SOCIAL STUDIES NOTES: GRADE 8
CHAPTER 9 THE ERA OF THOMAS JEFFERSON: 1800-1815
Section 1: Jefferson Takes Office
I. Republicans Take Charge
-The presidential election of 1800 was vigorously contested. The Federalists raised the prospect of civil war if Jefferson were elected. Republicans accused John Adams of wanting to create a monarchy.
-By receiving 73 electoral votes, Jefferson defeated Adams. According to the Constitution, the person who received the next highest total of votes would be Vice President.
-However, Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s running mate, also received 73 votes. It was up to the House of Representatives to decide who would be President. For six days, the House was deadlocked. On the thirty-sixth vote, Jefferson won the election.
-To avoid this situation in the future, the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution changed how electors voted. Beginning in 1804, electors would vote separately for President and Vice President.
-Thomas Jefferson was the first President to be inaugurated in Washington D.C.
-Jefferson believed the government should have simple customs. He walked to his inauguration instead of riding in a fancy carriage, and he ended the custom of people bowing to the President. Instead, they just shook his hand.
II. Jefferson Charts a New Course
-Jefferson thought of his election as the “Revolution of 1800.” Jefferson’s first goal was to limit the federal government’s power over states and citizens.
-He believed in the idea known as laissez faire, from the French term for “let alone.” Laissez faire means that the government should not interfere in the economy.
-Jefferson put his laissez faire ideas into practice when he reduced the number of people in the government. Jefferson cut the army’s budget in half and eliminated all federal taxes. Now most taxes came from the tariff on imported goods.
-The Sedition Act was another of Jefferson’s targets. A number of people had been convicted and fined under the act. Jefferson ordered those fines refunded. Those imprisoned under the Sedition Act were released.
-Jefferson could not reverse all Federalist policies. He believed that the United States had to keep repaying its national debt. He also did not fire most of the Federalist officeholders. He said they could keep their jobs if they did them well and were loyal citizens.
III. The Supreme Court ad Judicial Review
-One Federalist who did not keep his job was Judge William Marbury. Adams had appointed Marbury and several other judges in the last hours before he left office. The Republicans argued that these appointments were aimed at maintaining federal power.
-When Jefferson took office, he ordered James Madison, his secretary of state to cease work on the appointments. Marbury then sued Madison, citing the Judiciary Act of 1789. This act gave the Supreme Court the power to review cases brought against a federal official.
-The outcome of the case forever changed the relationship of the three branches of government. In his ruling, Chief Justice John Marshall spoke for a unanimous court.
-He ruled that the Judiciary Act of 1789 was unconstitutional. Marshall stated that the Court’s powers came from the Constitution not the Congress. Therefore, Congress did not have the right to give power to the Supreme Court in the Judiciary Act. Only the Constitution could do that.
-The Court’s actual decision-that is could not help Marbury gain his commission- was not highly significant. However, the ruling did set an important precedent.
-Marshall used the case of Marbury v. Madison to establish the principle of judicial review-the authority of the Supreme Court to strike down unconstitutional laws.
Section 2: The Louisiana Purchase
I. The Nation Looks West
-The tide of westward settlement speeded up in the years after the United States won independence. Most western settlers were farmers. Because there were few roads in the west, they relied on the Mississippi River to ship their crops to the port at New Orleans. From there, the goods were loaded on ships and carried to markets in the East.
-Spain, which controlled the Mississippi and New Orleans, had several times threatened to close the port to American ships. To prevent this from happening again, in 1795 the United States negotiated a treaty with Spain. The Pinckney Treaty guaranteed the Americans’ right to ship their goods down the Mississippi to New Orleans.
-In 1801, a crisis developed. Jefferson discovered that Spain had secretly given New Orleans and the rest of its Louisiana territory to France.
-Jefferson was alarmed by the development. The French ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, had already set out to conquer Europe. If Napoleon controlled Louisiana, the westward expansion of the United States would be blocked.
II. Buying Louisiana
-The President decided the best approach was to try to buy the city of New Orleans from the French. He sent his friend James Monroe to France to make a deal. Monroe had the help of Robert Livingston, the American minister in Paris.
-Jefferson instructed the two men to buy New Orleans and a territory to east called West Florida.
-A revolution led by Toussaint L’Ouverture had driven the French from their colony in Haiti. Without Haiti as a base, the French would have trouble defending Louisiana in the event of a war.
-At the same time, tensions between Britain and France were again on the rise. War was looming and Napoleon needed money to support the war effort. France offered to sell the United States not only New Orleans but the entire Louisiana Territory.
-It would take months to get Jefferson’s advice. So Livingston and Monroe agreed to buy the whole Louisiana Territory for $15 million-about 4 cents an acre.
-This included an enormous area stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
-The Louisiana Purchase almost doubled the size of the country. The region had millions of acres of fertile farmland and other natural resources.
-Ownership of Louisiana gave the United States control of the Mississippi River.
-Jefferson was delighted with the deal. The Senate approved the treaty and Congress voted to pay for the land.
