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Thomas Jefferson
PRESIDENTIAL SERIES
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THOMAS JEFFERSON: THE ART OF POWER - GLOSSARY ~ (SPOILER THREAD)
Modern Significance of the XYZ Affair or Quasi-War.The Quasi War has taken on a significant role in modern debates over the distribution of war powers between the Executive and Legislative branches in the US. According to historian Thomas Woods:
Supporters of a broad executive war power have sometimes appealed to the Quasi War with France, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, as an example of unilateral warmaking on the part of the president. Francis Wormuth, an authority on war powers and the Constitution, describes that contention as "altogether false." John Adams "took absolutely no independent action. Congress passed a series of acts that amounted, so the Supreme Court said, to a declaration of imperfect war; and Adams complied with these statutes."
Consider an interesting and revealing incident that occurred during the Quasi War. Congress authorized the president to seize vessels sailing to French ports. But President Adams, acting on his own authority and without the sanction of Congress, instructed American ships to capture vessels sailing either to or from French ports. Captain George Little, acting under the authority of Adams' order, seized a Danish ship sailing from a French port. When Little was sued for damages, the case made its way to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Captain Little could indeed be sued for damages in the case. "In short," writes Louis Fisher in summary, "congressional policy announced in a statute necessarily prevails over inconsistent presidential orders and military actions. Presidential orders, even those issued as Commander in Chief, are subject to restrictions imposed by Congress."
(Source: Wikipedia)
Thanks, Jill. Very interesting aspect. I think we see more of an imbalance on the war powers checks and balances in the last 50 years.
Marc wrote: "I highly recommend the two Chernow books! I really learned a lot about the Revolutionary war and the struggles to make America viable, especially in the early years where there really was no model..."I have both of these as eBooks and am looking forward to reading them as well. I just completed
by
Henry Wiencekand found it very enlightening concerning the additional info that was overlooked or swept under the rug by most of those who have written about TJ.
Tomerobber, I'd recommend reading Washington first, lots of good stuff there, then the Hamilton book. It kinda makes sense, since Washington was older and was either present or interacted with many of the other founders ahead of Hamilton.
Jefferson's Inaugural Address:Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye -- when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter -- with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.
Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/spe...)
Meriwether Lewis:
The official leader of the epic Lewis and Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis has been called "undoubtedly the greatest pathfinder this country has ever known." Lewis was born to a Virginia planter family in 1774. His father, who had been an officer in the American Revolution, died when Lewis was five years old, and for a brief time he lived in Georgia when his mother moved there with her second husband.
After briefly assuming the management of his family's Virginia plantation, Lewis joined the state militia in 1794 to help put down the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. He continued his military career as an officer in the regular army, serving on the frontier in Ohio and Tennessee, and rising to the rank of captain by 1801, when he accepted an invitation from President Thomas Jefferson, an old family friend, to serve as his private secretary.
Jefferson seems to have selected Lewis for this post with a view to placing him in charge of an already-contemplated transcontinental expedition. When Jefferson had proposed such an expedition in 1792, Lewis had been among the first volunteers, although his youth and inexperience disqualified him at the time. Now, with his frontier experience, Lewis made a perfect candidate in Jefferson's eyes, and the President soon set out a course of study that would equip him with the scientific skills needed for his journey. Between 1801 and the appropriation of funds for the expedition in 1803, Lewis studied with members of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and gathered information about his proposed route.
To accompany him as co-leader of the expedition, Lewis selected William Clark, a fellow Virginian with whom he had served on the frontier in 1795. After Clark had spent several months studying astronomy and map-making, they set out by keelboat in 1803 to Wood River, Illinois, at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The next spring, they began their journey up the Missouri River and by October had reached the Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota, where they decided to stay for the winter.
Their sojourn with the Mandan quickly made it clear just how much Lewis and Clark would need to rely upon the goodwill of Indian peoples for their success. The Mandans gave them food, military protection, and valuable information about the path ahead. Their most valuable help came in the form of Touissant Charbonneau, a French Canadian whom they hired as an interpreter, and his Shoshone wife Sacagawea, who provided help as a guide and interpreter. Her very presence helped insure good relations with Indian peoples, as Clark noted in his journal: "We find [that she] reconciles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions -- a woman with a party of men is a token of peace."
In April of 1805 all thirty-three members of the expedition left the Mandan village and started up the Missouri again. They reached the upward limit of the river's navigable stretch four months later. A band of Shoshone led by Sacagawea's brother provided invaluable assistance, primarily horses, as the expedition began to ascend the Rocky Mountains. By late September, they had crossed the Bitterroot Mountains, cold, wet, hungry and exhausted, and were taken in by the Nez Percé. They travelled down the Columbia River basin and reached the Pacific Ocean in November. Their spirits buoyed by success, they stayed the winter on the Pacific Coast and returned to the United States in 1806 over substantially the same route that had brought them West.
The Lewis and Clark expedition was as widely hailed upon its return as it is remembered in our own time, and as its official leader, Meriwether Lewis reaped the benefits of this acclaim. Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory, a post he assumed in 1808. During his brief time in this office, however, Lewis proved himself a poor administrator. He quarreled with the territorial secretary and local leaders, and failed to keep his superiors in Washington informed of his policies and plans.
In September 1809 Lewis set out for the nation's capital to answer complaints about his actions as governor, and on this trip died a violent but mysterious death in a tavern about 70 miles southwest of Nashville, Tennessee. Whether he committed suicide, as Jefferson believed, or was murdered, as his family maintained, remains uncertain even today.
(Source: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/peopl...)
More:
http://www.monticello.org/site/jeffer...
http://www.monticello.org/site/resear...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriweth...
Henry Dearborn:
Henry Dearborn was born in North Hampton, New Hampshire, on February 23, 1751. Dearborn committed much of his early adulthood to armed service, beginning in 1775 as a captain with the New Hampshire Minutemen at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He went on to serve in the U.S. Army with much distinction from 1776 to 1789. A major by 1777, Dearborn joined General George Washington's personal staff as a colonel in 1781.
Following his transfer in 1784 to Maine, then still a district of Massachusetts, Dearborn became a brigadier general of the Maine militia in 1787. In 1789, he gained the rank of major general and earned an appointment as U.S. marshal for the district of Maine.
Dearborn went on to begin a political career in 1793, serving in Congress until 1797 as a representative from Massachusetts. Four years later, Dearborn became secretary of war by appointment of President Thomas Jefferson, serving in Jefferson's cabinet from 1801 to 1809. He became collector of the port of Boston for three years during James Madison's first presidential term (1809-1812), but he left that post to rejoin the U.S. Army as a senior major general during the War of 1812 (1812-1813).
Dearborn left the Army at war's end and did not return to national service until 1822, when he accepted a position as U.S. minister to Portugal (1822-1824). Retiring upon his return home, Dearborn died in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on June 6, 1829.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/jef...)
More:
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_De...
Levi Lincoln:
Levi Lincoln was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1749, and graduated from Harvard University in 1772. He built a distinguished political career over many years of state and federal service, performing the duties of judge, legislator, and attorney general.
