Gregory Bodenhamer Opposition to Madison's proposal developed immediately. William Paterson of New Jersey, noting that the large-state plan would give considerable power to states like Virginia and New York, offered a less radical departure from the Articles of Confederation. The New Jersey plan, or “ small-state” plan, kept the one-house legislature of the Confederation Congress but expanded its powers to include raising revenue and regulating commerce. The members were chosen by the state legislatures and each state was given one vote. A multi-person executive elected by the legislature was proposed. The executives, who were removable by action of the majority of the governors, also appointed judges to a supreme court. Laws passed by the legislature were binding on the states, and the multiperson executive was authorized to compel obedience to the law.

Opposition to Madison's proposal developed immediately. William Paterson of New Jersey, noting that the large-state plan would give considerable power to states like Virginia and New York, offered a less radical departure from the Articles of Confederation. The New Jersey plan, or “ small-state” plan, kept the one-house legislature of the Confederation Congress but expanded its powers to include raising revenue and regulating commerce. The members were chosen by the state legislatures and each state was given one vote. A multi-person executive elected by the legislature was proposed. The executives, who were removable by action of the majority of the governors, also appointed judges to a supreme court. Laws passed by the legislature were binding on the states, and the multiperson executive was authorized to compel obedience to the law.

The Great Compromise. The New Jersey Plan was rejected, but the apportionment of representation in Congress continued to divide the Constitutional Convention. The large states wanted proportional representation (based on population), and the small states demanded equal representation (one state, one vote). The solution to the dilemma came through the Great Compromise (also known as the Connecticut Compromise), which made the number of seats in the House of Representatives proportional to each state's population and each representative elected directly by the people. In the Senate, each state would have two independently voting senators to be chosen by the state legislatures.

Slavery and the presidency. The issue of whether or how to count slaves in each state's population was resolved by a formula used by the Confederation Congress in 1783. For purposes of representation in the House and assessing direct taxes to the states, population was determined by the “whole number of free persons” and “three fifths of all other persons.” The phrase “all other persons” meant slaves. In addition to the Three-Fifths Compromise, the delegates allowed the slave trade to continue, by denying Congress the power to prohibit it before 1808, and agreed that fugitive slaves should be returned to their masters.

The Convention accepted a one-person executive but hotly debated how the president should be elected—by Congress or by the people. Election of the executive was resolved through the invention of the Electoral College. The state legislatures would choose the same number of electors as their total number of representatives in Congress, and the electors would vote for two presidential candidates. The candidate who received the most votes would become president and the person with the next highest total would become vice president. In the event of a tie, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, each state having one vote in this situation.

Other mechanisms of the new government were hammered out during the Convention. The Constitution provides for the separation of powers, meaning that governmental functions are in the hands of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and that a system of checks and balances ensures that one branch does not dominate the others. For example, the president can veto laws passed by Congress, but Congress can override the veto by a two-thirds vote. Foreign policy is in the hands of the president, but the Senate must approve all treaties.

Ratifying the Constitution. A minimum of nine states was needed to ratify the Constitution. In the months after the Convention finished its work (September 1787), the debate over ratification raged in newspapers, in pamphlets, and on the floors of state legislatures. To educate voters and stimulate public discussion, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote a series of essays supporting the strong government provided for in the Constitution, which were published in papers across the country. The articles are collectively known as the Federalist Papers, and those who favored ratification of the new constitution called themselves Federalists. Their opponents went by the rather awkward name of Antifederalists, believing that the new document gave too much power to the national government and left the states too little. Staunch proponents of individual liberty, they strongly attacked the omission of a bill of rights, already included in many state constitutions.

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution. Virginia and New York, crucial because of their size and influence, narrowly approved it five days later. Rhode Island, on the other hand, waited until May 29, 1790, to take action, but by that time, the government was already operating under the Constitution. The last holdout states could hardly afford to stay out of the new nation.

Organizing the Government

George Washington was inaugurated the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789, seven weeks late because many newly elected senators and congressmen were delayed in reaching New York, the country's first capital. The new nation had no real road system, and travel was slow. The administration lost no time, however, in setting up the framework for a national government.

