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Revolution of 1800 · Saberian History Lectures

0:00
Alright, wires on. So, a couple of things I want
0:03
to put on the board as part of the timeline.
0:05
First, 1789, Washington is inaugurated. By the
0:11
way, what's the difference between election and
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inauguration? Election is when the candidate
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is chosen, and inauguration is when they are
0:24
sworn in. It actually goes back to... ancient
0:27
Rome, where customarily they would sacrifice
0:29
an animal and look at their entrails to make
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sure that the gods were happy with the choice.
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So, 1789, Washington is inaugurated. Also, in
0:44
the late 1780s, you have the French Revolution.
0:47
The French Revolution will end a peace between...
0:51
France and the other continental powers, drawing
0:54
them into a war with Great Britain. And by the
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way, who is a trading partner of both France
0:59
and England who finds themselves stuck in the
1:02
middle? The United States. The French Revolution
1:06
will not only split Europe into factions, it
1:08
will split the United States into factions with...
1:12
some members of the government siding with the
1:14
French and other members of the government wanting
1:16
the U .S. to support the English. At issue was
1:19
whether or not the government of the United States
1:22
would recognize revolutionary France, thereby
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making themselves an enemy of the British Empire,
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which in the 1780s was the United States in any
1:31
capacity able to afford England as an enemy.
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No. So, 1792. Washington runs for the presidency
1:42
again and gets it. Once again, Washington runs
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for the presidency. Once again, John Adams runs
1:51
for the presidency. Once again, Adams loses.
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Now, a couple of things I want you to keep in
1:56
mind. So Adams is the VP. And what party are
2:00
both Washington and Adams? Federalists. So Washington
2:08
and Adams are both Federalists, and the majority
2:10
of the members of Congress and the majority of
2:13
the members of the Senate are Federalists. You
2:15
have a one -party Federalist government. Now
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let me fast forward a bit as I get as a preview
2:20
of what's going to happen. The United States
2:22
is going from being a one -party Federalist country
2:25
to a one -party Republican country in less than
2:29
12 years. So we'll put that over here. That occurs
2:34
in the election of 1800. The election of 1800
2:39
was widely seen as the first peaceful transition
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of power as one faction which had ratified the
2:46
Constitution by that Constitution had found itself
2:49
out of power. Now, there's a little bit of things
2:51
that have to happen in between 1792 and 1800.
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The first and most important thing that happened
2:59
was the Whiskey Rebellion. Okay. So, one of the
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hallmarks of the Constitution was that the government
3:18
of the United States had the power of taxation.
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Remember, under the Articles of Confederation,
3:27
could the government of the United States levy
3:29
taxes? No. That was one of the key features.
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So one of the things that was kind of interesting
3:36
is, one, the government of the United States
3:38
bought up the debts of several of the states
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and acquired the territory of the Ohio River
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Valley, took it away from the states and absorbed
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their debts. That's part of the reason why many
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of those states gave up the land was in exchange
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for the debts that they were to be treated as
3:55
co -equal states. So now the United States...
3:58
in debt from the beginning of the Constitution,
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so they start working on ways to collect income.
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What was the primary source of income for the
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United States prior to 1794? What is your primary
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revenue source? What did the British use as their
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primary revenue source before the Stamp Act?
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Tax on traded goods overseas. In other words,
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you don't tax people because you have a lot of
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people. You tax the ships that have to come into
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ports because there aren't that many ports and
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there aren't that many ships. And so taxes on
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shipping, and some of these words we still have
4:42
today. You've heard the word duties. Duties,
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customs, and tariffs. Okay? How many of you...
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have ever been to an airport that has international
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flights. How many of you have ever flown internationally?
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Okay, so then you have to come to customs to
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declare certain possessions, and you may have
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to, if you're bringing too much stuff, you may
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have to pay duty on those things. Duty -free
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shopping means you don't pay taxes. So, for example,
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certain ships, when they're in the coastal waters
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of a country, have to levy taxes against alcohol
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sales. But once they are out of the coastal waters
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and in international waters, that is when things
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become duty -free, meaning the taxes do not have
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to be assessed. Okay, so that being said, under
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the Federalist regime... as part of Alexander
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Hamilton's plan to balance the budget, they start
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levying what is called an excise tax on liquor.
