Cronyism

CHAPTER 8

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON: THE CORRUPTION OF LAND

The Louisiana Purchase

Hamilton’s death in 1804 hammered the nail into the Federalist coffin. But while the reactionary forces decayed, their special-interest policies lived on, for slowly but surely the libertarian Republicans embraced statism. The primary reason was the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, a five hundred million acre acquisition that corrupted Jefferson into embracing broad constructionism for his Empire of Liberty. To keep his enlarged empire from fracturing, Jefferson and moderate Republicans utilized numerous special-interest policies. Appealing to New England Federalists flirting with secession after the Louisiana Purchase, Republicans favored a payout to speculators in the Yazoo scandal, later sanctioned by the Hamiltonian Supreme Court. Jefferson acquired bribe money for West Florida to protect the enlarged southern frontier. Republicans covetously eyed the federal surplus for internal improvements to nationalize the West. They also supported trade restrictions to privilege manufacturing and mercantile constituents. The Louisiana Purchase truly wrecked the Republican Party.

In the 1790s, the Federalists aggressively pushed for expansion to strengthen their corrupt empire. Fortunately, their exile from political power in 1801 dashed any hopes of such conquest. But a new Federalist war threat quickly emerged. In 1800, King Carlos IV of Spain agreed to transfer Louisiana to France if Napoleon gifted Queen Maria Luisa’s brother, the current Duke of Parma in northern Italy, Tuscany and other Italian territories, making him the king of Etruria. Consequently, France and Spain signed the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso transferring Louisiana to France. Two additional facts about the treaty bear emphasis: Spain refused to yield Florida (which France never included in Louisiana) and demanded France never transfer Louisiana to either the US or Great Britain.

Rumors of the treaty’s existence reached the US in 1801, though by the fall of 1802 the actual Louisiana transfer had still not occurred. When he learned of the negotiation, Jefferson expressed his desire for West Florida and New Orleans, some land on the lower Mississippi River for an American port, or a French guarantee of free navigation on the Mississippi. The anxiety heightened when Spain failed to renew Pinckney’s Treaty and ended the right of deposit in New Orleans on the grounds that Americans continually smuggled goods through the city and showed little respect for Spanish sailors in American ports. Although Spain did nothing illegal and Americans could still smuggle or ship goods legally through New Orleans, it caused a fury.

It was at this moment, under the potential wartime crisis, that the battle between liberty and power reemerged in full force. Hamilton and the Federalists wanted to first enter into a war and then negotiate, hoping to use the crisis as an opportunity to exploit fears, weaken the Republicans, and springboard back into prominence. On the other hand, Jefferson and the Republicans aimed to first try peaceful negotiation before entering into hostilities, though they were not above backing diplomatic maneuvers with the velvet glove of potential force and even an alliance with Great Britain. Despite this, the Republican policy was undeniably more peaceful and libertarian than the Federalist approach.

In his December 1802 congressional message, Jefferson did not mention the crisis over the deposit, though he implied that recent changes in foreign relations could make a war necessary. Hamilton criticized Jefferson’s timidity and dreamed of an expansionist war for “the unity of our Empire.” Federalists then castigated Jefferson’s appointment of James Monroe to help Ambassador Livingston and Republican attempts to voluntarily purchase the Mississippi River. In February 1803, Hamilton continued the assault and urged that the country should “seize” Florida and New Orleans before negotiating.

Randolph and western Republican senators, particularly those from Kentucky and Tennessee, defended the president’s diplomacy, holding back Federalist warmongers. Westerners recognized that a war would increase the federal government’s debt and taxes, reduce opportunities to trade with the French and Spanish, and lead to heavy requests for western troops. Republican Senator DeWitt Clinton of New York also criticized the Federalist machinations and Virginia’s Republican senator, Stevens T. Mason, accurately summed up their imperial fantasies:

Presently we shall be told we must have Louisiana; then the gold mines of Mexico—these would be good things, if come by honestly—then Potosi—then St. Domingo, with their sugar, coffee, and all the rest. . . . But what have we to do with the territories of other people? Have we not enough of our own?