The Constitution as ratified failed to address several important issues. It did not formally protect basic civil liberties, even though many state constitutions contained such provisions, and it left the structure of the executive branch vague. The president was given the power to appoint officials, and mention is made of “the principal officer in each of the executive departments,” but which departments and what their functions might be are not spelled out. The first omission was addressed through the amendment process, while the actual practice of government took care of the second.

Unfinished business: the Bill of Rights and the first cabinet. In ratifying the Constitution, five states had insisted on adding provisions to protect the people against governmental abuse. The new Congress thus appointed a committee to consider possible amendments to the Constitution, which collectively became known as the Bill of Rights. Under the leadership of James Madison, seventeen were originally proposed; they were reduced to twelve by the Senate; ten were eventually ratified by the states.

The most fundamental concerns were incorporated into the First Amendment: freedom of religion, speech, and the press and the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The Second Amendment guaranteed that the states could form their own militias—forerunners of the modern National Guard units—and, in a somewhat vague fashion, that people could keep and bear arms. The Third Amendment prevented soldiers from being quartered in private homes, which had been a grievance against British practices even before the War for Independence. The Fourth Amendment protected people from unreasonable search and seizure; the Fifth shielded them from self-incrimination; the Sixth pledged citizens a speedy trial; the Seventh ensured a trial by jury. Excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment were prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment made certain that a right's not being specifically mentioned in the Constitution was not grounds for it to be denied to the people. The tenth and last amendment reserved certain rights to the states and people.

There is no provision in the Constitution for a cabinet, but the term became popular in the 1790s to describe the group of executive officers that advises the president. The executives would likely have met with the president in a small, private room, or cabinet. The first cabinet members were the secretaries of state, treasury, and war, and the attorney general. Washington asked Thomas Jefferson to be secretary of state and Alexander Hamilton to serve as secretary of the treasury. The two distinguished statesmen soon found themselves in fundamental disagreement over issues larger than those specific to their offices.

Hamilton's reports. The United States was saddled with a large debt from the War for Independence. Hamilton submitted recommendations for dealing with the problem in his “ Report on the Public Credit” (January 1790). It called for funding the national debt by printing new securities and honoring at face value the certificates that had been issued by the Continental Congress. In addition, he proposed that the federal government assume state debts. Hamilton did not intend for the national debt to be totally eliminated; paying the interest would be enough to demonstrate the financial viability of the new nation.

Hamilton's report aroused concern from the southern states, whose leaders believed the proposal primarily benefited speculators in the north. James Madison noted that many of the original certificate owners—farmers and veterans, for the most part—had long ago sold their certificates at deep discounts because they were considered almost worthless; current holders stood to make a huge profit. Hamilton bought the southern leaders' consent for assumption of state debts by supporting the creation of a new national capital site in Virginia and Maryland (the District of Columbia). Congress approved the “Report on the Public Credit” (August 1790), and the financial benefit to the United States was virtually immediate.

In December, Hamilton issued his “ Report on a National Bank” to Congress. It was approved two months later, creating a federally chartered bank, mostly under private control, that would handle federal deposits, make loans to the government when necessary, and issue paper notes in lieu of scarce hard cash. It would also enrich shareholders, another positive outcome in light of Hamilton's view that a prosperous elite was essential for the success of the nation.

Hamilton followed the national bank report with his “ Report on Manufactures” in December 1791. He called for protective tariffs on imports to encourage domestic manufacturing. The report even approved of child labor. Congress did not support his high tariff, but Hamilton achieved the same result by charging higher duties on goods imported on non-American ships than on American ships, an action benefiting the growth of the U.S. merchant marine.