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Now, this upsets people in the backwoods of Pennsylvania
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who have an armed uprising. What is the response
6:16
of the federal government? Well, the federal
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government has already been strengthened by the
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Constitution. The Federalist Congress authorizes
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the Federalist president to raise a militia force
6:31
to put down the insurrection violently. And who
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is riding at the side of President Washington?
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His old aide -de -camp, Alexander Hamilton, who
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is the Secretary of Treasury. So you have the
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Federalist Congress. with the Federalist President,
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with the Federalist Secretary of State, violently
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putting down a tax protest. Hmm. People representing
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a central government putting down a tax protest.
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Sound familiar? So you have violent put down.
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And so this... along with other sort of centralized
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imperial tendency of the federalist government
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of Washington, begins to alienate people who
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used to be anti -federalists who went along with
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it. And then even Madison, who was a federalist,
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was made uncomfortable with this. And then, of
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course, Jefferson, who was not a federalist.
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saw that, oh my God, we have a central government
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that is using military force to enforce taxation.
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My, doesn't this seem familiar? And so there
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is a fear that the new government would take
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upon itself a tyranny. Okay, next big event,
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1796. President George Washington does something
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that no revolutionary leader in recent memory
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before or in my memory since has ever done. He
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went home. He walked away from power. If you
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look at the great scheme of revolutionary leaders,
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either before the American Revolution or since,
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leaders of revolution do not walk away from power.
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They are carried away as corpses. Think of revolutions
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recently and in years past. Stalin, laid in state
8:40
to this day, having died as the leader of the
8:44
Soviet Union. Hitler, stayed in power till Berlin
8:49
was captured and he put a bullet in his brain.
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I will not tolerate such things, but anyway.
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By the way, killed himself with a Walther PPK
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.32 caliber, which, you know, .32 caliber was
9:07
good enough to kill Hitler. But anyway, small
9:10
bullet. Anyway, moving on down the road. Mussolini
9:16
was captured by anti -fascists, decapitated,
9:20
and the rest of his corpse was hung by his ankles
9:22
in the street. Saddam Hussein hanged after a
9:28
war crimes tribunal. Francisco Federico Franco
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ruled Spain until 1976, died of old age. Now,
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again, Washington's not looking... Oh, and, you
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know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to be carried
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out, but anyway. Yes? No, it was not a clean
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neck break, but... Botched implies that they
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deliberately screwed up the knots. But anyway,
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but the thing I was going to point out, now,
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is Washington aware of any of this history? No,
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I'm talking about revolutionary leaders that
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you may observe. However, was Washington aware
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of his own history? Yes, he was. When I am looking
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at powerful generals who have led revolution,
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does Washington have a schema? Yes, he does.
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Caesar. Cromwell. I mean, he may have read about
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what happened to Robespierre, although I don't
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remember if Robespierre died before or after
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Washington left office. Robespierre, as you may
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recall, was one of the key leaders of the French
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Revolution. He was executed. But Caesar! Well,
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he led his exercitum to destroy his enemies in
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an early semblance of the Roman Civil War, and
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then he was cordially invited to the Senate,
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and the Senate decided to stick it to him. Ali
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Cromwell, who deposed and executed Charles I,
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King of England. Ruled the country as Lord Protector.
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Was a tyrant over England, imposing Puritanism,
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not Catholicism. A couple of you lost accuracy
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points on that. Stayed in power until he died
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and tried to hand it over to his son. Washington
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was keenly aware of the idea of maintaining yourself
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in power was not good, neither for yourself nor
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for the revolution. And so as an act of faith,
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both in the American people and in God, or as
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he would call it, divine providence, he went
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home. And in his farewell address, He warned
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the United States to beware permanent alliances
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and foreign entanglements. And what foreign entanglement
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was he most worried about? Not that the United
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States would enter in a NATO military alliance,
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but actually the French and British conflict.
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So 1796, Washington goes home. Well, actually
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1797, but you get the idea. And who is actually
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up for election? You have a free election. And
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so it is Adams. versus Jefferson versus Pinckney.
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Okay. Thomas Pinckney. Now, and I might be off
12:29
on the spelling on that one. Fortunately, the
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podcast doesn't know that. But anyway, Adams
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is a Federalist from Massachusetts. Jefferson
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is a Republican from Virginia. And Pinckney is...
