The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800

When Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office for the presidency in 1801, the United States had just passed through twelve critical years, years dominated by some of the towering figures of our history and by the challenge of having to do everything for the first time. Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, and Jefferson himself each had a share in setting the nation's important precedents, in organizing the public finances, and in attempting - though with minimal success - to compel respect for the American republic from the powers of Europe. The historical era bounded by those first years is brilliantly represented in The Age of Federalism. Written by esteemed historians Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism gives us a reflective, deeply informed analytical survey of this extraordinary period. Ranging over the widest variety of concerns - political, cultural, economic, diplomatic, military - the authors keep in view not only the problems the new nation faced but also the particular individuals who tried, with mixed results, to solve them. They intersperse their account with subtly perceptive (and sometimes delightful) character sketches, not only of the great central figures - Washington and Jefferson, Talleyrand and Napoleon Bonaparte - but also of various lesser ones, such as George Hammond, Britain's frustrated minister to the United States, James McHenry, Adams's hapless Secretary of War, a pre-Chief Justice version of John Marshall, and others. They weave these lively profiles into an analysis of the major controversies of the time in an effort to recover something that is now two centuries out of reach, the psychology of a generation of nation-builders, not all of it attractive. The moral urgency of these issues, and the bitterness of the disagreements over them, reflected a fearful sense that the entire future hung on the particular way any one of them was settled. We thus see, for example, how the fight over Hamilton's Treasury system widened an ideological gulf between Hamilton and the Virginians, Madison and Jefferson, that became unbridgeable; how their divisions came to involve questions of foreign relations as well as domestic policy; and how the passions thus generated led to what everyone professed to deplore, the formation of political parties. The most complex issues and episodes are presented with a clarity and a connectedness that they have seldom had in previous treatments. We get a fresh reading of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, the Adams presidency, the XYZ Affair, the naval Quasi-War with France, and the desperate Federalist maneuvers in 1800, first to prevent the reelection of Adams and then to nullify the election of Jefferson. The statesmen of the founding generation, the authors concede, did "a surprising number of things right." Some things, however, went resoundingly wrong: the hopelessly underfinanced effort to construct a capital city on the Potomac (it would have made far more sense, the authors argue, to leave it in New York); the drive in 1798 to form a mighty army that virtually nobody wanted; and prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts which turned into a comic nightmare. The Age of Federalism is the fruit of many years of study and discussion. It combines breadth of scholarship with those touches already familiar in the authors' previous handling of historical subjects: analogies, fascinating side-excursions, counterfactual projections, and understated irony, all couched in a prose that is graceful and lucid. With it, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick have produced a comprehensive synthesis, long awaited by historians, of our early national era

When Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office for the presidency in 1801, America had just passed through twelve critical years, years dominated by some of the towering figures of our history and by the challenge of having to do everything for the first time. Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, and Jefferson himself each had a share in shaping that remarkable era-an era that is brilliantly captured in The Age of Federalism.
Written by esteemed historians Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism gives us a reflective, deeply informed analytical survey of this extraordinary period. Ranging over the widest variety of concerns-political, cultural, economic, diplomatic, and military-the authors provide a sweeping historical account, keeping always in view not only the problems the new nation faced but also the particular individuals who tried to solve them. As they move through the Federalist era, they draw subtly perceptive character sketches not only of the great figures-Washington and Jefferson, Talleyrand and Napoleon Bonaparte-but also of lesser ones, such as George Hammond, Britain's frustrated minister to the United States, James McHenry, Adams's hapless Secretary of War, the pre-Chief Justice version of John Marshall, and others. They weave these lively profiles into an analysis of the central controversies of the day, turning such intricate issues as the public debt into fascinating depictions of opposing political strategies and contending economic philosophies. Each dispute bears in some way on the broader story of the emerging nation. The authors show, for instance, the consequences the fight over Hamilton's financial system had for the locating of the nation's permanent capital, and how it widened an ideological gulf between Hamilton and the Virginians, Madison and Jefferson, that became unbridgeable. The statesmen of the founding generation, the authors believe, did a surprising number of things right. But Elkins and McKitrick also describe some things that went resoundingly wrong: the hopelessly underfinanced effort to construct a capital city on the Potomac (New York, they argue, would have been a far more logical choice than Washington), and prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts which turned into a comic nightmare. No detail is left out, or left uninteresting, as their account continues through the Adams presidency, the XYZ affair, the naval Quasi-War with France, and the desperate Federalist maneuvers in 1800, first to prevent the reelection of Adams and then to nullify the election of Jefferson.
The Age of Federalism is the fruit of many years of discussion and thought, in which deep scholarship is matched only by the lucid distinction of its prose. With it, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick have produced the definitive study, long awaited by historians, of the early national era.