Opposition to Hamilton's plans. Thomas Jefferson became the acknowledged leader of the growing political opposition to Hamilton's policies. Their differences were rooted in competing visions of America. Hamilton saw a country rich in urban, merchant, financial, and in time, manufacturing interests. Jefferson saw the United States as a land for yeoman farmers. The two factions evolved into political parties that by 1796 were called Federalist and Republican (the latter not to be confused with the modern Republican party). The term “ Federalist” is misleading because Federalist party supporters actually favored a strong central government; a true federal system would have given much more power to the states. Jeffersonian Republicans advocated low tariffs to benefit an agrarian society and a relatively weak national government. They also favored a strong relationship with France, then in the midst of its revolution, while the Federalists wanted economic and political ties with Great Britain.

Federalists and Republicans also differed in their interpretation of the Constitution. Hamilton made much of the so-called “ elastic clause” in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8), which authorizes Congress to make all laws “necessary and proper” to carry out its enumerated powers. The creation of the national bank is a pertinent example of its use. Jefferson and the Republicans, on the other hand, favored a “strict interpretation” of the Constitution; that is, if the Constitution didn't specifically indicate something could be done, it could not be done. Taken to its extreme, this position would hamper the ability of the government to deal with issues that the founders never envisioned. Jefferson himself recognized this when he became president. Although there is no authority in the Constitution for the acquisition of territory from another country, he went ahead with the Louisiana Purchase (1803) because it was too great a bargain to pass up.

The Whiskey Rebellion. The first major test of the authority of the national government came from western Pennsylvania. Isolated from the east coast by the Appalachian Mountains, farmers in the region faced the serious problem of not being able to market their crops. New Orleans, under Spanish control, was still closed to American traffic. Because they could not ship their corn and rye down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the farmers instead distilled the grains into liquor. By reducing the size of their crop, they both enhanced its value and made transport to market across the mountains by pack train possible.

Under Hamilton, an excise was imposed on whiskey amounting to twenty-five percent of the product's retail value, effectively erasing all of the farmers' profit. Moreover, anyone accused of evading the tax had to go at his own expense to Philadelphia for trial. Western Pennsylvania farmers were particularly incensed because they seemed to be the main targets of the tax, as it was not evenly enforced in all areas.

In July 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion broke out as farmers declared their defiance of the law and rioted against tax officials, burning buildings and even calling for secession from the United States. President Washington promptly ordered the militias of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey to march against the rebels. Opposition quickly evaporated against this combined force of almost thirteen thousand men. Of the one hundred fifty arrested, only two were actually convicted of treason, and Washington later pardoned both of them. The point had been clearly made, however: federal law was to be obeyed, and violent protest, a method successfully employed against British policies two decades earlier, would not be tolerated.

Foreign Policy Challenges

In matters of foreign policy, the new nation faced a combination of unresolved issues and new political problems. Despite Great Britain's promises to evacuate frontier outposts, British soldiers had remained there for more than ten years. Native Americans looked for alliances with Great Britain and Spain to curtail American westward expansion. Across the Atlantic, the French Revolution sparked wars against Great Britain and Spain and tested U.S. neutrality policies.

Conflicts on the frontier. When Washington took office, the ongoing conflict between the tribes in the Ohio Valley and white settlers demanded a solution. American military expeditions against the Miami Confederacy (an alliance of eight western tribes) in 1790 and 1791 both failed. Washington called for a third expedition, led by General Anthony Wayne, a veteran of the American Revolution who knew how to temper bravery with caution. Great Britain, which incited the tribes in hopes of maintaining a British presence in the Northwest Territory, did not provide any direct aid. Wayne's well-trained and well-supplied force of more than two thousand men won a major victory in the Battle of Fallen Timbers (August 1794). Through the Treaty of Greenville, twelve of the western tribes yielded almost all of present-day Ohio, part of Indiana, and sites for sixteen trading posts. Native-American resistance in the region came to an end for almost twenty years.

U.S. relations with the southeastern tribes were different. Washington successfully negotiated with the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw without recourse to war, even though Indian leaders in the region, most notably Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray, played the Spaniards against the Americans, and President Washington knew it. The Creek especially were hostile toward settlers in Georgia, who were encroaching on their tribal lands. Washington concluded the Treaty of New York in 1790, promising that the Creek's territorial rights would be respected and that Georgia would restore lands to their allies, the Chickasaw and Choctaw.