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From, and I forget which party he was from, I
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believe he was also a Republican, and he was
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from one of the Carolinas. Now, what do you notice
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about the bottom two? They're from the South.
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Now, by the way, was the South the largest voting
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bloc in complete generality? No, because while
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the South may have had large populations, did
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the South have large free populations? No, and
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what were unfree people worth? Three -fifths.
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So you already have the fact that you only have
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three -fifths being counted among the southern
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population, and you have the further dilution
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of the southern population among two candidates.
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So Adams gets it because he has the interest
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of the states in the north. So you have the continuation
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of the Federalist regime in the hands of the
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person who was both the vice president and during
13:36
the... the American ambassador to England. And
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so a lot of people had already thought of Adams
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as an Anglophile, and really they used the term
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monocrat, meaning that he was pro -monarchy and
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he wanted to give the presidency monarchic powers.
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Now, by the way, was he the only Federalist who
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wanted to give the presidency monarchic powers?
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Shoot, no. Hamilton wanted to make George Washington
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president for life. At which point, You know,
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President George Washington says, look, last
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time you had a revolutionary republic that had
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a lifetime leader, that lifetime leadership came
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with a limited lifetime warranty. I got pages
14:20
and pages of Caesar jokes, but anyway. But anyway,
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so 1796, Adams is inaugurated, Thomas Jefferson
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is the vice president of an opposite party, and
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Thomas Pinckney got nothing. Moving on down the
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road. 1798, or sorry, 1797, the XYZ affair, the
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U .S. severs diplomatic ties with France. Not
15:00
yet. That's later. No. The Louisiana Purchase
15:06
is a long time coming, and besides, we have to
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have an entire discussion about... We'll get...
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Well, Napoleon. 1798. No. Alien and Sedition
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Acts. Now, at which point, many of you are seeing
15:24
the Alien and Sedition Act and are now picturing
15:26
Xenomorph's compliments of Ridley Scott. Okay,
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that joke got a lot better rise out of first
15:33
period. All right, never mind. Alien. Xenomorphs.
15:38
The things with the big head and the two mouths.
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Right. All right. Moving on. Alien and Sedition
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Act of 1798. A couple of things about the Alien
15:46
and Sedition Act. The first thing it does is
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it extends how long it takes to be a naturalized
15:52
citizen. So when you come to a foreign country,
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you're an alien. You are from the other place.
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and it takes a certain amount of residency to
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become what is called a naturalized citizen.
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It went from being five years to being 14 years.
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So, who got disenfranchised? People who had only
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been here four years, they had their terms extended,
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right? Now, by the way, most of the immigrants
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coming to the United States, was the Alien and
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Sedition Act about curtailing the influence of
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immigrants who were stealing our jobs? No. U
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.S. is not an industrialized economy. These immigrants
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are not taking factory jobs. What are these immigrants
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doing? Nope. Not plantations. Nope. Smallholders.
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In other words, yeoman farmers. Now, there was
16:46
concern about spies in the cities, but, again,
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this restricted the naturalization of immigrants
16:54
who came to be yeoman farmers. Now, as yeoman
16:56
farmers, Once they're citizens, what can they
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do? Because they own land. They're yeoman farmers.
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Vote. And would they vote with the commercial
17:04
interest of the Federalist Party, or would they
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vote with the farming interest of the Republicans?
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The Republicans. And so, in many ways, this was
17:14
a crass attempt to limit the growth of the Republican
17:16
Party among the smallholders of the immigrant
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communities. Now, the other thing it did was
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it made it a crime to write or speak sedition.
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Now, let me tell you about the difference between
17:30
sedition and treason. Treason. When you overthrow
17:37
the government. Yes, usually it's a singular
17:43
act. Sedition. When you call for the overthrowing
17:52
of the government. within degrees, although usually
17:58
it's covered by slander or libel. Usually you
18:00
have to prove damages. So let me give you an
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example of sedition. Now, by the way, and I'll
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get to how sedition was enforced and I'll get
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to how this was actually a little extra taste
18:11
of crispy. All right. So, if you have a person
18:17
who puts in writing, we must put an end to the
18:20
tyranny of the excise tax. Tax protest? Or sedition.