Fortunately, Spain restored the right of deposit. The Republicans resisted the corruption of westward empire.

But in the meantime, Napoleon’s plans for Louisiana changed. By January 1803, his efforts to reassert control in the West Indies had failed, and war with Great Britain loomed on the horizon. Importantly, to facilitate the war effort Napoleon needed his troops in Europe, a neutral US, and money. He made a momentous decision: France would sell all of Louisiana for a bargain $15 million. Monroe and Livingston, mesmerized by the windfall that landed on their lap, hastily agreed in April.

It is imperative to understand that the Louisiana Purchase, from top to bottom, was crony. First, neither France nor Spain really owned most of the land since they failed to adequately homestead it. The only people who could be considered partial owners were the scattered Europeans and the Indian hunters. True ownership required the gradual process of settlement, a core plank of Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty. But, similar to the gift King James I endowed to the speculating Plymouth and Virginia companies, France planned to transfer its dubious ownership to a government that also had no legitimate claim over the area. Second, to actually acquire Louisiana, France was legally obligated to elevate the Duke of Parma to the King of Etruria and forgo selling the land to another foreign power. Napoleon never made him the independent King of Etruria and clearly reneged on the other stipulation. He never even obtained the consent of the French legislature. Walter Nugent correctly described the Louisiana Purchase as a “dirty deal”—a sordid benefit to the US and France at the expense of Louisiana’s inhabitants and the Spanish.

Jefferson received the treaty in July. Before submitting it to the Senate for ratification, the strict constructionist faced an enormous dilemma. Nowhere did the Constitution explicitly enumerate the power to purchase territory from another government and bring the land and its residents into the Union. Jefferson despaired the precedent he would set by broadly reading the Constitution to justify territorial acquisition. He had previously spent the past decade fighting such a Hamiltonian exegesis and the special-interest legislation it led to.

According to the Federalists who actually drafted the Constitution, they intended the new polity to wield implied powers that could enact privilege granting-policies. Senator Gouverneur Morris, one of the major Federalists at the Convention still alive, certainly considered territorial acquisition constitutional: “I knew as well then as I do now, that all North America must at length be annexed to us—happy, indeed, if the lust for dominion stop there.” The Louisiana Purchase was constitutional, because the vague clauses sanctioned vast government power. However, Jefferson and his Republicans interpreted the Constitution in the way the Federalists actually promised, requiring its powers to be confined to those explicitly enumerated, expandable only with amendments. So, according to the Republicans, the Louisiana Purchase should have been unconstitutional.

But it was a lot of land. In fact, it was just too much land. Throughout 1803, the president ruminated on the constitutionality with his close advisors. Jefferson wanted an amendment that would have explicitly given the federal government the power to acquire and annex territory. But his cabinet disagreed, and even Secretary Gallatin sounded Hamiltonian when he argued that treaty-making power implied the ability. Torn, Jefferson called for an early session of Congress to meet in October, because Napoleon stipulated that the treaty would have to be ratified within six months of the original signing in France.

Jefferson’s anxiety escalated when he received a secret letter from Livingston in August reporting that Napoleon was having second thoughts. The president, alarmed at the letter, now urged minimizing the constitutionality issue. In reality, Livingston misread Napoleon. War had broken out in Europe, and Napoleon needed money. He understood that his country was in no position to defend the territory: some way or another, the superior British Navy or the inexorable tide of American settlers would take Louisiana. It was better to get some money than nothing at all. Even Madison and Gallatin estimated that the French would not renege on their agreement, though they saw no reason for delay. Realistically, the Jefferson administration could have pressed for an amendment and secured one by the end of the year. Napoleon would have waited.