Problems with France. The French Revolution had initially been greeted with enthusiasm by the United States, but by 1793 many Americans were upset by the direction the revolution had taken. The French not only executed their king and queen but also declared war against Great Britain and Spain. Southerners became alarmed when the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue broke out in revolt, the slaves aided by the British. Northern merchants feared for their prosperity because it rested on good relations with Great Britain, where the United States sent most of its exports.

While the alliance between France and the United States (created in 1778) remained in effect, Washington knew his country was not prepared, militarily or politically, to take sides in a European war. He issued a proclamation of neutrality on April 22, 1793. At that time, the French government had sent Edmond Genet as minister to the United States. Citizen Genet, as he was known, behaved in a decidedly undiplomatic manner. Landing in Charleston, he began recruiting volunteers to fight for France against Britain and Spain. He appointed Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark a general, and Clark advertised for troops and support for a campaign against the Spanish at New Orleans. The effort failed for lack of money, but Genet was successful in recruiting privateers. Nearly a thousand men responded, and American ships flying the French flag captured more than eighty British ships.

Problems with Great Britain. Washington was appalled by the French violations of American neutrality. The British reacted by seizing American merchant ships in the West Indies and abducting American sailors, forcibly enlisting them in the British navy. This practice, known as impressment, angered most Americans. The British claim that it was just apprehending its own deserters rang hollow amid reports of U.S. sailors suffering violations of their rights.

Great Britain rescinded its Orders in Council, which justified the seizure of American ships, and Washington used this opportunity to seek a diplomatic solution. John Jay was sent to London to negotiate a treaty to resolve the outstanding issues between the two countries: the British forts in the Northwest Territory, reparations for the American ships taken under the Orders, compensation for slaves taken during the American Revolution, and an end to trade restrictions in the West Indies. Because the British knew from Alexander Hamilton that Washington was determined not to go to war, Jay had little leverage in the negotiations. Nevertheless, through the Jay Treaty (1795), the British finally agreed to withdraw from the Northwest and open the West Indies to American trade, although with limitations on certain goods. The question of reparations for slaves was not addressed. U.S. opposition was strong, but the treaty was probably the best that could be achieved under the circumstances. The Senate ultimately ratified the agreement by one vote.

Successful negotiations with Spain. The United States fared better in solving important issues with Spain. With Spain's war against France going badly and rumors of French-recruited Americans planning to attack New Orleans, the Spanish diplomats became amenable to negotiations. Washington sent Thomas Pinckney, then serving as U.S. minister to Great Britain, to Spain. Pinckney arrived in late June 1795 to find Spanish officials even more receptive than he had anticipated. Spain recognized the thirty-first parallel as the southern boundary of the United States, and removed its troops from all territory north of the line. Americans were granted free use of the Mississippi River to its mouth and the privilege of deposit (temporary storage) at New Orleans for three years, with an option to renew. The privilege enabled Americans to avoid customs duties. Commercial privileges in Spain were also granted to the United States. All these terms were formalized with the signing of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, also called Pinckney's Treaty, on October 27, 1795.

Ideological Challenges

The partial victory of the Jay Treaty and the triumph of Pinckney's Treaty vindicated Washington's policy of neutrality. These diplomatic achievements, however, did not solve the dilemma of a politically divided nation. Jefferson and Hamilton, having resigned their posts, were replaced by less able men. Washington decided that two terms as president were enough. In his farewell message to Congress in 1797, he condemned the formation of political parties and warned against entangling alliances with other nations, urging the United States to stay out of Europe's quarrels. His isolationist remarks influenced American foreign policy for more than a century.

The election of 1796. Despite Washington's condemnation of the formation of political parties, the Federalists and Republicans had developed into full-blown rivals by 1796. Although the Federalists dominated Congress and the presidency, the Republicans grew in strength, recruiting support from Irish immigrants and French refugees from Saint Domingue. John Adams, vice president under Washington, was the Federalist candidate for president; Thomas Pinckney ran for vice president. Thomas Jefferson was the Republican presidential candidate with Aaron Burr for vice president. The popular vote for this election was not recorded—nor would votes be recorded until 1824.