Following a brief stint as a minuteman in the Revolutionary Army (1776-1777), Lincoln held various legal titles in Massachusetts from 1777 to 1781, such as clerk of the court, judge of probate, and county prosecutor in Worcester County.
He was also a member of the committee of public safety, and in 1779 he became a delegate to the state constitutional convention. In 1781, Lincoln resumed his legal practice that the Revolutionary War had interrupted, only to reenter public service as a Massachusetts state representative (1796) and senator (1797-1798).
He entered the United States Congress as a representative in 1800, and in 1801, President Thomas Jefferson appointed him attorney general. Lincoln served in that post until 1805 and also functioned as interim secretary of state for two months in 1801. Upon returning to Massachusetts, Lincoln served on the Governor's Council (1806 and 1810-1812), as lieutenant governor (1807-1808) and as governor (1808-1809). He retired in 1812 and died in Worcester, Massachusetts, on April 14, 1820.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/jef...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Lin....
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
Robert Smith:
Robert Smith was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on November 3, 1757, and graduated from Princeton University. He began his professional career as a private in the Continental Army, volunteering in 1781 and serving through the end of the Revolutionary War. Smith soon moved on to the field of law, and established a prominent admiralty practice in Baltimore, Maryland, between the years of 1783 and 1793.
In 1793, he won a seat in the Maryland State Senate and served until 1795. He continued in state politics, serving in the Maryland House of Delegates, and then spent three years as a member of the Baltimore City Council (1798-1801).
In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson chose Smith as secretary of the Navy to complete his first presidential cabinet. Jefferson's decision followed the recommendation of Smith's brother, Senator Samuel Smith, who had been Jefferson's first choice for the job.
Robert Smith served as secretary of the Navy until 1809, when James Madison replaced Jefferson as President of the United States. Upon Madison's arrival, Smith became the President's secretary of state.
Disagreements on policy, however, cultivated an intense enmity between the two men, eventually resulting in Smith's resignation in 1811. Smith retired from politics after his time in Madison's cabinet and died in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 26, 1842.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/jef...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S...
Very interesting information about Meriwether Lewis, Bryan. I didn't realize that Jefferson had anticipated an exploratory expedition so far in advance and that he had Lewis prepare for it academically.
Indeed, Ann. Lewis was taught by the best minds in the U.S. for this voyage. What a life story.The Journals are online:
http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/...
Dolly Madison:
Legend has a tendency to eclipse reality when it comes to Dolley Madison. Her decision to remain in the White House until she had secured the safety of George Washington's portrait, even as British troops bore down upon Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812, remains a staple of American mythology. Yet reality rivals legend when one considers the tenure of the "Lady Presidentress."
By the time Dolley Payne Todd Madison had attended her husband's inaugural in 1809, she had already served intermittently as presidential hostess during the Jefferson administration. Dolley Madison was thus aware of the perks, responsibilities, and the criticism inherent in the job and was the first presidential spouse to fully embrace the role. She enjoyed the first inaugural ball and appeared at numerous events both with and without her husband. She paid and received calls, held "dove parties" where congressional wives discussed current events, hosted political dinners, and gave wildly popular public receptions.
While Dolley Madison had accommodated herself to the informal style of entertaining required in the Jefferson White House, she reinstated some of the formality of earlier administrations when she became hostess in her own right. She replaced the smaller dinners preferred by Jefferson with larger events, holding "drawing rooms," a less formal version of the levees hosted by Martha Washington and Abigail Adams.
She was also the first to decorate the White House, a task often associated with the twentieth-century first ladyship of Jacqueline Kennedy. Nevertheless, it was Dolley Madison who assumed, under difficult circumstances, what traditionally had been a man's responsibility. Working within a tight budget, Dolley balanced the elegance required to impress international visitors and domestic political opponents, on the one hand, and the modesty reflective of a republican nation on the other. It was a challenge she accepted not only in decorating the presidential mansion, but in entertaining there well. Through her purchases of wallpaper, furniture, and china, and in the nature of the receptions she hostessed, Dolley Madison combined sophistication with simplicity.
Although she completed her decoration of the White House by 1810, throwing a gala to display her achievements to the American public, her hard work would be ravaged by war. She maintained some semblence of a social calendar, holding various events to boost public and troop morale. All entertaining came to an abrupt halt, however, when British troops threatened to invade Washington, D.C. Despite repeated urgings from the mayor, Dolley Madison refused to evacuate her home until the last minute. When she finally left the White House, she not only saved George Washington's portrait, but several government documents as well.
After the War of 1812, Dolley devoted her energies to improving the welfare of orphaned children in Washington, D.C. She assumed leadership of the cause, donated her time and money, and encouraged other women to follow her example. Many women did, not only in support of her cause, but in attending public events such as luncheons and orations, and in conversing with men at her receptions. They viewed her as a role model, adopting her fashions and asking her for advice.
Although a social icon, Dolley Madison was also interested in contemporary political issues. Her dove parties, while social in nature, had political overtones as she used them to gain information for her husband. When President Madison was disabled from sickness in May 1813, Dolley might well have assumed some of his official responsibilities, though there is little hard evidence to support such a claim.
The first presidential spouse to renovate the White House, Dolley Madison was revered as a hostess and fashion trendsetter. Likewise, her exploits during wartime carved out new responsibilities for presidential wives. Separately and collectively, each of these actions would help redefine the role and responsibilities expected of future First Ladies.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/mad...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolley_M...
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/madison/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/first...
http://www.firstladies.org/biographie...
Barbary Coast War:Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa.
Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding their crews for ransom provided the rulers of these nations with wealth and naval power. In fact, the Roman Catholic Religious Order of Mathurins had operated from France for centuries with the special mission of collecting and disbursing funds for the relief and ransom of prisoners of Mediterranean pirates.
Before the United States obtained its independence in the American Revolution, 1775-83, American merchant ships and sailors had been protected from the ravages of the North African pirates by the naval and diplomatic power of Great Britain. British naval power and the tribute or subsidies Britain paid to the piratical states protected American vessels and crews. During the Revolution, the ships of the United States were protected by the 1778 alliance with France, which required the French nation to protect "American vessels and effects against all violence, insults, attacks, or depredations, on the part of the said Princes and States of Barbary or their subjects."
After the United States won its independence in the treaty of 1783, it had to protect its own commerce against dangers such as the Barbary pirates. As early as 1784 Congress followed the tradition of the European shipping powers and appropriated $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, directing its ministers in Europe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to begin negotiations with them. Trouble began the next year, in July 1785, when Algerians captured two American ships and the dey of Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000.
Thomas Jefferson, United States minister to France, opposed the payment of tribute, as he later testified in words that have a particular resonance today. In his autobiography Jefferson wrote that in 1785 and 1786 he unsuccessfully "endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation." Jefferson argued that "The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace." Jefferson prepared a detailed plan for the interested states. "Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association," Jefferson remembered, but there were "apprehensions" that England and France would follow their own paths, "and so it fell through."
Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both." "From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money," Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, "it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them."