But Jefferson did not make Napoleon wait and rushed to ratify the treaty. Even with his haste, Jefferson still toyed with an amendment, perhaps after the Senate ratified the treaty. In September, Jefferson admirably wrote:

I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no constitution.

Unfortunately, after delivering this brilliant statement of constitutional reform, Jefferson once again acquiesced to broad constructionism.

In October, Jefferson did not mention the constitutional controversy to Congress. Instead, two groups raised the issue: envious Federalists and principled Republicans. The Federalists split into two groups. Some Federalists desired the land and simply attacked the Jefferson administration. Other Federalists, particularly the High Federalists in New England, realized the potential loss of influence their region would suffer if Congress could admit new states from the West. In Madisonian fashion, the High Federalists strictly interpreted the Constitution. They did not generally criticize the right to acquire territory by purchase or conquest. Instead, they questioned whether the executive could compel Congress to accept the territory’s inhabitants into the Union and admit new states from territory acquired after the Constitution’s ratification without the consent of the existing states. The High Federalists wanted any new land the US acquired to remain as subjugated territories in their empire. For his part, Hamilton remained a broad constructionist: the nationalist supported both the constitutionality and implicit consequences of the Louisiana treaty.

Although Federalist senators protested, the Senate hastily ratified the treaty. The allure of land corrupted the even most doctrinaire of Republicans: Old Republican Senator John Taylor of Virginia, the supposed strict constructionist (back in the Senate from June to December 1803, after Senator Mason died) defended the legitimacy of the purchase against High Federalists Timothy Pickering and others. Even the strict constructionist and laissez-faire advocate Senator George Logan of Pennsylvania remained silent. It was hypocrisy of the highest level, though the Republicans at least highlighted the opportunism of the previously bellicose Federalists who earlier advocated outright conquest.

However, much like Jay’s Treaty nearly a decade earlier, the treaty would not be official until the House approved appropriations. Congressman Randolph, loyally serving the president, defended the constitutionality, though he wrote to his superior that “the constitutionality [issue] is the theme of the opposition.” But House Federalists pressed for proof of French ownership. If the House had passed resolutions toward this end, it would have delayed appropriations and thrown the entire transaction into doubt. Almost enough Republicans joined with the Federalists to stop the entire illicit purchase dead in its tracks: a vote to demand proof of ownership failed by just one vote, 57-59.

In the end, the die was cast: Jefferson and the Republicans muscled a bargain through Congress that violated their own constitutional principles, augmented the national debt, and blatantly contradicted Republicans’ plans to amend the Constitution. Nugent accurately writes that for the Republicans, “the temptation, the opportunity, was too great. . . . Imperialism trumped honesty.” With this decision, strict constructionism died and Jefferson increasingly supported broad constructionism to solidify his empire. The entire episode highlights the corrupting nature of power and the difficulty of reform. To make the central government behave in the limited manner envisioned, Jefferson and the Republicans had to tie their own hands behind their backs. But once the opportunity to broadly interpret the Constitution presented itself—in the form of a massive land acquisition—nothing constrained them from untying the knot.

The consequences of the Louisiana Purchase were seismic, bursting the Empire of Liberty at the seams. High Federalists fretted that it provided the potential to create western states populated by settlers sympathetic to the Republicans. They also feared that southern slave owners would now dominate the central government forever, pinning the blame on the three-fifths clause. Their criticism had nothing to do with the plight of slaves: over the next two decades High Federalists in Massachusetts spearheaded the tightening of poor laws, blocking black migration into the state, and segregating schools and churches. Instead, their criticism concerned how the clause boosted Republican political representation. Pickering, now one of the staunchest critics of the three-fifths clause, even flirted with secession and a northern confederacy, but the preeminent nationalist Hamilton torpedoed the idea before he suddenly died. The Republicans now needed to mollify New England.

