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Adams and Jefferson- Rivals/Friends

Added Oct 06, 2012 •

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the presidential election of 1796 the first part of selection in the nation's history watch it unfold it is a contest not only between the emerging Republican party and Federalist but a battle of mung the Federalists themselves when John Washington's vice president wins The Electoral ballot Thomas Jefferson his opponent is awarded the vice presidential post you're not to people that you would think of as being completely in harmony with their views of what's best for the country Jefferson  and this is one of the last efforts at Harmony between Jefferson and John Adams Jefferson wrote a fascinating did John Adams in which he said you should have one you're my senior in diplomacy and age and in the nation service and I hope when we can work together. We can build an Administration and I will support you and Jefferson them sent the letter to Addison send it to him open and said I've written this letter to the president-elect but I'm sending it to you for your examination man who wrote back and said in effect you're out of your mind you can't write a document that could be dredged out later that as you were the best person and you should have won the election and what about all these people who been working for you do you want to overplay his hand or play his hand at all at this point he kept his own counsel quickly saw that it was to his advantage to did the opposition to Adams the interesting thing about 1796 is that when the elections taking place it's really not clear that there are well-defined parties or more accurately it's not clear that the quantum leaders of those parties will behave as Party leaders the fact that the possibility that Jefferson what come to terms is something that horrified Madison and other Republicans who insisted that Jefferson had to be loyal to his follower when atoms takes the oath of office in March of 1797 he finds himself entangled in a number of issues both at home and abroad what a very very difficult road to follow I would you want to 16 George Washington as president the European nations the country had survived two four-year terms that were very difficult but a lot of the fundamental have not really been resolved Adams not only has a vice president Pence the opposition party but a cabinet that is working at cross-purposes can extremely disloyal cabinet cabinet he kept in place because again Adams like Jefferson didn't think in partisan imagine that these people who are holdovers from the second Washington administration would be loyal to him and Hamilton does exercise influence from New York and direct influence over his friends in the cabinet and I'm spent much of his administration escaping dimassa it's because he simply couldn't deal with it Adams wasn't I believe what you would call a team player or if he was he was on Team America not on team Federalists and I think his career also is interesting because of a great gifts that the Adams has had  was truly miraculous gift for unpopularity had a difficult time being president he and Abigail Adams were really Partners in an in an early early president and Spa situation because she was not only a very strong woman she had very strong ideas and opinions and she was not real a went to share them with her husband and some historians have in fact credited her with being harsher than her husband  you and me diplomatic relations with Great Britain and Spain are improving the relationship was very early months of Adams term French government captures American ships improved when Adam send the delegation to negotiate their release French agents demanded loans and bribes before play some talk to the Furious Adams Cuts off trade with France and authorizes preparations for war Hamilton another high Federalist the opportunity to mobilize militarily and at the same time new taxes would be necessary the direct tax of 1798 this would give energy to the National establishment it's one of the ways in which early American history of early National History and runs in a third of a dialectical fashion under threat of war the Federalists also proposed a series of Alien and Sedition Act that give the president the authority to deport or imprison aliens who was the Specter of eating the publication of treasonous material is punishable by fines and imprisonment  25 M most of the editors loyal to the Republican Party are imprisoned is the passage of the Alien and Sedition Act Jefferson really moved into outright opposition it was a strange anomaly because he is in president in presumably a nonpartisan Administration although Adams was a federalist at the same time he was becoming the leader of the opposition which was working quietly but steadily to defeat John Adams in the election of 1800 Republican leaders hopes on state legislators to reverse the Alien and Sedition Act but only two states respond set a religion is not something that is written in concrete in the Kentucky and Virginia resolves you see an effort to enforce the stage to resist completely what's the federal government and you see all sorts of negotiations that go on and will continue to go on meanwhile after winning the number of hyphae battles against France Adams to send another conditions Paris to go she ate with first Consul Napoleon Bonaparte in the face of his incompetence in managing his stration in confidence that was based on his own ideological principle Scruples Adams none-the-less was able to find a way to extricate the United from a diplomatic and Military crisis in a war with France that was in would have been a disaster the most destroy his credit to his successful negotiation of the Quasi War is his greatest achievement the irony of it is that came too late to give him the election in 1800 shake the presidential election of 1800 the candidates of the same as 4 years earlier adamant Jefferson political opponents in the most of the day that you have to go to to outlandish website play to see the Venom was at least in part related to the genuine importance of the steaks and the fears what could go on and what are the people were doing  and one of the things that reveal was how unaccustomed people were