Jefferson's plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war. The United States's relations with the Barbary states continued to revolve around negotiations for ransom of American ships and sailors and the payment of annual tributes or gifts. Even though Secretary of State Jefferson declared to Thomas Barclay, American consul to Morocco, in a May 13, 1791, letter of instructions for a new treaty with Morocco that it is "lastly our determination to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form, and to any people whatever," the United States continued to negotiate for cash settlements. In 1795 alone the United States was forced to pay nearly a million dollars in cash, naval stores, and a frigate to ransom 115 sailors from the dey of Algiers. Annual gifts were settled by treaty on Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli.
When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: "To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."
The American show of force quickly awed Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. The humiliating loss of the frigate Philadelphia and the capture of her captain and crew in Tripoli in 1803, criticism from his political opponents, and even opposition within his own cabinet did not deter Jefferson from his chosen course during four years of war. The aggressive action of Commodore Edward Preble (1803-4) forced Morocco out of the fight and his five bombardments of Tripoli restored some order to the Mediterranean. However, it was not until 1805, when an American fleet under Commodore John Rogers and a land force raised by an American naval agent to the Barbary powers, Captain William Eaton, threatened to capture Tripoli and install the brother of Tripoli's pasha on the throne, that a treaty brought an end to the hostilities. Negotiated by Tobias Lear, former secretary to President Washington and now consul general in Algiers, the treaty of 1805 still required the United States to pay a ransom of $60,000 for each of the sailors held by the dey of Algiers, and so it went without Senatorial consent until April 1806. Nevertheless, Jefferson was able to report in his sixth annual message to Congress in December 1806 that in addition to the successful completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition, "The states on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present to respect our peace and friendship."
In fact, it was not until the second war with Algiers, in 1815, that naval victories by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur led to treaties ending all tribute payments by the United States. European nations continued annual payments until the 1830s. However, international piracy in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters declined during this time under pressure from the Euro-American nations, who no longer viewed pirate states as mere annoyances during peacetime and potential allies during war.
(Source: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collectio...)
More:
http://www.clements.umich.edu/exhibit...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Ba...
http://www.barbarywarfare.com/
Frank Lambert
Joshua London
Richard Zacks
First Annual Message Part One:It is a circumstance of sincere gratification to me that on meeting the great council of our nation, I am able to announce to them, on the grounds of reasonable certainty, that the wars and troubles which have for so many years afflicted our sister nations have at length come to an end, and that the communications of peace and commerce are once more opening among them. While we devoutly return thanks to the beneficent Being who has been pleased to breathe into them the spirit of conciliation and forgiveness, we are bound with peculiar gratitude to be thankful to him that our own peace has been preserved through so perilous a season, and ourselves permitted quietly to cultivate the earth and to practice and improve those arts which tend to increase our comforts. The assurances, indeed, of friendly disposition, received from all the powers with whom we have principal relations, had inspired a confidence that our peace with them would not have been disturbed. But a cessation of the irregularities which had effected the commerce of neutral nations, and of the irritations and injuries produced by them, cannot but add to this confidence; and strengthens, at the same time, the hope, that wrongs committed on offending friends, under a pressure of circumstances, will now be reviewed with candor, and will be considered as founding just claims of retribution for the past and new assurances for the future.
Among our Indian neighbors, also, a spirit of peace and friendship generally prevailing and I am happy to inform you that the continued efforts to introduce among them the implements and the practice of husbandry, and of the household arts, have not been without success; that they are becoming more and more sensible of the superiority of this dependence for clothing and subsistence over the precarious resources of hunting and fishing; and already we are able to announce, that instead of that constant diminution of their numbers, produced by their wars and their wants, some of them begin to experience an increase of population.
To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean, with assurances to that power of our sincere desire to remain in peace, but with orders to protect our commerce against the threatened attack. The measure was seasonable and salutary. The bey had already declared war in form. His cruisers were out. Two had arrived at Gibraltar. Our commerce in the Mediterranean was blockaded, and that of the Atlantic in peril. The arrival of our squadron dispelled the danger. One of the Tripolitan cruisers having fallen in with, and engaged the small schooner Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Sterret, which had gone as a tender to our larger vessels, was captured, after a heavy slaughter of her men, without the loss of a single one on our part. The bravery exhibited by our citizens on that element, will, I trust, be a testimony to the world that it is not the want of that virtue which makes us seek their peace, but a conscientious desire to direct the energies of our nation to the multiplication of the human race, and not to its destruction. Unauthorized by the constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go out beyond the line of defence, the vessel being disabled from committing further hostilities, was liberated with its crew. The legislature will doubtless consider whether, by authorizing measures of offence, also, they will place our force on an equal footing with that of its adversaries. I communicate all material information on this subject, that in the exercise of the important function considered by the constitution to the legislature exclusively, their judgment may form itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight.
I wish I could say that our situation with all the other Barbary states was entirely satisfactory. Discovering that some delays had taken place in the performance of certain articles stipulated by us, I thought it my duty, by immediate measures for fulfilling them, to vindicate to ourselves the right of considering the effect of departure from stipulation on their side. From the papers which will be laid before you, you will be enabled to judge whether our treaties are regarded by them as fixing at all the measure of their demands, or as guarding from the exercise of force our vessels within their power; and to consider how far it will be safe and expedient to leave our affairs with them in their present posture.
I lay before you the result of the census lately taken of our inhabitants, to a conformity with which we are to reduce the ensuing rates of representation and taxation. You will perceive that the increase of numbers during the last ten years, proceeding in geometrical ratio, promises a duplication in little more than twenty-two years. We contemplate this rapid growth, and the prospect it holds up to us, not with a view to the injuries it may enable us to do to others in some future day, but to the settlement of the extensive country still remaining vacant within our limits, to the multiplications of men susceptible of happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government, and value its blessings above all price.
Other circumstances, combined with the increase of numbers, have produced an augmentation of revenue arising from consumption, in a ratio far beyond that of population alone, and though the changes of foreign relations now taking place so desirably for the world, may for a season affect this branch of revenue, yet, weighing all probabilities of expense, as well as of income, there is reasonable ground of confidence that we may now safely dispense with all the internal taxes, comprehending excises, stamps, auctions, licenses, carriages, and refined sugars, to which the postage on newspapers may be added, to facilitate the progress of information, and that the remaining sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the support of government to pay the interest on the public debts, and to discharge the principals in shorter periods than the laws or the general expectations had contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward events, may change this prospect of things, and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure.
These views, however, of reducing our burdens, are formed on the expectation that a sensible, and at the same time a salutary reduction, may take place in our habitual expenditures. For this purpose, those of the civil government, the army, and navy, will need revisal.
When we consider that this government is charged with the external and mutual relations only of these states; that the states themselves have principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation, constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices or officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily, and sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to promote. I will cause to be laid before you an essay toward a statement of those who, under public employment of various kinds, draw money from the treasury or from our citizens. Time has not permitted a perfect enumeration, the ramifications of office being too multipled and remote to be completely traced in a first trial. Among those who are dependent on executive discretion, I have begun the reduction of what was deemed necessary. The expenses of diplomatic agency have been considerably diminished. The inspectors of internal revenue who were found to obstruct the accountability of the institution, have been discontinued. Several agencies created by executive authority, on salaries fixed by that also, have been suppressed, and should suggest the expediency of regulating that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative inspection and sanction. Other reformations of the same kind will be pursued with that caution which is requisite in removing useless things, not to injure what is retained. But the great mass of public offices is established by law, and, therefore, by law alone can be abolished. Should the legislature think it expedient to pass this roll in review, and try all its parts by the test of public utility, they may be assured of every aid and light which executive information can yield. Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge; that it may never be seen here that, after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it can subsist, government shall itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard.
