Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

by Gordon S. Wood

  54. Cayton, Frontier Republic, 25.

  55. Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 231; Peter S. Onuf, Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance (Bloomington, IN, 1987), 58–66.

  56. Estimates of Indian populations are notoriously difficult. In 1789 Secretary of War Knox estimated there were 19,000 Indian warriors in the West, 14,000 of them south and 5,000 north of the Ohio. He estimated that there were three women, children, and older persons for every warrior, thus a total of 76,000. His estimate of non-warriors may be too low. Knox to GW, 15 June 1789, Papers of Washington: Presidential Ser., 2: 494.

  57. Peter Wood, “From Atlantic History to a Continental Approach,” in Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan, eds., Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (New York, 2009), 422.

  58. Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (New York, 2006).

  59. See Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 92.

  60. Taylor, “Land and Liberty on the Post-Revolutionary Frontier,” in Konig, ed., Devising Liberty, 81–108; Theda Perdue, “Native Women in the Early Republic: Old World Perceptions, New World Realities,” and Daniel H. Unser Jr., “Iroquois Livelihood and Jeffersonian Agrarianism: Reaching Behind the Models and Metaphors,” in Frederick E. Hoxie et al., eds., Native Americans and the Early Republic (Charlottesville, 1999), 103–22, 200–225; Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, “To Live Among Us: Accommodation, Gender, and Conflict in the Western Great Lakes Region, 1760–1832,” in Andrew R. L. Cayton and Fredrika J. Teute, eds., Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750–1830 (Chapel Hill, 1998), 270–303.

  61. Perdue, “Native Women in the Early Republic,” in Hoxie et al., eds., Native Americans and the Early Republic, 115–19.

  62. White, Middle Ground, 408.

  63. Bernard W. Sheehan, “The Indian Problem in the Northwest: From Conquest to Philanthropy,” in Hoffman and Albert, eds., Launching the ‘Extended Republic,’ 191.

  64. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 94.

  65. Knox to GW, 15 June 1789, Papers of Washington, Presidential Ser., 2: 491.

  66. Knox to Washington, 7 July 1789, Papers of Washington: Presidential Ser., 3: 134–41.

  67. Knox to Washington, 7 July 1789, Papers of Washington: Presidential Ser., 3: 134–41.

  68. Knox to the Northwestern Indians, 4 Apr. 1792, in Reginald Horsman, “The Indian Policy of an ‘Empire for Liberty,’” in Hoxie et al., eds., Native Americans and the Early Republic, 45–46; Taylor, Divided Ground, 278, 240.

  69. Washington to the U.S. Senate, 4 Aug. 1790, Proclamation, 14 Aug. 1790, Papers of Washington, Presidential Ser., 6: 188–96, 248–54; Joseph J. Ellis, American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (New York, 2007), 149–56.

  70. Andrew R. L. Cayton, “‘Noble Actors’ upon ‘the Theatre of Honour’: Power and Civility in the Treaty of Greenville,” in Cayton and Teute, eds., Contact Points, 254–55; Taylor, Divided Ground, 259.

  71. Horsman, Frontier in the Formative Years, 45.

  72. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 125

  73. Cayton, “‘Separate Interests’ and the Nation-State,” 156.

  74. R. Douglas Hurt, The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720–1830 (Bloomington, IN, 1996), 139; Richard White, “The Fictions of Patriarchy: Indians and Whites in the Early Republic,” in Hoxie et al., eds., Native Americans and the Early Republic, 82–83; Cayton, “‘Noble Actors’ upon ‘the Theatre of Honour,’” in Cayton and Teute, eds., Contact Points, 255–69.

  75. Cayton, “‘Separate Interests’ and the Nation-State,” 53–54; Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 244.

  76. Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars (New York, 2001), 33; Cayton, “‘Separate Interests’ and the Nation-State,” 61–65.