really to the notion of a legitimate opposition Let's Race New York emerges as The crucial swing state the New York election things done what would happen to the city of New York and we're Aaron Burr major political operatives and was able to swing the election of a half of Republicans Aaron Burr was was a Frank and about and open partisan in a Rihanna wish  Ferguson's like to deny that they were part of since it's one of the things that's attractive about him it's one of the things that of course lead how many of his contemporaries to doubt his motives and challenge his patriotism on the Republican side was that Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson both ended up with the same number of votes they thought they had fixed it so that bird would get one less and therefore be vice president but it didn't work that way Jefferson and Burr each have 73 votes in the Electoral College is an eighteenth-century invention that was put in place in part because we didn't have universal suffrage and every state had a different set of rules about who could vote in the the founding fathers didn't want to didn't dare to try to impose any scheme about who got to vote on the state says it will leave it up to you you can choose the legislature could tell us how you're going to choose the electors  when into the house occur as provided by the Constitution and it wasn't until the 36th ballot that Jefferson was actually elected president talk about dirty elections or political election it was a very political election which left lingering resentment in a lot of just before Jefferson takes office the lame duck congress reduces the number of justices on the Supreme Court by one and expands the number of federal gunships takes advantage of these last days as president to appoint the number of federalism for these you post he had been unfairly defeated in fact he had just before the campaign done one greatest Statesmen like act of his presidency that was widely circulated within the political Elite and in effect the Federalist Party as a party committed suicide in 1800 lingering resentments about the election of 1800 the transfer of power from Adams to Jefferson is relatively peaceful atoms to the same party transferring party power to a different party when you hated me, no that was that was quite a remarkable people think a lot of people began to breathe more easily how this could work many historians would argue to you that nothing really happened that Jefferson didn't do all the things that he might have done and dismantling the system at Hamilton and the Federalists and creative if you look at Jefferson's first inaugural address at least to build a coalition the same as line we are all Federalists we are all Republicans he didn't set out to destroy the Federalists have been afraid the entire Financial system that Hamilton had put in place like the direct acts of 1798 taxes exercises and so forth the head led to the Whiskey Rebellion earlier and put the American government on the basis of the income from the Terra at Jefferson also paid down the debt by 50% or more this is something that of course Hamilton and Jefferson wanted the dental to go away precisely for the reasons Hamilton wanted to keep it all the Tendencies tour controls issue that had built up during the Federalist administration's and had also been encouraged by the Quasi war with France all of those were suddenly relaxed and as I suggested there is a kind of devolution of authority and that is it the states when the center of action central government was less intrusive and less powerful under Jefferson and yet doesn't stop people from looking for federal help he was of course the subject the victim the recipient of numerous letters some people who wrote for jobs they're wonderfully funny formulaic letters dear President Jefferson I do not presume no you but I have been a loyal Jefferson and suffered grievously at the hands of the Federalist in my town I hope that you will have a small office in the customs house or the post office for which you will see fit to appointment and he did in fact remove a number of LSM offices to put in Jeffersonian Republicans were very much relieved that everything they had stood for had not been dismantled stronger Judiciary under the leadership of John Marshall when the jeffersonians were elected in 1800 one of their primary concerns weakening the Federal Judicial because they didn't want the federal courts to be telling the state's what to do so when the Federalists were in lame duck session at 1900 election they not only put in lots of new judges but changed the structure the judicial I'm so they much more extensive could reach down further into the states the jeffersonians came into power they repeal the axes federals the past then they try one of them was an alcoholic would be an outrageous behavior on the court the other was a Supreme Court Justice who was such bars in federal is he would go around making inflamed speeches about how terrible Jefferson love that member Supreme Court he was not removed from the so very hard barrier was created but there was constant battle over the state of the courts in the most famous case of all Supreme Court Marbury versus Madison play goodbye pointed to office the commission had been fine but Jefferson had refused to have it delivered Madison would have been types of Secretary of State's Marbury versus Madison was Marbury trying to get his the Marshall Court ruled that Noah could not have the commission because part of the judicial back to 1789 had in fact been beyond the powers of the Congress show in a case which was was really very minor and in a case which denied what the plaintiff was seeking Marshall expanded the Dominion of the Judiciary and really established the principle of judicial review  Jefferson does not repeat Adams mistakes in selecting a cabinet or in relating to call Jefferson had to really College on which to call for his cabinet right right off the bat Albert Latin who was born in Geneva who had lived in Western Pennsylvania with a brilliant Fin and fear had been in the house representative in the 1790s any really carried the banner for the Jeffersonian Republicans and they share the same aims which were what taxes reduce the deficit with the did they