In our care, too, of the public contributions intrusted to our direction, it would be prudent to multiply barriers against their dissipation, by appropriating specific sums to every specific purpose susceptible of definition; by disallowing applications of money varying from the appropriation in object, or transcending it in amount; by reducing the undefined field of contingencies, and thereby circumscribing discretionary powers over money; and by bringing back to a single department all accountabilities for money where the examination may be prompt, efficacious, and uniform.
An account of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, as prepared by the secretary of the treasury, will as usual be laid before you. The success which has attended the late sales of the public lands, shows that with attention they may be made an important source of receipt. Among the payments, those made in discharge of the principal and interest of the national debt, will show that the public faith has been exactly maintained. To these will be added an estimate of appropriations necessary for the ensuing year. This last will of course be effected by such modifications of the systems of expense, as you shall think proper to adopt.
First Annual Message Part Two:A statement has been formed by the secretary of war, on mature consideration, of all the posts and stations where garrisons will be expedient, and of the number of men requisite for each garrison. The whole amount is considerably short of the present military establishment. For the surplus no particular use can be pointed out. For defence against invasion, their number is as nothing; nor is it conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace for that purpose. Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular point in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them, is the body of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these, collected from the parts most convenient, in numbers proportioned to the invading foe, it is best to rely, not only to meet the first attack, but if it threatens to be permanent, to maintain the defence until regulars may be engaged to relieve them. These considerations render it important that we should at every session continue to amend the defects which from time to time show themselves in the laws for regulating the militia, until they are sufficiently perfect. Nor should we now or at any time separate, until we can say we have done everything for the militia which we could do were an enemy at our door.
The provisions of military stores on hand will be laid before you, that you may judge of the additions still requisite.
With respect to the extent to which our naval preparations should be carried, some difference of opinion may be expected to appear; but just attention to the circumstances of every part of the Union will doubtless reconcile all. A small force will probably continue to be wanted for actual service in the Mediterranean. Whatever annual sum beyond that you may think proper to appropriate to naval preparations, would perhaps be better employed in providing those articles which may be kept without waste or consumption, and be in readiness when any exigence calls them into use. Progress has been made, as will appear by papers now communicated, in providing materials for seventy-four gun ships as directed by law.
How far the authority given by the legislature for procuring and establishing sites for naval purposes has been perfectly understood and pursued in the execution, admits of some doubt. A statement of the expenses already incurred on that subject, shall be laid before you. I have in certain cases suspended or slackened these expenditures, that the legislature might determine whether so many yards are necessary as have been contemplated. The works at this place are among those permitted to go on; and five of the seven frigates directed to be laid up, have been brought and laid up here, where, besides the safety of their position, they are under the eye of the executive administration, as well as of its agents and where yourselves also will be guided by your own view in the legislative provisions respecting them which may from time to time be necessary. They are preserved in such condition, as well the vessels as whatever belongs to them, as to be at all times ready for sea on a short warning. Two others are yet to be laid up so soon as they shall have reserved the repairs requisite to put them also into sound condition. As a superintending officer will be necessary at each yard, his duties and emoluments, hitherto fixed by the executive, will be a more proper subject for legislation. A communication will also be made of our progress in the execution of the law respecting the vessels directed to be sold.
The fortifications of our harbors, more or less advanced, present considerations of great difficulty. While some of them are on a scale sufficiently proportioned to the advantages of their position, to the efficacy of their protection, and the importance of the points within it, others are so extensive, will cost so much in their first erection, so much in their maintenance, and require such a force to garrison them, as to make it questionable what is best now to be done. A statement of those commenced or projected, of the expenses already incurred, and estimates of their future cost, so far as can be foreseen, shall be laid before you, that you may be enabled to judge whether any attention is necessary in the laws respecting this subject.
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes be seasonably interposed. If in the course of your observations or inquiries they should appear to need any aid within the limits of our constitutional powers, your sense of their importance is a sufficient assurance they will occupy your attention. We cannot, indeed, but all feel an anxious solicitude for the difficulties under which our carrying trade will soon be placed. How far it can be relieved, otherwise than by time, is a subject of important consideration.
The judiciary system of the United States, and especially that portion of it recently erected, will of course present itself to the contemplation of Congress: and that they may be able to judge of the proportion which the institution bears to the business it has to perform, I have caused to be procured from the several States, and now lay before Congress, an exact statement of all the causes decided since the first establishment of the courts, and of those which were depending when additional courts and judges were brought in to their aid.
And while on the judiciary organization, it will be worthy your consideration, whether the protection of the inestimable institution of juries has been extended to all the cases involving the security of our persons and property. Their impartial selection also being essential to their value, we ought further to consider whether that is sufficiently secured in those States where they are named by a marshal depending on executive will, or designated by the court or by officers dependent on them.
I cannot omit recommending a revisal of the laws on the subject of naturalization. Considering the ordinary chances of human life, a denial of citizenship under a residence of fourteen years is a denial to a great proportion of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from their first settlement by many of these States, and still believed of consequence to their prosperity. And shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The constitution, indeed, has wisely provided that, for admission to certain offices of important trust, a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a _bona fide_ purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us? with restrictions, perhaps, to guard against the fraudulent usurpation of our flag; an abuse which brings so much embarrassment and loss on the genuine citizen, and so much danger to the nation of being involved in war, that no endeavor should be spared to detect and suppress it.
These, fellow citizens, are the matters respecting the state of the nation, which I have thought of importance to be submitted to your consideration at this time. Some others of less moment, or not yet ready for communication, will be the subject of separate messages. I am happy in this opportunity of committing the arduous affairs of our government to the collected wisdom of the Union. Nothing shall be wanting on my part to inform, as far as in my power, the legislative judgment, nor to carry that judgment into faithful execution. The prudence and temperance of your discussions will promote, within your own walls, that conciliation which so much befriends national conclusion; and by its example will encourage among our constituents that progress of opinion which is tending to unite them in object and in will. That all should be satisfied with any one order of things is not to be expected, but I indulge the pleasing persuasion that the great body of our citizens will cordially concur in honest and disinterested efforts, which have for their object to preserve the general and State governments in their constitutional form and equilibrium; to maintain peace abroad, and order and obedience to the laws at home; to establish principles and practices of administration favorable to the security of liberty and prosperity, and to reduce expenses to what is necessary for the useful purposes of government.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/spe...)
Danbury Letter:To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
(Source: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danp...)
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Lewis and Clark Expedition:In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson guided a splendid piece of foreign diplomacy through the U.S. Senate: the purchase of Louisiana territory from France. After the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was made, Jefferson initiated an exploration of the newly purchased land and the territory beyond the "great rock mountains" in the West.
