Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Early ideas about US empire
A history of Jefferson and Madison
Alexander Minnaard
3136590
Master Thesis American Studies
November 9 2015
J. Verheul
Number of words: 23 104
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Table of contents
Introduction
3
Chapter 1 Expansion and Frontier
8
Chapter 2 Military force
20
Chapter 3 Indians and Slavery
33
Conclusion
48
Bibliography
53
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Introduction
On the outset, the war of 1812 between Great-Britain and the United States initially
looked like a naval crisis. Maritime affairs and trade conflicts were the immediate
causes of this war. That war, was not the most logical outcome if you take into
account the fact that the new republic was small and thus nowhere ready to face the
world power Great-Britain. Despite this argument against the war, the war did happen
and many argued in favor of it.
Leading newspapers ventilated outrage against the British and the country appeared
to be ready for war. President Jefferson himself acknowledged that the public mind
was “made up for war’’.1 Leading politicians used jingoistic language in order to rally
the people behind the war. Speaker Clay was arguing for war “ because I believe her
prior in aggression […] Britain stand preeminent in her outrage on us.”2 John Calhoun
declared a war against Britain was nothing less than a second war for American
Independence.3
One might wonder why these politicians had argued in favor of a war against a very
powerful opponent? Great-Britain was their previous colonizer, so there was
presumably still some resentment against the British Empire. However, possibly
something else caused war fever. Many politicians saw this war as an opportunity to
enlarge the United States. The republic needed expansion. Former president
Jefferson envisioned opportunities to expand further into American continent.
Historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg argue that Jefferson’s view was that
he saw that a conquest of this size would perfect the American Republic. 4 Jefferson
said epigrammatically, yielding “such an empire of liberty” and thereby would the
founders dream be fulfilled and the posterity forever rescued from the European
extremes of luxury and squalor. “I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so
well -calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.”5 In other words,
Jefferson advocated to build an American empire. Thus the war aims were not only to
defend the nation against Britain, but also to conquer Canada and expand into the
south. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) had created all kinds of opportunities for
further expansion but had also created potential threats such as Spain and huge
tribes of Indians.
The war itself did not develop as planned. Expansion into Canada did not happen
and the capital of the nation, Washington, was captured and set on fire by the British
1
H.W. Brands, Andrew Jackson His life and times (New York: Doubleday 2005), 144.
Ibidem, 158.
3 Ibidem, 159.
4 A. Burstein and N. Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House 2010), 473.
5 Ibidem, 473.
2
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
soldiers. The Indians were a dangerous opponent in the frontier states. However, the
outcome of the war was regarded differently by the public.6
Enormously controversial with members of the Federalist Party from the moment it
began, the war received a sort of popular referendum in the next two presidential
elections, of 1812 and 1816. James Madison easily won reelection in November
1812 and his handpicked successor and former Secretary of War, James Monroe,
enjoyed landslide success four years later in 1816. Thousands and thousands of
men cast Democratic-Republican votes in these contests. The war, in other words
proved to be a popular success. 7
This had to do with that the last major battle was won by the Americans in New
Orleans, but it also had to do with the deeper emotions of the Americans. Americans
perceived the victory of New Orleans as a sign that individualistic rifle men at the
frontier were capable of defeating the arrogant British.8 So, despite all the losses the
war was perceived as a success and the people rallied around their nation. Leading
politicians, but also supporters of Andrew Jackson, were now supporters of
Jefferson’s vision of an ‘empire of liberty’, an empire stretching to the west, a belief
that the nation’s destiny lay in the multiplication of family farms and the extension of
American power across continental space.9 Despite the setbacks in the war, the
dream of expansion was not forgotten.
Although the ambitions of expansion were shared by many other citizens of the
United States, it is clear that the leading politicians were in favor of expansion and
that they used their influence and power to achieve these goals, even when they left
office. Both Presidents Jefferson and Madison dreamed of an American empire.
However, this dream required a greater military than the two presidents had provided
for, a sense of national unity that did not exist and a spirit of concession that the
European powers would not exhibit.10
This research project will focus on territorial ambitions and policies of these two
presidents. To what extend did Jefferson and Madison see the war of 1812 as an
instrument for expansion? How did they perceive territorial expansion and a possible
American empire? In short, to what extent did Jefferson and Madison want to create
an empire in the period 1801-1816 and how did they put their ambitions of expansion
into practice?
My focus is on their terms as Presidents rather than on the war of 1812 itself, party
politics or their personal lives. The focus will be on their ambitions concerning the
expansion of America.
6
D.W. Howe, What Hath God Wrought The transformation of America 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford
University Press 2007), 71.
7 N. Eustace, 1812: war and the passions of patriotism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
2012), X-XI.
8
Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 17.
9 Ibidem, 18.
10 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 474.
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Academic discussion
My research uses the conceptual framework of what defines an empire. Several
academics argue that the United States is a modern empire. They also claim that this
empire has a long history that started in the early days of the Republic. This is
relevant for my research since I intend to study these early days. Jefferson and
Madison and their policies toward expansionism show the roots and the founding of
the Empire. This research is thereby relevant to this debate and also because it will
clarify something about American foreign policy and it’s self-image. However, not
many Americans have viewed themselves as inhabitants of an empire.
Niall Ferguson advanced the view that the United States is and has always been an
empire – though he added that it was an ’empire in denial’ whose aspirations were
hypocritically (and unfortunately) denied by US policymakers.11 For Andrew J.
Bacevich this denial is the main problem, he argues that like it or not America today
is Rome, thereby meaning that America is an empire.12 However, America is an
empire that differs from every other empire in history. Bacevich urges the US to stop
to deny that they are an empire and ask themselves what kind of empire they want to
be. Charles S. Maier finds the discussion if America is an empire not really relevant,
he is more concerned about the impact of imperialism domestically. 13 If empire
means that the US will spread more democracy and advance human rights, than
there might be benefits to being an empire. Maier warns for the risk of self-chosen
isolation and thereby undermining America’s state structures.
Maier’s message fits in with the manifest destiny ideology. The term phrased by John
O’Sullivan in 1845 means that the mission of the United States was to overspread the
continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions. 14
This term was invented in the 1840s but Anders Stephanson argues that the idea
behind was much older. 15 The US were expanding into the continent in the name of
liberty at that particular time but also before the 1840s. The first settlers in the
seventeenth century had already done so. This ideology was behind expansion and
furthers in Stephanson view the empire of the right in our current times with Reagan.
It gives a moral dimension to the imperialism of the United States.
This raises the question: what is an empire? Maier states that empire is: ‘’ […] an
empire in the classic sense is usually believed, first to expand its control by conquest
or coercion and second, to control the political loyalty of the territories it subjugates. It
may rule these subject’s land directly or it may install compliant native leaders who
11
D. Hendrickson, Union, Nation, or Empire The American debate over international relations 17891941 (Kansas: University Press Kansas 2009), 14.
12 A. J. Bacevich, American Empire The Realities & Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (London:
Harvard University Press 2002), 244.
13 C. S. Maier, Among Empires American ascendancy and its predecessors (London: Harvard
University Press 2006), 3.
14 A. Stephanson, Manifest Destiny American Expansion and the empire of the right (New York: Hill
and Wang 1995), XI.
15 Ibidem, XI.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
will govern on its behalf, but is not just an alliance system among equal partners.’’16
For my research only the first part about conquest and expansion is relevant, so I am
going to focus on the roots of the modern empire.
Another historical debate is about the nature and the origins of the war of 1812.
Some argue that it was a war about maritime grievances. In this view Harry L. Coles
describes the conflict as rights vs. rights. He uses this description because in his view
both quarreling parties stood for their rights and were ready to defend them in a
major war. The English thought they were fighting for the liberties of the entire world.
They viewed this conflict in their narrative against the tyrant Napoleon. The
Americans were fighting for their trading rights.17
However, other historians view this conflict differently. Not a conflict about maritime
grievances but, about agrarian expansion. Farmers needed more land and this set in
motion expansion to the west.18 Julius W. Pratt argues that there was more, he
argued for a combination of sectional motives. Some regions wanted to expand into
Canada and others were aiming for the West. This combination of interest caused
this war.19 And not the British were the principal enemy, the Indians were. They
caused unrest along the border regions and that motivated the United States in 1811
to go to war.
Other historians such as Taylor focus more on economic reasons.20 This view
combines expansions with maritime grievances. The historian Norman K. Risjord
strongly disagrees with this view. He argues that honor and feelings of nationalism
were the starting point of this conflict.21 This view concurs with the description of
John Calhoun who called this war a second war of independence against GreatBritain. Concluding, many historians view this conflict differently: maritime
grievances, Indians, expansion into the north and west and nationalism are all seen
as reasons for this conflict.
War sparked nationalistic feelings and these feelings could lead to a new expansion
policy. War, expansion and nationalism are all closely linked to one another. The
(re)election of Jefferson and Madison and later of James Monroe prove this. They all
more of less favored the war of 1812 and they were definitely in favor of expansion. It
might be said that the people supported their policies by voting them into office. So
there are close symbioses between the ideas of these politicians and their
supporters. Their ideas concerning expansion were well received. The Jacksonian
era later in the nineteenth century proved this as well. He was revered as a new
George Washington and this led to his election as president later on. Concluding, this
16
C. S. Maier, Among Empires, 24-25.
H. J. Coles, The War of 1812 (Chicago: Chicago University Press 1965), 3.
18 Ibidem, 27.
19 Ibidem, 28.
20 Ibidem, 30-31.
21 Ibidem, 30-31.
17
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example demonstrates the close relationship between war, nationalism and
expansion.
Methodology
My research will be based on primary and secondary sources. For primary sources I
will use personal papers of Jefferson and Madison.22 I will also use their Inaugural
Addresses and annual messages to Congress. I will also use letters and sources of
other politicians if they fit in the narrative of my two main research objects. Jefferson
was a retired politician after 1809, but he was still in close contact with his friend and
successor Madison, so I will use his sources for that time period as well too in
describing the Madison era.
I have chosen to study their archives, because both Jefferson and Madison were
very present in their time, not just as politicians but as thinkers and writers as well.
They gave an interesting view of their time with all the amount of their work. In some
ways they represented their time correctly. By using both men an important phase in
American history will be covered. Their papers have been studied and their letters
have been used, as regards to their policies concerning the American empire and its
expansion.
Chapters will be presented in a thematic approach. The term “empire” has many
components and I have decided to use three of them. I will use source material to
look for signs of these components. My first chapter will discuss expansion. What
plans made Jefferson and Madison for expansion into the continent and why? In the
second chapter I will focus on an basic precondition of empire: the military. How saw
Jefferson and Madison the role of the army? Did they make plans to expand the
army? My third chapter is about the nature of society. Both Jefferson and Madison
were white men and what was their approach to other cultures in their expansionistic
plans? What was the role of the Indians and the slaves and how did that role change
over the years?
22
Most of their letters can be accessed through http://founders.archive.gov/
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Chapter 1 Expansion and Frontier
As soon as Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated as President in 1803, he accelerated
the policy of securing U.S. control over western territory. The President approached
Congress in order to fund a federal mission of discovery, which would be called the
Lewis and Clark Expedition later on. In order to get funding, Jefferson told Congress
that the explorers were principally meant to map a river route to the Pacific for the
expansion of Commerce and U.S. settlement.23 For Jefferson the goal behind these
expansion plans was to build a broad agricultural empire.24
Another reason for this westward expansion of the United States was the progress of
civilization. Near the end of his life he looked back on the new nation’s history. “Let a
philosophic observer commence a journey from the savages of the Rocky Mountains,
eastwardly towards our sea-cost”, he wrote to William Ludlow, and he observed “this
march of civilizations advancing from the sea cost, passing over us like a cloud of
light” and as civilization advanced, “Barbarism has […] been receding.”25 Nearly a
quarter of a century earlier, in his First Inaugural Address, Jefferson looked forward
to the future and saw a continent that was a “chosen country, with room enough for
our descendants, to the thousandth and thousandth generation.”26 To spread
civilization, make room for settlements and to expand commerce and agriculture
were all reasons for Jefferson to advocate expansion into the west.
These motivations of Jefferson all suggest that he had empire on his mind during his
Presidency. This “empire for liberty” as Jefferson called it in a letter to his friend and
Secretary of State and successor as president James Madison is an ambition of
Jefferson.27 In this chapter the focus will be on a specific part of this empire, namely
expansion. What plans did Jefferson and James Madison make for expansion and
why? How did they put their ideas into practice?
Louisiana Purchase
Jefferson’s confidence in the new nation’s future seems as boundless as the
continent itself. However, this confidence was not based on geopolitical facts. The
Unites States were at best a second rate “power” in world politics. Domestically there
was political friction at the top between Federalists and Democrats-Republicans of
Jefferson and Madison. Thus, the President had to maneuver very carefully in order
to expand into the west, because the west had its own potential threats, such as
different tribes of Indians.
23
A. Burstein and N. Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House, 2010), 388.
Ibidem, 388.
25 Letter from T. Jefferson to W. Ludlow, September 6 1824,
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-4523
26 T. Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4 1801, http://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selecteddocuments/first-inaugural-address-0
27 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archives.gov
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The frontiers of the United States were under constant threat and this would make
expansion very difficult. Chances that Jefferson’s dreams were going to be fully
realized were not very high, given the circumstances.
Then, in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase agreement was concluded and this deal was
as much a surprise to Jefferson and Madison as to any other American. Napoleon
Bonaparte, ruler of France, decided that he wanted to sell the Louisiana area to the
United States, in order to get back at Great-Britain. He rightly perceived that in the
long haul this would benefit the United States and would hinder Great-Britain’s
Empire in the future. The Louisiana Purchase would eventually clear the way for
westward expansion for the United States in the future.
“Possession of both sides of the Mississippi,” exulted Senator John Smith of the new
state of Ohio, “shall form an invincible Bulwark to the western country, and the epoch
of its commercial, manufacturing and political importance”.28 Even the most
expansionistic politicians, Jefferson included, were amazed by the seemingly endless
possibilities of this enormous land that had been bought from France. It would not be
long before Americans began to exploit this new land, thereby stretching the borders
of the United States further and further westward.
