A Republic No More. Jay Cost
but also integrate foreign peoples such as those living in New Orleans. The president floated the idea of an amendment so empowering the government, but concerns about whether the fickle Napoleon would have second thoughts made that inadvisable.
In the end, Jefferson cast aside his constitutional scruples, implicitly adopting the very same sort of rationale that Hamilton had argued in his defense of the Bank to Washington some twelve years prior: that this power, while not explicitly enumerated, was nonetheless implicit in the very nature of sovereignty itself.5 According to John Quincy Adams, Jefferson’s action was “an assumption of implied powers greater in itself and more comprehensive in its consequences than the assumptions of implied powers in the twelve years of the Washington and Adams administrations put together.”6
The prosperity the nation enjoyed during Jefferson’s first term turned out to be fleeting, premised largely upon Great Britain indulging American traders with unique access to its markets. But as the Napoleonic Wars once again heated up, Britain cracked down, and soon so also did Napoleon. How would America handle this two-sided squeeze? Madison, who by this point was serving as Jefferson’s secretary of state, suggested an embargo: America would not trade with either country as long as they violated her rights as a sovereign and independent nation.
Madison believed that this would inflict more pain on the European powers than the Americans, but he was sorely mistaken. American commerce suffered and, worse, the federal government instituted what historian Forrest McDonald calls a “15 month reign of oppression and repression that was unprecedented in American history.”7 In response to the embargo, many merchants simply ignored the law, prompting Jefferson to come down on state governors with a vehemence that was uncharacteristic of the eighteenth-century champion of states’ rights. What’s more, Jefferson proposed that the government be empowered to seize cargo without a warrant or promise of a trial, even on the barest suspicion of violation; he also suggested that the army and navy be empowered to enforce the Embargo Act. Such a failure of public policy was this initiative, and so contrary to the republican principles that led to Jefferson’s triumph in 1800, that the Republicans replaced it with the less onerous Non-Intercourse Act early in Madison’s tenure, and historians have since judged it a black mark on Jefferson’s record.8
It is easy to castigate Jefferson for his hypocrisy in both instances, but that would overlook the tension at the heart of the early nineteenth century, between American aspirations to greatness and her republican ideals. This was hardly resolved by the defeat of the Federalists in 1800; instead, the burden, and priorities, of the empire shifted to the Republicans. Hamilton primarily envisioned an Atlantic-focused empire, or at least his policies were primarily concerned with carving out America’s role in the world vis-à-vis the European powers. Meanwhile, the Republicans were much more focused on expanding into and developing the interior of the continent, an Empire of Liberty already mentioned above.9 Regardless of emphasis, the word “greatness” is an apt description of both policy agendas, and their quests for greatness invariably came into conflict with the republican limits implied by the Constitution.
It was the Republican quest that precipitated the most ill-conceived war the United States would find itself in during the whole of the nineteenth century, the War of 1812. By the end of Madison’s first term, diplomacy had failed to induce England or France to respect America’s trading rights, and a new generation of Republican politicians—men like Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina—had entered the government with a hunger for glory. For them, nothing could be better than the acquisition of Canada from the British.10 Thus, the United States declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812.
Unfortunately, the county lacked the institutions necessary to carry on an effective war effort. The Bank’s charter expired in 1811, and while Gallatin—whom Madison retained as secretary of the treasury—urged a renewal, the president was largely silent on the matter and Congress narrowly rejected it. As the conflict with Great Britain approached, Republicans assumed that acquiring loans to run the government during wartime would be an easy matter, but they were wrong.11 So hard up during the war was Gallatin that he actually proposed an executive charter of a new bank without the assent of Congress.12 Worse, the destruction of the Bank brought into being a large number of local banks chartered to fill the void. These institutions lent with gross irresponsibility, and the proliferation of bank notes during the early years of the war led to the eventual suspension of specie payments and devastating levels of price inflation.13
The military was also woefully underprepared for war with Britain. An integral aspect of the Republican ideology was the virtue of the volunteer militia. Standing armies were a Jeffersonian bugaboo, and the Republicans believed that citizen soldiers could do the work just as well without threatening the republican quality of the nation.14 They were wrong, and as a consequence the American invasion of Canada was a complete failure. Worse, after Napoleon abdicated in the spring of 1814, the British were free to counterattack. Washington was burned to the ground, and it was only for improbable victories at Plattsburgh and Baltimore that America did not have to cede any territory when the peace was finally signed.15
Jackson’s victory in the Battle of New Orleans—coming a few weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was negotiated—salvaged American pride, but the reality was that the country accomplished none of its initial goals. Fortunately, the final conclusion of Britain’s long conflict with Napoleon meant that the pressure on American commerce was removed.16 Historians have since judged this conflict to be largely fruitless, but Americans of that day and age did not see things that way. They felt that it was a vindication of their sovereign rights as an independent nation, and a laudable demonstration of the American will. Amidst all this enthusiasm, Monroe was elected to succeed Madison in 1816, winning every state except Connecticut, Delaware, and Massachusetts.
Yet the “victory” in the War of 1812 ultimately brought discord within the Republican coalition. A growing nationalist faction within the party began pushing for an expansion of federal authority, beyond that which Jefferson had sanctioned. Leaders like Clay, Calhoun, and Quincy Adams—with the backing of Monroe (and, for the most part, Madison)—began to recognize the limits of strict Republicanism, and promoted a decidedly Hamiltonian program of protective tariffs to encourage American industry, a Second Bank to stabilize the nation’s finances, internal improvements to bind the country together, and an expanded military.17 Perhaps Monroe summarizes this Republican change of heart better than anybody:
By the war we have acquired a character and rank among other nations which we did not enjoy before. We stand pledged to support this rank and character by the adoption of such measures as may evince on the part of the United States a firm resolution. We cannot go back. The spirit of the nation forbids it.18
This is more than a little reminiscent of Hamilton’s call to national greatness in Federalist #11. Indeed, if the former secretary of the treasury had not been killed by Burr some twelve years earlier, he might have responded, “I told you so!”
In that famous dinner conversation between Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton, the last expressed not only a level of comfort with corruption in government, but thought it integral to its proper function. As we noted in Chapter One, he declared of the British Constitution, “Purge it of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, & it would become an impracticable government.”
The Republicans of the 1810s and ’20s thought they could have a Hamiltonian-sized government without the corruption, but they were wrong. Though many historians have remembered the twenty or so years after the War of 1812 as the dawning of American nationalism, it also marked the rise of rampant political corruption, which reached such a level by Jackson’s second term that it challenged the very concept of the rule of law.19 This was the price that America had to pay for accepting a more expansive notion of government without insisting on institutional reforms.
The most infamous example during this period came during the election of 1824. The story of the “corrupt bargain” between Clay and Quincy Adams has been told again and again.