Jefferson chose his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, an intelligent and literate man who also possessed skills as a frontiersman. Lewis in turn solicited the help of William Clark, whose abilities as draftsman and frontiersman were even stronger. Lewis so respected Clark that he made him a co-commanding captain of the Expedition, even though Clark was never recognized as such by the government. Together they collected a diverse military Corps of Discovery that would be able to undertake a two-year journey to the great ocean.
Jefferson hoped that Lewis and Clark would find a water route linking the Columbia and Missouri rivers. This water link would connect the Pacific Ocean with the Mississippi River system, thus giving the new western land access to port markets out of the Gulf of Mexico and to eastern cities along the Ohio River and its minor tributaries. At the time, American and European explorers had only penetrated what would become each end of the Lewis and Clark Trail up the Missouri several miles to the trapper headquarters at Fort Mandan and up the Columbia just a bit over a hundred miles to a point a little beyond present-day Portland, Oregon.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition paddled its way down the Ohio as it prepared the Expedition to be launched officially from Camp Wood, just outside St. Louis, in the summer of 1804. That summer and fall the company of explorers paddled and pulled themselves upstream, northwest on the Missouri River to Fort Mandan, a trading post, where Corps of Discovery set up camp, wintered, and prepared for the journey to the Pacific.
When the spring of 1805 brought high water and favorable weather, the Lewis and Clark Expedition set out on the next leg of its journey. They traveled up the Missouri to present-day Three Forks, Montana, wisely choosing to follow the western-most tributary, the Jefferson River. This route delivered the explorers to the doorstep of the Shoshone Indians, who were skilled at traversing the great rock mountains with horses. Once over the Bitterroot Mountains, the Corps of Discovery shaped canoe-like vessels that transported them swiftly downriver to the mouth of the Columbia, where they wintered (1805-1806) at Fort Clatsop, on the present-day Oregon side of the river.
With journals in hand, Lewis, Clark, and the other members of the Expedition returned to St. Louis by September 1806 to report their findings to Jefferson. Along the way, they continued to trade what few goods they still had with the Indians and set up diplomatic relations with the Indians. Additionally, they recorded their contact with Indians and described (and at times drew) the shape of the landscape and the creatures of this western world, new to the white man. In doing so, they fulfilled many of Jefferson's wishes for the Expedition. Along the way, William Clark drew a series of maps that were remarkably detailed, noting and naming rivers and creeks, significant points in the landscape, the shape of river shore, and spots where the Corps spent each night or camped or portaged for longer periods of time. Later explorers used these maps to further probe the western portion of the continent.
The Expedition of the Corps of Discovery shaped a crude route to the waters of the Pacific and marked an initial pathway for the new nation to spread westward from ocean to ocean, fulfilling what would become to many Americans an obvious destiny.
Over the next two centuries the new Americans and many immigrants would wash across the central and western portions of what would eventually become the contiguous 48 United States. This wave of development would significantly transform virgin forests and grasslands into a landscape of cities, farms, and harvested forests, displacing fauna such as the buffalo and squeezing the Indians who survived onto reservations.
(Source: http://www.archives.gov/education/les...)
More:
http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lew...
http://lewis-clark.org/
http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/
Samuel Chase:
When Republicans under Thomas Jefferson led an impeachment attack against Samuel Chase, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, the agenda was clearly political. The outcome of Chase's trial would largely determine whether the judiciary could remain independent. And the fly in Jefferson's ointment would be his own vice president, Aaron Burr, who was wanted in two states for the death of Alexander Hamilton.
Born in Princess Anne, Maryland, in 1741, Samuel Chase had served his country honorably. He held a seat in both the Maryland assembly and the Continental Congress. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Before being appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington, Chase had been chief judge of the Maryland General Court. A Federalist, Chase believed in a strong central government. But in his decisions, he also reflected a concern for the rights of individuals with due process under the law.
President Thomas Jefferson, leader of the Republicans, disliked the idea of judges being appointed for life. He feared that under such a system, the judiciary might become too powerful. And when Samuel Chase expressed Federalist opinions from the bench, Jefferson encouraged the House of Representatives to impeach him.
Chase's trial would serve as an important test case. Could a judge be impeached for expressing unpopular opinions? Or did a judge need to be guilty of crimes in order to be impeached? Jefferson was eager to have the question answered. If he could impeach Chase easily, other Federalist judges, notably Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall, would probably follow.
In March, 1805, when Chase's trial began in the United States Senate, the Republicans were in control of the government. But much to their surprise, Chase kept his post, thanks largely to Vice President Aaron Burr, a Republican. Burr was wanted for the shooting of Alexander Hamilton, but he was immune from prosecution in Washington, DC. And presiding over an impeachment was his duty as vice president.
Although many senators looked upon the impeachment trial as something akin to a kangaroo court, Burr conducted the trial in a manner that was remarkable for its order and decorum. He gave Chase's lawyer, Luther Martin, the opportunity to present a complete defense of his client. In short, Burr prevented Chase from being railroaded, and in the end, Chase was acquitted.
If Jefferson was angered to find his impeachment plans foiled, Chase was relieved -- as was Chief Justice Marshall. When Aaron Burr was tried for treason two years later, Marshall would be on the bench, and Luther Martin would be Burr's attorney. Both men would remember what Aaron Burr had done for them.
(Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/peo...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_C...
http://colonialhall.com/chase/chase.php
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
(no image)Stormy Patriot: The Life of Samuel Chase by James Haw
William H. Rehnquist
I especially appreciated the information on Dolly Madison, Bryan. I knew she was a good one, but not any of the details.The trial of Justice Chase and the role Burr played in it were especially interesting.
Thanks, Ann. Dolly was an impressive person. Every great man is a greater woman...
Louisiana Purchase:is considered the greatest real estate deal in history. The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents an acre. The ratification of the Louisiana Purchase treaty by the Senate on October 20, 1803, doubled the size of the United States and opened up the continent to its westward expansion.
(Source: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/our...)
More:
http://www.monticello.org/site/jeffer...
http://www.archives.gov/historical-do...
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/purcha...
Charles A. Cerami
Jon Kukla
James Lewis
Thomas Malthus:
Thomas Robert Malthus was born near Guildford, Surrey in February 1766. His father was prosperous but unconventional and educated his son at home. Malthus went on to Cambridge University, earning a master's degree in 1791. In 1793, he was made a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1805, Malthus became professor of history and political economy (the first holder of such an academic office) at the East India Company's college in Haileybury, Hertfordshire, where he remained until his death.
In 1819, Malthus was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and two years later he became a member of the Political Economy Club, whose members included David Ricardo and James Mill. In 1824, he was elected as one of the 10 royal associates of the Royal Society of Literature. Malthus was also one of the co-founders of the Statistical Society of London in 1834.
Malthus' most well known work 'An Essay on the Principle of Population' was published in 1798, although he was the author of many pamphlets and other longer tracts including 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent' (1815) and 'Principles of Political Economy' (1820). The main tenets of his argument were radically opposed to current thinking at the time. He argued that increases in population would eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself and based this conclusion on the thesis that populations expand in such a way as to overtake the development of sufficient land for crops. Associated with Darwin, whose theory of natural selection was influenced by Malthus' analysis of population growth, Malthus was often misinterpreted, but his views became popular again in the 20th century with the advent of Keynesian economics.
