Ex Post Facto

We historians usually avoid using the first person “I” or “we” in our formal writing. We do so for the very good reason that the first person pronoun so often distracts the reader (and the writer) from the historical issues at hand.

More specifically:

None of this is to say that you should never use the first person in a historical essay. Historians do routinely use the first person in prefaces and introductions when they are discussing why and how they did their research. Furthermore, historians do sometimes need to write about personal experiences. The first person should be reserved for such special occasions, rather than interjected into analyses of the far removed past.

Reading: Harry Watson, Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America, 1-55.

In the opening sections of this book, Harry Watson (with whom I had the pleasure of studying at UNC-Chapel Hill) provides a sweeping panorama of the economic and political changes that transformed the young U.S. after 1800. Although he focuses attention on the early careers of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, he does not neglect to explore how the changes during this period were affecting ordinary Americans. In fact, he shows how Jackson and Clay gained political influence precisely because of the political democratization — for white men only — and economic development that were reshaping everyday life.

Jackson and Clay had much in common, as Watson shows, including their self-conception as Jeffersonian Republicans during their early political careers. Nevertheless, the two men developed a profound dislike for and suspicion of one another. Their primary disagreements, in terms of political policy, centered on the appropriate role of the federal government in promoting economic development. The most polarizing issue, of course, revolved around the Second Bank of the United States, which Jackson eventually helped destroy. Although Jackson deplored the BUS, it’s important to note that he did not oppose capitalism per se. The political debates of the day were a bit more subtle and complex than that.

Watson will cover the disputes between Jackson and Clay in more detail later. For the moment, then, the most salient questions deal with the broader historical context:

1. What were the main features of the Market Revolution?
2. What kinds of positive and negative impacts did the Market Revolution have on Americans. (Consider, separately, white men, white women, enslaved African Americans, and American Indians.)
3. How did American politics change after 1800? How might those changes have been connected with the Market Revolution?
4. How did Jackson and Clay, respectively, rise to prominence?

Reading: Cunningham, Jefferson vs. Hamilton, 77-82, 86 (bottom)-103 (top), 110-18, 136 (bottom)-42, 169-71; & “Sedition Act.”

The evolving dispute between Jefferson and Hamilton in the early 1790s helped give rise to a two-party struggle that was unforeseen by the framers of the Constitution. By 1792, Jefferson and Hamilton had become very suspicious and resentful of one another, and President Washington was left to try to steer a course between these two forceful members of his cabinet. As Cunningham points out, Jefferson and Hamilton agreed that Washington needed to seek re-election in 1792. Both men feared — though for different reasons — that the infant nation was poised on the edge of a knife. In large part (but not exclusively) because of the French Revolution, the remainder of the decade was fraught with political uncertainty and conflict.

To understand the anxieties of Jefferson and Hamilton, one needs some context about the international relations of the time. The U.S. had made a treaty with France during the War for Independence. Starting in 1789, France underwent a republican revolution of its own, but the revolution had a much greater destabilizing effect than had the American Revolution. In 1793, in fact, the radical French government executed King Louis XVI, and instituted a “reign of terror,” during which thousands of aristocrats and opponents to the revolution were executed. Soon, revolutionary France was at war against Great Britain, a major commercial partner of the U.S. This European conflict put the U.S. in a difficult situation. The radical turn of the French Revolution thus ignited fears of war and disorder among many Americans.

Disorder did seem to be emerging. In 1794 George Washington himself, accompanied by Hamilton, rode at the head of an army determined to quell the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. Farmers in that region had taken violent action to prevent the enforcement of the tax on whiskey, which Hamilton had implemented in part as a demonstration of federal power. Rebels tarred and feathered tax collectors (and tax payers) and assembled a substantial militia. In the face of Washington’s militia of 13,000 men, however, this rebellion melted away — there was no battle.

The Whiskey Rebellion emerged, at least partially, out of the “Democratic Republican Society” movement. Washington condemned these “self-created societies,” which had been inspired by the French Revolution. Nevertheless, similar societies helped form the grassroots of the emerging Republican Party led up by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

By 1798, the Federalist-dominated Congress was sufficiently concerned about disorder that it took a number of reactionary steps. As Cunningham mentioned, Washington came out of retirement for a third time in order to lead the army in the event of a French invasion. Congress also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were intended to protect the U.S. against internal enemies, including both radical immigrants and disloyal citizens. In practice, the Sedition Act was used to silence Republican critics of Federalist policies. Newspaper editors and even a member of Congress (Matthew Lyon) were tried, convicted, and imprisoned for sedition. Republicans became increasingly concerned about the protection of the Constitution (and civil liberties), and they managed to win rather handily in the electoral college in the election of 1800 (despite the subsequent deadlock in the House of Representatives due to the fact that Jefferson and Aaron Burr, both Republicans, tied in the electoral college).

Within this larger context, the following questions seem especially important:

1. What major concerns did Jefferson reveal to Washington in his May 23, 1792 letter to the president?
2. What fears and worries did Hamilton likewise share with Edward Carrington in his letter of May 26, 1792? Was Hamilton aligned against republican government, as Jefferson suspected?
3. What major challenges or threats did the U.S. in fact face in 1792?
4. What was the Sedition Act, and how did Jefferson respond to it?
5. What key political principles did Jefferson articulate in his first Inaugural Address in March, 1801?

Note: My comments on the Whiskey Rebellion and the Democratic Republican Societies were informed in part by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800 (New York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), 461-85.

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1. Opening: Start by making it clear, somehow, what you are responding to. Are you responding to an idea or question in the original post? Make that clear. Or, are you responding to a comment left by another reader? If so, use the person’s name in your opening sentence.
2. Main Point: A solid comment often consists of a single paragraph. In most cases, you should use this paragraph to make a single main point, and you should state that point as clearly as you can. If you have multiple, separate points to make, it’s probably best to post more than one comment, simply to make it easier for others to respond.
3. Explanation and Evidence: After you have stated your point, you will probably need to explain it a bit. In many cases, you will need to give evidence to support your point. Why do you believe your position to be true? Feel free to include links to any evidence that exists online. (See the second comment below.)
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I have posted a sample comment below to illustrate the points that I’ve made here.

The first Congress began meeting in March of 1789 in New York City, and George Washington was inaugurated as the first president the following month. The new government (under the Constitution) was thus up and running, but many problems remained to be addressed. One of the most serious challenges involved the national debt and national finance — both of which had been poorly managed under the Articles of Confederation, due to the government’s inability to raise revenue. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, submitted a plan to Congress in January of 1790 to restore the good credit of the United States by honoring the entire debt, domestic and foreign, at face value. Furthermore, he desired that the federal government “assume” the war debts of the states. Hamilton’s proposal generated serious conflict, and the debate over the issue marked the beginning of the split between Hamilton and James Madison, who had worked together to see the Constitution ratified. Eventually, this rift would help give rise to the Federalist and Republican parties.

This seminal political debate raises several historical questions: