Washington's presidency

(goals, main events)

new national government

capital in NYC

first President

First Cabinet

• talented men appointed by Washington to head the executive departments
• met with Washington when he needed advice on a decision

Alexander Hamilton and his Views

• Federalist
• loose, broad construction of the Constitution
• pessimistic view of human nature
• favored birth, wealth, and status over talent and virtue for being the ruling aristocracy
• strong central gov't
• urban centered industrial economy
• modified capitalism: gov't aid to business, not regulation of business
• responsive to creditors
• pro-British
• voters: northeast merchants, manufacturers, financiers, creditors

Thomas Jefferson and his views

• Republican
• strict, narrow construction of the Constitution
• optimistic view of human nature
• favored talent and virtue over birth, wealth, and status for ruling aristocracy
• limited central gov't
• rural centered agrarian economy (farming)
• Laissez-faire(hands-off) capitalism: gov't neither aiding nor regulating business
• responsive to debtors
• pro-French
• voters: southern agrarians, northeastern workers, western pioneers, debtors

1. Be depository for federal funds
2. recieve tax funds paid by people collecting nation's money into 1 pool
3. loan money to gov't & businessmen aiding development of roads, bridges, factories, etc.
4. issue sound paper money, backed my hard coin deposits

Creation of Washington DC

(compromise)

• In order for the South to agree with laws which wanted them to contribute money that the North owed in debt from the war, the gov't had to move the capital more south as a compromise
• George Washington was asked to choose a site on the Potomac River for the new US capital
• He picked an area just 13 miles from Mt. Vernon because he used to love riding in those hills when he was young
• Jefferson agreed to oversee the project

Rise of political parties

Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans

• started with Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson
• they had very different views on almost everything thus creating different political parties

• WR- fronteir areas--> people refused to pay the tax on whiskey
• 1794, farmers in western PA rebelled
• closed courts & attacked tax collectors
• summer 1794, Washington assembled an army of 13,000 men commanded by General "Light Horse Harry" Lee
• federal gov't demonstrated its power & willingness to use force
• rebellion collapsed
• many people angered by Washington's tactics

George Washington claimed, and tried to keep,  neutrality between differences of opinions of potential political parties, but he really favored Federalist opinions

• Britain completely ignored our neurtality by raiding our ships and impressing our sailors into her service
• John Jay negotiated a treaty that got England to pay some ship damages including cargo that they seized
• also to withdraw from Northwest posts they had refused to vacate after the Revolutionary War
• US agreed to pay debts to GB
• Jay failed in the most important thing: cessation of British impressment of American Sailors!
• Washington drew criticism for this

Washington's Farewell Address

(2 main points)

• warned against the split into different political parties

John Adams' presidency

(goals, main events)

• barely won presidency over Thomas Jefferson
• the US was in danger of war with France because of Jay's Treaty
• sent representatives to France trying to avoid war
• the reps that were sent to France were met by French agents "X Y and Z"
• France and US attacked eachothers' ships
• congress increased taxes and size of military
• Alien and Sedition Acts

• in an undeclared naval war, France now bullied the US on the high seas
• US agents sent to negotiate a treaty with France were asked for a $250,000 bribe to do so by 3 French agents, whom the Americans called "X, Y, and Z"
• Hamilton and other anti-French Federalists demanded war at this insult

Alien and Sedition Acts

• limiting rights of aliens and prohibiting the right to criticize the government (sedition) soured people on the Federalists

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

(principle of nullification)

• written anonymously by Madison and Jefferson, were unsuccessful in urging these states to rule the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional

Election of 1800

• John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson
• Federalists attacked TJ as an infidel claiming that Jefferson's intoxication with the religious and political extremism of the French Revolution disqualified him from public office
• Jefferson won popular vote but not majority of electoral vote
• House of Reps. had to decide the election
• Republicans won most of the seats in Congress, but had not yet taken office
• Jefferson elected on 36th ballot
• Constitution was amended after the election to change voting procedure of the Electoral College (12th Amendment)
• showed that power could be transferred peacefully
• jefferson believed it was better to risk too much liberty than to suffer from too much gov't

Jefferson's presidency

(goals, main events)

• goal was to reduce the size and power of the national gov't
• reduced taxes, cut the size of the fed. bureaucracy
• cut army from 12,000 to 3,000
• let BUS continue to function until its charter expired in 1811
• biggest rivals were Hamilton and Burr

right before Adams' term ended as president, he appointed enough Supreme Court Judges to fill it up so that Jefferson could not change them when he came into office

jefferson got the delivery person to delay the delivery of their forms by a few days until Jefferson was president and could take them away for good.

• before leaving office Adams appointed William Marbury as justice of the peace for the District of Columbia
• Secretary of State James Madison, under orders from Jefferson, never delivered the official papers giving Marbury his authority
• Marbury sued under the Judiciary Act of 1789, asking the Supreme Court to order Madison to let him take office
• Court ruled against Marbury saying it was against the Constitution for the Supreme Court to give this order to the executive branch
• established principle of Judicial Review

• Land Act of 1800
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787 a process by which territories could become states
• Jefferson wanted to speed settlement and development of the west
• Land Act of 1800 allowed people to buy land in small parcels and borrow money from the gov't
• Jefferson sent James Monroe over to Paris to buy New Orleans
• he was authorized to pay $10 million
• Napoleon would not sell just New Orleans but offered to sell all of the French Territory on the North American continent (Louisiana) for $15 million
• Monroe just made the deal

Lewis and Clark Expedition

(when, where, why/goals, main events)