Malthus died on 23 December 1834.
(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusi...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_R...
12th Amendment:The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
(source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constituti...)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_...
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founde...
George Clinton:
George Clinton was born in 1739 in Ulster County, New York, and his parents were Irish immigrants. He fought in the French and Indian War, and then he went to New York City to read law. After being accepted to the bar, he practiced law and became district attorney in 1765. Three years later, he was elected to the New York Assembly and began to become increasingly powerful and influential in state politics. He was elected to the second Continental Congress in 1775.
During the American Revolution, he served as brigadier general in the New York militia. He helped defend New York from the British and became friends with George Washington during the war years. In 1777, he was chosen governor of New York and served six consecutive terms. As governor, Clinton was considered an able administrator, and he amassed considerable political power in the state. He also opposed ratifying the Constitution of the United States because he believed it put too much power into the hands of the federal government. He resigned from the governorship in 1795 due to ill health and declining popularity. Clinton served again as governor of New York from 1801 to 1804.
Despite having run unsuccessfully for vice president in 1788 and 1792, Clinton ran for the position again in 1804. Democratic-Republicans found him attractive as a candidate because, being from New York, he helped geographically balance President Thomas Jefferson from Virginia. He also had significant political power in New York and was less controversial than his predecessor, Aaron Burr. As vice president, Clinton presided over the Senate but was considered ineffective. He was unable to keep order and seemed uninterested in the proceedings, complaining about lengthy speeches and having to sit for too long.
In the 1808 election, Clinton aspired to succeed Thomas Jefferson as President, but Jefferson gave his support to James Madison. Although the Democratic-Republicans again chose Clinton as vice president, he resented being passed over for President. As such, he did not attend Madison’s inauguration and was unsupportive of the Madison administration. When the Senate had a tie vote over whether to recharter the Bank of the United States, Clinton voted against it even though Madison supported rechartering the Bank. After years of declining health, Clinton died in office in 1812.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/jef...)
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http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C...
John P. Kaminski
Burr Trial:Never has an American trial produced such an impressive set of key players:
the defendant-- Aaron Burr, founding father, Vice President, and slayer of Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel three years earlier;
the trial judge--John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (and the most important justice in history);
the force behind the prosecution--Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and president of the United States;
defense attorneys--Edmund Randolph and Luther Martin, both delegates to the Constitutional Convention and among the most prominent men of the day; prosecutors-- Charles Lee, former Attorney General, and William Wirt, future presidential candidate.
The high-stakes treason trial of Aaron Burr came at an unstable time, both in Europe and in America. The American and French revolutions worried traditional European powers, Great Britain and Spain, who were determined to keep the radical new doctrine from undermining the power of their royalty. Meanwhile, Napoleon's empire-building produced sustained military conflict on the Continent.
The United States seemed on the verge of a war with Spain, even as the Administration struggled to preserve neutrality. Americans west of the Alleghenies rejoiced in President Jefferson's acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, but boundary disputes and Spanish prohibitions on Louisiana residents' entry into Nueva Espana created resentment and threats of reprisal. The Viceroy of Mexico, allied generally with western Indians, sent troops to the Sabine River to protect the Spanish frontier from invasion by United States citizens. Most Westerners saw Spain as tyrannical and viewed Texas and Florida as a rightful part of the United States. Many of these same Westerners expressed a willingness to take Spanish territory by force. Meanwhile, Spain also worried about the designs of residents of its own dominion (especially Mexico), recognizing that the unprivileged masses had grown resentful of Spanish authority.
(Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects...)
More:
http://www.fjc.gov/history/docs/burrt...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/sfe...
Peter Charles Hoffer
Second Inaugural Address Part One:PROCEEDING, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again conferred on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new proof of confidence from my fellow-citizens at large, and the zeal with which it inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just expectations.
On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the principles on which I believed it my duty to administer the affairs of our Commonwealth. My conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted up to that declaration according to its obvious import and to the understanding of every candid mind.
In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of those with which we have the most important relations. We have done them justice on all occasions, favored where favor was lawful, and cherished mutual interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.
At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our land with officers and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which once entered is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of property and produce. If among these taxes some minor ones fell which had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount would not have paid the officers who collected them, and because, if they had any merit, the State authorities might adopt them instead of others less approved.
The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied in time of peace to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each State. In time of war, if injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased population and consumption, and aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War will then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state of peace, a return to the progress of improvement.
I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had enabled us to extend our limits, but that extension may possibly pay for itself before we are called on, and in the meantime may keep down the accruing interest; in all events, it will replace the advances we shall have made. I know that the acquisition of Louisiana had been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? With which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly intercourse?
In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the church or state authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.
The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on these shores; without power to divert or habits to contend against it, they have been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence and to prepare them in time for that state of society which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of first necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves.
But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety and knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates.
In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place, to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due to the sound discretion with which they select from among themselves those to whom they confide the legislative duties. It is due to the zeal and wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of public happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains for others, and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose patriotism has associated them with me in the executive functions.
During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety. They might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved to and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation, but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public indignation.
Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth—whether a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried; you have witnessed the scene; our fellow-citizens looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs.
No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States against false and defamatory publications should not be enforced; he who has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion.
Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally as auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to our country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet rallied to the same point the disposition to do so is gaining strength; facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren will at length see that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they can not yet resolve to act as to principles and measures, think as they think and desire what they desire; that our wish as well as theirs is that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good, that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his father's. When satisfied of these views it is not in human nature that they should not approve and support them. In the meantime let us cherish them with patient affection, let us do them justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of interest; and we need not doubt that truth, reason, and their own interests will at length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, and will complete that entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of harmony and the benefit of all its strength.
I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray;
Second Inaugural Address Part Two:I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.
(Source: Thomas Jefferson: "Inaugural Address," March 4, 1805. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi...)