The process of selecting a president under the Constitution did not provide for partisan elections. When the Electoral College votes were counted, Adams had 71, Jefferson 68, Pinckney 59, and Burr 30. Because the individual with the second highest total in the Electoral College became vice president, Adams had to serve out his presidency with Jefferson, the opposition leader, as his vice president. This glitch was not remedied until the Twelfth Amendment was ratified in 1804, requiring the electors to vote separately for president and vice president. The problem caused mischief again in the election of 1800.

During his term, Adams had to deal with a politically divided nation and opposition from his own political party. There was still considerable support for France, but Jefferson's defeat in the 1796 election prompted French aggression against American ships. More than three hundred merchant ships were seized by the French navy. In this hostile atmosphere, Adams sought to continue Washington's neutrality policy and avoid war with France.

The XYZ Affair. The American peace commission, which arrived in Paris in 1797, ran into difficulties almost immediately. Charles de Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, refused to meet with them. He referred the members to three unnamed agents who suggested that negotiations could begin as soon as Talleyrand received $250,000 and France obtained a $12 million loan. When the commission submitted its report to Adams, the letters X, Y, and Z were used to identify the French agents.

Congress responded to this outrage against American diplomatic efforts by voting to arm fifty-four ships to protect American commerce. Between 1798 and 1800, U.S. and French ships fought an undeclared war in the Caribbean, with American ships capturing ninety-three French vessels and the French just one American ship. The Federalists also expanded the regular army to a force of ten thousand men, even though it was highly doubtful that a land war with France would take place. Republicans feared the use of the army against them should a civil war break out, while the Federalists considered civil war a possibility for which to prepare.

The Alien and Sedition Acts. Using the possibility of a war with France as an excuse, the Federalist-dominated Congress passed a set of laws allegedly to protect national security but really directed toward silencing political opposition. Taken together, the laws were called the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798). Three of the laws affected noncitizens, but the fourth applied to U.S. citizens and provoked a tremendous outcry of protest.

The Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to expel aliens considered likely to commit acts of espionage or sabotage. It remained unenforced until the War of 1812. The Alien Friends Act (which expired in June 1800), empowered the president to expel any foreigners considered dangerous to the nation. No proof of wrongdoing was necessary. Republicans claimed the real intent of the law was to silence any immigrants who opposed Federalist policies. Republicans also protested against passage of the Naturalization Act, which extended the naturalization requirement for U.S. citizenship from five to fourteen years, the last five of which required residence in the same state. The law was clearly meant to prevent immigrants, especially the Irish, from voting because they were likely to support the Republicans.

The Sedition Act made it a crime to “combine or conspire” to oppose any policy of the United States or to intimidate public officials. It was also illegal to “write, print, utter, or publish” anything deemed false or scandalous about the government of the United States, including Congress or the president—a clear violation of the First Amendment. Under the law, which the Federalists used to suppress opposition to their policies, healthy political dissent was lumped with inciting rebellion. On the possibility that they might lose the election of 1800, the Federalists set an 1801 expiration date for the Sedition Act so it could not be used against them.

Republican newspaper editors became the main target of the Sedition Act. Ten editors and writers went to prison on charges of sedition, among them Vermont Congressman Matthew Lyon. Besides writing an article criticizing Adams, Lyon had spit in a Federalist's eye and wrestled him to the floor—not the best example of political martyrdom—but the Republicans made the most of his imprisonment.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Republicans protested against the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts. Writing anonymously, Jefferson and Madison created philosophical justifications for states to oppose federal laws they believed unconstitutional. Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions, and Madison wrote the Virginia Resolutions; both were endorsed by the respective states in 1798. The manifestos claimed that state legislatures had the right to protect the liberties of their citizens by taking a stand against unconstitutional federal laws; this view was called the doctrine of interposition. Another concept, nullification, was the right of states to cancel, or nullify, federal laws they found unacceptable. None of the other states endorsed the Kentucky or Virginia Resolutions, which took the position that federal law was not the supreme law of the land. However, the philosophical underpinnings of these resolutions would surface again in the nullification controversy of the 1830s and the efforts of John C. Calhoun to justify states' rights.