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You see how it's open to interpretation. Now,
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if I just have that as a headline, you don't
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know. Now, if you say we must put an end to the
18:41
tyranny of the excise tax by electing this guy
18:44
to abolish the excise tax. That's freedom of
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speech. That's tax protest. Now. It depends on
18:54
the words, but it also depends on what? The interpretation.
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Now, who's doing the interpretation? Federalist
19:06
prosecutors. Oh, and by the way, the Federalists
19:12
have been in power since 1789, which means Federalist
19:16
judges. Now, again, if you're a Republican or
19:24
if you're an anti -federalist, you now have the
19:28
federalist government in the far distant capital.
19:32
Not only are they imposing taxes violently, not
19:36
only are they restricting the vote, but now they
19:39
are restricting the freedom of speech, which
19:42
has been codified not as a nobleman's privilege
19:45
in Congress, but as the right of the common man
19:47
in state constitutions and in the American Bill
19:50
of Rights. Who had made laws with foreign judges
19:57
restricting what people could print and say?
19:59
Who had made laws with foreign judges from a
20:02
far -flung capital imposing taxes upon the people?
20:07
England from London. And so now this accusation
20:13
that the Federalists were nothing more than the
20:17
British monarchic government re -envisioned.
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That shoe begins to fit, doesn't it? Okay. So,
20:28
getting into... So, one of the other things that
20:33
happens shortly after the Alien and Sedition
20:35
Act was Jefferson helps write the Virginia Resolves
20:42
and the Kentucky Resolves. And the Kentucky Resolves,
20:50
where... It is posited that a state may nullify
20:57
acts of Congress that they find to be against
21:04
the rights and liberties of the people. Basically,
21:07
the theory that the states have a veto over legislation.
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So let's think about this for a moment. You have...
21:22
Taxes, violence, one -party rule maintained by
21:27
oppression, and the allegation of states' rights.
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When are states' rights going to come up again?
21:35
Civil war and throughout. And so here, no more
21:40
than ten years after the inception of the constitutional
21:44
order, the broad strokes of the outline of the
21:47
conflicts that will plague the nation. already
21:50
emerge. And so despite what you may have learned
21:55
in the lies and the lies and the propaganda that
21:57
you learned in your younger life, this early
21:59
republic was not a happy time of bipartisanship.
22:02
Rather, link by link, the chain of retaliation
22:06
was forged and growing ever tighter. I'll get
22:11
to it. No, this is a denouement. All right, so.
22:19
1800. This oppression has been interrupted by
22:25
your regularly scheduled election. By the way,
22:27
one thing that's very important to recognize
22:29
is England does not have regularly scheduled
22:31
elections. Parliament calls for new elections
22:33
when they can't work with each other. One of
22:35
the things that is really good about the American
22:37
system is we have regularly scheduled elections.
22:39
By the way, early voting, for those of you who
22:41
are legal adults, which is none of you, starts
22:43
today. I didn't send it. Oh. Anyway, yeah, no,
22:50
but anyway, 1800. So here's the thing. So the
22:56
Federalists were working hard to prevent a Republican
22:58
takeover. They passed the Alien and Sedition
23:00
Acts, and guess what happened? A Republican takeover.
23:06
So you had the Jefferson, the Republican versus
23:14
Aaron Burr. also a Republican. Now, originally,
23:18
a lot of people, they were supposed to toss out
23:21
one of the votes for Burr to make sure that he
23:24
was the vice president because he was nominally
23:26
a running mate. Now, Jefferson's from Virginia.
23:29
Burr is from New York. So now, while we tend
23:33
to think of New York as a Federalist commercial
23:35
hub, upstate New York is actually small farms.
23:38
And so Burr is representing the Republican strain
23:41
of New York. Now, also way down at the bottom,
23:44
I think actually Adams finished fourth or fifth,
23:46
so he got nothing. Now, so much, you have the
23:55
coalition politics. In other words, Jefferson
23:57
captured votes in the south, Burr captured some
23:59
votes in the north, and it was, now remember,
24:02
in the electoral college, if you get the top
24:04
votes, you're the president. If you're the number
24:07
two, you're the vice president. It was a tie.
24:14
Nope. So when you have a tie, it has to go to
24:16
Congress. One state, one vote. Now, considering
24:21
that this was not an even number, this should
24:24
not have taken that long, but there were still
24:26
those people who had hoped that Adams would somehow
24:29
get it because they were afraid of both of these
24:31
guys. It went to Congress for about 35 times.
