Lecture: The New Republic
Lecture script · about 15–20 minutes spoken · Week 7
Opening
Think about a journalism student deciding what a paper may print about a mayor, or a future teacher in a town split into two camps. Each of them faces the same hard question. How do people who disagree sharply still share one government? That's the question at the center of this lecture.
In Week 1 you learned the four moves for reading any source: sourcing, contextualization, close reading, and corroboration. In Weeks 2 through 5 you followed the colonies, the making of slavery in law, and the break with Britain. In Week 6 you watched the country write the Constitution in 1787 and ratify the Bill of Rights in 1791. In this lecture I'll take that new frame of government and watch it meet its first real quarrels.
Here's the story in one line. In 1796 George Washington warned the country against parties. By 1801 one party had handed the presidency to the other. We'll read the two documents at either end, one short passage at a time. Next, in Week 8, the Midterm Review gathers Weeks 1 through 7 together.
1. Debts and a bank: Hamilton's financial program
Picture a farmer and a merchant in the same county. The merchant borrows to ship flour to distant ports, so he wants a bank that lends and issues notes he can trust. The farmer grows his own food and owes little. He worries that a bank in a far-off city will serve rich men in trade, not him.
That argument was real. Hamilton's financial program was Alexander Hamilton's plan, as the first Secretary of the Treasury, to put the government's finances on firm ground through assumption of state debts and a national bank. Assumption means the federal government's taking over of the war debts the separate states owed, so that the nation as a whole paid them. Hamilton urged it in his Report on Public Credit of 1790. A national bank is a bank chartered by the federal government to hold its funds, move tax money, and lend to it. Congress passed the bank bill, and Washington signed it in 1791.
Then came the bank debate, the argument of 1791 over whether the Constitution allowed Congress to charter a national bank. Jefferson and the Attorney General said no. Hamilton said yes, because the Constitution carries implied powers, powers the government may use because they help carry out a power the Constitution names. Jefferson's reading is strict construction: reading the Constitution to allow only the powers its text names. Hamilton's is loose construction: reading the Constitution to allow implied powers that support the powers it names.
Pause and try this. Someone argues that Congress may charter a bank because a bank helps it borrow money and collect taxes. Which reading of the Constitution is that?
Think about what the text names and what it doesn't.
Here's the answer. That's loose construction, because it relies on a power the text implies rather than one it names.
Washington signed the bill, so in 1791 the loose reading won.
2. Two camps form: the first party system
Think about a student government that starts as one friendly council. After a fight over the budget, members start sitting on two sides of the room. Nobody voted to create parties. The split grew out of real disagreements.
That's the first party system: the rivalry of the 1790s between the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republicans. The Federalist Party was the party of the 1790s led by Hamilton and Adams, favoring a strong national government, a national bank, and closer ties with Britain. The Democratic-Republicans were the party of the 1790s led by Jefferson and Madison, favoring strict construction, farming interests, and sympathy with France.
Now here's the trap I want you to see coming. In Week 6, Federalists meant the people who backed the Constitution in 1787 and 1788. That's a different group. The best proof is one man. James Madison wrote The Federalist No. 10 in 1787 to win ratification. In the 1790s he helped lead the Democratic-Republicans against Hamilton's Federalist Party. From that essay to the Farewell Address is 9 years.
Pause and try this. A classmate says Madison was a Federalist all his life because he wrote The Federalist No. 10. What's the slip?
Attach a year to the word Federalist.
Here's the answer. In 1787 Madison was a Federalist in the ratification sense, but in the 1790s he opposed the Federalist Party.
The shared word hides two groups, so always ask which year you mean.
3. A neutral course, and a war in the Ohio country
Picture a small shop between two big stores that are feuding. Each store wants the shop on its side. The owner needs customers from both, so picking a side could ruin the shop.
That was the new republic's place in the world after Britain and France went to war in 1793. Washington chose neutrality, a nation's policy of taking neither side in a war between other nations. Jay's Treaty was the treaty with Britain, signed in 1794 and approved in 1795, that kept the peace but was deeply unpopular.
There was a second border problem, closer to home, and I don't want you to skip it. In the Ohio country, an alliance of Native nations defeated two United States armies before the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Then came the Treaty of Greenville, the treaty of 1795 in which 12 Native nations of the Ohio country ceded land east and south of a boundary line. The treaty names them, among them the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, and Miamis in its own spellings. The National Park Service calls the result the dispossession of Native nations. These nations still exist as nations.
In Week 6 you read the Northwest Ordinance, which promised good faith and said Native lands would not be taken without consent. Set the two documents side by side.
Pause and try this. A treaty records that a nation ceded its land after losing a war. Is that strong evidence that the nation freely chose to give it up?
Think about when the treaty was signed.
Here's the answer. No, because a treaty signed after a military defeat shows what was signed, not whether the nation chose freely.
4. A published warning: the Farewell Address
Think about a coach who retires and posts a long open letter to her team. She isn't speaking at a banquet. She's writing for anyone who will read, and you'd read it differently from a speech.