Covering a wide variety of concerns--political, cultural, economic, diplomatic, and military--the authors provide a sweeping historical account of America's first years, weaving biographical insights with keen analysis and reflection. A definitive, long-awaited study of the early national era. Illustrations.

Cover CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Modes of Thought and Feeling in the Founding Generation 1. Making Sense of the American Revolution 2."Court" and "Country" Mentalities in Eighteenth-Century England 3."Court" and "Country" in the New American Republic 4. The "Court" Persuasion in America, and Other Questions CHAPTER I: Legitimacy 1. George Washington, Republican 2. Roman Simplicity 3. The Executive Establishment 4. Advise and Consent 5. A Bill of Rights and a Judiciary System 6. Revenue, Tariffs, and Tonnage 7. Legitimacy Ratified CHAPTER II: Finance and Ideology 1. James Madison: The Political Economy of Anglophobia 2. Alexander Hamilton and the Mercantile Utopia 3. The Projection 4. The Political Economy of Anglophilia CHAPTER III: The Divided Mind of James Madison, 1790: Nationalist Versus Ideologue 1. Madison on Funding 2. Madison on Assumption 3. The Resolution CHAPTER IV: The Republic's Capital City 1. Theories of Culture 2. Jefferson and the Federal City 3. The Idea of a City 4. The Idea of a Capital 5. An Imaginary Capital City CHAPTER V: Jefferson and the Yeoman Republic CHAPTER VI: Jefferson as Secretary of State 1. The Nootka Sound Affair, 1790 2. The Bank 3. Jefferson and Hammond CHAPTER VII: The Emergence of Partisan Politics: The "Republican Interest" 1. Hamilton's Industrial Vision 2. Madison Revises The Federalist 3. Hamilton Beleaguered 4. The Philadelphia Newspaper War, 1792 5. Investigating Hamilton CHAPTER VIII: The French Revolution in America 1. How Two Peoples Have Viewed Each Other 2. First Responses to the French Revolution 3. The Revolution as Seen by Certain Concerned Americans 4. Citizen Genet and His Mission 5. Defining American Neutrality 6. Collapse of the Genet Mission 7. The French Revolution and Partisan Politics in America 8. Afterthought: The View from Paris CHAPTER IX: America and Great Britain 1. Politics and Commerce 2. Washington and the War Crisis, 1794 3. A Vision of the Commercial Future 4. Negotiating Jay's Treaty 5. Ratifying the Treaty 6. The "Golden Shower" CHAPTER X: The Populist Impulse 1. The Democratic Societies 2. The Whiskey Insurrection 3. Popular Sovereignty and the End of the Rebellion CHAPTER XI: The Retirement of Washington 1. Logic of the Farewell Address 2. Monroe in Paris 3. The State of Politics in 1796 CHAPTER XII: John Adams and the Dogma of "Balance" 1. The Trouble with Adams 2. Preparing for Crisis 3. First Phase: The XYZ Mission CHAPTER XIII: Adams and Hamilton 1. Second Phase: The Fever of 1798 2. February-October, 1799: Adams Temporizes CHAPTER XIV: The Settlement 1. The Naval Quasi-War 2. The Convention of 1800 CHAPTER XV: The Mentality of Federalism in 1800 1. The Aliens and the Seditious 2. The Apotheosis of Matthew Lyon 3. Sedition and Subversion in England and America 4. Hamilton's Army 5. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions 6. Federalism and the "Campaign" of 1800 7. Burr and the Revolution of 1800 8. "We are all Republicans ..." NOTES INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T V W X Y Z Two esteemed American historians provide a reflective analytical survey of one of the most crucial periods in American history. They describe the events immediately following the American War of Independence when statesmen formed the new nation "The Continental Congress did its last business on October 10, 1788, and went out of existence forever."