  77. Cayton, “‘Separate Interests’ and the Nation-State,” 53.

  78. Terry Bouton, “A Road Closed: Rural Insurgency in Post-Independence Pennsylvania,” JAH, 87 (2000), 855–87; Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy: “The People,” the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution (New York, 2007); Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760–1820 (Chapel Hill, 1990).

  79. Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, 1986), 98. See also William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York, 2006).

  80. Leland D. Baldwin, Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising (Pittsburgh, 1939), 68.

  81. Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 133–34, 135.

  82. Mary K. B. Tachau, Federal Courts in the Early Republic: Kentucky, 1789–1816 (Princeton, 1978), 70–71.

  83. Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 121.

  84. Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 177; AH to GW, 5 Aug 1794, Papers of Hamilton, 17: 52.

  85. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 159.

  86. John C. Miller, The Federalist Era, 1789–1801 (New York, 1960), 158; GW, Sixth Annual Address to Congress, 19 Nov. 1794, in Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of Washington, 34: 28–30.

  87. Miller, Federalist Era, 159; TJ to James Monroe, 26 May 1795, Papers of Jefferson, 28: 359.

  88. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 170; AH to Angelica Church, 23 Oct. 1794, Papers of Hamilton, 17: 340.

  89. JM to James Monroe, 4 Dec. 1794, Papers of Madison, 15: 405–7; Baldwin, Whiskey Rebellion, 112.

  90. GW, Sixth Annual Message to Congress, 19 Nov. 1794, Washington: Writings, 893, 888.

  1. Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley, 1969).

  2. Stuart Leibiger, Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville, 1999).

  3. JM to AH, 19 Nov. 1789, Papers of Hamilton, 5: 525–26.

  4. Kenneth R. Bowling, The Creation of Washington, D.C.: The Idea and Location of the American Capital (Fairfax, VA, 1991), 143.

  5. Bowling, Creation of Washington, D.C ., 8.

  6. George Mason to TJ, 10 Jan 1791, Papers of Jefferson, 18: 484; Bowling, Creation of Washington, D.C ., 206.

  7. James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (New Haven, 1993), 37.

  8. The Diary of William Maclay and Other Notes on Senate Debates, ed. Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit (Baltimore, 1988), 347.

  9. AH, “Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank,” 23Feb. 1791, Papers of Hamilton, 7: 98.

  10. Virginia Resolutions on the Assumption of State Debts, 16 Dec. 1790, Henry Steele Commager, ed., Documents in American History, 4th ed. (New York, 1948), 155–56; Harry Ammon, “The Formation of the Republican Party in Virginia, 1798–1796,” Journal of Southern History, 19 (1953), 292.

  11. AH to John Jay, 13 Nov. 1790, Papers of Hamilton, 7: 149.

  12. Stanley Elkins and Eric Mckitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 234; JM to TJ, 1 May 1791, Papers of Jefferson, 20: 337.

  13. TJ to Jonathan B. Smith, 26 Apr. 1791, Papers of Jefferson, 20: 290. On the entire imbroglio over the unauthorized publication of Jefferson’s note, see Julian Boyd’s editorial discussion, “Rights of Man: The Contest of Burke and Paine . . . in America,” Papers of Jefferson, 20: 268–90.

  14. TJ, Notes of a Conversation with AH, 13 Aug. 1791, Papers of Jefferson, 22: 38–39. On the Hudson Valley trip, see Boyd’s editorial note, “The Northern Journey of Jefferson and Madison,” Papers of Jefferson, 20: 434–53.

  15. Adrienne Koch, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration (New York, 1964).

  16. Introduction, Republic of Letters, 1–2.

  17. For an excellent discussion of the differences between the two men, see Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (Cambridge, UK, 1989), 45–64.

  18. TJ to Abigail Adams, 22 Feb. 1787, Lester J. Cappon
, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, 1959), 1: 173.