Historian Peter Onuf correctly argues that the significance of the Louisiana Purchase
was that it made expansion seem more “natural”.29 One serious obstacle was
eliminated, the French presence in the American west was gone. Thereby, the
Jefferson administration had to face one obstacle less for future expansion.
The Louisiana Purchase put the theory of expansion into practice. Jefferson’s ideas
accorded with the Louisiana purchase. An agrarian empire supported a republican
political economy better than an urban dominated alternative.30 This idea of an
empire had been magnified with the purchase.
However, Madison, Jefferson’s Secretary of State, was less attached to Jefferson’s
idea of an empire. Both men had endorsed territorial expansion, a reliance on
agricultural production and freedom from the British and other European powers, but
Madison was more comfortable with Newtonian physics for his model of westward
expansion.31 Overseeing the larger picture, Madison felt that the government took too
many risks by reckless pursuing expansion. Government should act to avert
“collisions” along national borders. These collisions happened as the population in
these border regions grew, which gave rise to new competing political factions inside
and outside the United States. In Newtonian terms, he was monitoring gravitational
P.S. Onuf, “Prologue Jefferson, Louisiana, and American Nationhood,” in Empires of the
imagination, ed. P. J. Kastor and F. Weil (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2009), 31.
29 Ibidem, 32.
30 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 390.
31 Ibidem, 392.
28
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
pull, making certain that the planets remained in their proper orbits. In other words,
his emphasis was on avoidance of conflict.32
As a consequence of this thinking the purchase challenged the thinking of both men.
Jefferson was preoccupied with the constitutionality: he had to make sure the
purchase was legal and on what grounds and on whose authority it was to expand
the nation. Jefferson wrote a letter to Senator John Breckinridge in August 1803 on
this issue: “I suppose”, he wrote Breckinridge, with reference to the members of
Congress who were critical of the purchase, “they must then appeal to the nation for
an additional article to the Constitution, approving and confirming an act which the
nation had not previously authorized.”33 His “I suppose” was followed by a clear
recognition that “the Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign
territory, still less for incorporating foreign nation into our union.”34
Jefferson’s underlying premise in this letter by referring to the nation was that the
west was inseparable from the nation’s destiny. However, Congress did not go along
with Jefferson’s thinking easily, so soon after the letter to Breckinridge, Jefferson was
forced to adjust his thinking. After conferring with Madison he decided not to seek
authorization by means of a constitutional amendment. Instead, he forwarded the
treaty to Congress, which was ratified soon enough. Extra territory for the United
States was now a done deal. This whole episode demonstrates that the idea of
expansion was shared by many, but in practice there were many difficulties, such as
in this case, parts of Congress that were opposed to it.
The difficulties surrounding the purchase of Louisiana would soon wear off, when
Americans started to migrate into the territory. In ”the empire for liberty” that Jefferson
envisioned, vast open spaces invited new opportunity for a decent and deserving
people who were meant to spread west and republicanize.35 Cultural dominance was
built into that grand vision. It was impossible not to look to the future, wrote Jefferson
to his friend James Monroe in 1801, “when our rapid multiplication will expand itself
beyond our limits, and over the whole northern, if not southern continent, with a
people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms by similar laws.”36
Europe & Florida
One consequence of the Louisiana Purchase was that France was gone from NorthAmerica, but also that Spain was closer by as a neighbor. A neighbor that had an axe
to grind. Spain objected to the sale of Louisiana, it did not acknowledge the sale.
32
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 392.
A.Koch, Jefferson & Madison The Great Collaboration (New York: Oxford University Press 1964),
245.
34 Ibidem, 245.
35 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809,
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson
36 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Monroe, November 24 1801,
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson
33
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This made life at the border difficult. For instance, there were border disputes. Where
ended the United States and where began Spain?
In his fourth annual message on November 8, 1804, the President gave his view on
this matter. He brought up the U.S. boundary with Spanish Florida and stated that
America’s object had been “misunderstood on the part of Spain”, on the related
matter of Madrid’s discomfort with America’s acquisition of Louisiana, he expressed
equal confidence that the issue would be easily resolved. 37
However, to many it seemed as wishful thinking, Spain would not be persuaded to
recognize the expansion. The United States wanted more and Madison, who led the
negotiations with Spain, also preferred to buy the arc of land surrounding the Gulf of
Mexico. Madison made it very clear to his diplomats Monroe and Pinckney in his
letters, that, with or without an agreement, he would have the United States move
into the disputed borderland that was known as West Florida.38 Madison justified this
by saying it was a case of national security and thereby he would not allow this land
go into the hands of the British.39 Madison’s claim to this land was certainly to be
questioned, but just as with the Louisiana Purchase, he proceeded with his plans.
The next step into acquiring West-Florida was to decide to unilaterally enforce its
interpretation of the Louisiana Purchase in 1810 by occupying this district all the way
up the Mississippi. The boundaries were pushed ahead. The Spanish government
accepted neither the interpretation nor the occupation, but, lacking the troops to
counter the United States, could not prevent the expansion.40 Spain, however, did
garrison its American border with more troops.
So, the risk of a potential war made Madison and Jefferson behave more cautious
and secretive about their intentions. Especially towards Congress where political
opponents were very skeptical about their plans concerning expansion. This led to
evasive answers to questions and ambiguous speeches.
There were also people who were advocating a more direct approach with Spain.
Such as people who lived at the border regions and they were feeling under threat by
the Spanish.41 Also because the Spanish weren’t strong enough to control Florida
and as a consequence the whole area turned into a vacuum where nobody really
ruled. This had as consequence that there was a lack of real authority and thus this
created unsafe areas were whole groups of people were running wild. So, because
of the weak border the frontier became unsafe. So many there argued for an
expansion into Florida in order to deal with these problems.42
37
Annual message to Congress by President Jefferson, November 8 1804,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffmes4.asp
38 See for instance letter of J. Madison to J. Monroe, April 15 1804, http://founders.archive.gov/
39 Letter of J. Madison to J. Monroe, April 15 1804, http://founders.archive.gov/
40 H.W. Brands, Andrew Jackson His life and times (New York: Doubleday 2005), 237.
41 Ibidem, 239.
42 Ibidem, 243.
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The Administration was still hopeful for a diplomatic solution because of the
difficulties in Congress with annexation. Jefferson still supported expansion into the
south and he made this clear in a letter to Madison in the summer of 1807. “I had
rather have war against Spain than not, if we go to war against England. Our
southern defensive force can take the Florida’s, volunteers for a Mexican army will
flock to our standard, and rich pabulum will be offered to our privateers in the plunder
of their commerce and coasts. Probably Cuba would add itself to our
confederation.”43
This letter gives us a hint on how far Jefferson and for that matter, Madison’s thinking
went. Not only was Jefferson in this case comfortable with the ambition to obtain
territory, he even a substantial territory. Jefferson was not only talking about
acquiring the whole of Florida, but also the Mexican areas and even Cuba as
possibility. Jefferson certainly envisioned grand expansionist plans.44
Jefferson also mentions a possible war with Great-Britain. There was a possibility in
1807 for war, however, it did not come about. It does show that there was tension
with the former colonizer. This tension would build up over the years eventually
leading to war. A war would certainly present opportunities to expand America’s
borders. Some such as Aaron Burr, former Vice-President under Jefferson, had tried
to provoke a war with Spain, with that goal in mind. His plans were not realized and
he was charged with treason. No doubt, Jefferson and Madison supported his ideas
but not his plans, due to internal opposition.
War of 1812
Another chance to wage war was with Great Britain. Resentment of the past was still
looming in the United States and the tension between the two countries was building
up. Incidents, such as the Chesapeake incident, sprang up and provoked outrage in
the United States. Newspapers exploded with calls for war to avenge dishonor.45
Rumors of war were floating throughout the country.
Although Jefferson was unrelenting in his dreams of expansion, his response was
cautious. Madison and Jefferson recognized this as a moment when heightened
security and bold diplomacy would be equally critical.46 Expansion plans were put on
hold. Madison issued instructions to the U.S. minister in Madrid to suspend his efforts
to purchase the Floridas, East and West. His thinking was twofold: war with GreatBritain, if it came about would require massive expenditures and with war, the
Floridas would be had for a lower price, because the United States would be doing
Spain and France a favor by keeping it out of British hands.47
43
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 16, 1807, http://founders.archive.gov/
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 443.
45 Brands, Andrew Jackson, 143.
46 Ibidem, 447.
47 Letter from J. Madison to J. Monroe, July 30 1807, http://founders.archive.gov/
44
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It is important to realize the European context of this possible war. France and GreatBritain were at war with each other on hegemony in Europe. Everything had
happened in the Americas was a consequence of this. The Jefferson Administration
clearly hoped to benefit from this conflict. The European powers were vulnerable and
this vulnerability was most clearly present at the peripheries of their areas of power,
in the continent of America. Jefferson wrote to Madison that he explored the prospect
of take simply the Floridas from Spain, confiding that he had “rather have war against
Spain than not.”48 However, it was also clear that in the fall of 1807, in spite of all the
tough talk, Congress nor the executive branch really wished to go to war at that
particular time. Many felt that from a military point of view the United States were not
ready for war.49
With this perspective in mind, Madison and Jefferson settled for commercial
retaliation.50 A trade embargo against Britain was put in to effect. The irony of this
embargo was that it hurt the United States more than their aspired target. It also
diminished the popularity of Jefferson and his political credit. It was a bad
miscalculation. Just before the end of his presidency Jefferson and Congress lifted
the embargo, in order to give his successor James Madison a clean slate when he
was to take over the presidency in 1809. The tensions with the European powers did
disappear.
Both France and Britain disregarded the rights of the United States during their
ongoing wars. What did change was the attitude of the United States. Besides a new
president, there was also a change of generations in Congress. Younger politicians
such as Henry Clay and John Calhoun found their way to the United States
Congress. They brought a new enthusiasm for a possible war with Great-Britain with
them.51 Congress was now in favor of war. President Madison, despite his ambitious
plans for expansion, hesitated because of the relative weakness of the American
army.
The “war hawks” in Congress were now pressuring Madison for war. Clay asserted, “I
am for war with Britain, because I believe her prior in aggression […] Britain stands
preeminent in her outrage on us.”52 Calhoun used even stronger words: the coming
war was not just any war, but a second war of independence, he argued.53 With this
war, new prospects of future expansion came in sight. The war hawks also
advocated expansion. Canada was a target for expansion. Clay argued that the war
would pay for itself: “The conquest of Canada is in your power. I trust I shall not be
deemed presumptuous when I state, what I verily believe, that the militia of Kentucky
are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.”54 Clay
48
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 16 1808, http://founders.archive.gov/
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 449.
50 Ibidem, 450.
51 Brands, Andrew Jackson, 158.
52 Ibidem, 158.
53 Ibidem, 158.
54 Ibidem, 158.
49
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wanted to safeguard the frontiers (Clay was a Representative of the State Kentucky)
and to secure the future of the United States with these plans.
How did Jefferson and especially Madison once he became president think about the
war fever of a younger generation of politicians? Jefferson had retired and wished to
leave all political matters to his successor Madison, however, when he got home to
his mansion in Virginia he could not help giving advice to his friend. Jefferson worried
about the near future. Despite the rhetoric of expansion in the past he shared
concerns that the country was nowhere near ready for a major foreign conflict.
Jefferson urged for peace. “I feel great anxiety for the occurrences of the ensuing 4
or 5 months. If peace can be preserved, I hope and trust you will have a smooth
administration”.55
Madison presumably shared Jefferson’s sentiment. He did not go along with the war
rhetoric coming from Congress. Jefferson also gave his opinion on foreign
developments in his letters and what the role for the United States should be. He
envisioned opportunities to absorb the rest of the North American continent,
incorporating all reachable territory. Conquest of this size would basically perfect the
American Republic. Yielding “such an empire for liberty”, he said that the Founders
dream would be fulfilled and their posterity would forever rescued from the European
extremes of luxury and squalor: “I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so
well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.”56 Even in his old
age, Jefferson still believed in the inevitability of an American Empire. Of course, he
supported the vision of Clay and others for a conquest of Canada, but he even went
a step further.
Now Jefferson saw an opportunity to expand into the south. Napoleon’s recent
conquest of Spain made him think that the French emperor would be willing to accept
America’s “moral right” to Florida, East and West, as well as Cuba. “Napoleon will
certainly give his consent without difficulty to our receiving the Floridas,” he wrote to
Madison. Cuba, he said, might take a little more effort. To this, Madison replied that
he expected Napoleon to dangle the Floridas before him in order to extract
concessions on America’s right to trade with Haiti, which the French emperor still
aimed to conquer. 57 Jefferson responded by writing that he anticipated a French
takeover of Spain’s colonies in South America. He considered it in America’s best
interest to position itself so that Napoleon would have to turn to the United States for
help as his armies established a presence in the southern hemisphere. The former
president envisioned a scenario in which the French would turn over the Floridas and
Cuba to the United States and the Madison Administration would have their hands
55
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, March 17 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
57 Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson, May 1 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
56
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
free to pursue Canada, thereby eliminating all colonial threats nearby the United
States.58
These plans of the two Virginians for conquest look somewhat in contrast with their
attitude towards a possible war with Great-Britain. To explain their lackluster
enthusiasm for war it is best to look at their belief in the inevitability for an American
Empire. On the whole, the United States did not have to do anything, sooner or later
the continent would become completely American, at least the northern part. The
weakness of the European powers in the American continent and their competition
among each other made the process easier. This attitude explains why Madison did
not join the warmongers in Washington and yet supported their ambitious plans for
expansion. The difference in opinion did not seen on the goals for the future, but on
timing. Madison felt that war in 1810 was not the best option for the United States.
Though dreams of empire were never far from the minds of Madison and Jefferson,
they required a greater military than the two presidents had provided for and a sense
of national unity that did not exist either as a spirit of concession that the European
powers were unwilling to meet.59 Although Great-Britain was prepared to make
concessions with the United States after the shock of Spain’s capitulation to France,
Madison’s Administration was off to a rocky start in all other respects. In
congressional elections his rivals of the Federalist Party made more or less a
comeback. So, for now Madison urged caution and restored trade relations with
Great-Britain.