III. Lewis and Clark Explore the West
-In January 2003, even before the United States had bought Louisiana, Jefferson convinced Congress to spend $2,500 on a western expedition.
-Jefferson chose army captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition. Lewis chose William Clark, also an army officer, as his coleader. The men were ordered to report back on the geography, plants, animals, and other natural features of the region.
-Jefferson also wanted Lewis and Clark to make contact with Native American who lived in the Louisiana Territory. The President also wanted Lewis and Clark to find out if a waterway existed between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean.
-In the spring of 1804, Lewis and Clark left St. Louis and headed up the Missouri River. Their three boats carried tons of supplies and about 40 men.
-In mid-July, the party reached the mouth of the Platte River, a powerful tributary that flows into the Missouri. In early August, they met Native Americans for the first time. Three weeks later, the expedition reached the eastern edge of the Great Plains.
-In late October 1804, the expedition reached the territory of the Mandin people, in what is now North Dakota. Lewis and Clark decided to camp there for the winter.
-They were joined in camp by a French Canadian trader and his wife, a Native American named Sacagawea. She was a Shoshone who would travel with them and serve as translator.
-By August 1805, they had reached the Continental Divide. A continental divide is the place on a continent that separates river systems flowing in opposite directions.
-The next day, Lewis met a group of Shoshone warriors. When Sacagawea arrived to interpret, she was astonished to see that the Shoshone chief was her brother. Thanks to Sacagawea, the Shoshones agreed to sell the expedition horses that were needed to cross the mountains.
-On the west side of the Rockies, Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia River. Here, they stopped to build canoes for the downriver voyage. Finally, through a dense early November fig, they saw the Pacific Ocean.
-They began the return journey in March 1806.
-From 1805-1807, Zebulon Pike explored the southern part of the Louisiana Territory.
-Pike led an expedition due west to the Rocky Mountains. There, he tried to climb a mountain that rose out of the Colorado plains. He made it about two thirds of the way to the top. Standing in snow up to his waist, he was forced to turn back. Today, this mountain is known as Pike’s Peak.
-Pike’s return route took him into Spanish New Mexico. Early in 1807, Spanish troops arrested members of the party as spies. The Spanish feared Pike was gathering information so that Americans could take over the region.
-After several months of captivity, the men were released and escorted back to the United States. As the Spanish had feared, Pike’s report about the Spanish borderlands created great American interest in the region.
Section 3: A Time of Conflict
I. Defeating the Barbary States
-Trading with Europe was critical to the U.S. economy. After the American Revolution, pirates began attacking American ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
-The pirates came from four small countries on the North African coast-Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, and Tripoli. Together, these countries were known as the Barbary States.
-Barbary pirates raided European and American ships, taking property and enslaving sailors and holding them for ransom.
-European governments stopped such raids by paying the Barbary States tribute. In exchange, their rulers agreed to leave European ships alone.
-For a time, the United States also paid tribute. But Jefferson stopped this practice and sent warships to the Mediterranean Sea to protect American merchant ships.
-At first, these military patrols went badly. The warship Philadelphia ran aground near the Tripoli coast and its 300-man crew was imprisoned. To keep the pirates from using the ship, 60 American sailors led by Stephen Decatur raided Tripoli harbor and burned the Philadelphia down to the waterline.
-The next year, a small force of American marines marched 600 miles across the Sahara and captured Tripoli.
II. American Neutrality is Challenged
-A more serious threat to American overseas trade came from two much more powerful countries, Britain and France. By 1803, the two nations once again were at war. The United States remained neutral.
-Because it was neutral, the United States continued trading with both Britain and France. Meanwhile, Britain and France looked for ways to weaken each another. One method was to cut off the other country’s foreign trade.
-British warships started seizing American ships trading with France. French warships did the same to American ships trading with Britain. Between 1803 and 1807, France seized 500 American ships and Britain seized more than 1,000.
-Britain badly needed sailors for its war against France. So it turned again to impressment. As a result, thousands of American sailors were forced to serve in the British navy.
III. Jefferson Responds with an Embargo
-The President looked for peaceful methods to force Britain and France to respect America’s neutrality. He decided to use an embargo.
-In 1807, Congress passed the Embargo Act. It imposed a total embargo on American ships sailing to any foreign port.
-The big loser turned out to be the United States. In one year, American exports fell from $109 million to $25 million. Prices of American crops declined, hurting farmers and planters. Tens of thousands of Americans lost their jobs.
-Thousands of Americans turned to smuggling in order to evade the embargo.
-Congress finally repealed the Embargo Act in 1809. Then Congress passed a less severe law that reopened foreign trade with every country except Britain and France. The law stated that the United States would reopen trade with those countries when they started respecting America’s trading rights as a neutral nation.
IV. Tecumseh and the Prophet
-In the years after the Battle of the Fallen Timbers, tens of thousands of settlers moved westward. They settled in the territory of Indiana and other lands father west.