The election of 1800. In 1800, Jefferson again ran for president with Aaron Burr as the vice-presidential candidate. John Adams was the logical candidate for the Federalists, but his party had split into two factions. The “High Federalists” considered Alexander Hamilton to be their leader, and they favored such extreme measures as declaring war on France as a ploy to win the election. Adams opposed such ideas and took a moderate position toward France, supporting negotiation.

Voters wanted to avoid war with France and blamed the Federalists for drastically increasing taxes to support an army that had no war to fight. Federalist strength plummeted just two years after the triumph of the 1798 congressional elections. United against the Federalists, the Republicans cast an equal number of electoral votes (73) for Jefferson and Burr, with Adams and Charles Pinckney receiving 65 and 64 votes, respectively. The tie threw the election into the Federalist-controlled House of Representatives. When Burr decided to challenge his running mate, Alexander Hamilton used his considerable influence to back Jefferson, who was elected on the thirty-sixth ballot.

The election of 1800 is viewed as a major watershed in American politics, marking the beginning of Jeffersonian democracy. However, in 1800, white men who did not own property could not vote, and women had no direct voice in politics at all. Native Americans were clearly seen as an impediment to American expansion, and their lands and rights were shrinking before the advance of the frontier. For African Americans, the years following the American Revolution at first seemed positive. Several northern states abolished slavery, and it was prohibited in the Northwest Territory. But the Constitution accepted slavery, and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 denied even free blacks the protections in the Bill of Rights. The success of cotton as a cash crop in the southern states, provided in part by the efficiency of the cotton gin, increased the demand for slave labor. Jefferson had become president, but it made little or no difference to the conditions of blacks, slave or free, Native Americans, or women.

Jefferson's First Term

The inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as the nation's third president marked a turning point in American politics. For the next two dozen years, Republican leadership guided the nation through peace and war. While the Federalists faded as a political force, their ideology continued to influence the country for decades in the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court. Indeed, the judiciary finally attained coequal status as one of the branches of government after 1800.

The period of Republican ascendancy witnessed the doubling of the size of the country through the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the addition of eight states (1803–21). The admission of Maine and Missouri raised the expansion of slavery into a national issue and set the stage for the sectional debates that raged in the decades before the Civil War.

Jefferson's first term. Jefferson had been alarmed by the growth of the national debt under Federalist rule. Albert Gallatin, his secretary of the treasury, agreed that the debt created high taxes that creditors manipulated to their own advantage. Gallatin promised to eliminate the national debt in sixteen years by reducing both military expenditures and the size of government. The Republicans also repealed internal taxes, including the hated excise on whiskey. These policies bore fruit; early in the administration, both military and other governmental spending dropped, and debt declined modestly.

Despite his strict constructionist views, Jefferson did not dismantle important elements of the Federalist program. He saw no need, for example, to abolish the Bank of the United States; it was working well. Nor did Jefferson systematically replace Federalist officeholders with Republicans; rather, he filled vacancies with his supporters as Federalists resigned or died. A number of Federalists even served in his cabinet. In making judicial appointments, however, Jefferson took the upper hand.

Marbury v. Madison and judicial review. In an effort to maintain influence at the national level, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801 at the end of February, just before Jefferson took office. The legislation reduced the number of justices on the Supreme Court from six to five, and also created sixteen federal judgeships, which President Adams quickly filled with Federalists. No Republicans were on the federal bench at the time, and Jefferson would have virtually no opportunity to appoint any during his term in office. The appointing of “midnight judges” on Adams's last day in office prompted Jefferson to challenge the Judiciary Act.