Madison’s position made him vulnerable to criticism, not only from Congress but also
from his friend Jefferson. He felt that by compromising with Britain the Republic
would make itself to vulnerable towards other European powers. What Jefferson did
not realize but Madison did, was that the young republic was still not powerful
enough to face the European powers. His problem was that Britain and France were
each more powerful than the United States and each considered its war with the
other more important than good relations with America. If strangling France required
trampling on America’s rights, Britain would trample away. If repelling Britain
necessitated treating American vessels as British, France would do so.60
In handling Congress Madison acted different from his predecessor. Jefferson mostly
cajoled his Republican allies into doing what he wanted and thereby demanded
loyalty. Madison did not have this ability. He was more in favor of an intellectual but
also a more distant approach. In this way Madison did not get Congress to follow him
as easily as Jefferson had done in the past. As a consequence, Congress put
pressure on the president in order to achieve war with Great-Britain.
Jefferson also pressured his friend, by leaving his past reluctance for war behind, to
take position against Britain. As long as Madison, like Jefferson, aimed to enlarge the
58
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archive.gov
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 17 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
60 Brands, Andrew Jackson, 157.
59
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borders of the United States, the British would remain the principal enemy and
Napoleon would be treated as the lesser of two evils. Not only were the British in
Canada, they were also supporting the western Indian tribes: at this point they
appeared, more likely than Napoleon, to advance into Spanish-held territories on
America’s frontier.61
Despite the pressure from Jefferson and others, Madison had shrunk back from a
confrontation with Great-Britain, because the United States lacked military strength.
Madison decided first that he would start to fix that problem. In his third annual
message to Congress in October 1811, he called for a buildup of regular troops in
anticipation of war. Madison gave for a reason that the British were fighting a war on
lawful commerce.62 Madison did not divulge any expansionistic plans for a possible
war. That he still was aiming for expansion proves the case of West-Florida. Madison
had profited from the competition between the European powers and he annexed
that part of Florida in 1810. He took West-Florida, because England and France were
otherwise engaged and Madison foresaw that the entire Gulf Coast remained a
potentially operational base for hostile Europeans.
That Madison proved himself to be an expansionist was because he looked ahead.
He floated the idea that East-Florida might also be wrested from Spain during his
presidency, though preferably through negotiation. He gave the governor of Georgia
leeway to negotiate with the Spanish for East Florida.63 However, this was not an
easy task especially with the prospect of war with Great-Britain looming. Now it was
almost certain that war was inevitable.
The prospect of Canada was alluring to many in Congress.64 In Indiana Territory,
America’s northwestern frontier, fighting broke out at the end of 1811. The Indians
built up their defenses and some Indians were not averse to war. However, President
Madison was even more cautious in his approach to the northwest than he was with
the Gulf Coast. He was hopeful that war with Great-Britain would cause Canada to
fall into U.S. hands. So, as the year 1812 began, boundary matters were again on
the table.
However, caution did not help Madison’s reputation. Federalists accused him to be a
war monger, others accused him of avoiding a war.65 Madison, however, actually
now had decided to embark on war. He submitted his war message on June 1. In this
message the President summed up a long list of grievances as felt by the Americans
towards the British, one grievance being that the British were responsible to have
urged the Indians to war. Congress supported the war message and voted in favor of
war.
61
H.L. Coles, The War of 1812 (Chicago: Chicago University Press 1965), 25.
Annual Message to Congress by President Madison, November 11 1811,
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/03-04-02-0001
63 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 490.
64 See for instance the comments of Henry Clay earlier in this chapter.
65 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 500.
62
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Madison also sent Jefferson a copy of this war declaration. Without hesitation,
Jefferson gave his strategy for winning this war. “To continue the war popular two
things are necessary mainly: 1. To stop Indian barbarities. The conquest of Canada
will do this. 2. To furnish markets for our produce”.66 As on Canada he did have to
elaborate, because both men were interested to see if the Canadians would rise
against the British Empire. Of the two men, Jefferson remained the most optimistic
one and urged for war. Madison was less cheerful about the subject, probably he had
to shoulder all the responsibilities.
The war was not going great right from the beginning. Many Americans had come to
believe that simply by marching across, the border and Canada would be won.
Jefferson had suggested earlier that the Canadians would rise against the British.
However, this was not the case and these early defeats proved him wrong. The war
hawks contributed nothing but empty words as well. U.S militia proved disappointing
on the battle field.
Then there was the fact that the British were fighting more aggressively than
expected. Slowly, they gained the upper hand in Europe against France and as a
consequence their position in world politics got stronger. The Madison Administration
was not able to play the European powers against each other as had happened in
the past. In 1814, the situation looked dire. The British invaded Washington and
burned the Capital to the ground. Whatever possibilities for expansion many
politicians had envisioned, they all went up in smoke. Canada was certainly not a
viable option anymore. Madison now wanted to achieve peace with Great-Britain.
Along the southern border, a showdown was about to occur. General Andrew
Jackson had removed the Indian threat and the British in Pensacola in November
1814. He was now irritating the Spanish government and did not wait for orders from
Washington. Secretary of War James Monroe cautioned against irritating Madrid out
of fear that Spain would join the war against the United States. However, Monroe
was vague in his messages to Jackson and this led historians to conclude that he
anticipated Jackson’s actions and thus he (and presumably his boss Madison as
well) supported Jackson’s actions into Spanish territory.67 Jackson was now headed
toward a collision course with the British in New Orleans.
After a hard-fought battle the Americans won in New Orleans in early 1815. The irony
is that the battle was fought, while an agreement for peace was reached in Europe
with the British. So, the war was finally over and the victory gave the Americans
something to look back on with pride. The war was not a success as the treaty
confirmed. No extra territory had been gained by the Americans.
However, with the victory in New Orleans all the troubles seemed to be forgotten.
The United States felt that they had won the respect of Europe in general and Britain
66
67
Letter of T. Jefferson to J. Madison, June 29 1812, http://founders.archive.gov/
Brands, Andrew Jackson, 324.
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in particular and this boosted the self-respect of the nation. “The war has renewed
and reinstated the national feelings and characters which the Revolution has given.”
declared Albert Gallatin, informal leader of the American negotiating team at Ghent.68
It tied the nation together, although no territory had been won. The United States and
Great-Britain ended in a draw, nothing had been gained or lost.
However, the battle of New Orleans created a new prospect in terms of expansion.
The Indian threat had been mostly eliminated and therefore the United States gained
more supremacy in the area surrounding the Gulf Coast.69 Sentiment in Washington
turned more pro- Republican. Madison took full advantage of this sentiment by
creating support for his plans such as creating the national bank and building a
stronger army and better defense systems.70
Had the war then been a success for Madison and his expansion plans after all?
From the beginning, America’s offensive war was flawed. Canada was not gained at
all as for instance Louisiana had been in the past. The war against the Indians had
been more successful and so created new openings for expansion in the south. All in
all, the war turned out a mixed record in terms of expansion.
Conclusion
The main focus in this chapter was on the plans for expansion of these two
presidents and why they wanted to expand. Jefferson was the most outspoken of the
two and Madison followed more or less Jefferson’s ideas. Especially during
Madison’s dealings with a possible war with Great-Britain he regularly had
differences of opinion with his friend. However, in terms of expansion they thought
along similar lines. They both shared the view that the American continent should
become completely American. An “empire for liberty” as Jefferson so famously put
it.71
Jefferson envisioned an empire that at least would contain the areas in the south, first
the Louisiana areas (they had stretched out the Louisiana Purchase as far as they
could), second his plans to expand into Florida and possibly into the Mexican areas
as well. Even Cuba and Canada were on Jefferson’s mind.72 Looked at their
ambitions and the outcome they had been very successful. All areas (and even some
parts of Cuba) except Canada had been annexed over time. So, in terms of vision,
both men had predicted the future very well. They certainly felt that it was inevitable
that these areas should become American. To them it was so inevitable that they got
the feeling they just would have to wait to see it happen.
68
D. Howe, What Hath God Wrought The transformation of America 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2007), 71.
69 Ibidem, 74.
70 Ibidem, 80.
71 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archives.gov/
72 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
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In their book Burstein and Isenberg describe another motivation why Jefferson and
Madison decided to build an empire. They state that they were driven by fear: fear of
the other European nations and fear that the United States would crumble over time.
This fear drove Jefferson and Madison to aspire expansion.73 Onuf seems to share
this argument. He argues that the drive to build an empire was very obvious with
Jefferson, because he was afraid for the European powers.74 In his view, expansion
was necessary in order to survive as a nation.
These explanations, given by various historians, sound plausible, considering the fact
that both presidents took the international context into account when they made their
decisions. However, the explanation of fear does not account for the approach in the
War of 1812. If fear was the motivation to acquire more land than it would be best to
stay away from any conflict with Great-Britain. However, this did not happen.
Expansion into Canada was a goal that Madison and especially Jefferson wanted to
realize. It was not fear that drove them, but ambition and confidence.
Notwithstanding their motivations, they had miscalculated the situation in Canada.
Canada had not become U.S. territory. The Canadians had not revolted against the
British. Both men had to make plans to acquire new land for the United States. They
did so, because they believed American civilization should spread throughout the
continent and American farmers should have to find new places to settle. It was in
American national interest to expand in order to survive as a nation. European
powers had been fighting among each other and they had not particularly cared if
they violated American rights in this process.
The European context was thus very important in this process of expansion. It was a
reason for expansion to prevent a European power to gain influence in Florida, for
instance. It was also in the context of the European wars that the United States could
expand. Jefferson and Madison tried to set up the Europeans against one other and
they hoped to benefit. It certainly got them Louisiana and parts of Florida. But it also
backfired as happened with the war of 1812 when the British proved stronger than
the Americans. Luckily, the United States brokered peace without losing territory.
Also the strength of the Europeans in their colonies had diminished and this created
a power vacuum near the border areas of the United States.
Which, created issues of security along the frontier. This fact had made the call for
expansion more relevant. Concluding, both presidents aspired expansion in order to
spread civilization and create safety for the American people and had done so by
using the European context of war to achieve these goals. In this context expansion
had become a reality.
73
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 642.
P.S. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire the language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press 2000), 5.
74
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Chapter 2 Military Force
Charles S. Maier states that empires do not just rely on economic organization alone.
“Sterling and gold alone did not guarantee their domain. They ruled vast colonial
regions by military presence”.75 In other words, in order to become an empire a
strong military force is definitely required. In the United States in the early nineteenth
century this was a problem. In contrast to the overwhelming display of military might
of the twentieth century, the early nineteenth century was characterized by a lack of
real military force.
This lack of force has to do with the founding of the United States. Andrew J.
Bacevich states that “antimilitarism informed the nation’s founding”.76 In American
eyes, one of the factors that distinguished the new world from the old world was an
aversion to war and to the wasteful and bloody military competition that was a
byproduct of Europe’s preoccupation with power politics. Among the Founders,
according to Bacevich, there was a belief that standing armies were antithetical to
liberty: it was an article of faith.77
The focus for this chapter will be on the military force of the United States in the early
nineteenth century. How did Jefferson and Madison view military power and the
armies? What plans did they make concerning the military? Were they indeed as
anti-militaristic as Bacevich suggests? In what way was their vision on the military
linked to their plans to expand the United States?
Bacevich describes the U.S. as anti-military in the sense that they reject traditional
armies.78 Traditional standing armies were seen as a potential weapon for tyranny
and repression. Just as easily as army could destroy enemies, it could also be used
against your own population. This view was very popular, owing to the influence of
the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was inspired by ancient times. Just as the
young Republic tried to emulate the Roman Republic, it also tried to learn from the
mistakes made in these times. The Roman Republic ended when two generals
started a civil war and eventually one took over the republic as a dictator (Caesar) .
The lesson that the Founding Fathers learned was that never too much power should
be given to one person and that a republic should beware of the ambitions of armies
and their generals.
As a consequence of this thinking there was no strong army at the start of the
American republic. The American army did not even come close to their European
counterparts. Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’état in France reinforced the conviction
in the United States of to be cautious towards armies and their generals.
75
C. S. Maier, Among Empires American ascendancy and its predecessors (London: Harvard
University Press 2006), 153.
76 A.J. Bacevich, American Empire The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (London:
Cambridge University Press 2003), 122.
77 Ibidem, 122.
78 Ibidem, 122.
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Despite these convictions, President John Adams started to build a navy in order to
face a potential threat from France during his term. His rivals, Jefferson and Madison,
criticized this move, because they did not see France as their enemy, but also
because they thought a large navy did not fit in with their republican ideology.79 Both
men saw more potential in the loose coalitions of state militia than in a standing
permanent military force such as the navy. Eventually in 1801 Jefferson took over the
presidency from Adams and with his expansionistic ambitions in mind, he was now
faced with a dilemma. How could the United States expand with so weak a military
power?
Diplomacy and War
The world around the United States did not get any safer. Napoleon had taken over
in France (thereby ending the Republican’s affections for France) and Great-Britain
and France maintained a cease-fire. Despite this good news, France emerged as a
new potential threat. Spain had handed over to Napoleon the strategic territory of
Louisiana. This signaled a break with the weak Spanish local government, because a
revitalized France under Napoleon eyed the western hemisphere with renewed
interest. The French now looked as if they would become a far more formidable
threat to American political and commercial development along the southern
Mississippi than Spain ever was. The prospect of French armies close by the border
of United States and on land that was desired by the President made the
Administration nervous. For now, France was occupied with St. Domingue (future
Haiti). However, this should all change in the next few years.
Instead of answering this challenge by building a stronger military, Jefferson and
Madison focused on diplomacy.80 It was crucial to improve relations with France as
well as with Great-Britain. Jefferson and Madison tried to stay clear off the European
power plays. Despite the focus on diplomacy, Madison did not rule out a military
conflict. In an exchange with the French chargé d’affaires in Washington, Madison as
Secretary of State claimed that serious “collisions” between the two countries would
be inevitable if France were to become too near a neighbor of the United States.81
This collision was not to happen, in fact, the opposite happened in 1802 when the
French decided to sell Louisiana to the United States. So, instead of a very
dangerous neighbor, Louisiana became part of American territory. The French had
gone as well from the American mainland and the weaker Spanish returned as
neighbor. It might be argued that there was no need for the Jefferson Administration
to expand the army. Indeed, Jefferson had achieved his goal of expansion without it.
