monarchy -- even though Hamilton had done more than almost anyone to win ratification, including organizing the Federalist Papers to sell the new structure to a skeptical public.
Despite President Washington's warning against "factions," Jefferson and his supporters pressed ahead gleefully poisoning the political atmosphere of the young nation -- and prompting Hamilton and his side to strike back in kind. Eventually, after building a bureaucratic structure that put the nation's finances on a firm footing, Hamilton begged Washington for his leave once again and retired to his New York law practice in 1795.
Amid all this partisan acrimony, President Washington and then President John Adams struggled to maneuver the country through a narrow channel to avoid war with Great Britain and then France. With the prospect of war looming, President Adams lured Washington back into government to create a professional military. In turn, Washington insisted that his old aide-de-camp Hamilton be made second-in-command and given the prime day-to-day responsibilities.
But Hamilton's work establishing an effective military only fed the paranoia of the Jeffersonians about how Hamilton might deploy the Army, possibly fulfilling Patrick Henry's prophesy that the federal government would overturn slavery. The Federalists also made major mistakes including enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were aimed at maintaining American neutrality and silencing some of the most belligerent voices, particularly the Jeffersonians who favored siding with France in a European war.
Though Jefferson had been elected Vice President under Adams -- by earning the second largest number of votes in 1796 -- he secretly conspired against the President's policies, devising the states' rights theories of "nullification" and even "secession" while encouraging his paid newspaper editors to savage Adams's character.
In the early years under the Constitution, Jefferson also drew his Virginian neighbor James Madison into the Jeffersonian camp. As he sought to make a political career amid his fellow slaveholding Virginians, Madison broke with his old allies, Washington and Hamilton.
Madison renounced many of his former pro-federalist positions, joining Jefferson in such unconstitutional theories as "nullification," the supposed right of a state to reject federal law -- the opposite position from where Madison had stood during the Constitutional Convention.
Federalist Crack-up
With Hamilton facing intense personal attacks and with Washington's death in 1799, Federalist unity began to crack. The curmudgeonly President Adams was estranged from Vice President Jefferson, but he also disliked Hamilton and disapproved of his modern theories about banking and industry.
In 1800, running with New Yorker Aaron Burr, Jefferson was able to snatch the presidency away from Adams -- although ironically Jefferson's winning margin was created by the Constitution's "Three-Fifths Clause," which allowed the South to count black slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation.
As the third U.S. President, the clever Jefferson solidified his myth as a simple republican, getting rid of a gilded carriage that Adams had bought, sometimes answering the door at the White House himself, and shuffling around in slippers.
On the supposed strict-constructionist principles of republicanism, however, Jefferson behaved more like an imperial president. Though he had disparaged Hamilton's efforts to build a professional military, Jefferson dispatched Navy ships to attack the Barbary pirates without first seeking congressional approval.
Jefferson's supposed commitment to a view of the Constitution as limited to the specific powers enumerated in Article One, Section Eight also was cast aside in 1803 when Napoleon offered to sell the Louisiana Territories to the United States. Though the Constitution had no provision for such a purchase, Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison suddenly found new merit in the Constitution's elastic "necessary and proper" clause.
Jefferson also encouraged selective persecution of troublesome newspaper editors and he dealt harshly with his political rivals. Even out of office, Hamilton remained a bà ªte noire to the Jeffersonians, the target of frequent personal attacks. In 1804, Vice President Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel and -- though Hamilton had declared he would not fire on Burr -- Burr took aim and killed Hamilton, who was only 49.
With Washington and Hamilton gone, the Federalists slid toward irrelevance, even as their earlier structuring of the U.S. government and its financial system kept the nation prosperous. Further marginalizing the Federalists, Jefferson continued to solidify his political movement, ensuring 24 consecutive years of Virginian control of the White House, with Jefferson followed by James Madison and James Monroe.
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