Thomas Jefferson: First Inaugural Address

Context

The new federal Constitution was adopted in 1788, and the federal government was implemented in 1789. President George Washington selected Jefferson as the secretary of state and Alexander Hamilton as the secretary of the treasury. Although the public debate over ratifying the Constitution had been bitter, by 1790 the Constitution was thought to be almost a sacred document. Debate now shifted to how the Constitution would be interpreted. Jefferson and Hamilton staunchly disagreed: The former espoused a laissez-faire government; the latter preferred government intervention that primarily assisted the wealthy, which would ultimately benefit the entire economy. Jefferson, who supported the French Revolution, wanted to maintain the treaties that connected France and the United States, while Hamilton favored a closer connection with the British and feared that the French Revolution's radicalism might be transferred to America.

Throughout the 1790s partisan politics heated to a fever pitch, especially over foreign affairs. Great Britain and France were at war during most of this decade. Jefferson retired as the secretary of state in December 1793, after which President Washington generally followed Hamilton's policies. As relations with Britain worsened, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to London to negotiate a treaty. The British agreed to abide by their 1783 commitment to evacuate the forts along the Great Lakes on U.S. territory but made no other concessions. Jefferson and James Madison formed the Republican Party (later the Democratic-Republican Party, the forerunner of the modern Democratic Party), bent on opposing Hamilton's economic policies and the adoption of the Jay Treaty of 1794 (also known as the Treaty of London). The Republicans failed at both.

When President Washington announced his plans to retire after his second term, the Republicans supported Jefferson in opposition to Vice President Adams. In 1796 Adams was narrowly elected as the president, while Jefferson, with the second-highest number of electoral votes, became the vice president. Adams and Jefferson made initial gestures to work together, but soon Adams backed away from reconciliation, and partisan politics continued unabated. Hamilton, who had retired from the Treasury in early 1795, retained his influence with the members of Adams's cabinet, who were all carryovers from Washington's administration.

When the French realized the benefits the British derived from the Jay Treaty, they started to assail American merchantmen on the high seas. By 1798 the United States and France were involved in an undeclared naval war. Beginning in the early 1790s, many Frenchmen immigrated to America, and most of them became Jeffersonians. Opposition to Adams's policies rose steadily, and Congress, dominated by Federalists, enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts (a set of four separate laws) in 1798. No one was prosecuted under the alien laws, but many Democratic-Republican newspaper editors and one congressman were indicted, convicted, and sentenced to the full extent under the sedition law. Jefferson and Madison drafted resolutions for the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia, respectively, denouncing the Sedition Act (known formally as An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States) and advocating that the states work together to have the law repealed.

With war fever at its height, President Adams's popularity soared. In a special session Congress voted to expand the navy and raise a provisional army of 25,000 to defend against a possible French invasion. Democratic-Republicans denounced the war measures and the taxes needed to pay for them. They feared that the army, with Hamilton named second in command to Washington, would be used to suppress Democratic-Republican opposition. Adams's popularity suffered only when war was averted after he repeatedly sent peace envoys to France (most of whom were rebuffed) and the French were convinced that peace was in both countries' best interests.

While some southerners advocated a division of the Union, Jefferson pleaded for “a little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles” (Jefferson to John Tyler, June 4, 1798; Peterson, p. 1050). The election of 1800—both congressional and presidential—was one of the most bitterly fought elections in American history. Jefferson and Aaron Burr ran as the Democratic-Republican presidential candidates, while Adams ran for reelection with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina on the Federalist ticket. Hamilton secretly worked to have Pinckney elected as the president. Jefferson and Burr each received 73 electoral votes, Adams 65 votes, and Pinckney 64. The Democratic-Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress. On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, the lame-duck, Federalist-controlled House of Representatives elected Jefferson as the president, with Burr as the vice president.

On March 4, 1801, the fifty-seven-year-old Jefferson, without a ceremonial sword and indistinguishable from other Washingtonians except that he was escorted by a small company of Washington artillery and Alexandria riflemen and militia officers, walked from his residence at Conrad and McMunn's boardinghouse on New Jersey Avenue to the unfinished Capitol to take the oath of office. President Adams, an embittered man, had left Washington at five o'clock that morning. Jefferson sat in the overcrowded Senate chamber (now the old Supreme Court chambers) with Burr, the new vice president, on his right, and John Marshall, the new chief justice, on his left. The three men profoundly disliked and distrusted each other. Jefferson had asked Marshall, a distant cousin, if he would administer the oath of office—perhaps a gesture of conciliation in line with the tone of the entire address that followed. Jefferson then delivered his First Inaugural Address in almost an inaudible voice to a joint session of Congress and a crowded audience of more than 1,100 guests. A copy of the speech was given in advance to Samuel Harrison Smith, the editor of the National Intelligencer, who had a broadside printing available by the time the ceremony had ended. Newspaper, broadside, and pamphlet editions of the address were published throughout the country and abroad. Both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans praised the speech for its conciliatory tone, while a small group of Jefferson's supporters felt it was too mild.