Concluding, this Administration relied more on diplomacy than on military power.
However, the Louisiana purchase made also the military question more relevant. In
these areas Indians lived and the Spanish were close by. In order to establish
79
H.L. Coles, The War of 1812 (Chicago: Chicago University Press 1965), 2.
A. Burstein and N. Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House 2010), 423.
81 A. Koch, Jefferson and Madison: the greatest collaboration (New York: Waddel Press 1964), 237.
80
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authority there a Governor was appointed. This Governor went to New Orleans
accompanied by five hundred troops, in case the Spanish attempted to resist the
transfer of power. The show of force was also meant to awe Indians of the region and
frighten any potentially rebellious slaves.82
Despite this bravado against the Spanish, both Jefferson and Madison felt that a
policy of neutrality was the course of action in order to protect American commercial
rights. For both of them, the principle of neutrality came with an implied threat of
commercial retaliation.83 However, economic pressure could work only on nations
such as France and Great-Britain, that maintained trading relations with the United
States. The same strategy was useless in dealing with smaller states that disrupted
American commerce. Jefferson had concluded as early as the 1780s that in such
situations brute force was required.84 In this case the Administration applied military
force.
The Barbary States of North Africa, which included Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and
Morocco, had a long-established practice of attacking American ships in the
Mediterranean Sea. They demanded money if they forsook to attack American
vessels. In order to get money they took American sailors hostage. These men were
forced into slave labor. President Adams decided not to pay and as a consequence
the high official of Tripoli declared war on the United States just as Jefferson
assumed office. Unwilling to continue the past policy of “tributes and humiliations”,
Jefferson told Madison that only military force would stop “the eternal increase of
demand from these pirates”.85 So, after consulting his cabinet, Jefferson decided to
send a squadron to the Mediterranean. This initiated the Tripolitan war (1801-1805),
which turned out to be a naval war.
The navy that Adams built and was criticized by Jefferson in the past, turned out a
handy weapon to protect American vessels. Jefferson was not troubled by his past,
he had no qualms of using this military force in this instance. His cabinet supported
him mostly and Madison especially, he endorsed this show of force.
The war with Tripoli was not just about protecting American commerce: it was a
statement to the world about American fortitude.86 In a letter to Secretary Madison,
David Humphreys, U.S. consul in Spain, expressed his concurrence with a policy
designed to “chastise that haughty but contemptible power”. The military response
would serve “not only as salutary example to the other piratical States, but it would
produce an almost incalculable effect in elevating our national character in the
estimating of all Europe.”87 In other words, war might serve as a tool for nation
82
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 394.
Ibidem, 403.
84 Ibidem, 403.
85 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 28 1801, http://founders.archive.gov/
86 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 404.
87 Letter from D. Humphreys to J. Madison, April 14 1801, http://Founders.archive.gov/
83
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
building and a strong army might impose respect of the rest of the world. In this way
the United States might rise as a state in a European dominated world.
Madison shared these sentiments, advising Jefferson to use force strategically, to
help improve relations with Great-Britain and France. He insisted that the
Administration should announce the deployment of its navy so as to allow every
nation understand its purpose.88 The Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, may
have said it best when he claimed that the decisive use of power proved that the
United States was “prepared, like the Great Powers, to repel every injury by the
sword.” Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin all wished to prove America’s virility. 89
The war in the Mediterranean certainly did so. The American navy proved its worth. It
showed military strength and skill. The enemies suffered heavy casualties without the
loss of a single American life. This war proved again (after the revolutionary war) that
the American republic was strong at defending itself and its interest. In Jefferson’s
eyes this war was only self-defense.90
In what way was Jefferson able to connect these contradicting views with one
another? On the one hand, he did not build a strong land army in order to face the
European colonial armies, on the other hand, he had no problem squishing the
pirates with the navy. This contradiction can be explained if the way Jefferson viewed
world politics is taken into account. He listed the states in the world with a certain
hierarchy.91 These rogue states such as Tripoli were seen as little children who
needed to learn a lesson. In his hierarchy of states, these states were at the bottom.
Spain’s provincial government in North America was viewed with the same contempt.
At the top there were the great powers, Great-Britain and France, which had
extended their rule through war and conquest. Next he ranked the United States, a
nation different from the other powers, more morally superior and commercially
strong, but unwilling to become a fully-fledged, tax and borrow, military imperial
power. At the bottom there were the smaller states, that were not relevant.
Jefferson’s system of classifying nations fell neatly into a classic republican division
of social classes: the corrupt, bloated, but still dangerous elite; the honest and
morally upright middle ranks; and the primitive, if not hopeless and contemptible,
lower classes.92 As a benefit to his thinking, America would become more free. By
showing it had no reluctance to use military force where it could, the United States
were free and not fully depended on British maritime policy. The British still ruled the
waves, but the United States had begun to climb toward greater power by controlling
a small part of the Mediterranean. America could display its military strength and this
would help the relations with other powers, as Madison hoped. The victorious war
against Tripoli had given America the upper hand in diplomacy, not just in the
88
Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson, August 18 1801, http://Founders.archive.gov/
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 404.
90 Ibidem, 404.
91 Ibidem, 406.
92 Ibidem, 406.
89
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Mediterranean, but also on the continent, where Jefferson and Madison had great
ambitions to expand.
Change of view
With the Louisiana Purchase behind them, Jefferson and Madison looked ahead to
the future. Once again European affairs dominated policy making. The
unprecedented expansion of territory may have encouraged confidence in the new
nation, but abroad it made little impression. With the spectacular victory of Admiral
Nelson over a combined French and Spanish force off the coast of Spain at
Trafalgar, Great-Britain was able to restore her dominant position on the high seas. In
December 1805 Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz gave France control of the European
continent. As these two military giants continued to fight for global hegemony, foreign
policy took center stage in Washington.
The policy of neutrality toward the European powers and a relatively weaker army
was about to be changed. Neutrality did not mean anything to Great-Britain or
France. The theory of Jefferson that his small and relative weak American navy might
counter the European powers had yet to be proven.
Madison responded to the changing international circumstances by retreating to his
library where he prepared a 204- page pamphlet protesting the British disregard for
neutral nations. Attacking London’s justifications for the capture of neutral vessels in
times of war, he asserted that the policy had no basis in international law but was “a
mere superiority of force.”93 This superiority of force is exactly the reason why the
Administration changed its mind about the limited power of their military forces. This
did not mean that the idea of the loose coalitions of militia was entirely abandoned,
but that it needed to be better organized.
In his annual message in December 1805, Jefferson called for a better organized
militia, ready for any “sudden emergency”.94 He asked Congress for gunboats to
meet the dangers of the European belligerents. “We should have a competent
number of gunboats,” he said, “and the number, to be competent, must be
considerable.” As a purely defensive measure, the small maneuverable boats were
meant to patrol the nation’s coastline and northern border lakes.
To suit his vision of a republican army of volunteers, Jefferson hoped that the naval
militia would be manned by local militia regulars. He knew that the gunboats were
inadequate by themselves, so he asked Congress to fund the construction of more
substantial battleships.95 The fear of the European powers was menacing enough for
the whole Administration to change their view on military matters. However, many in
Congress did not share this change of opinion. Republican legislators flatly rejected
93
I. Brant, The Fourth President: A life of James Madison (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril 1970), 245.
Annual Message to Congress, December 3 1805,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffmes5.asp
95 Annual Message to Congress, December 3 1805,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffmes5.asp
94
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the idea. The President and his Secretary of State were ready to expand the navy in
peacetime, but many in Congress refused to follow their lead. This refusal would
have dire consequences.96 The fear of a strong army was still present in Congress,
even among supporters of Jefferson. For Jefferson it was also a change in opinion
and policy, since Jefferson’s term started with budget cuts on the navy. Which was
supported by Congress. Now Jefferson wanted something different and got no
support.
Discord between the members of the Republican Party was proven again by the Burr
conspiracy. Aaron Burr, former Vice President under Jefferson shared the
expansionistic aspirations of Jefferson and Madison. The difference was that it
looked like he was not going to trust the outcome of the negotiations with Spain as,
Madison and Jefferson had done before. Burr was accused of creating a private army
and going into Spanish territory. This was not a new idea, even Alexander Hamilton
thought of leading troops into Mexico, because war would present opportunities to
enlarge America’s borders.97 For that to happen, America would eventually, one way
or another, oust the Spanish from the continent. For now the Administration had high
hopes for diplomacy. Many others did not.
Burr was gathering support along the border regions. Andrew Jackson, a major
general of a division of militia in Tennessee, was drawn to Burr’s message. He hoped
that the Administration would welcome a force of Tennesseans in a larger effort to
oust the Spanish.98 However, Burr was apprehended and accused of treason and his
plans ended there. The suspicions against Burr were expanded to exaggerated
claims of massive recruitment effort and even attempts to create a larger army.
Jefferson, jumping on the chance to get rid of his old rival Burr led the charge against
his former Vice President, despite sharing Burr’s goal: seizing Florida. What this case
demonstrates is that many were frightened by the possibilities of a large army with an
ambitious general at it head. That is why Congress did not go along with Jefferson’s
plans. The support of many in the border regions also demonstrated that in these
areas there was support for an aggressive military campaign towards the Spanish.
Build-up to the War of 1812
With Congress stopping Jefferson’s plans to expand the military, it was again
demonstrated that the United States had an army that would be too weak to defend
the nation against possible attacks by European countries. More importantly, there
were still serious reservations in Congress as regards to building a strong army.
However, Jefferson and Madison were right about the aggressiveness of these
countries towards the United States.
The Chesapeake incident had proved this in which an American vessel was taken by
the British. This breach of U.S. sovereignty changed the mood of the nation. Many
96
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 439.
H.W. Brands, Andrew Jackson His life and his times (London: Doubleday 2005), 119.
98 Ibidem, 119.
97
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
were angered by this violation by the British. Newspapers were arguing for war. 99 If
Jefferson and Madison really wanted to go to war, they could not do so by the lack of
military strength.
They again turned to diplomacy for a solution. A simple calculation was all it took,
Madison and Jefferson received information from Secretary of War Henry Dearborn
concerning the number of troops that could be raised if war was to take place.100
There were too few soldiers to face the British, especially considering the fact that in
this period there was talk about invading Florida. So, there was no real military power
to match the British.
Other members of the cabinet were also worried about the prospect of going to war.
Treasury Secretary Gallatin had already warned in1805 that a strong navy was
required if U.S. foreign policy was to show real teeth. Otherwise, he wrote the
President, “We must be perpetually liable to injuries and insults, particularly from the
belligerent powers, when there is war in Europe.”101 The United States still had a very
modest navy, especially in European waters.
During his first term Jefferson had deliberately reduced naval expenditures,
considering defense of the home shores a much higher priority than an offensive
fleet. When, at the end of 1805, he called for both gunboats as well as larger
warships, and the Republican Congress balked at the latter, however, Jefferson
vigorously pressed the case for more gunboats. This had as a consequence that his
Federalist critics mocked him with an insincere toast: “the President of the United
States – First Admiral of American Gun-Boats!”.102
Despite all the talk of war there was no real possibility to go to war. Too many
politicians in power were too hesitant. The Administration settled for a commercial
embargo against the British. Of course, the embargo harmed the Americans more
than the British.103 This fuelled the negative light on the British even more and it
opened the door for criticism towards Jefferson.
Towards the end of Jefferson’s presidency there was still a mood for war against the
British.104 The commercial retaliation had completely backfired and this had led
Jefferson and Madison to turn to more draconian measures along the coast and the
Canadian border. In August 1808, while at his home in Virginia, Madison urged that
Jefferson should waste no time in deploying every available gunboat to attend to “the
suspicious situations along the New England Coast”.105 He referred to the many
smuggling operations there. Madison wanted to show off against the smugglers there
99
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 447.
Ibidem, 449.
101 R. W. Tucker and D. C. Hendrickson, Empire of liberty The statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New
York: Oxford University Press 1990), 208.
102 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 450.
103 Coles, The war of 1812, 9.
104 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 455.
105 Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson, August 10 1808, http://founders.archive.gov/
100
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
in order to salvage something of the embargo. However, it was too late, the embargo
was increasingly unpopular and proved a failure overall.
Despite the unpopularity of the embargo, Madison was chosen as the next president.
Before he took over, Jefferson and Congress lifted the much hated embargo. This did
not mean that anti-British feelings were gone now. The negative feelings toward a
larger army were not diminished either, despite the threat coming from Europe.
Madison, in spite of feeling that the current military situation was inadequate, chose
to listen to these voices, at least in public. In his inaugural address, he praised the
state militias. He recognized state militias as “the firmest bulwark of republics”
instrumental in preserving liberty.106 Madison made no attempt to convince his fellow
republicans to alter their thinking. This did not mean that priorities were changed. Still
the old world dominated the immediate future of the nation, in terms of economy but
also on military matters.
Madison still hoped to avoid any European conflict. A newer generation of
Republicans-Democrats were now in favor of a war with Great-Britain and they put
pressure on Madison to declare war. Madison, fully knowing that a war required a
greater military, resisted the pressure.
Jefferson supported the younger generation. In his letters to Madison, he envisioned
different scenarios for war with Great-Britain.107 Madison hoped to compromise with
the Britons, however, they viewed the United States as an insignificant power and
they were not in the mood for a compromise. Madison now had enough of diplomacy
with Great-Britain. He still aimed to enlarge the United States and for that GreatBritain was to remain a principal enemy. The British were in Canada en showed
support toward the western Indian tribes. There was a possibility that they would
advance into Spanish-held territories on America’s frontier.108 Jefferson urged
Madison to concentrate on the south, because there were possibilities to gain
ground. Jefferson also expected that a next ship that would be seized by the British
should serve as pretext for the coming of war.109
Despite this talk of war, the problem with the military was not solved. Federalist critics
of Madison criticized the Administration for being blatantly incompetent in managing
money. The most flagrant examples of this incompetence were in the realm of
military expenditures, where waste was apparent in the procurement of supplies. The
notorious reliance on the expensive, lightly armed gunboats, meant to defend
American harbors against larger, deadlier European vessels, made no sense at all.