Zubulon Pike:
The American explorer and soldier Zebulon Pike was born in Lamberton (now a part of Trenton), New Jersey, on the 5th of January 1779, son of Zebulon Pike (1751-1834), an officer in the American army. He entered his father's company as a cadet about 1794, and became an ensign (or second lieutenant) in 1799 and first lieutenant in the same year. On the 9th of August 1805 he started with twenty men from St. Louis to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi. At Prairie du Chien he met some Chippewa chiefs and induced them to expel the whisky-traders among them and to make peace with the Sioux; at the Falls of St. Anthony (Sept. 23) he bought a tract 9 miles square at the mouth of the St. Croix for a fort; and at Little Falls (in the middle of October) he built a stockade, where he left seven men. He reached Leech Lake ("Lake La Sang Sue"), which he called "the main source of the Mississippi", on the 1st of February 1806; went 30 miles farther to Cass Lake ("Red Cedar"); and, after working against British influences among the Indians, turned back, and went down the Mississippi from Dean Creek to St. Louis, arriving on the 30th of April. In 1806 he was ordered to restore to their homes 50 Osages, redeemed by the United States government from Potawatami, and to explore the country. He started on the 15th of July; and went north along the Missouri and the Osage into the present state of Kansas and probably to the Republican River in the south of the present Nebraska, where on the 29th of September he held a grand council of the Pawnees. Then (early in October), turning nearly south, he marched to the Arkansas River, which he reached on the 14th of October, and up which (after the 28th with only 16 men) he went to the Royal Gorge (Dec. 7), having first seen the mountain called in his honor Pike's Peak on the 23rd of November; and then went northwest, probably up Oil Creek from Canon City. In searching for the Red River he came to the South Platte, marched through South Park, left it by Trout Creek pass, struck over to the Arkansas, which he thought was the Red River for which he was searching, and, going south and south-west, came to the Rio Grande del Norte (about where Alamosa, Conejos county, Colorado, is now) on the 30th of January 1807. There on the 26th of February he and a small number of his men were taken prisoners by Spanish authorities, who sent him first to Santa Fe, then to Chihuahua to General Salcedo, and by a roundabout way to the American frontier, where he was released on the 1st of July 1807. He was promoted captain (August 1806), major (May 1808), lieutenant-colonel (Dec. 1809) and colonel (July 1812). In 1808 he tried in vain to get an appropriation from Congress for himself and his men. He was military agent in New Orleans in 1809-10, was deputy quartermaster-general in April-July 1812, and was in active service in the War of 1812 as adjutant and inspector-general in the campaign against York (now Toronto), Canada, and in the attack on York on the 27th of April 1813 was in immediate command of the troops in action and was killed by a piece of rock which fell on him when the British garrison in its retreat set fire to the magazine.
(Source: http://www.nndb.com/people/570/000050...)
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James Wilkinson:
Entrusted with the control of the newly acquired territory of Louisiana, this Revolutionary War hero was a double agent on the Spanish payroll and a co-conspirator with the traitor Aaron Burr.
Wilkinson served honorably in the Revolution under General Horatio Gates. Following the war, he decamped to Kentucky, where he founded the community of Frankfort and worked to gain statehood for Kentucky.
In 1787 Wilkinson turned traitor and began a long-lasting relationship as a secret agent of Spain. He was known to his Spanish contacts as Agent 13. After Thomas Jefferson purchased Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte, Wilkinson was named territorial governor of northern Louisiana. He also served as the commander in chief of the U.S. Army.
By this time, Wilkinson had already begun to engage in a plot with Aaron Burr. While complete details of the plot are still open to debate, they probably included plans to separate Louisiana from the U.S. and perhaps even to conquer Mexico. Burr gathered and began to train an army, on the assumption that Britain would provide him with warships and monetary support.
When support failed to appear, Wilkinson betrayed Burr to Jefferson and facilitated Burr's capture. In the treason trial that followed, Wilkinson's story aroused suspicion. Nonetheless, he was acquitted of treason and rose to the rank of major general. Following a devastating defeat at Montreal during the War of 1812, Wilkinson retired in disgrace.
(Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/peo...)
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http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/on...
Caesar Rodney:
was born in Dover, Delaware, on January 4, 1772. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, he studied law under Thomas B. McKean in Philadelphia and was admitted to the bar in 1793. He practiced law in Wilmington and New Castle for the next few years.
In 1796 he entered the Delaware House of Representatives. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1803 to 1805. A staunch supporter of Thomas Jefferson, he became his Attorney General on January 20, 1807, and continued in that post in Madison's administration. He resigned on December 5, 1811. During the War of 1812, he commanded a company of volunteers in defense of Baltimore. From 1821 to 1822 he was again a Representative in Congress from Delaware, and from 1822 to 1823 served as United States Senator. Rodney was appointed United States Minister to the Argentine Republic in 1823, where he died on June 10, 1824. He was buried in an English churchyard in Buenos Aires.
(Source: http://www.justice.gov/ag/aghistpage....)
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Chesapeake-Leopard Affair:June 22, 1807 - HMS Leopard attacks USS Chesapeake off the coast of Virginia. In filling out Chesapeake's crew, Commodore James Barron enlisted three known deserters from HMS Melampus. Though the British ambassador protested, Barron refused to return the three sailors as they had been forcibly impressed into the Royal Navy. Departing Norfolk on June 22, Chesapeake, which was still stowing equipment and had its decks littered with supplies, was chased down by HMS Leopard. Hailing the American ship, the British captain inquired if Barron would carry dispatches to Britain. A common courtesy, Barron agreed. When one of Leopard's lieutenants arrived on the American ship, he presented orders from VAdm. George Berkeley instructing him to search Chesapeake for British deserters. Promptly refusing this request, Barron dismissed the lieutenant. A short time later, Leopard hailed Chesapeake but the message was not heard by Barron. This was followed by the British ship opening fire. Ill-prepared for battle, Chesapeake was only able to respond with one gun before being forced to surrender. Coming aboard, the British removed four sailors from Chesapeake before departing.
Limping back to Norfolk, Barron was soon court-martialed for his role in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair and was suspended from the US Navy for five years. The affair provoked a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Britain and ultimately led to the Embargo Act of 1807. The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair was one of many incidents that eventually led to the War of 1812.
(Source: http://militaryhistory.about.com/b/20...)
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Spencer C. Tucker
Embargo of 1807:The neutrality of the United States was tested during the Napoleonic Wars. Both Britain and France imposed trade restrictions in order to weaken each others' economies. This also had the effect of disrupting American trade and testing the United States' neutrality. As time went on, harassment by the British of American ships increased. This included impressment and seizures of American men and goods. After the Chesapeake Affair, Thomas Jefferson was faced with a decision to make regarding the situation at hand. In the end, he chose an economic option: the Embargo Act of 1807.
(Source: http://www.monticello.org/site/resear...)
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Re the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, was Barron court-martialed for not giving the British the sailors?
Yes, he was court-martialed for not having his ship prepared for battle.
Edmund Bacon:Edmund Bacon (1785-1866), a native of Albemarle County, was the overseer at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello from 1806 until 1822. In 1823, Bacon and his family moved to Trigg County, Kentucky, where he farmed successfully until his death. Bacon's account of his experiences as overseer at Monticello and his relationship with Jefferson were collected by the Reverend Hamilton W. Pierson and published as Jefferson at Monticello in 1862.
(Source: http://www.monticello.org/site/planta...)
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Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
Jefferson's Bedroom:
With its eighteen-and-a-half-foot ceiling, ionic entablature, and large skylight, Jefferson's bedchamber is the grandest of the house's private rooms. The alcove bed, which was just long enough for Jefferson, opens on both sides and connects the Bedchamber with his Cabinet, or office. A hinged, double-door screen (not shown today) was situated on the Cabinet side of the bed and was used to separate the two rooms. Jefferson's private privy -- an early example of indoor bathroom facilities in America -- was located across from the northeast end of the bed. A closet over the bed, with oval holes for light and air, utilized space efficiently and was accessible via a ladder at the head of the bed.
(Source: http://explorer.monticello.org/text/i...)
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Entrance Hall:
The Entrance Hall was a reception area and waiting room for visitors that doubled as a museum of American natural history, western civilization, and Native American cultures.