The Farewell Address is Washington's public letter of 1796, printed in newspapers, warning against the spirit of party and permanent alliances. It's a published address: a public letter printed in newspapers rather than spoken to an audience. Washington never delivered it as a speech. Founders Online keeps the text, headed "United States 19th September 1796". Its editors note that it was first printed in Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser for 19 September 1796, where it carried a date of 17 September. Mount Vernon's encyclopedia adds that Madison drafted an earlier version in 1792 and Hamilton rewrote it. So the course keys the year, 1796, and names which day it means.
Here are the two passages the course quotes. Washington wrote that he would "warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally." And he called it "our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world". The spirit of party is Washington's name for putting loyalty to a party above the good of the whole nation.
Now read for what's missing. The address never mentions slavery or the enslaved people in Washington's own household. That same year, Ona Judge, an enslaved woman, escaped from the President's House in Philadelphia.
Pause and try this. A video calls the Farewell Address a speech Washington gave to a crowd. What does the record say instead?
Ask how the document reached its readers.
Here's the answer. It was a published address, a public letter printed in newspapers, so Washington never delivered it aloud.
The reading in one plain sentence: it shows Washington's advice, not proof that Americans followed it.
5. Laws against critics: the Alien and Sedition Acts
Picture a printer holding a letter that calls the President a danger to the country. Printing it would sell papers. It might also land the printer in court.
That choice came out of a crisis with France. In the XYZ Affair, the scandal of 1797 and 1798, French go-betweens asked American envoys for a loan and a bribe. Anger at France led to the Quasi-War, the undeclared naval war between the United States and France that followed the XYZ Affair.
In 1798 a Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, four laws of 1798 that tightened rules on non-citizens and made it a crime to publish false, scandalous, and malicious writing about the government. The National Archives reports that the only journalists prosecuted under the Sedition Act were editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers. The legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky protested in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
Pause and try this. Every editor prosecuted under the Sedition Act worked for a Democratic-Republican paper. Does that pattern prove what every Federalist intended?
Think about the difference between a pattern and a cause.
Here's the answer. No, the pattern shows how the law was used, but it doesn't by itself prove every Federalist's intent.
6. A change of parties: Jefferson's First Inaugural
Think about a team captain who has won a bitter vote. The first thing he says to the whole team decides whether the losing side stays.
In the election of 1800, power passed from the Federalist Adams to the Democratic-Republican Jefferson, the first such transfer under the Constitution. Jefferson then gave an inaugural address, the speech a President delivers on taking office. His is dated 1801, and he delivered it in the Senate Chamber after he took the oath. Founders Online prints it as version III, the label it gives to the newspaper text of Jefferson's First Inaugural Address.
Here's the line the course quotes: "We are all republicans: we are all federalists." Notice the small letters. In this version the names aren't capitalized, so Jefferson may be naming shared principles, not only two parties. Later in the address, among the principles he lists, comes the second passage: "entangling alliances with none".
Pause and try this. Jefferson tells both parties they share the same principles. Is his speech good evidence of what the losing party felt?
Think about who is speaking and why.
Here's the answer. No, it's good evidence of the winner's public aims, but weak evidence of how the losers felt.
7. Whose words? "entangling alliances"
Picture a hallway poster with a famous line and the wrong name under it. People walk past it every day, and the wrong name spreads because it sounds right.
That's what happened here. "entangling alliances with none" is Jefferson's phrase from his First Inaugural Address of 1801. It isn't Washington's. Washington's address of 1796 advised steering clear of permanent alliances. The two ideas agree in spirit, so the mix-up is easy. But the words belong to different men in different years. Two passages come from Washington's address and two from Jefferson's, four in all. The fix is corroboration: check each passage at its host, Founders Online, before you trust it.
Pause and try this. Which document says "entangling alliances with none", and in what year?
Picture the two documents in their years.
Here's the answer. Jefferson's First Inaugural Address of 1801 says it, not Washington's Farewell Address of 1796.
8. Putting the years in order
Picture four folders on a shelf, each with a year on its spine. Before you open one, you put them in order.
Here are the week's four years. First 1787, the Constitution signed. Then 1791, the Bill of Rights ratified. Then 1796, Washington's Farewell Address. Then 1801, Jefferson's First Inaugural Address. The gaps are 4 years, then 5, then 5. Add them and you get 14, the span from 1787 to 1801.
Pause and try this. How many years separate Washington's Farewell Address from Jefferson's First Inaugural Address?
Count from 1796 to 1801.
Here's the answer. It's 5 years, since 1801 minus 1796 is 5, which puts Washington's warning first.
Closing
Let me pull it together. Hamilton's program had the nation assume state debts and charter a bank, and the bank debate set strict construction against loose. Two parties formed, and the Federalist Party is not the Federalists of 1788. Washington stayed neutral, and the Treaty of Greenville recorded 12 Native nations' cession of their land. The Farewell Address was a published letter that warned against party and said nothing about slavery. The Alien and Sedition Acts fell on one party's printers. Jefferson's First Inaugural spoke to both parties, and "entangling alliances with none" is his phrase, not Washington's.
Next in this module come the slide deck, the Readings and Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz. Then Week 8, the Midterm Review, brings Weeks 1 through 7 together and adds the first federal census.
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