Madison was less committed to the fifty-foot gunboats than Jefferson had been, but
neither, as presidents, made an extensive study of what should be done to ensure an
106
107
108
109
Inaugural address President Madison, March 4 1809, http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres18.html
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 17 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
Coles, The war of 1812, 189.
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 17 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
27
Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
economically sound, military effective naval strategy in the period after the
Chesapeake incident.110
In 1807 Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith appears simply to have ratified what the
President and the Secretary of State desired. Jefferson clearly did not wish to
participate in an arms race with Great-Britain at any time.111 Madison also appears to
have believed that eventually U.S. expansion into Spanish Florida and western
destinations required vessels to meet the shallow rivers in the south. Beyond that,
privateering seemed a cost-effective solution. To sum up, some parts of the
American government were not at all willing to create a British-style large navy,
moreover, they were not able due to internal opposition to do so either.
Yet Madison, did call for a build-up of regular land troops in his annual message to
Congress. He appealed to the legislative branch to authorize war preparations. “With
this evidence of hostile inflexibility in trampling on rights which no independent nation
can relinquish, Congress will feel the duty of putting the United States into an armor
[…]”.112 So, in his build-up to war, in spite of the fierce military resistance of the
British, Madison started to expand his military machine.
War of 1812
This expansion of the military machine became very necessary, because military
conflicts were looming everywhere in the United States: the Indians in the north and
in the south. There, in the south was Andrew Jackson building his army of volunteers,
who were ready and willing to march to counter this threat. When war broke out,
Madison hoped that this war would end quickly for reasons of budget. He raised
regulars and volunteers from New England to invade Canada. The war had to be
“short and successful”.113
Despite all volunteers, they could not conceal the fact that the United States were
underprepared and thus vulnerable. To cover this problem, Madison called state
militia into federal service, which was criticized by opponents of the president, who
deemed these measures to be unconstitutional. Some states even refused to comply
with the federal government.
Taking all this into account, it explains why the war proceedings so far were
unsuccessful. There was too much resistance towards a federal controlled army and
thus towards a large government. Due to the fact that the war proved disastrous,
Madison decided to take more risks. He called for an enlarged navy. He tried to sell it
as a necessary measure against British tyranny. The United States would remain
110
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 482.
Ibidem, 482.
112 Annual Message to Congress, November 5 1811,
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/03-04-02-0001
113 Letter from J. Madison to S. Spring, September 6 1812, http://founders.archive.gov/
111
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
“colonists and vassals”, he said as long as the nation submitted to British domination
of the high seas (“that element which covers three-fourths of the globe”).114
Thus, Madison distanced himself from the premises of Jefferson’s Administration:
the United States did not need a navy of significance.115 The Royal Navy completely
outclassed the U.S. fleet. A naval presence large enough to stand up to an aggressor
had to become part of the American arsenal, not merely to carry on war but to
prevent it, according to Madison. It would give the United States a certain autonomy
in world politics in a situation that the war in Tripoli had just been ended and a
stronger navy was required. The war difficulties had made Madison question
Jeffersonian ideology.116
In fact, war caused Madison to change his mind about several issues, not just military
issues. Gunboats were no match for the British as was proven by the war. Jefferson
however, did not change his mind. He wrote to Madison and pleaded for “the humble,
the ridiculed, but the formidable gunboat”.117 Madison replied, perhaps lying a little
bit, that “the present Secretary of the Navy is not unfriendly to gunboats.” However,
they were “too slow in sailing, and too heavy for rowing, they are limited in their use
to particular situations, and rarely for other than defensive co-operations”.118 This
reply illustrates that the first steps were taken to build a more professional naval
bureaucracy.
At the Washington Navy Yard began shipbuilding. The War Department was
reorganized as well. An army needed a supply system to operate effectively as it
advanced and so quartermasters were appointed for each military district to arrange
for the purchase of food, clothing, arms and ammunition. However, the overall
problem was a lack of funding.119 This lack of funding was to seriously harm military
operations. This led Madison to make a decision to end the war and negotiate for
peace. All the while the fighting kept going: the Indians in the south and in the west,
the British on Lake Ontario.
Slowly, these new changes led to improve the military. Higher bounties led more men
to enlist. Better soldiers joined the ranks. The Secretary of War wanted to build on
these successes and became convinced that conscription was needed to produce a
superior force.120 He wanted a regular army of 55.000 men, because the voluntary
army and state militias had proven unreliable. Madison fully supported his minister,
despite criticism from other Republicans who favored more the state militias.
114
Annual Message to Congress, November 4 1812, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29454
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 522.
116 Coles, The War of 1812, 265-266.
117 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, May 21 1813, http://founders.archive.gov/
118 Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson, June 6 1813, http://founders.archive.gov/
119 Coles, The War of 1812, 238-139.
120 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 530.
115
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
On December 7, 1813, Madison gave an address to the national legislature, in which
he endorsed conscription.121 The President was ready to implement drastic
measures, even if it meant going against dominant Republican ideology. This was
necessary, because the British were still stronger than the Americans. This
dominance of the British force resulted in getting Washington to be burned to the
ground. As a consequence Madison was more determined to achieve military reform
and more importantly a peace agreement.
In early 1815 the battle of New Orleans was fought. The militias under command of
Jackson beat the British. The victory itself was meaningless, the battle happened
after a peace agreement had been reached. It did boost American morale and it also
proved the worth of the artillery. Not the western riflemen, but the canons made the
difference.122 These artillery weapons came from the U.S. Navy after reforms initiated
by Madison. So, the power of artillery and the U.S. Navy was convincingly proven.
Credit went out to the individual frontier soldiers and their commander and not to the
navy of the United States and the power of their artillery. However, leading
politicians, such as Madison and Monroe, knew probably better.
With peace reached, many problems were solved. One was the problem with
conscription. With no war to fight, the need for conscription vanished, in this way
ending a looming conflict within Republican ranks. The fact that there was no need
for conscription did not mean that the entirely military machine was to be dismantled.
On the contrary, Madison urged for precaution in case of future wars. This did not
mean that Madison became a pacifist.
On the contrary, in his annual message on December 5, 1815 he pleaded for more
military measures. He knew that reductions were inevitable, but he warned, it was
important to retain the general staff, reform the militia and provide a system of military
pensions that would “inspire a martial zeal for the public service”.123 Coastal defenses
and naval ships under construction should be completed, not abandoned. Military
matters remained a priority, also for future presidents. Madison’s successor Monroe
made all these top priorities to enforce on the U.S. military during his first term.
Conclusion
In the early years of the American republic, there was no strong military force in the
Unites States. There were state militias who were not well- organized, certainly not at
a federal level. The nation faced what is called the Tocqueville problem in American
history. 124 How could a Jeffersonian republic, whose vitality rested on the pursuit of
121
Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1813, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29455
D. Howe, What Hath God Wrought The transformation of America 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2007), 17.
123 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 82.
124 W. Lafeber, “Jefferson and an American Foreign Policy”, in Jeffersonian Legacies, ed. by P.S. Onuf
(Charlottesville: Virginia University Press 1993), 377.
122
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
individual interests with a minimum of central government direction, create a national
consensus for the conduct of an effective and necessarily long-term foreign policy?
For this chapter the military side of foreign policy was important. The same problem
applies here as well. The federal government at the time was relatively weak and the
U.S. is surrounded by dangerous European countries that had more military power.
Republican ideology prohibited the building-up of a strong army. John Lauritz Larson
uses the term “ a government of limits” to describe Jefferson’s problems to improve
infrastructure. The same description may be applied to Jefferson’s and Madison’s
visions on how they envisioned the military.125 However, this limitation became a
problem in a dangerous world.
This dilemma of Tocqueville is clearly present with the policies of both presidents.
Jefferson and Madison protested fiercely when President Adams started to build a
navy. As president, Jefferson did not really change his mind. He cut the budget for
the navy in the first years of his term. Due to circumstances in the Mediterranean, he
was forced to go to war in the Tripoli war. He started to use the navy and gunboats to
crush pirates. In spite of this victory, the United States were still military weak.
Jefferson and Madison desired not a strong federal army.126 Jefferson advocated for
more gunboats and that was it. He praised the militia many times.127 In spite of the
war in Tripoli his attitude was not really changed. However due to circumstances,
changes became manifest in the Jefferson and Madison government.
Such a circumstance was war and this could increase the executive’s power. As did
happen during the terms of Jefferson and Madison. This increase of power, so is
argued by historians such as Henry Adams was antithetical to many essentials of
Jeffersonianism, because it required centralization of power, increased taxation,
mobilization of society and the copying of discredited European techniques to settle
disputes.128
This process occurred more or less in these years of Jefferson and Madison. In spite
of Jefferson’s view of limited governance , he was forced to make alterations as
regards to the gunboats. Jefferson’s dislike for a military system should not be
confused with a rejection of the use of military power, as Walter Lafeber argues. 129
Lafeber’s statement was correct as was demonstrated in the Tripolitan War.
J. L. Larson, “Jefferson’s Union and the Problem of Internal Improvements”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, ed. by P.S. Onuf (Charlottesville: Virginia University Press 1993), 345.
126 See for instance letter from T. Jefferson to J. Monroe, January 27 1814,
http://founders.archive.gov/
125
127
See for instance Jefferson Inaugural address, March 4 1801,
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/first-inaugural-address-1801.php and letter of T.
Jefferson to W.H. Crawford, February 14 1815, T. Jefferson, Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement
series (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2012).
128 Lafeber, “Jefferson and an American Foreign Policy”, in Jeffersonian Legacies, ed. by P.S. Onuf,
378.
129 Ibidem, 378.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Madison supported Jefferson’s policies, although he did not support gunboats as
much as Jefferson, as was proven later on during the War of 1812.130 Madison, more
flexible concerning republican ideology in case of the military, saw very clearly that
the military force of the United States was weak, which is one of the reasons why he
was hesitant to go to war with Great-Britain. However, this did happen eventually and
this war, as Madison probably already knew, brought many military flaws to light.
As a consequence, Madison was forced to let go off Jeffersonian ideology and did
that with more ease than Jefferson and started to build a better military
organization.131 He even supported conscription and thus started to build a
professional army which was in contrast with the militia. Jefferson was hesitant and
still believed more in the militia. The responsibilities of the president and the acute
problems of the war made Madison alter his thinking. Jefferson was already retired
and could it afford to maintain his old position. However, due to the resistance within
his own party, the professional army was not realized immediately. But the seeds
were planted that future presidents could build on.
Bacevich’s claim that the Founding Fathers were anti-military was true, but only in
part. Jefferson was more than willing to go to war in Tripoli and he did support the
war in 1812. Madison did as well. When theory met practice, steps were made to
build up an army. They did so in different volumes and because the situation then
required it.
According to Maier a strong military was needed in order to expand as an empire.
Well in this case this is only partly true because for their expansionistic plans, they
relied more on diplomacy then on force, or they relied on the militias in the north and
in the south. So, in order to survive in a European dominated world, Jefferson and
especially Madison did make plans to expand their military. At the time, it was
necessary to abandon or modify their resistance against a large army in order to
survive as a nation.
130
Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson, June 6 1813, http://founders.archive.gov/
131
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 521-522.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Chapter 3 Indians and Slavery
Charles S. Maier argues that empires are about the mission of civilization and the
diffusion of cultural styles. Empires offer new possibilities of diversity. They insist on
greater equality for those inside the frontier: a wider range of citizenship.132 Jane
Burbank and Frederick Cooper add to this claim that successful empires maintained
the diversity of people in order to thrive as an empire.133 However, they argue that in
the process of creating an empire, violence and day-to-day coercion were
fundamental in relation to nation building.134
Although, Maier refers to the American empire in our time, in the early nineteenth
century the role of minorities and different cultures was very important for the United
States. As a consequence of the expansion of the United States, more people came
to live on American territory. This includes different tribes of Indians and also slaves
and African-Americans. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued for expansion
of the United States. However, did they also want to extend citizenship to other
cultures? How did they perceive the position of the Indians and slaves within the
American republic during their years in office?
This question is more relevant considering the fact that during the War of 1812
against Great-Britain there also was a war going on against the Indians. The British
were also accused of the fact that they had supported and rewarded in the
subsequent peace negotiations ambitions of the Indians for an independent state.
This was not realized, after the peace agreement. Quite the opposite. Daniel Howe
argues that the conflict between Great-Britain and the United States ended in a draw.
However, for the Native-Americans it constituted a decisive defeat with lasting
consequences, because their military power had diminished.135
For centuries the tribes had been able to retain much autonomy by playing the
different European countries inhabiting the North-American continent against one or
the other.136 After 1815 this strategy was no longer viable. The Americans had taken
crucial steps to diminish the military power of the Indians. The significance of Andrew
Jackson’s victories was not his victory in New Orleans but his victory in the Creek
war, so argues Howe.137 This war, part of the greater War of 1812, represented part
of a larger struggle by the United States to secure white supremacy over a multiracial
and multicultural society that included Native-Americans, African American Maroons,
French and Spanish Creoles and intermixtures of all these people with each other
132
C. S. Maier, Among Empires American Ascendancy and its predecessors (London: Harvard
University Press 2006), 19-20.
133 J. Burbank and F. Cooper, Empires in world history Power and the politics of difference (Princeton:
Princeton University Press 2010), 2.
134 Ibidem, 3.
135 D. Howe, What Hath God Wrought The transformation of America 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2007), 74.
136 Ibidem, 74.
137 Ibidem, 74.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
and white Americans.138 This is the historical background against which Jefferson
and Madison ruled. Should we understand their attitude and action in their
explanation of multiculturalism, diversity and minorities as Howe did or should we
follow Maier, Burbank and Cooper to understand Jefferson and Madison?