  19. TJ to JM, 16Dec. 1786, Papers of Jefferson, 10: 603.

  20. N. P. Trist, Memoranda, 27 Sept. 1834, in Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven, 1911, 1937), 3: 534; Michael Schwarz, “The Great Divergence Reconsidered: Hamilton, Madison, and U.S.–British Relations, 1783–89,” JER, 27 (2007), 407–36. “Administration” was a loaded word for radical Whigs; it meant the active exercising of the prerogative powers of the king or the executive.

  21. JM to TJ, 5Oct. 1794, Republic of Letters, 857.

  22. TJ to JM, 4Feb. 1790, Papers of Jefferson, 16: 131–34.

  23. Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (New York, 2006), 110.

  24. TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., 15 May 1791, Papers of Jefferson, 20: 416.

  25. On this subject see Julian Boyd’s editorial note, “Jefferson, Freneau, and the Founding of the National Gazette,” Papers of Jefferson, 20: 718–53.

  26. National Gazette, 20 Feb. 1792.

  27. Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (Ithaca, 1978), 126–78.

  28. TJ’s Memoranda of Conversations with the President, 1 Mar. 1792, Papers of Jefferson, 23: 184–87.

  29. Bruce H. Mann, Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 202, 194, 195.

  30. TJ to Henry Remsen, 14 Apr. 1792, Papers of Jefferson, 23: 426.

  31. AH to Edward Carrington, 26 May 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 11: 429.

  32. AH to Edward Carrington, 26 May 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 11: 426–45.

  33. TJ to GW, 23 May 1792, Papers of Jefferson, 23: 535–40.

  34. AH to GW, 18 Aug. 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 12: 228–58.

  35. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 390.

  36. GW to TJ, 23 Aug. 1792, Papers of Jefferson, 24: 317; GW to AH, 26 Aug. 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 12: 276–77.

  37. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man (Boston, 1951), 463–64, 477, 473.

  38. AH to GW, 9Sept. 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 12: 348–49.

  39. TJ to GW, 9Sept. 1792, Papers of Jefferson, 24: 351–59.

  40. S.W. Jackman, “A Young Englishman Reports on the New Nation: Edward Thornton to James Bland Burges, 1791–1793,” WMQ, 18 (1961), 93.

  41. TJ, Notes of a Conversation with GW, 1 Oct. 1792, Papers of Jefferson, 24: 434.

  42. AH to GW, 30 July 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 12: 137–38.

  43. Milton Halsey Thomas, ed., Elias Boudinot’s Journey to Boston in 1809 (Princeton, 1955), 61 n.

  44. AH to John Steele, 15 Oct. 1792, AH to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 10 Oct. 1792, Papers of Hamilton, 12: 568–69, 544.

  45. Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 58.

  46. Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, 2001), 8; Joanne B. Freeman, “Slander, Poison, Whispers, and Fame: Jefferson’s ‘Anas’ and Political Gossip in the Early Republic,” JER, 15 (1995), 25–57, quotation at 29.

  47. Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 69.

  48. Jay to AH, 26 Nov. 1793, Papers of Hamilton, 15: 412–13.

  49. Noble E. Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789–1801 (Chapel Hill, 1957), 250.

  50. Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 67.

  51. TJ to Francis Hopkinson, 13 March 1789, Papers of Jefferson, 14: 650.

  52. JM, “A Candid State of Parties,” 26 Sept. 1792, Madison: Writings, 530–32.

  53. David Hackett Fischer, The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York, 1965), 51.

  54. Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802 (New York, 1975), 198.

  55. Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 64.

  56. TJ to William Branch Giles, 31 Dec. 1795, Papers of Jefferson, 28: 566.

  57. John F. Hoadley, “The Emergence of Political Parties in Congress, 1789–1803,” American Political Science Review, 74 (1980), 757–79.

  58. Matthew Schoenbacher, “Republicanism in the Age of the Democratic Revolution: The Democratic-Republican Societies of the 1790s,” JER, 18 (1998), 237–62; Albrecht Koschnik, “Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together”: Associations, Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia, 1775–1840 (Charlottesville, 2007), 22–40.