As for Louisiana, Republicans embraced the means used by the British Old Order they previously despised. In 1804, Congress divided it into the Territory of Orleans (modern-day Louisiana) and the District of Louisiana (everything else). It also passed a bill that turned the Territory of Orleans into a vassal state. Unlike the Northwest Territory and Mississippi Territory, whose people had the right to an elected legislature against a presidentially appointed governor, the Territory of Orleans’ interim government included only a presidentially appointed governor and legislative council, a clear return to the antiquated colonial approach. To make matters worse, Jefferson chose for the governor of the region William C.C. Claiborne of Tennessee. During the heated presidential gridlock of 1801, Claiborne, the state’s sole representative, voted for Jefferson. The new president had rewarded him with the governorship of the Mississippi Territory. Now, in 1804, Jefferson again rewarded Claiborne with the far more important position of governor of the Territory of Orleans, giving him near-dictatorial power over the region’s inhabitants. Although Congress eventually granted the Territory of Orleans the right to a representative assembly and admitted the region as the state of Louisiana in 1812, the entire experience did not bode well for future Republican territorial ambitions.

However, Congress did enact one saving grace, forbidding the importation of foreign slaves into the Territory of Orleans. A similar anti-crony victory occurred in 1807, when Congress abolished the international slave trade for the whole country. Although antislavery advocates championed the decision, it caused little fanfare because every state save South Carolina had already banned the practice. Jefferson and many antislavery southern Republicans continued to sanguinely believe that ending the slave trade and diffusing slaves into the West would weaken the institution and reduce antipathy toward blacks. They failed to properly appreciate that slave breeding could maintain populations and perpetuate the practice. Slavery continued to grow.

The Old Republican Randolph quickly regretted his decision. He realized it set a bad constitutional precedent, enhanced executive power, and led to western clamor for federally funded internal improvements. By 1805 he considered the acquisition “the greatest curse that ever befell us.” It was a crucial victory for power, and the reform movement had utterly collapsed by the end of Jefferson’s first administration. The Empire of Liberty took a turn for the worse.

Satisfying Land Speculators

After the Louisiana Purchase, Randolph and other Old Republicans increasingly criticized Jefferson and the moderates. Their first serious dispute regarded the Yazoo land scandal and corrupt Federalist speculators from secessionist-leaning New England. Against Randolph, moderate Republicans sanctioned a federal bailout that the Marshallian Supreme Court later protected.

Georgia formally ceded the Yazoo lands in 1802, which Congress soon organized into the Mississippi Territory. To settle the speculators’ disputed land titles, the president appointed a commission led by Madison and Gallatin. In a classic case of moderation, the commission’s report of February 1803 recommended Congress set aside five million acres to divide among the speculators. Moderates wanted compromise because most of the claimants hailed from New England, an area the Republicans desired to court.

When the House reviewed the commission’s report in early 1804, Randolph fumed. He regarded the 1795 sale as crony, considered the corrupt land speculators no better than the security owners who benefited from Hamilton’s debt-funding scheme, and maintained that the decision to allot land to claimants violated the Georgia legislature’s right to rescind their own special-interest contract. It did not help Randolph’s temper that moderate Republicans had invested in the New England Mississippi Land Company, and Postmaster General Gideon Granger of Connecticut served as their agent. By denouncing the commission’s report, Randolph broke with the Jefferson administration. He managed to postpone the issue until the next congressional session in early 1805.

The problem for Randolph, however, was that in the aftermath of the Louisiana Purchase moderate Republicans grew even more eager to compromise on Yazoo because of rumors that New England Federalists contemplated secession. Moderates did not want to risk splitting up their new empire and looked forward to working with the speculators. They allied with Federalists, narrowly defeating Randolph’s motion to repudiate the compromise by 63-58. But the vote total revealed that more Republicans actually sided with Randolph than with their president, including the majority of Virginia’s delegation. It was a sign that many Republicans remained uneasy with the Jefferson administration’s moderation. However, Congress postponed the legislation embodying the compromise, and Randolph blocked payments in subsequent sessions. For the time being, moderation failed and Old Republicans put the Yazoo question on the backburner.

