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

Initially support for the French Revolution was nearly unanimous in the U.S.

Support was strongest among Republicans but even many Federalists and the conservative clergy in New England were supportive.

As popular support continued to grow Federalists started growing more concerned with the French Revolution by 1792-93.

Divisions between Republicans and Federalists over the French Revolution grew over the execution of Louis XVI.

While many Federalists saw the French Revolution as being responsible for the growing popular democratic mood in the U.S. some observed that it was the American Revolution that was the true catalyst for these sentiments.

Jefferson was one of the French Revolution’s strongest Republican supporters.

He was not disturbed by Louis XVI’s execution and while he didn’t like seeing tens of thousands murdered and executed he believed it was necessary.

He remained a supporter even after the Revolution became a dictatorship under Napoleon.

While France declaring war on England in 1793 made it more necessary than before for Americans to feel like they needed to choose sides both Federalists and Republicans believed the U.S. must remain neutral.

Washington declared that the treaties made between the U.S. and France in 1778 we’re still to be honored but issued, at Hamilton’s and Jefferson’s urging, a proclamation of neutrality.

Interestingly this proclamation of neutrality didn’t use the word “neutral” but did use the word “impartial”.

The French Republic’s minister to the U.S., Genet, stirred controversy when he arrived in 1793.

With instructions to get the American’s to uphold their treaty obligations and allow the outfitting of privateers in U.S. ports he ended up becoming a popular figure among Democratic-Republican Societies, tried to organize expeditions using American citizens against Spanish possessions in North America (sharing these plans with Jefferson), and against Washington’s demands he outfitted a captured British ship as a privateer in an American port and ordered it to sea.

Opposition to Genet caused the Federalists to organize and as a result the Republicans did as well (toasting the Jacobins and displaying model guillotines at their meetings).

A major issue in the 1790s was trade and the Republicans sought to open up British trade to break their commercial strength and ends America’s commercial reliance on their old mother country.

In 1794 Madison proposed in Congress retaliatory tariffs against all nations (with the most important one being Great Britain) that did not take up the U.S. offer of trade reciprocity.

The Republicans assumed U.S. markets were more important to the British than it actually was given it only accounted for 1/6 of British trade.

Federalists were opposed as the ability to finance the national debt depended on trade and moderate revenue producing tariffs.

Pretty soon after Madison’s proposals on trade were introduced Republican antagonism to the British seemed well founded with the establishment in of British policy to capture American ships trading with the French West Indies announced in 1794 and the rumor that the governor-general of Canada encouraged Indians in the Northwest to attack Americans.

War with Britain seemed likely and while the Federalists preferred negotiations they prepared for war while the Republican’s feared that the Federalists’ military measures were dangerous.

A reversal in British policy of capturing American ships provides Washington with a diplomatic opening and the eventual passage of Jay’s Treaty.

Jay’s Treaty didn’t explicitly require the U.S. to abandon free trade principles but it did so implicitly, required the U.S. to not discriminate against British trade for 10 years, and given the Franco-American treaty established free trade principles seemed to diminish the existing treaty the U.S. had with France.

While initially unpopular support for the treaty grew and it was eventually passed by the Senate and signed by Washington.

Madison’s full throated efforts to keep the Treaty from being signed ended up destroying his relationship with Washington and it would never recover.

Following Jay’s Treaty other developments bode well for the Federalists.

Paine’s Age of Reason, published in 1794 and other radical anti-religious books published around the same time along with the growing violence of the French Revolution diminished U.S. support.

Hamilton’s financial program was paying increasingly successful, with their debt wiped out states were able to reduce their taxes, Americans had more money to spend, and American commerce spanned the world.

With Anthony Wayne’s defeat of the Indian’s in 1794 the British were soon to retreat from their Northwest posts they hadn’t abandoned after the American Revolution.

Thomas Pinckney, minister to Spain, secured a treaty that gave American’s in the West everything they desired.

The Democratic-Republican Societies disappeared as the lost support due to the Federalists successfully portraying them as responsible for the Whiskey Rebellion.

Given that Federalists and Republicans alike viewed the conflict between Great Britain and France in existential terms politicians in this era engaged in many improper acts.

Hamilton told the British agent acting as minister to the U.S. that he should go around Jefferson as Secretary of State and speak to Hamilton on Anglo-American affairs.

Jefferson promised the French American support he could not guarantee and his successor as Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, was forced to resign after communications between him and the French discussing a payment (incorrectly assumed by Federalists to be a bribe) came to light.

James Monroe as minister to France supported U.S. military action against the British, promised loans he could not guarantee, openly spoke out against Jay’s treaty, and was eventually recalled.