Focus Questions

Chapter Eight- The Early Republic, 1796-1804

1. How did diplomatic affairs in Europe affect Americans in the closing years of the
eighteenth century? The French played a complicated diplomatic game, ending
with the XYZ affair. The XYZ affair was the event that later on the home front
sparked the Quasi-War. Neither side issued a formal declaration of war.

2. How did the Federalists manipulate the Crisis of 1798 for their own political
advantage? What steps did Republicans take to counter Federalist
manipulations? Federalists passed the Sedition Act. The Sedition Act outlawed
conspiracies to block the enforcement of federal laws as well as prohibiting the
publication or utterance of any criticism of the government or officials that would
bring either “into contempt or disrepute.” Republicans complained that the Alien
and Sedition Acts violated the Bill of Rights. Madison and Jefferson based their
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions on the Tenth Amendment.

3. What did Thomas Jefferson mean by his statement “Every difference of opinion is
not a difference of principles”? As federalist Fisher Ames came to understand
Jefferson’s statement, “a party is an association of honest men for honest
purposes, and when the State falls into bad hands, it is the only efficient defense;
a champion who never flinches, a watchman who never sleeps.”

4. How did the Federalists respond to losing the election of 1800? What does this
response reveal about their political attitudes? The Federalists where not just
about to leave office without setting up some kind of defenses for the political and
economic machinery they had constructed. During the last few days in office
federalists pass the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created 16 new federal
judgeships, 6 additional circuit courts, and a massive structure of federal Marshals
and clerks.

5. How did Jefferson’s vision for America differ from that of Hamilton and the
Federalists? Jefferson had a strong, positive view for the nation, and the party
made every effort to put his policies into effect. He embraced a specific notion of
proper political, economic, and social behavior. The greatest dangers to a
republic, he believed, were high population density and the social evils it
generated and the concentration of money and power in the hands of a few.
Hamilton and the federalists had a vision of America that endorsed large-scale,
publically supported industry.
6. How did Republicans deal with the defenses that Federalists put in place in
1801? What successes did they have? Republicans choose to wage an equally
aggressive partisan war to reverse Federalist control of the justice system. In
January 1802, republicans in Congress proposed the repeal of the 1801 judiciary
act, arguing that the new circuits were outrageously expensive and unnecessary.
Congress replaced the Judiciary Act of 1801 with the Judiciary Act of 1802, and
awaited the response of the Federalists courts.

7. What policies did Jefferson pursue to carry out his vision for the country? What
obstacles did he encounter? Obstacles that Jefferson encountered came in various
forms; pirates who patrolled the northern coast of Africa from Tangier to Tripoli,
controlling access to the Mediterranean Sea. Jefferson decided that it was high
time that America stopped paying bribes to the pirates and executed his
presidential privilege of as commander in chief to launch war on the pirates. He
dispatched navy ships to the Mediterranean in 1801. This ended up with the
pirates capturing the navy warship and the entire crew. The war was largely
unsuccessful and finally the U.S negotiated peace terms, agreeing to pay $60,000
to the pirates in return for the release of the hostages and accepting the pirates’
promise to stop raiding American shipping.

8. How did the life of the average American change during Jefferson’s presidency?
A baby boom had followed the Revolution, and as new territories opened in the
West, young people streamed into the region at a rate that alarmed many. During
the 18th century, older people maintained authority by controlling the distribution
of land to their children. With only so much worthwhile land to go around, sons
and daughters lived with and worked for their parents until their elders saw fit to
deed property over to them. As a result, children living in the East generally did
not become independent- that is, they did not become church members, marry, or
operate their own farms or businesses- until they were in their thirties.

9. What place did Native Americans and African Americans have in the America
Jefferson envisioned? How did each of these groups respond to these roles?
Neither Native Americans nor African Americans had much of a role in
Jefferson’s republic, and each group was subject to different forms of unequal
treatment during the Jefferson era. A slaveholder himself Jefferson expressed
strong views about African Americans. In his Notes on the State of Virginia
(1781) Jefferson asserted that blacks were “inferior to whites in the endowments
both of body and mind.” Some African Americas began to respond to systematic
exclusion and to express their cultural and social identity by forming their own
institutions.
Terms to Know:

Election of 1796
Federalists v. Republicans
John Adams
XYZ Affair
Undeclared Naval War with France
Alien Act
Naturalization Act
Sedition Act
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
Napoleon Bonaparte
Election (or Revolution) of 1800
“Midnight Oil” Judiciary appointments
Twelfth Amendment
Marbury v. Madison
Albert Gallatin
Barbary pirates
Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture and Haiti
Louisiana Purchase
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Zebulon Pike
Election of 1804
Unitarianism and Rationalism
Evangelical churches
African Methodist Episcopal Church
Benjamin Banneker