St. Domingue & Indians
When Thomas Jefferson became president, he imagined the nation’s expansion
across the continent. North America was destined to be the site of something “new
under the sun”, a great republican empire that was to secure the liberties of its
citizens and provide an inspirational example for the oppressed people of the
world.139 There was not another nation like the United States on the continent, there
were only colonial empires of the European nations. Jefferson envisioned that the
whole continent would eventually become American.
In this way Jefferson perceived the continent as a blank slate, argues Peter Onuf. 140
However, despite this vision, the reality was that the United States were not very
strong geopolitically. They had a weak military and internally there was friction
between Federalists and Democrats-Republicans of Jefferson. The rest of the
continent was dominated by European powers. Weak as they may have been there,
they were still stronger than the United States.
Moreover, there were also huge tribes of native-Americans in the continent. The
continent that Jefferson imagined as a blank slate was crowded with potentially
powerful enemies. Revolutionary France, America’s “sister republic”, was a great,
expansive nation in Europe, but also in the American continent. France’s possession
of New Orleans and the navigation of the Mississippi meant that the new American
state and territories of the Mississippi-Ohio watershed would be drawn inexorably into
the French orbit.141 Once established in Louisiana, France could then enlist Indian
allies in a bloody war against the United States, it also could prohibit slavery and start
a slave insurrection that would overturn the social and racial order in the southern
slave states.
All this made potential agreements with the Indians a precarious matter. As a
consequence, it was one of the top priorities of the federal government to deal with
the various Indians tribes.142 The United States had to be aware of the risk that the
various Indian tribes could play the different colonial countries against each other,
138
Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 74.
P. Onuf, “Prologue Jefferson, Louisiana and American Nationhood”, in Empire of the Imagination,
ed. by P.J Kastor and F. Weil (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2009), 23.
140 Ibidem, 24.
141 Ibidem, 25.
142 D. Hendrickson, Union, Nation or Empire: The American debate over international relations 17891941 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 2005),147.
139
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
just as they had done in the past.143 Now, with the French, Spanish and British
presence in the continent, dealings with Indians could be very tricky.
The French had been expanding over the continent. Napoleon had set his sights on
St. Domingue, where a successful slave revolt in 1797 had placed former slaves in
power. This made dealings with this island very difficult, since parts of the United
States were inhabited by slaves. The southern economy had been dependent on
slaves, especially Virginia, home state to Jefferson and Madison. The prospect of
black crews carrying seditious ideas to southern ports was menacing.144
Although he shared those exaggerated fears, Jefferson proceeded carefully.145 He
had no desire to alienate American merchants by shutting down the profitable
Caribbean tread. In July 1801, meeting with Edward Thornton, the British charge
d’affaires, Jefferson made it clear that he supported the policy of his predecessor
Adams of “freed and open trade” with the island, but he also said that he wished to
prevent “all maritime exertion on the part of the negroes”.146 Striking a delicate
balance here, the Administration hoped to improve relations with France as well. As
demonstrated Jefferson took the European context into account, while dealing with
internal problems such as failing to acknowledge the slave rebellion in St.Domingue.
Jefferson and Madison began to realize that the French problems in St. Domingue
might actually help America’s cause.147 The French sent a huge amount of troops
into the rebellious island and this prevented the French from going to the mainland. It
was a sign of relief for the Administration, because many felt that the French
presence might uproot the slave society.
Tench Coxe, a former Hamilton associate laid out the worst-case scenario for
Madison, when he predicted that Napoleon would send “a large detachment of
republican blacks” from St. Domingue to Louisiana. This, he said, would lead to the
“sudden emancipation’’ of the blacks there and Madison could count on their
becoming “warlike”.148 To Coxe St. Domingue was not an isolated island as it might
spread ideas of emancipation and racial equality to the U.S. south.
The idea of revolting against authority was not hard to understand for American
republicans. However, their economy relied on slavery. The fear of rebellion could
uproot the Unites States and this was very dangerous in a geopolitical sense. Fear
and economic considerations were probably why Jefferson never seriously
entertained emancipation as a policy option. He took comfort in the fact that both the
French and the slaves on St. Domingue were fighting each other in a bloody and
costly conflict.149 He predicted a French defeat. What he did not expect was that the
143
Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 74.
A. Burstein and N. Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House 2010), 374.
145 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, September 13 1802, http:/founders.archive.gov/
146 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 375.
147 Hendrickson and Tucker, Empire of liberty, 158.
148 Letter from T. Coxe to J. Madison, November 28 1801, http://founders.archive.gov/
149 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 375.
144
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
French would grew tired of the whole North-American continent and that they would
eventually propose to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States.
Louisiana Purchase
When in 1803 the Louisiana Purchase agreement was reached with France, the door
was opened for all kinds of different possibilities for the United States. What did
Jefferson envision with all this new territory? Jefferson supported this expansion,
because he envisioned new land for farming and commerce. Burstein and Isenberg
claim that Jefferson was attached to a fertile, fruitful land and that he saw endless
opportunities. America would then become more peaceful and resilient as a breeder
nation.150 This argument might be true if the president’s political vocabulary is taken
into account because his vocabulary was rich in allusions to affection, attachment,
health, good air, natural abundance and the rejection of bad blood.151 It all added up
to propagation of a certain (white republican) species and the dissemination of those
ideas that bred a healthy spirit of personal independence.152 Jefferson envisioned
white settlement in the new territory, however, people already lived there. Huge tribes
of Indians resided there who did not fit in with Jefferson’s ideas.
After the purchase had become a fact, the president decided that the Indians should
relocate west of the Mississippi. Here, he rationalized, they would find ‘’asylum’’ from
conflict with whites. Here over time, they would develop ‘’useful arts’’ and ‘’civilized’’
habits.153 This convenient formula for assimilation over time basically ignored Indian
traditions. The tribes south of the Ohio river were confirmed agriculturalists. In the
letters from 1808 and 1809 Jefferson’s choice of words in his messages to tribal
leaders changed from “Friends and Brethen” to “my children” and “son”, symbolizing
a paternalistic turn. 154 Basically, the Indians had been not as important to Jefferson
as the future white settlers.
The Indians needed instruction, because they were prone to violence and easily
waned from it; they demonstrated a “natural” kindness toward strangers and a strong
commitment to friendship.155 It was for those Indians who still needed time in the
endless hunting lands of the trans-Mississippi frontier that eastern Indians were to
sacrifice their property for white towns. In spite of Jefferson’s somewhat positive
choice of words about the nature of the Indians that he had paid to the Indians in the
150
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 390.
P. Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, ed. By P. Onuf (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 1993), 185.
152 Ibidem, 390.
153 Letters from T. Jefferson to Indian Nations, 21 December 1808, 10 January 1809, 18 January 1809
and 31 January 1809, http:/founders.archive.gov/
154 Letters from T. Jefferson to Indian Nations, 21 December 1808, 10 January 1809, 18 January 1809
and 31 January 1809, http:/founders.archive.gov/
151
155
T. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
past, Jefferson easily yielded to practical concerns of land use and political
reorganization of the Louisiana Purchase.156
Jefferson needed space for Americans. He considered Indians to be physically suited
for the white race, but as an unlettered race they still lacked cultural complexity. 157 As
a consequence they were ranked below white Americans and thus they had to move
away from Louisiana, more westward.
Basic beliefs
With the expansion into Louisiana territory and all consequences of this it would be
interesting to further analyze the basic principles on which Jefferson and Madison
viewed the native Americans and the slave system. Jefferson became famous in
America when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. The most famous line of
this Declaration was that all persons “are created equal, and that they are endowed
by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of Happiness”.158 Yet, the author of this creed of liberty could never
reconcile the ideals of freedom, expressed in his writings with the reality of his
ownership of slave men and slave women and his leadership of a slaveholding
society.159
There is obviously a huge contrast between Jefferson’s words and his actions on this
matter of slavery. While writing the Declaration he owned 175 slaves. During his life,
he made numerous comments about how awful the system of slavery was, however,
he did little to end slavery or dissociate himself from his role as the master of his
home Monticello.160 On the contrary, he acquired more slaves as his life went on.
Historians have concluded that his ideas about slavery and his relationship to the
institution were complex and contradictory.161
Jefferson advocated legal reform and humane criminal codes as a consequence of
his Enlightenment beliefs, but when it concerned slaves he advocated barbaric,
harsh punishments for slaves or free blacks. He had been all for expanding
citizenship for white Americans, for blacks however, they would have to become
“outlaws” in their native land. Furthermore Jefferson supported recolonization of
African-Americans.162 He was also against racial intermixing. He would have slaves
156
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 391.
Ibidem, 391.
158 Declaration of Independence, July 4 1776,
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
159 P. Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, 181.
160 Ibidem,182.
161 Ibidem, 182.
162 Letter from T. Jefferson to E. Coles, August 25 1814, http://founders.archive.gov/
157
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
expelled from his home State Virginia, because the children of white women and
black men had “corrupt”-mixed- blood in their systems.163
Did Jefferson view African-Americans as equal? In his letters there is no sign to be
found that he viewed them as equal. 164 As mentioned earlier, with the expansion into
Louisiana this supposed equality might become a problem. Now many slaves came
into American territory. Some argued for emancipation of slaves. Jefferson did not
support this view not just because economic reasons. As said before, he viewed
them not as equal. Race presented an insurmountable barrier to emancipation.
Jefferson believed African-Americans were swayed by emotion, lacked intellectual
abilities and were not equipped to participate in a free republican society.165 There
were serious race differences between white Americans and African Americans.
These differences went further than just color of their skins. Jefferson thought “the
real distinction that nature has made between races” also attributed to other physical
distinctions.166 Race, more than their status as slaves, doomed blacks to permanent
inequality. Jefferson had never come across a black American who “had uttered a
thought above the level of plain narration; never seen an elementary trait of painting
or sculpture”.167 He found “no poetry” among African Americans. Jefferson argued
that blacks ability to “reason” was “much inferior” to whites, while “in imagination they
are dull, tasteless, and anomalous” and “inferior to the whites in the endowments of
body and mind”.168 Jefferson did concede that the African Americans were brave, but
this was due to “a want of fore-thought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be
present”.169
This attitude towards slavery frustrated Jefferson to be a supporter of equal rights for
slaves in the American society during his presidency. However, he did speak often of
the need for abolition, but he argued that the time had not come yet. Historian Paul
Finkelman states that “not here” and “not now” was his philosophy.170 He further
argues that his words are those of a liberty loving man of the Enlightenment, however
his deeds are those of a self-indulgent and negrophobic Virginia planter.171
Madison almost certain shared most of Jefferson’s views. They had similar
backgrounds as planters in Virginia, they both had slaves and both shared the
ideology of republican Enlightenment thinking. As proven by the St. Domingue case
Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, 182.
163
164
See for instance letter from T. Jefferson to E. Coles, August 25 1814, http://founders.archive.gov/
Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, 184.
166 T. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp
167 T. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp
168 T. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp
169 T. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp
170 Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world, in Jeffersonian
Legacies”, 210.
171 Ibidem, 210.
165
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
and the Louisiana Purchase, the pattern of thinking concerning the Indians was more
or less similar to the pattern of thinking of slavery. Again there is a huge contrast
between words and actions.
What were their visions on matters of the Indians? Jefferson praised Indians as
uncorrupted by civilization, native Americans thus reflected man’s true nature. Their
“keen” sensibility, affection for their children, capacity for “strong and faithful”
friendship, and unsophisticated “moral sense of right and wrong” preserved social
order without compulsion or coercion.172 For Jefferson, the Indians were natural
republicans who showed that society did not depend on submission to the authority
of a governing class but was instead the spontaneous expression of man’s sociable
nature.173
Despite the rhetoric of praise by Jefferson, policy in reality was quite the opposite. As
stated earlier in the case of Louisiana, Jefferson supported migration for Americans
to their territory over there. For that the Indians had either to assimilate into American
society or they had to move. As Peter Onuf states “Jefferson’s generous assessment
of the human potential of Indians did not lead to the construction of a durable
multiracial, multicultural political order in the new world. On the contrary, Jeffersonian
philosophy provided the moral and intellectual rationale for the removal of Indians
across the Mississippi under President Andrew Jackson.”174
Onuf wrote this in a book about empire and nationhood and he argued that Jefferson
was building an empire. Onuf argued that minorities stood in the way of such an
empire. Indian territories were a roadblock to the agrarian society that Jefferson
envisioned. Land was necessary in order to grow as a nation and therefore Jefferson
ultimately favored removal of the Indians instead of assimilation. Empire and the
threat of the European powers took precedence. Onuf’s argument is plausible and
offers a clear explanation why there was such a discrepancy between policies and
words spoken.
Jefferson’s philosophy was used to support this removal policy. The new territory
became the perfect place to relocate the eastern tribes of Indians. In August 1803
Jefferson wrote that “the best use we can make of Louisiana for some time, will be to
give establishments in it to the Indians on the east side of the Mississippi, in
exchange to their present country […] and thus make this acquisition the means of
filling up the eastern side […] when we shall be full on this side, we may lay off a
range of States on the western bank […] advancing compactly as we multiply”.175
P. S. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire The language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press 2000), 19.
173 Ibidem, 19.
174 Ibidem, 19.
175 R. J. Miller, Native America Discovered and Conquered Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark and
Manifest Destiny (London: University of Nebraska Press 2008), 91.
172
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
This letter is interesting for several reasons. One is that Jefferson is talking about
relocating Indians by proposing to trade eastern lands for lands in the Mississippi.
However, this would be a temporary measure. Jefferson expected that the American
population would grow and thus would drive the Indians out of their lands again.
A second reason why this letter is so interesting because it demonstrates again the
contrast between words and actual policy. Robert J. Miller concludes that Jefferson
did not support assimilation at all, despite his words. He advocated tactics of taking
tribal lands. He argues that obtaining Indians lands for the United States was
Jefferson true goal.176 Miller, who is from native American origin, is not an entirely
unbiased source, his argument stems from a book that considers the long term
history of the United States with a judiciary perspective.
Despite that narrow perspective, Miller certainly has a point, here. Jefferson’s policies
combined with his republican dreams for an empire of liberty suggest that these ideas
were valued more than his positive assessment of Indians.