But Yazoo speculators did not give up: they followed Hamilton’s original advice and tried legal avenues. By 1810, during Madison’s presidency, their case landed in the Supreme Court. The Federalists still controlled a majority of the bench, ably commanded by the Hamiltonian Marshall. As Hamilton predicted, Marshall based the ruling in Fletcher v. Peck (1810) on the contract clause. For the first time, the Supreme Court used judicial review to overturn a state law and declared that Congress had to reward the Yazoo claimants. By overturning a state law, the Supreme Court dramatically increased its own power, an extremely disturbing development. In 1814, when enough Federalists resided in Congress and Randolph no longer served as a representative, moderate Republicans granted a payout of $4.75 million to the claimants. Unsurprisingly, it mostly benefited new speculators who had bought depreciated ownership claims in anticipation of a government bailout. Randolph lost and the moderate Republicans and Federalists won. It was official: the Republicans embraced land speculation.

It bears emphasizing that Marshall adhered to the tradition of former Supreme Court Justice James Wilson and was motivated to protect his own pockets. In the 1790s Marshall and his brother worked with speculator Robert Morris in acquiring a land grant, the Fairfax Estate, which the Virginia legislature subsequently rescinded. In 1809, after legal delays, Spencer Roane at the Court of Appeals declared the Marshalls’ titles invalid. Marshall appealed Roane’s decision and sent it to the Supreme Court. The high court declared in Fairfax’s Devisee v. Hunter’s Lessee (1813) that the Marshalls justly owned the titles. To be fair, Marshall recused himself from the ruling due to conflict of interest, but the same could not be said for President Madison’s recent appointee, Justice Joseph Story, who delivered the ruling. He previously worked as an attorney for New England’s Yazoo claimants and the Crowninshield merchant interests. Clearly, Story wanted to help Marshall and strengthen the speculator interests he served. Thus, Marshall’s declaration in Fletcher v. Peck (1810) provided legal precedent that allowed Story to legitimize the Chief Justice’s prior land speculations. This was the exact type of judicial and land speculator cronyism Randolph previously warned about, which Republicans now embraced.

Clandestine Operations for Florida

The Yazoo land scandal was not the only territorial issue that alienated Randolph. Jefferson, corrupted by Louisiana, pressed for expanding the American frontier, envisioning all of North America and eventually South America free from any European presence whatsoever. But the eternal contradiction remained: to remove the Old Order Jefferson increasingly resorted to its means. In this vein, Jefferson and Madison used bribes and supported insurrections to obtain parts of Florida.

Moderate Republicans wanted Florida to increase the government’s newfound control over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean trade, prevent fugitive slaves from escaping Georgia, and weaken frontier Indians. Jefferson first targeted West Florida, the highly coveted panhandle east of New Orleans. The administration dubiously argued that the Louisiana Purchase included it, a claim France and Spain rightfully denied. In November 1803, Randolph, still supportive of the land acquisition, introduced the administration’s Mobile Act, which proposed to annex West Florida into the Mississippi Territory. Although Jefferson signed it in 1804, Spain and France bitterly protested and the law remained a dead letter. Later in the year, a group of thirty Americans tried to capture a Spanish fort. US officials detained the men but did not turn them over to Spain.

From a broader vantage point, Jefferson only needed to convince Napoleonic France, which currently controlled the Spain. In late 1805, in a move reminiscent of the XYZ Affair, Foreign Minister Talleyrand admitted France would oversee the transfer of West Florida as well as East Florida (the peninsula) provided that the Jefferson administration provide a bribe as compensation for intimidating Spain.

In November, Jefferson’s cabinet decided to purchase all of Florida from Spain with the “help” of France. However, in his December message to Congress, the president adopted a very bellicose tone, desiring a troop buildup because negotiations to purchase Florida had supposedly failed. At the same time, Jefferson sent a confidential message: Congress should pass vague resolutions that could be made public while clandestinely authorizing money for diplomacy, hinting that it needed to approve $2 million to pay off France into coercing Spain. In essence, the corrupt Jefferson wanted Congress to do his dirty work and supply a slush fund without even asking for it.