24:39
It was tied 35 times because there was always
24:42
that one dude who was holding out hope for Adams.
24:44
But finally, finally, it was a gentleman from
24:49
Burr's home state of New York that threw his
24:53
weight behind Jefferson. And so Jefferson would
24:56
be president and Burr would be the vice president.
25:02
There had actually been a long -running dispute
25:03
between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton going
25:05
back to the Revolution. They hated each other
25:07
in New York, they hated each other during the
25:09
Revolution, and they hated each other after the
25:11
Revolution. Eventually, Burr would challenge
25:14
Alexander Hamilton to a duel, kill him, and then
25:18
take himself in flight, try to get parts of Louisiana
25:21
and New York to peel off from the Union. He would
25:24
be captured, charged with treason, acquitted
25:27
by one vote. flee to France, and then come back
25:30
to the United States to practice law seven or
25:32
nine years later. And so the thing I find really
25:37
impressive about it is whenever I read the story
25:39
of Aaron Burr, I am reminded of Milton's Paradise
25:43
Lost, where Satan says it is better to reign
25:46
in hell than to rule in heaven. Or, sorry, better
25:52
to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. I screwed
25:53
that up. Sorry about that. Sorry, better to reign
25:57
in hell than to serve in heaven. He did not want
26:00
to play second fiddle to anyone. Now, after the
26:04
Burr controversy, this is when they amend the
26:06
Constitution to make sure that we have definite
26:08
presidents and vice presidents. Now, moving down
26:10
the line. As if the plebiscite in 1800, where
26:17
the United States goes from being a one -party
26:19
federalist state to being a one -party Republican
26:20
state, wasn't bad enough. You also had a couple
26:24
of other uprisings in 1800. 1800, you also had
26:28
a servile uprising in Haiti. Now, by the way,
26:38
where is Haiti? It is a French sugar island,
26:43
and it's actually on the island of Hispaniola.
26:47
So the Dominican Republic is one part of Hispaniola,
26:49
and Haiti is the other one. You had a slave uprising.
26:53
By the way, what do they grow in Haiti? Sugar.
26:56
And what do you use to harvest sugar? You use
26:59
a machete. Now, the first thing, again, every
27:03
time there's a servile uprising, it's always
27:05
the sugar plantations. Because if we learn nothing
27:10
from Spartacus, don't give the slaves knives
27:12
or anything that look like knives. Just saying.
27:15
But anyway, so you had a slave uprising. Napoleon
27:18
dispatches a naval force to put down the insurrection.
27:21
They all catch yellow fever, and so Napoleon's
27:23
like, to heck with this. And this actually gets
27:26
Napoleon started on the we're going out of business
27:28
sale in the New World, which is part of the Louisiana
27:32
Purchase. I'm going to get to Napoleon a little
27:34
bit more on Wednesday. And so, now, the servile
27:38
uprising in Haiti actually inspires Gabriel's
27:42
revolt in Virginia. Now, Here's the thing about
27:47
Gabriel. He was a freedman. He was a preacher.
27:57
And he was a blacksmith. And he organized a servile
28:04
uprising where... He and his followers raided
28:09
an armory, tried to capture Richmond, and tried
28:11
to capture Governor Monroe. Governor Monroe is
28:14
James Monroe, who will become the fifth president
28:16
of the United States. He is, at this point, the
28:18
governor of Virginia, having won some fame as
28:21
a military commander himself during the Revolution.
28:24
The insurrection is violently put down, because
28:30
that's what you do with servile uprisings. And
28:33
then... What do you do after the Servile Uprising?
28:35
Not only do you make a gruesome and terrible
28:37
example, you take steps to make sure it doesn't
28:39
happen again. So this is where you have the addition
28:41
of the slave codes, where you don't get to teach
28:43
your slaves how to read and write, and you have
28:46
the expulsion of free blacks from Virginia. Why
28:53
did they expel free blacks from Virginia? Because
28:55
Gabriel was one of them. Pretty much. And so
29:02
if you were a manumitted slave, not only were
29:06
you manumitted off the plantation, you were manumitted
29:08
out of the state. And so one of the other things
29:11
that begins to come up is, again, the passage
29:14
of these slave codes to ensure that another servile
29:17
uprising would not occur. And with that, thank
29:20
you.