The other problem with the Indians was that they lived near the borders of the United
States. This would create a threat. People who lived on the frontier were under
constant threat and they pled for harsher measures against the Indian invaders. It
also meant that the relationship with the Indians was under constant pressure and
that foreign powers could interfere. There were rumors that the Spanish and the
British supported the Indians to create problems in the United States. This
geopolitical fact in combination with the plans for further expansion of the United
States would create problems for the Jefferson and Madison Administrations.
Maier argues that frontiers in themselves might function as a reason for expansion.
He argues that stable frontiers are critical for the credibility for any regime.177
Instability provokes expansion. With this perspective in mind it is easy to suggest that
this argument prevailed over the right of the Indians. It is not too difficult to suggest
that building an empire according to the vision of Maier was more important for
Jefferson and Madison than the position of the Indians.
Build-up to the War of 1812
The world outside the United States was still tense, because the European powers
had been competing with each other and the United States was getting caught in the
crossfire. Great-Britain emerged as a potential enemy in the last years of the
presidency of Jefferson. When Madison took over the presidency the country was
preparing to go to war with their former colonizer.
The role of the Indians was discussed again in relation to Great-Britain. There were
also Indian tribes who lived near the border with Canada. As to these Indians,
Jefferson had left a memo regarding unresolved intrusions by whites on Cherokee
176
177
Miller, Native America Discovered, 92.
Maier, Among Empires, 78.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
and Chickasaw lands in Georgia.178 The third president’s thinking was that these
Indians should become individual farmers over there followed by possible
banishment across the Mississippi, where a mobile, hunting society could be
sustained for a period of time.
What about the fourth president? Did he share the thinking of his predecessor?
Madison shared many of Jefferson’s ideas and he lacked the impulse to give the
minorities political equality as well. Madison vowed in his inaugural message “to
carry on the benevolent plans which have been so meritoriously applied to the
conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of
savage life to a participation of the improvements of which the human mind and
manners are susceptible in a civilized state”.179 America’s priority lay with the old
world. The world power relations were closely linked to the nation’s immediate future.
In such a political climate, attention was given, but little real sensitivity was shown, to
the needs of Indians and people of African origins in slavery in the south. In
Washington, they viewed these people with suspicion as if they were ready to join the
European powers to destroy the United States.
The stereotypes that already existed about Indians and African-Americas in
Washington were enhanced by the European threat. As a consequence, government
policy focused even more on Indian removal and black recolonization. This was
accompanied by an increase in anxiety about racial intermixing. Laws that rendered
mixed-race offspring as bastards, deprived of any inheritance, would outlast slavery
itself.180 Burstein and Isenberg argue that freedom was defined as exclusively a white
inheritance and Indians and blacks were seen not just as inferiors but also as social
deviants who posed a credible danger to the wholesome vigor as well as necessary
security of American expansionism.181
Congress banned slave trading outside the United States, but domestically there was
no discussion about abolition of slavery. The black republic of Haiti was a frightening
prospect for the United States. With attention focused on Spanish Florida and the
unsettled Louisiana purchase lands, some began asking whether the black
population might be relocated from the Atlantic states onto lands still populated by
Indians.182
It is important to see that in these plans the threat of the black population in relation
to black Haiti and slavery outweighed the threat posed by the Indians. That’s why
Madison thought it easier, in the text of his inaugural address, to direct his attention
178
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 468.
The Inaugural Address by President J. Madison, March 4 1809,
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres18.html
180 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 468.
181 Ibidem, 468.
182 Ibidem, 469.
179
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
to the project of making Indians “white”.183 Indians were a mobile race, whereas
slaves were bound to the land, because their owners needed to render it fruitful.
Slavery remained a blight on the cultural landscape and an issue that was too huge
to tackle head on in the lead up to the War of 1812.
War of 1812
Despite the anxiety about slavery, the Indians formed a more formidable obstacle in
the War of 1812. Canada was a target for the American government. Near the
Canadian border, in Indiana, fighting broke out at the end of 1811. The Shawnee
leader Tecumseh attempted to build a tribal confederation for defence against the
Americas. Tecumseh’ s brother Tenskwatawa had even more aggressive plans on
his mind. He believed it was possible to turn back the white settlements.
Tenskwatawa ran into the crusading William Henry Harrison, who achieved a
resounding victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe. In Washington, word was floating
around that the British to the north were supplying the Indians and would stop at
nothing. This made the urge for expansion into Canada and the call for war more
urgent.
President Madison declared war on Great-Britain on June 1 1812. He presented a list
of grievances against Great-Britain to Congress. Among this list was the accusation
that the British were supporting and encouraging the Indians in the northwest. 184
Jefferson, from his house, supported this claim. He urged Madison “to stop Indian
barbarities. The conquest of Canada will do this.”185 However, Canada was not
conquered at all. British troops defeated the Americans and the Indians, now
supported by the British had increased their attacks on American troops. The war
was not going as planned.
In the southwest there were Indians fighting as well. There the Shawnee leader
Tecumseh proved impatient with the British commander with whom he was meant to
coordinate operations. On the American side, the troops of Harrison were accused of
wasting time and money by constantly retreating from the battlefield. However, this
tactic eventually paid off.
When on Lake Erie a substantial part of the British fleet was destroyed by the
Americans, the door was opened for Harrison and his troops. Boosted by Kentucky
riflemen, he crossed into Canada in pursuit of the enemy; and at the Battle of the
Thames in October 1813 , Tecumseh, spokesman of pan-Indian alliance and
excellent warrior, was killed. As a consequence, the British-Indian alliance became
weakened, because the British had done better, military speaking, than the Indians.
183
The Inaugural Address by President J. Madison, March 4 1809,
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres18.html
184
185
Letter from J. Madison to Congress, June 1 812, http://founders.archive.gov//
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, June 29 1812, http://founders.archive.gov/
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
The northern campaign of the Americans was cut short, because the British proved
too resilient.
With all the attention that was given to the Indians, the question of slavery was put on
the backburner. This was illustrated by the fact that almost no one asked President
Madison to abolish slavery. He himself made no effort to do so. He did, however, not
entirely escape condemnation for his support of slavery. His papers reveal that at
least one federal Representative was bold enough to write to him directly and expose
the hypocrisy in his complaining about Britain’s “pressing and enslaving a few
thousand of your seamen,” while “you southern Nabobs, to glut your avrise for sorded
gain, make no scruple of enslaving millions of the sons and daughters of Africa, &
their descendants.”186
In this period anxiety rose concerning the fact that too many slaves resided in one
area. Thereby it would be easier for them to rebel against the authorities. The
recolonization or removal option, whether coming from human concern or out of more
selfish motives of slave holders, remained very much alive as an idea.187 Jefferson
wholeheartedly supported these plans. He wrote in 1811 to businessman John
Lynch, that his views concerning “the people of color of these states” had never really
changed. He had long favored “gradually drawing off this part of our population” and
“transplanting them among the inhabitants of Africa.”188
In 1814 a young Virginian Edward Coles wrote to Jefferson about his plan to end
slavery in their state. He planned to emancipate slaves and give them land in Illinois.
Jefferson replied that he was becoming too old and refused to give his opinion on this
matter. He was fond of his “love of tranquility”.189 Jefferson refused to accommodate
Coles and was more than happy to carry on with his life as a farmer with all his
slaves. In 1814 there were more pressing matters ahead for Jefferson and for his
friend Madison.
One of these pressing matters was that the British were gaining ground in America.
The British invaded America and went after the capital Washington, in the south
however, the Americans were more successful. Militias under general Jackson
removed the British from Pensacola in November 1814. After this victory Jackson
was headed to New Orleans. In order to achieve success there, Jackson took some
unorthodox measures.
Jackson released prisoners from war if they agreed to join his militia. He enlisted
friendly Indians and African Americans in his army. Slaves did the hardest work,
digging trenches and raising fortifications.190 Jackson’s hard work paid off because
he won the battle of New Orleans. However, this battle had not been really
186
Letter from S. Potter to J. Madison, February 13 1813, http://founders.archive.gov/
Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 468.
188 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Lynch, January 121 1811, http://founders.archive.gov/
189 Letter from T. Jefferson to E. Coles, August 25 1814, http://founders.archive.gov/
190 Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 549.
187
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
necessary. A peace agreement had already been reached with the British in Ghent.
Americans at the time did not see their great victory as meaningless. They were
beaming with pride. It gave the nation self-respect, overlooking the fact that the army
had a multiracial and multiethnic nature.191 With this peace agreement, the war was
now over and the United States had to be rebuilt.
By the end of the war, the fear of slave uprisings was put to rest. The British had
urged slaves to revolt against their American masters. They had promised freedom
for those who would rally to their cause. This caused anxiety with the Americans and
had forced the American government to divert large numbers of militia away from the
battlefield into preserving domestic security.192 In spite of that, three hundred slaves
revolted. Most slaves however, stayed on their plantations.
Madison decided to give a personal justification of the war, which should be written
by Madison’s aide Alexander Dallas after the war, which was going to give – “a
correct and full view of the war”, as Madison put it to Jefferson in March 1815.193 In
this paper there was also a part on a potential slave uprising: “The slaves of the
American planters were invited to join the British standard, in a covert phraseology,
that afforded but a slight veil for the real design. But even the negroes seem, in
contempt, or disgust, to have resisted the solicitation; no rebellion or massacre
ensued.”194 In this narrative of Madison, the slaves were able to see through the
British and remain at peace with their masters. In this document there are signs of
the paternalistic view of slavery that would be part of southern defense for slavery in
the coming decades, eventually leading up to the civil war.
Slavery was put to rest for the time being, the problems with the Indians were not. In
the peace agreement no extra territory had been gained or lost. What happened was
that the British dropped their support for the Indians. The British negotiators aimed for
the creation of a completely independent native American buffer state in the Great
Lakes region. The American negotiators were adamant in their opposition against this
plan. The British ultimately dropped their support for the Indians, because they could
not afford to remain engaged in war due to the tensions in Europe. Moreover their
strategic position in America had weakened as a result of their defeats at Plattsburgh
and New Orleans. During the war, the British had their own problems with the
reliability of the Indians and as a consequence of all this they let go of the demand of
the independent Indian state. Instead, they made an agreement with the Americans
to return to the status quo before the war. However, this was a very vague agreement
and the British stopped to support the Indians and therefore the Indians were left in
the hands of the Americans.
191
Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 17.
Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 64.
193 Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson, March 12 1815, http://founders.archive.gov/
194 A. J. Dallas, An Exposition of the causes and Character of the Late War with Great-Britain,
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t3jw95h55;view=1up;seq=9, 69-70.
192
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Concluding, the war ended badly for the Native-Americans. Their uprisings were
squashed at the battle of the Thames and at the slaughter at Horsehoe Bend on
March 27, 1814. That diminished the military power of the Indians. With these facts in
mind, it was noted that the only relevance of General Jackson’s victory at New
Orleans was that he diminished the Indian threat.195
The Creek war had really strategic value. This war was turned into a frontier war
where the southern militias aimed for the land of the Indians. The British were blamed
for encouraging Indian atrocities during the war, but the Americans under leadership
of Jackson crushed the Creek insurgency. He forced on August 9, 1814, the Treaty of
Fort Jackson upon the Creeks, thereby pressing the tribes to concede over 22 million
acres in Alabama and Georgia. It was an enormous land grab supported by the
American government. 196
The peace Treaty in Ghent with the British restored as mentioned before the status
quo: the Indians were guaranteed their lands. In June 1815 the Madison
Administration ordered Jackson to begin to return land to the Indians.197 But Jackson
refused to comply and the federal government felt that they could not strike against
the popular war hero and let the land grab pass. The British were not inclined either
to support the Indians, they withdrew their support and thereby leaving the Indians
into the hands of the Americans. The American government concluded a series of
treaties with the Indians, beginning with the second Treaty of Greenville, which forced
the Indians to declare themselves allies of the United States. Over the next few years
treaties were concluded that included removal of tribal lands and diminishing fur
trading, which hurt the economic position of the Indians.198 Andrew Jackson extorted
a treaty with the Cherokees in 1816 and thereby confirmed possession of Indian area
that had taken from them before. The Senate ratified this treaty because of Jackson’s
involvement. Obviously, the war ended very badly for the Indian population and the
aftermath of the war was no better for them either.
Conclusion
This chapter started stating the theories of Maier, Burbank and Cooper that an
empire should imply the inclusion of different cultures and races. The question raised
was, how was the situation in the early years of the American Republic during the
presidencies of Jefferson and Madison. As noted by various historians, there is a
huge gap between their words and their actions.199 On paper they wrote all kind of
idealistic things about the Indians and the need to abolish slavery. Contrary to reality:
the Indians were pushed back to the frontier and across and they were perceived as
a huge threat to American lives.
195
Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 74.
Ibidem, 76.
197 Ibidem, 75.
198 Ibidem, 76.
199 Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, 182.
196
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
When the United States expanded into Louisiana Territory, there were plans to make
room for settlements of farmers and settlers there. This expansion made the Indian
problem more relevant. Jefferson, despite his rhetoric, was basically a supporter of
land removal in order to make room for white settlements. There was no sign of
Jefferson endorsing racial equality in the Louisiana territory at all.
Unfortunately, there were also no signs of extending citizenship to the African
Americans slaves either . Despite their discussions about abolishment of slavery,
Jefferson and Madison did little to nothing to end slavery. They lived privately at their
plantations where slaves lived and worked for them. They needed slaves for
economic reasons. Equality was only for the white population, in spite of the rhetoric
in the Declaration of Independence. The example of the black republic of Haiti proves
this. Rebellion against a European power was beautiful, but not for the black
population over there. Both men feared that Haiti could serve as an example to the
Americans black population. This anxiety about uprisings was enhanced by the War
of 1812. The British had promised freedom and as a consequence a few slaves
turned against their masters. However, in the larger picture there was no mass
rebellion. Later on, Madison used this fact to justify the culture of slavery.200
The Indians got no better treatment during the War of 1812. Some Indian tribes
aligned themselves with the British. Later this fact was used to deprive Indians of
their lands. The British dropped their support for the Indians in the peace
negotiations. Andrew Jackson’s victories in the south had cleared the way for future
land grabbing by the Americans.201
To conclude, both men and in particular Jefferson wrote eloquently and in an
inspirational manor about freedom and equality. However, in reality they did not live
up to their words. Inclusion and equality were never realized. Both men supported
land removal and sustained slavery. It seemed that their words were only meant for a
certain part of the population, the white Americans.