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http://www.monticello.org/site/house-...
Parlor:
The Parlor was a center of social activity at Monticello. Here Jefferson and his family and guests engaged in conversation, read, played games, and performed and listened to music. The room displayed much of Jefferson's art collection and was the site of family weddings, dances, and christenings.
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Bryan I just discovered a new source for another take on TJ . . . have you moused over to www.jeffersonhour.org where events are looked at from the TJ viewpoint? I discovered it while mousing around the iPodcast store on iTunes and have subscribed to it . . . sounds like it will be neat. I'm listening to a review of Meacham's book that goes over 2 shows.
It is a fun show. Clay does a good job playing TJ. Thanks for letting people know about this.
I think Meacham talks about these venetian porches, so people like Sally could come and go:Souteast Piazza
Flanking the Southeast Piazza are two small, enclosed terraces that could be entered from the house through the piazza, the adjoining Cabinet or Bookroom, or from the outside via small sets of stairs. Though Jefferson never wrote a description of their function, it is likely these porches (which Jefferson sometimes called "porticles") were used as extensions of the indoor living spaces. The louvered blinds could be moved to adjust the amount of light, providing shade, air, and a modest amount of privacy.
(Source: http://explorer.monticello.org/text/i...)
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Hartford Convention:In American history, a political assembly representing the Federalists of New England States, which met at Hartford, Conn., December 15, 1814, and adjourned sine die, January 5, 1815. Its members numbered twenty-six, twelve coming from Massachusetts, seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island (all appointed by the Legislatures of their respective States), two from counties in New Hampshire, and one from Windham County, Vt. The convention grew out of the opposition of the Federalists in New England to the War of 1812, and its members all belonged to that party. George Cabot, of Massachusetts, was elected president, and Theodore Dwight, of Connecticut, secretary. The members were as intelligent and as high-minded men as could have been found in the country, but Federalism was exceedingly unpopular, and the fact that the sessions were held with closed doors, and that the members were pledged to secrecy, gave rise to a report that the secession of the New England States was contemplated. The extreme stand thus attributed to the leading Federalists (q.v.), as well as their pronounced opposition to the war, hastened the movement which resulted in the complete overthrow of the Federalist Party. The object of the convention was to devise means not only of security and defense against foreign nations, but also for safeguarding the privileges of the separate States against the alleged encroachments of the Federal Government; and no treasonable intention could be proved. The act of Massachusetts calling the convention stated that the steps taken by the consulting body were to be “not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union;” and the resolutions of Connecticut and Rhode Island were to the same effect. The main propositions were stated in the form of amendments to the Federal Constitution, which the convention recommended to the several States. The suggested changes were that direct taxes and representatives be apportioned among the States according to the number of free persons therein; that no new State should be admitted to the Union except upon a two-thirds vote in each House of Congress; that Congress should have no power to lay an embargo on ships of American citizens for more than sixty days; that Congress should not interdict foreign commerce or declare offensive war except by a two-thirds vote; that no person thereafter naturalized should be capable of sitting in Congress or of holding any Federal civil office; that no person should serve as President more than one term; and that the President should never be chosen twice successively from the same State. The delegates further resolved that, if their recommendations should not be heeded and if the defense of their respective States should still be neglected, a further convention should be created “with such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may require.”
The war was practically over before the convention finished its work, the Treaty of Ghent (q.v.) having been concluded on December 24th, though the fact was unknown to the members of the convention. The battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, and the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent (February 17th) increased the popularity of the Government and hastened the downfall of the Federalist Party; and ‘Hartford Convention Federalist’ was for many years a term of reproach. The controversy over the absolute obligation of a Governor to respond to the President's call for the militia presented a problem in constitutional law, and in the relations of the States to the Union, which was not fully settled even at the outbreak of the Civil War.
(Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New...)
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Treaty of Ghent:signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent (modern day Belgium, then in limbo between the First French Empire and United Kingdom of the Netherlands), was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The treaty largely restored relations between the two nations to status quo ante bellum. Because of the era's slow communications, it took weeks for news of the peace treaty to reach the United States, and the Battle of New Orleans was fought after it was signed.
(Source: http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmv...)
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Charles Bankhead:was the son of Dr. John Bankhead of Caroline County and husband to Ann Cary Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's eldest granddaughter. Ann and Charles married on 19 September 1808 at Monticello and resided at an 800-acre estate, Carlton, just west of there for most of their marriage. The Bankheads had four children who reached adulthood. Bankhead read law under Jefferson for several years but became an alcoholic and turned unsuccessfully to farming.
(Source: http://www.monticello.org/site/jeffer...)
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Ann Cary Randolph Bankhead:
Ann (Anne) Cary Randolph, the eldest child of Martha Jefferson Randolph and Thomas Mann Randolph, was born at Monticello on 23 January 1791. On 19 September 1808, at the age of seventeen, Ann married Charles Lewis Bankhead, the son of Dr. John Bankhead, who proved to be an irredeemable alcoholic with a violent temper. Their first child, John Warner Bankhead, was born in 1810, and three more children followed. In 1811, the Bankheads purchased "Carlton," an 800-acre farm adjacent to Monticello, which they later deeded to trustees in order to pay off their debts. Ann died at Carlton in February 1826 at the age of thirty-five, just twelve days after the premature birth of her son, William.
(Source: http://explorer.monticello.org/text/i...)
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Sale of Books to Library of Congress:Pres. James Madison approves an act of Congress appropriating $23,950 for the acquisition of Jefferson's library of 6,487 volumes. The Library also adopts the classification scheme devised by Jefferson.
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http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson...
Missouri Compromise:
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Furthermore, with the exception of Missouri, this law prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line.
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The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Campaign Of 1781 In The Carolinas; With Remarks Historical And Critical On Johnson's Life Of Greene - To Which Is Added An Appendix (other topics)The life of Napoleon Bonaparte (other topics)
Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village: The Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece (other topics)
Jefferson at Monticello. The private life of Thomas Jefferson. From entirely new materials ... By Rev. Hamilton W. Pierson. (other topics)
Injured Honor: The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair June 22, 1807 (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Henry Lee (other topics)R.G. Wilson (other topics)
Hamilton W. Pierson (other topics)
Spencer C. Tucker (other topics)
Peter Charles Hoffer (other topics)
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Samuel Dexter was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 14, 1761, and graduated from Harvard University. Dexter, a lawyer by profession, began his career in public service as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1788-1790). Three years later, he gained a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (1793 -1795) as a member of the Massachusetts delegation; he would later hold a seat for two years in the U.S. Senate (1799-1800).
In 1800, Dexter accepted an offer from President John Adams to join his cabinet as secretary of war. By the end of the year, Dexter found himself fulfilling the duties of treasury secretary and secretary of state as well, a convenient solution for the final months of the Adams presidency.
With the arrival of the Jefferson administration in 1801, Dexter retired from politics and resumed the career in law he had first practiced as a young man from 1784 to 1788. After turning down numerous offers to serve the United States as a foreign minister during the presidency of James Madison, Samuel Dexter died in Athens, New York, on May 3, 1816.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/ada...)
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