-The tide of settlement had a grave impact on Native Americans. Diseases such as measles, smallpox, and influenza killed thousands of Native Americans who had never been exposed to such diseases before.
-Settlers took over large parts of the Native American hunting grounds. The Native American population decreased, and the power of their traditional leaders declined.
-The Shawnee people were hard hit by these developments. After 1805, two Shawnee brothers-Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh- began urging Native American resistance.
-Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, who was also known as the Prophet, called on Native Americans to preserve traditional ways.
-Tecumseh organized the western tribes into a league to restore Indian lands.
-American officials were deeply concerned by Tecumseh’s activities. William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, decided to take action. While Tecumseh was traveling in search of allies, Harrison marched a thousand soldiers against Shawnee villages on the Tippecanoe River. In the Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison defeated the Native Americans.
-The Battle of Tippecanoe marked the high point of Native American opposition to settlement. Even though the alliance declined in power after the battle, Tecumseh and his warriors continued their struggle during the next several years.
Section 4: The War of 1812
I. The Move toward War
-Tension with Britain was high when James Madison took office in 1809. Americans were angry at Britain for arming Native Americans in the Northwest. Americans also resented the continued impressments of American sailors by the British.
-To most Americans, the country’s honor was at stake.
-Those who were eager for war against Britain were called war hawks. Opposition to war was strongest in New England. Many New Englanders believed war with Britain would harm American trade.
-Relations with Britain worsened steadily in the early months of 1812. In the spring, the British told the United States they would continue impressing sailors. Meanwhile, Native Americans in the Northwest began new attacks on frontier settlements. In June, Congress declared war on Great Britain.
II. Early Days of the War
-The war did not come at a good time for the British, who were still at war in Europe. However, Britain was not willing to meet American demands to avoid war. Providing Native Americans with support was one way of protecting Canada against an American invasion.
-Americans were confident they would win, but it soon became apparent that the United States was not prepared for war. Jefferson’s spending cuts had weakened American military strength.
-In the first days of the war, Britain set up a blockade of the American coast. After reinforcing their troops, the British were able to close off all American ports by war’s end.
-A major sea battle was fought at the beginning of the war. In August 1812, the USS Constitution, defeated the British warship Guerriere in a fierce battle.
III. The War in the West and South
-In the West, the Americans and British fought for control of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Both sides had Native American allies.
-Even before the war began, war hawks were demanding an invasion of Canada. They expected the Canadians to welcome the chance to welcome the chance to throw off British rule.
-In July 1812, American troops under General William Hull invaded Canada from Detroit. Hull was unsure of himself. Fearing he did not have enough soldiers, he soon retreated.
-The British commander, General Isaac Brock, took advantage of Hull’s confusion. His army of British soldiers and Native American warriors quickly surrounded Hull’s army and forced it to surrender. It was a serious defeat for the United States.
-American forces had better luck on Lake Erie. A key three-hour battle took place at Put-In-Bay, in the western part of the lake, in 1813.
-With Americans in control of the lake, the British were forced to leave Detroit and retreat back into Canada.
-As the British and their Native American allies retreated, the Americans under General William Henry Harrison pursued them. They followed the British into Canada, defeating them in the Battle of the Thames. Tecumseh was among those killed in the battle.
-Native Americans also suffered defeat in the South. In the summer of 1813, Creek warriors attacked several southern American settlements. Andrew Jackson took command of American forces in Georgia. In March 1814, Jackson defeated the Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The treaty that ended the fighting forced the Creeks to give up millions of American acres of land.
IV. Final Battles
-In 1814, the British finally defeated Napoleon. This allowed Britain to send many more troops across the Atlantic to fight against the United States.
-The new British strategy was to attack the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. In August 1814, a British force marched into the city. Dolly Madison, the President’s wife, gathered up the President’s important papers and fled the White House.
-The British set fire to several government buildings, including the White House. Americans were shocked to learn that their army could not defend Washington.
-The British now moved on to Baltimore. Their first objective was Fort McHenry, which defended the city’s harbor. British warships bombarded the fort throughout the night of September 13, 1814. Francis Scott Key, a young American, watched the attack. At dawn, Key saw the American flag still flying over the fort. The Americans had beaten off the attack.
-On the back of an old envelope, Key wrote a poem that he called “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It told the story of his night’s watch. The poem became popular and was set to music. In 1931, Congress made it the national anthem of the United States.
-By 1814, Britain had tired of war. Peace talks began in Ghent, Belgium. On Christmas Eve 1814, the two sides signed the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war. The treaty returned things to the way they had been before the war.
-News of the treaty took several weeks to reach the United States. In that time, the two sides fought one more battle. In January 1815, American forces under General Andrew Jackson won a stunning victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
-From the start, there had been opposition to the War of 1812. New Englanders particularly disliked the war, mainly because the blockade had badly damaged New England trade.
-In December 1814, a group of Federalists met in Hartford, Connecticut. Some delegates to the Hartford Convention suggested that the New England states secede from the United States. While the delegates debated, news of the peace treaty arrived. With the war over, the Hartford Convention quickly ended.