cut it out and reduce the Army and the Navy for Secretary of State the obvious choice was James Madison's who was Jefferson's younger partner if we want to call him that they had work together in can you politics at the national level and Madison was simply the shrewdest the most loyal and also could disagree with Jefferson so he would be a perfect secretary of the state because his partisans had to now dominated both houses and he did brilliantly in and managing legislation and so forth certainly the tenancies were ones that fit Jefferson's personality are they were conservative he didn't want to rock the boat too much yet the tendency was record the mitigation or limitation effective power is there an able politician and a kind of Ruthless politician and an excellent administrator he was probably the best administrator as president up to Lincoln he was Elvis's well-known he manage the executive branch extremely well-developed relations with the cabinet in the supper way he was an excellent party politician and at the same time he was a radical idealist and the result of this is he's a person tune react doing very different ways and his reputation keep shifting all the time because people see him either as this hypocrite because of this as the successful operator despise his ideals it's very hard to reconcile this and it was true in his own time the two men walk by the office of the presidency from 1796 to 1808 represent different styles and personalities certainly but also different points John Adams much misunderstood character and very attracted to Modern historians because he's neurotic he's very thoughtful he's agonizes he doesn't take the cherry and Sunnyview that Jefferson sometimes but not always does that optimistic View human nature in about the prospects of the American Revolution probably is famous for many things that he was the atlas of Independence he did much more where in Jefferson did Jefferson was not a great committeeman Adams add the insight into the limits are the dangers of revolutionary change that he anticipated that the revolution in France would be a disaster and of course we no he was right and that was based on his own acute understanding of political history and the nature of the American Revolution as a person I think Adams was a much more down-to-earth person than a lot of other guy he is papania's Prickly and he is a pain in the neck or lower but he's also cover real guy you know trying to do the right thing and worried about whether he's doing it and he did very Petty things like the midnight appointments that kind of thing and of course there are the Alien and Sedition Acts another a whole other level of pettiness another occasion  so I can come with temperaments causing as much problems anything else even when there were Federalists majority in Constanta did Adams Administration I wouldn't say that Adams strong point was in hoarding them or learning how to work with them Jefferson was simply very good at bringing people together in the besant in manipulating them if you want to think of it that way he's been called the American Sphinx because it was sometime so hard to know what was going on in his mind you don't want to be alone side of times Yahoo again for all of his posing Thomas Jefferson was as political and animals as has ever lived I never wanted to be fingerprint can I pick up a considerably more subtle personality and I don't mean settlement what necessarily in a positive way personality than so it should have without me he had all the challenges that Washington had without the honeymoon contemporary opponents is is hypocrite or in the specifically Federalists formulation Jefferson was accused of being a theorist somebody who took French ideas too seriously and so we could go on endlessly in one of the reasons why Jefferson is such a fascinating character you said he's so hard to read or maybe so easy to read in different ways John Adams and Thomas Jefferson fascinating an American history or world history when they have things to work together American Revolution or improving Americas abroad they got along very very well they respected each other enormously the time that they spent together in greatest Harmony in friendship was in London when Jefferson came over to visit London France they were both horrified by the way they were treated by the British just became a common Bond they were also very much part of a and Abigail Adams was very much involved in this correspondence is actually a commentary and how close they had been during that. And it was particularly Abigail who was upset with where was abuse that Jefferson was responsible for an attacking Adams is Republican credentials cutlet same circulated presumably without Jefferson's approval insults and staff Adams losing the election of 1800 to Jefferson the two men were simply not in communication at all Philadelphia dr. Benjamin Rush in a wonderfully fortuitous role in American history tell the two men that they really ought to start talking to each other that in any way that this was something they own to the Future because they would make mines they were the Great politicians they were the Great presidents founders of America and gradually over over a couple of years they began ride and they wrote what I think is the greatest correspondence in world history  when tensions were gone they were both plane chanted with where America was going and they talked philosophy religion politics are they agreed on something but they didn't agree on everything but they were Frank can open and and it is America's greatest correspondents  that coming together is should be seen in Counterpoint to the falling apart timer I can Union that's simultaneously taking place and for which Jefferson he is in many ways responsible that would be on the one hand the division slavery and freedom becomes manifest in the Missouri controversies and also debates over over the role of it it's lifelong struggle with John Marshall and Jefferson's doctrines of the ones that are going to lean toward the Civil War timer The Unfinished Nation 52 part American history series for more information about this program in a company materials call +1-800-576-2988 or visit us online at do www.org

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