• Jefferson wanted an expedition to explore and map new territory
• chose his private secretary Meriwether Lewis to lead expedition
• Lewis chose William Clark to assist him
• exedition began spring 1804
• goals were to search for river routes to the Pacific, make contact with Native Americans, and gather information about the region's natural resources
• to help guide them and interpret, the hired a French-Canadian fur trader & his Indian wife Sacajawea
• reached Pacific Ocean late 1805
• returned September 1806

• Sacagawea was the Indian wife of the French-Canadian fur trader who went along on the trip
• she was pregnant when the started, and had her baby early on in the trip
• York was Clark's slave who also went along on this trip
• this was the first time in American history that a slave and a woman were able to have equal votes on matters in what they were doing.
• Although York was treated like an equal on the trip, when they got back home, Clark did not release him until he was on his deathbed, and those were his dying wishes

• during the war between France and Britain, American ships were trading with both countries
• Britain still felt that all American ships should belong to them, so they attacked the ships and took the sailors from them and made them fight for the British army against the French.
• Jefferson passed the Embargo Act of 1807 which outlawed almost all trade with foreign countries
• many Americans ignored the Act
• Jefferson used the navy and federal agents to enforce the Act because it was just for the safety of the American sailors

War of 1812

(causes)

• impressment of American sailors
• resented British help of NAs resisting expansion of the US

congressmen who favored war with Britain

Henry Clay, John Calhoun, etc.

General Andrew Jackson

(battle of Horseshoe Bend, battle of New Orleans)

March 1814, General Andrew Jackson led American victory over Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in AL

Horseshoe Bend ended NA resistance

Treaty was signed ending the war, but the news did not get back to America for a while

Battle of New Orleans (bloodiest battle of the war) was just beginning

British force of 11,000 attacked New Orleans

city defended by about 4,500 soldiers and volunteers led by Andrew Jackson

British attacked Jan 8

British suffer 2036 casualties

Americans only suffer 21 casualties

Andrew Jackson= "Old Hickory"

Treaty of Ghent

signed by US and GB in Belgium to end the War of 1812

news of the Treaty/end of the war did not get back to the US until after the bloodiest battle was fought(New Orleans)

Era of Good Feelings

describes the reign of Republicans as the single party in a unified nation

the Federalists Party died in 1815

no need for parties now, the Republicans represent the whole country

Sectionalism vs. Nationalism

(writing part)

• national government strengthened: Tariff of 1816, BUS, Military Expansion
• an American dictionary was created by Noah Webster, and Americans had their own ways of spelling certain things different from Britain giving America a sense of nationalism
• the North and South had different opinions on certain ideas such as slavery and tariffs and means of transportation and ways to spend the government's money
• that created more of a sense of sectionalism
• there was the North, the South, and the West(frontier)

• he created the cotton gin in order to help the slaves and create less work for them to do
• it did make work easier for slaves, but since the cotton gin made work faster, it made farmers feel the need to have more slaves, so it acutally increased the number of slaves in the south instead of decreasing them

American System/tariffs

(Tariff of 1816)

McCulloch vs. Maryland Supreme Court decision

(1819)

State banks pressured the Maryland legislature to pass a law taxing all banks not chartered by the state

Baltimore branch of the BUS refused to pay the tax, calling the law unconstitutional

State of Maryland sued James McCulloch, the bank's cashier for collection of the tax

1819, chief justice John Marshall heard the case on appeal

John Marshall said the BUS was constitutional based on the Constitution

Daniel Webster argued that no state can tax a federal institution

Marshall agreed with Webster and said the Maryland Law was unconstitutional

Gibbons vs. Ogden Supreme Court decision

(1824)

steamboat was created by Roberty Fulton

Fulton and Livingston created a corporation and obtained from the NY legislaturee a monopoly for operating steamboats on NY waters including Hudson River

Aaron Ogden bought an interest in the corporation and became a successor to the steamboat monopoly

Thomas Gibbons obtained a federal license to run a steamboat service in the same area as Ogden

both Ogden and Gibbons claimed rights to a steamboat service on the Hudson River

1824 Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gibbons invalidating Ogden's New York state monopoly

• when missouri was created there was a dispute over whether or not it should be a slave state
• they made a line that extended west saying that anything south of the line was slave holding and anything north of the line could not hold slaves

set up to keep Europe out of western affairs

• not happy about the Indian Removal Act

President Andrew Jackson 

("King Jackson" --> expanded his executive power)

Expansion of demoocracy

(more voters --> no property qualifications)

right before Jackson's election

• Jackson hired his friends into high executive offices
•  people were not hired based on brains and experience, they were smart, but they were also just hired because they were friends with Jackson

Democratic Party

(who supported it and why)

Tariff of Abominations (Calhoun --> states' rights and South Carolina)

• means to declare a law unconstitutional
• SC nullified the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and threatened to secede from the union if challenged
• congress quickly passed the Force Bill, authorizing military action to enforce the tariff
• Jackson threatened to lead the army against SC and hang Calhoun
• SC avoided civil war by accepting the 1833 Compromise Tariff but turned right around and nullified the Force Bill

Transcendentalism

(Emerson, Thoreau, etc)

American Anti-Slavery Society

Lewis and Clark

Manifest Destiny- John O' Sullivan

(editor who came up with the term)

Texas Revolution or Texas War of independence

(1835-1836)

Texas Republic

James K. Polk and expansionist platform

(TX, SW, and OR --> 54 40 or fight!)

Mexican War

(1846-1848)

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) --> Mexican Cession

Mountain Men

Christian missionaries

Pioneers

(role and experience of women)

• encouraged Indian resistance to white expansion
• refused to participate in negotiations that led to Treaty of Greenville
• tried to organize different Indian tribes into a united force
• fought with British in the War of 1812
• killed at the Battle of Thames in Canada in October 1813