Secretary of State James Madison refused to issue William Marbury his commission to serve as justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. Marbury then petitioned the Supreme Court to get his judgeship. Chief Justice John Marshall, a Federalist who had recently been appointed to the Supreme Court, rejected Marbury's plea on the grounds that the Judiciary Act of 1789 had incorrectly given the Supreme Court the power to take such action. Meanwhile, Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801.

At first impression, it might seem that by rejecting Marbury's claim, Marshall was not acting in the interest of a fellow Federalist. Marshall, however, had a greater goal in mind. By overturning part of a congressional law, he established the Supreme Court's power of judicial review—the power to declare federal laws invalid if they violated the Constitution. Until Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Supreme Court had not been considered an especially important branch of the federal government. In fact, Marshall was the fourth chief justice to serve in a dozen years. The decision established the Court as a major force in American politics.

The Barbary pirates. American merchant ships entering the Mediterranean Sea were subject to seizure by pirates operating out of Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco. The United States had paid tribute to the rulers of the North African states since the 1790s. Although maintaining peace was a cornerstone of Republican foreign policy, Jefferson took action when the pasha of Tripoli made extraordinary demands for payment and declared war on the United States (1801). The conflict, which led to an American naval blockade and bombardment of Tripoli as well as a land assault by marines, ended in 1805 when a new treaty was signed and the United States agreed to pay a ransom for its captured soldiers and sailors. During the same time, a threat much closer to home was also resolved by paying cash.

The Louisiana Purchase. Napoleon Bonaparte, who came to power in France in 1799, dreamed of reestablishing the French empire in North America. In the following year, he negotiated a secret treaty, the Treaty of San Ildefonso, with Spanish King Charles IV, which returned the Louisiana Territory, lost at the end of the Seven Years' War, to France. But the agreement did not remain secret for long.

This turn of events just a few years after the successful Pinckney Treaty had opened the Mississippi River and port of New Orleans to American traffic justifiably alarmed Jefferson. His concern was reinforced when a Spanish official in New Orleans forbade the deposit of American produce there for transshipment to other countries, an action many Americans incorrectly believed was ordered by Napoleon. Jefferson feared that France might leave the Mediterranean to British influence in return for a new opportunity on the North American continent. U.S. expansion might be blocked by France to the west and by British Canada to the north.

In 1803, Jefferson sent James Monroe to join Robert Livingston, the American minister in Paris, to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida. By this time, Napoleon had given up his plans for a colonial empire. His trying to restore French rule after a slave revolt in Saint Domingue (Haiti) cost him a great deal in both money and men, his troops having been decimated by tropical diseases. The two American representatives were therefore surprised to find the French government willing to sell all of Louisiana—280,000 square miles between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains—for a paltry $15 million. Jefferson was unsure whether the United States could legally buy the Louisiana territory because the Constitution said nothing about purchasing land. He considered proposing a constitutional amendment but dropped the idea because it might take too much time, and the opportunity could vanish. The bargain was too good to pass up. Jefferson approved the purchase, the Senate ratified it, and the United States abruptly doubled in size.

The Lewis and Clark expedition. The Louisiana Purchase was then unknown; neither France nor Spain had mapped its rivers, mountains, or plains, and the important sources of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries were still a mystery. Jefferson quickly made plans for its exploration, appointing his secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to head the expedition. Lewis asked his friend Lieutenant William Clark to serve as coleader. In the spring of 1804, the fifty-man Corps of Discovery left St. Louis, heading up the Missouri River. Although military men, Lewis and Clark had received crash courses in botany, zoology, and astronomy, enabling them to carefully collect plant and animal specimens and map the rivers. In addition, every literate man on the expedition was ordered to keep a diary. The expedition spent the first winter among the hospitable Mandan on the Upper Missouri River and then headed west for the Pacific coast in the spring of 1805. Accompanying them were a French fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, as guide and interpreter; his wife, a Shoshone Indian named Sacajawea; and their infant son. The presence of the baby and a fortuitous meeting with Shoshone tribesmen reinforced Lewis and Clark's claim that they came in peace. They distributed medallions to the tribal chiefs along with other gifts and pledged their friendship.