GHIST 225: US History
Kevin R. Hardwick
Spring 2012
LECTURE 15
The Jeffersonian “Revolution” of 1800
Part I: The Alien and Sedition Acts and the Virginia and
Kentucky Resolutions
Part II: Jeffersonian Republicanism
1800: Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolutions
1800: The “Revolution of 1800”
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1798: Alien and Sedition Acts
1798: Virginia and Kentucky
Resolutions
1801: Jefferson’s First
Inaugural Address
Alexander Addison, a Federalist judge on Pennsylvania's fifth
circuit:
"Liberty without limit is licentiousness, it is the worst kind of tyranny."
"The exercise of those faculties of opinion . . . must be limited, so that
it never represents a solemn truth or exercise of religion as false or
ridiculous, an established and useful principle or form of government
as odious and detestable; a regular or salutary act or motive of the
authorities as unlawful or pernicious; or an upright man as corrupt."
James Madison, “Report on the Virginia Resolutions”:
The Constitution was submitted to the “States”: In that sense the
“States” ratified it; and in that sense of the term “States,” they are
consequently parties to the compact from which the powers of the
Federal Government result. [CAPCT, Vol. 1, p. 677]
James Madison, “Report on the Virginia Resolutions”:
The states then being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in
their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no
tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the
compact made by them be violated; and consequently that as the
parties to it, they must themselves decide in the last resort, such
questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their
interposition. [CAPCT, Vol. 1, p. 678]
John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 July 1813:
“But who are these "aristoi"? Who shall judge? Who shall select these
choice Spirits from the rest of the Congregation? Themselves? We
must first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the
congregation choose?”
John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 Sept. 1813:
“The five Pillars of Aristocracy, are Beauty Wealth, Birth, Genius and
Virtues. Any one of the three first, can at any time over bear any one
or both of the two last.”
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 28 October 1813:
“I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our
constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation
of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In
general they will elect the real good and wise. In some instances,
wealth may corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree
to endanger the society.”
James Monroe, first inaugural address , 1817:
“While, then, [the people] retain [their] present sound and healthful
state everything will be safe. They will choose competent and faithful
representatives for every department. It is only when the people
become ignorant and corrupt . . . that they are incapable of exercising
the sovereignty.”
Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address , 1801:
"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."
Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address , 1801:
"I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican
government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong
enough. . . . Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government
of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern
him? Let history answer this question."
Peter Porter, Speech on Internal Improvement, Feb. 1810:
I have the honor to represent a portion of the country which is
perhaps as little affected by our exterior commercial relations as any
part of the United States.
The great evil, and it is a serious one indeed Sir, under which the
inhabitants of the western country labor, arises from a want of a
market. There is no place where the great staple articles for the use of
civilized life can be produced in greater abundance or with greater
ease; and yet as respects most of the luxuries and many of the
conveniences of life the people are poor. They have no vent for their
produce at home; because, all being agriculturalists, they produce
alike the same articles with the same facility; and such is the present
difficulty and expense of transporting their produce to an Atlantic
port, that little benefits are realized from that quarter.
Peter Porter, Speech on Internal Improvement, Feb. 1810:
The single circumstance, of the want of a market, is already beginning
to produce the most disastrous effects, not only on the industry, but
upon the morals of the people. Such is the fertility of their lands, that
one half of their time spent in labor, is sufficient to produce every
article which their farms are capable of yielding, in sufficient
quantities for their own consumption, and there is nothing to incite
them to produce more. They are, therefore, naturally led to spend the
other part of their time in idleness and dissipation.