The rest of the population was ignored, removed or repressed in order to build their
nation. In this sense both men do not fit in with the descriptions of inclusion as given
by Maier, Burbank and Cooper. Howe’s description about white supremacy over
Indians and slaves is more accurate. Burbank and Cooper’s arguments that empires
eventually need diversity may be true in the long haul, but their statements about an
early violent and reclusive phase of an empire is certainly more than true in the cases
of Jefferson and Madison.
What are the effects of their views on minorities on their plans to build an empire?
Jefferson and Madison were in an early and reclusive phase of building an empire
and did not aspire to equal rights for the whole population. When they wrote about
equality they meant equality for people such as themselves. Men of a certain
200
A. J. Dallas, An Exposition of the causes and Character of the Late War with Great-Britain,
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t3jw95h55;view=1up;seq=9, 69-70.
201 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 74.
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background and not other people. In their vision society benefited from their policies.
There was a need to enhance agriculture and to spread civilization. That’s why they
aspired to expand. If this happened their own society could grow. This is what they
meant: they did not mean any modern interpretations that historians of our time mean
when they use the concepts such as diversity and equality .
In this sense Jefferson’s and Madison’s words have to be put in the right historical
context. In our time their words at least seem strange and contradictory but in their
time their words were understood more clearly. The majority of the people supported
their vision. Race equality was just not on their minds and they were again supported
by the majority of the people. They were elected again by these same people.
Empires take time to build and in this sense racial thinking evolves over time. Even in
the civil war there was a huge debate about this process. So, it is logical that
Jefferson and Madison were no supporters of the modern view of racial equality and
America had to go to through a violent and reclusive phase in order to achieve some
version of racial equality. In that sense Burbank and Cooper were right.
Onuf argues that the reason why Jefferson and Madison were so reluctant to expand
the rights of the minorities was because of their ambition to build an American
empire.202 Jefferson was determined in his vision to build an empire that was built on
the foundation that a homogenous nation was strong enough to expand and to
survive in a European dominated world. This vision is correct. Jefferson saw survival
of the United States as his top priority. It was not that he did not realize that slavery
was wrong but as a solution he suggested relocation. In their native countries they
could aspire freedom to be compared to the freedom Americans had acquired after
their revolutionary war.203
Finkelman painted a more negative picture, after he had read the words of the
Declaration and then gave an overview of the outcome. As mentioned before there is
a huge gap between words and reality. Finkelman’s view ignores the empire
dimension as well as the European geopolitical situation in which Jefferson and
Madison operated. In this sense his vision is a bit narrow. Agreeing with Onuf it is
clear that it is more important to take into account the empire context that is crucial in
understanding Jefferson’s and Madison’s policies on race relations.
Both Jefferson and Madison were in the process to build an empire and for that goal
a more homogenous society was necessary in order to grow as a society and
ultimately to survive as a nation in a dangerous world.
Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, 21.
Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, 185.
202
203
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Conclusion
The question if Jefferson and Madison were building an empire during their times as
presidents of the United States is addressed in this paper. Closely linked to this
question is whether they saw the War of 1812 as a chance to expand the United
States or not. This research is divided into three sub questions and each part covers
an answer to the questions put in this paper.
The first chapter discusses the expansion of the United States. Had both Virginians
expansionistic ambitions? The answer to this question is undoubtedly yes. Jefferson
and Madison envisioned a larger United States. They desired Florida, parts of
Mexico, Louisiana, Cuba, and Canada.204 Their ambitions sprang from their thinking.
They saw their nation as paramount to freedom and against repression. Their nation
had come into the world as a republic, not as a monarchy. They rebelled against their
colonizer Great-Britain and they persisted. Madison and Jefferson felt that in order for
the republic to flourish they had to expand. They perceived their continent as a place
where American agriculture could flourish and eventually expand.205 Following the
spirit of the Enlightenment they perceived the inhabitants of America as capable of
reaching a high degree of civilization. Civilization could spread across the continent
and thereby freeing the continent of European repressors.
However, practice never suits theory. How did expansionism fare in practice?
Sometimes, opportunities just present themselves, as in case of the Louisiana
Purchase. This deal took place due to the European struggle for hegemony over
world politics. The United States profited from this. Both men knew this and tried to
use this European context to their advantage. Jefferson and Madison succeeded in
the case of Louisiana and in parts of Florida. In other cases they miscalculated the
European context: Madison and Jefferson and others misperceived the strength of
Great-Britain and its distraction with France. Despite attempts to further expansion
they did not succeed: Great-Britain proved too strong in the War of 1812.
The second chapter deals with military power. There was no strong army at the time
of the presidency of Jefferson and Madison, due to fear of a strong central
government and anxiety about military power. Both men knew that a strong force was
required in order to expand and for purposes of self-defense. Internal resistance
prevented the buildup of a strong military machine. Jefferson aspired to build
gunboats and in this he succeeded. However, it was only a reversal in policy, not an
expansion of the military machine. Early in his presidency he cut the budget of the
navy.
204
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, August 16, 1807, http://founders.archive.gov/
See for instance a letter from T. Jefferson to W. Ludlow, September 6 1824,
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-4523
205
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Later on Jefferson needed more ships for the Tripolitan War. What this war
demonstrates is that in order to win a war, principles had to be set aside. Jefferson
realized this and opted for a slight change in policy.
Madison, however, made a complete turnaround. He abolished the use of gunboats
during the War of 1812 and argued for a professional navy with real power, he
started to build a war organization and even advocated for conscription, which was
completely contrary to the voluntary armies of the State militias. These state militias
proved unreliable and were no real match for the British. Thus expansion into
Canada was no option.
For such an expansion, however, both men only partly relied on military force,
perhaps realizing that the other powers were just too strong, so in the end they relied
on diplomacy. With smart maneuvering they tried to expand. They did hint at a
military conflict such as Madison’s meeting with the French ambassador
demonstrates.206 However, this as far as it went. No military power was involved in
order to achieve expansion except in 1812.
The third chapter discusses the inclusive nature of their empire as envisioned by
Jefferson and Madison. What was their view of the role of minorities, especially
slaves and Indians? In spite of the beautifully written language about equality and
rights, this did not hold for the Indians. One of Jefferson’s legacies was that the policy
to remove Indians from their lands was inspired by Jefferson’s rhetoric.207 The need
for expansion was further fueled in order to enable white settlers and farmers to settle
elsewhere in the continent and Indians stood in their way. Jefferson and Madison
tried to force the Indians to assimilate, but in reality they wanted them to leave. One
of the consequences of the War of 1812 was the diminished military power of the
Indians.208 Without this power, removal would be far less difficult. In this sense the
Madison Administration cleared the way for the Indian removal such as took place
later on in the nineteenth century. If Madison was building an empire, this empire
would be inhabited by a more homogenous society.
As regards to the slaves, it was more or less the same pattern. Jefferson spoke about
the end of slavery, but in reality he never was true to his words. Furthermore
Jefferson as well as Madison envisioned black Americans as not equal to white
Americans. Jefferson and Madison both supported recolonization to Africa.209 So, in
terms of diversity, both men were not ready to extend citizenship to other races than
to white American, who were their priority. They wanted land and they were capable
206
A.Koch, Jefferson & Madison The Great Collaboration (New York: Oxford University Press 1964),
237.
207 P. S. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire The Language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville: Virginia
University Press 1993), 19.
208 D.Howe, What Hath God Wrought The Transformation of America 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2007), 74.
209 A. Burstein and N. Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson ( New York: Random House 2010), 468.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
of behaving in a civilized way and this took precedence over the rights of Indians and
slaves.
This double standard was clearly demonstrated with the resurrection in St.
Domingue. Both presidents did not support this rebellion because the rebels were
black and that would threaten to uproot American society. Equality and liberty were
fine in theory but not in reality.
However, the main question is whether Jefferson and Madison had begun to build an
empire during their times as presidents, judged by the criteria used. Ultimately,
empires require military supremacy, according to Maier, who adds that empires must
retain a decisive military resource and that resource is reserved for executive
power.210 Judged by these criteria, the answer is a clear no. Neither Jefferson nor
Madison built an empire, because their military machine was very weak and on the
whole remained so. The command structure of the executive branch of the federal
government was not strong either.
However, were there traces of a military power developing? Then the answer would
be yes, because these traces were visible during the presidencies of both Jefferson
and Madison. Both men tried to expand the military when an opportunity presented
itself and war was necessary. Jefferson appeared more reluctant than Madison.
Jefferson opted for gunboats and Madison was forced to plead for a federal
command structure, professional navy, military organization due to the failings of the
War of 1812. He even advocated a conscription army. Definitely, signs are present
of their endeavors to build a stronger military force.
Another criterion of Maier is that an empire is to be defined by its frontiers, which has
to do with plans for expansion.211 Both presidents certainly advocated expansion.
There were ambitions enough and to spare but they failed to realize some of their
ideals. The frontier was no clear line and both men envisioned to spread their
American civilization across the continent. In this sense they were heading to what
later would be called Manifest Destiny ideology, a phrase invented in the 1840s, but
the idea behind it had already been present long before the 1840s, as is argued by
Stephanson.212 Jefferson and Madison felt that this was inevitable.213 They tried to
steer this inevitable process in the right direction. Jefferson and Madison stretched
out the terms of the Louisiana Purchase as far as they could. They analyzed the
European power plays and tried to use these to their advantage or to prevent Europe
from gaining more ground in America.
210
C. S. Maier, Among Empires American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (London: Harvard
University Press 2006), 70.
211 Ibidem, 80.
212 A. Stephanson, Manifest Destiny American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York: Hill and
Wang 1995), XXI.
213 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
The European context of power plays also explains their eagerness to acquire
traditional Indian lands and lawful Spanish lands, which they did to prevent the mere
possibility of future British or French expansionism. This European context was also
present in the War of 1812. One of the war aims was expansion into British Canada.
Expansion into this territory would eliminate a European threat just as the Louisiana
Purchase had eliminated the French presence from the mainland of America.
However, expansion into Canada did not take place either: local resistance and the
British were too strong, but the war provided the groundwork for further expansion
into the future. The military power of the Indians had diminished and the British had
dropped their support for an Indian state during peace negotiations. Furthermore, no
territory was lost by the United States. Soon after the war the whole of Florida was
acquired and more territory followed.
To conclude, Jefferson and Madison wanted expansion for the United States and
gave it their best effort. Indeed, during their years in office, the nation had expanded
and they envisioned future expansion such as Canada and Cuba demonstrate. Their
vision and policies were carried on by their successors, so they had laid out the
groundwork for an enlarged United States.
Empire also meant extending civil rights, being open to diversity and multiculturalism,
as argue Maier, Burbank and Cooper.214 As stated earlier and argued by many
historians, there was a huge gap between Madison’s words and in particular
Jefferson’s words on this issue.215 Both men saw the benefits of slavery for the
southern economy and thus realized abolition of slavery was no option. As regards to
the Indians, they followed more or less the same pattern. In spite of the positive, yet
paternalistic tone of their writings on the nature of Indians, they felt Indians were and
obstacle as regards the expansion of white settlements. Jefferson is accused to have
laid the groundwork for the later Indian removals, which sounds plausible.216
Expansion for the republic and advancing the ideals of the American republic clearly
took precedence over the rights of Indians.
The War of 1812 demonstrated this again. The British and the Indians were
considered the main enemies. The Americans were deadly opposed to a British plan
for an Indian state.217 The British compromised, on the condition that the Indians
should be given a fair treatment according to treaties concluded in the past. However,
this did not happen. Madison tried to uphold it but eventually did not follow through in
the face of resistance. This proves that the rights of the Indians were indeed a
concern for Madison but no top priority. His priorities and Jefferson’s priorities lay
elsewhere.
214
Maier, Among Empires, 19-20. And J. Burbank and F. Cooper, Empires in World History Power and
the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2010), 2.
215 P. Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason against the hopes of the world”, in Jeffersonian
Legacies, ed. By P. Onuf (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 1993), 182.
216 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, 19.
217 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 75.
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
Clearly, the priorities of Jefferson and Madison were directed at expansion. They
envisioned expansion and they used every opportunity to realize this goal. Louisiana,
Florida and Canada demonstrate this. Canada was one of America’s war aims and
Jefferson supported and encouraged this policy. 218 It is clear that the war was
started for the purpose of expansion. Both Jefferson and Madison envisioned an
enlarged United States as essential for the future of its white citizens: more land for
agriculture, civilization would be advanced and even the safety in a European
dominated world would be guaranteed.219 This vision can be seen as the early phase
of a American empire. An empire that has traces of anti-militarism to a certain degree
just as Bacevich stated.220 Their empire was also not open for diversity either, so it
does not follow the description of Maier, Burbank and Cooper.221 Their empire is not
a reluctant one either, as Ferguson argued: it was well planned and both men
definitely strived for expansion. 222
Jefferson had called America “an empire for liberty”, however, it was an empire with
serious limitations.223 The military was not strong and an anti-militaristic point of view
remained in the United States. Jefferson mostly agreed with this vision. Madison was
more realistic and realized a stronger army was necessary to create an empire. It
seemed as if Jefferson and Madison had wanted to create an empire exclusively for
white Americans, whereby minorities were meant to work as slaves or to go back to
Africa. Concluding, both men indeed had started to create an empire, but it had
turned out an empire with serious flaws.
218
Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archive.gov/
Letter from T. Jefferson to W. Ludlow, September 6 1824, http://founders.archive.gov/
220A.J. Bacevich, American Empire The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (London:
Cambridge University Press 2003),122.
221 Maier, Among Empires, 19-20. And Burbank and Cooper, Empires in World History, 2.
222 D. Hendrickson, Union, Nation, or Empire. The American debate over international relations 17891941 (Kansas: University Press Kansas 2009), 14.
223 Letter from T. Jefferson to J. Madison, April 27 1809, http://founders.archives.gov
219
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Alexander Minnaard 3136590 thesis
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