  59. Koschnik, “Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together,” 31–32.

  60. Eugene Perry Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790–1800 (New York, 1942), 133.

  61. Richard Labunski, James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights (New York, 2006), 291–92.

  62. Carville Earle and Ronald Hoffman, “Urban Development in the Eighteenth-Century South,” Perspectives in American History, 10 (1976), 67.

  63. John Richard Alden, The First South (Baton Rouge, 1961), 9.

  64. Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969), 97n.

  65. Carl Bridenbaugh, Seat of Empire: The Political Role of Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg (Williamsburg, 1950), 10; Higginson to JA, 8Aug. 1785, in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., “Letters of Stephen Higginson, 1783–1804,” American Historical Association, Annual Report for 1896 (Washington, DC, 1897), 1: 728.

  66. TJ to Marquis de Chastellux, 2 Sept. 1785, Jefferson: Writings, 826–27.

  67. See, for examples, Joseph J. Ellis, American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (New York, 2007), 163–204; Robin L. Einhorn, American Taxation, American Slavery (Chicago, 2006), 151–55, 184–99, 251–55.

  68. TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill, 1955), 164–65.

  69. Richard Buel Jr., Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (Ithaca, 1972), 72–90.

  70. Charles Warren, Jacobin and Junto: Early American Politics as Viewed in the Diary of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, 1758–1822 (New York, 1931), 53.

  71. TJ to JM, 13 May 1793, Papers of Jefferson, 26: 26.

  72. Two years Later, in 1795, Jefferson did attempt to explain how the “trifling” membership in the Federalist party, or “the Anti-republican party,” as he called it, could have the “appearance of strength and numbers.” The Federalists, he said, “all live in cities, together, and can act in a body readily and at all times; they give chief employment to the newspapers, and therefore have most of them under their control.” Although the Republicans outnumbered the Federalists by five hundred to one, Jefferson thought that “the Agricultural interest is dispersed over a great extent of country, have little means of intercommunications with each other,” and was vulnerable to the Federalists’ unity. TJ, “Notes on the Letter of Christopher Daniel Ebeling,” after 15Oct. 1795, Jefferson Papers, 28: 509.

  73. Roland M. Baumann, “John Swanwick,” Pa. Mag. of Hist. and Biog ., 97 (1973), 131–82, quotation at 142; Richard G. Miller, Philadelphia—The Federalist City: A Study of Urban Politics, 1789–1801 (Port Washington, NY, 1976), 84–86.

  74. Paul Goodman, The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts: Politics in a Young Republic (Cambridge, MA, 1964), 108–14.

  75. Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 63.

  76. Gary J. Kornblith, “Artisan Federalism: New England Mechanics and the Political Economy of the 1790s,” in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., Launching the “Extended Republic”: The Federalist Era (Charlottesville, 1996), 249–72; Lisa B. Lubow, “From Carpenter to Capitalist: The Business of Building in Postrevolutionary Boston,” in Conrad Edrick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens, eds., Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700–1850 (Boston, 1997), 195–96.

  77. AH, Conversations with George Beckwith, Oct. 1789, Papers of Hamilton, 5: 483; Roland M. Baumann, “Philadelphia’s Manufacturers and the Excise Taxes of 1
794,” Pa. Mag. of Hist. and Biog ., 106 (1982), 17–18, 20, 22, 33; Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 77.

  78. Andrew Shankman, Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania (Lawrence, KS, 2004), 62.

  79. Alfred F. Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797 (Chapel Hill, 1967), 407.

  80. Banning, Jeffersonian Persuasion, 213.

  1. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 309.

  2. Elkins and MCkitrick, Age of Federalism, 310; Philipp Ziesche, “Gouverneur Morris, Thomas Jefferson, and the National Struggle for Universal Rights in Revolutionary France,” JER, 26 (2006), 419–47.