Speaker Macon, a dedicated Old Republican, referred the confidential message to a select committee chaired by Randolph. The Old Republican wanted no part in Jefferson’s sordid bribery. While Randolph supported acquiring Florida through open and honorable measures (including defensive force in this category), he considered bribery the crony Yazoo scandal all over again. He believed the extortion money would push the neutral US into Napoleon’s warmongering hands if Great Britain ever discovered the clandestine payoff. Private exhortations by the president, Madison, and his close friend Gallatin did not change Randolph’s mind.

The committee’s report rejected the $2 million appropriation, considering the purchase as unnecessarily adding to the debt and violating neutrality. Randolph favored open settlement, and instead of the payoff recommended additional troops on the southern border to mimic what Jefferson actually advocated to the public. Despite this, Barnabas Bidwell of Massachusetts, a moderate Republican who dissented on the committee, countered with a resolution to appropriate $2 million for “extraordinary expenses.” In the congressional debates, the apoplectic Randolph thundered that this slush fund would “grease the fists of Napoleon with American gold.” But the House accepted Bidwell’s resolution, 77-54. Federalists, fighting anything the Republican Party did, and twenty-seven Republicans, concerned over the direction of their party, formed the opposition. The Senate passed the Two Million Dollar Act in February 1806, and only four Republicans voted in opposition. However, greater Republican dissatisfaction existed because Randolph’s ally Senator George Logan and three others absented rather than publicly rebuke the president. Instead, Logan wrote a critical letter to Jefferson.

Randolph pinned the blame for his stinging defeat on the Federalist-in-disguise, whispering in Jefferson’s ear: Madison. The Old Republican seethed: “I consider this matter as fairly at issue, whether this nation is to be governed by a secret Machiavellian, invisible, irresponsible Cabinet, or the principles of the Constitution.” Though defeated, Randolph did not give up. Congress planned to appropriate bribe money from the unpopular salt tariff. In April, Randolph moved to repeal the tax to eliminate the funds, a cunning tactic because the public hated it. Although Congress repealed the tax, moderate Republicans countered by appropriating money from budgets for the Tripoli War. In the end, delays by Randolph, publicity over the act, and war in Europe postponed negotiations. Congress suspended efforts to buy Florida in 1807, when Jefferson thought the money might be needed for an upcoming clash with Great Britain.

The corrupting desire to acquire more land by whatever means necessary troubled many Republicans. During the Two Million Dollar Act debates, Senator Stephen Bradley of Vermont proposed an amendment that allowed the president to obtain Florida, Canada, and Nova Scotia by purchase or force. Clintonian Samuel Mitchill of New York dissented, diagnosing the nascent republic with “a land mania”: “What next, why all the Globe—why this rage—Have we an inhabitant for every acre?” The empire developed an insatiable urge to expand. By 1809, Jefferson greedily insisted to Madison that the empire must include Canada, Cuba, and Mexico’s provinces.

But the Empire of Liberty first had to conquer the siren song of Florida. During the Madison administration, Republicans warned that Great Britain, a recent ally of the crumbling Spanish Empire, would occupy the region. In reality, the British were not interested, but that did not matter to the expansionists: President Madison moved beyond Jefferson’s bribery method and simply invaded Florida by clandestinely inspiring “local” revolts.

First, in April 1810, Claiborne, governor of the Territory of Orleans, visited Madison and insisted that the US could easily capture West Florida. Madison agreed, and Secretary of State Robert Smith stood ready to call out the Mississippi Territory’s militia. In September, eighty insurgents seized the environs near New Orleans, creating the independent Republic of West Florida. Governor of the Mississippi Territory David Holmes quickly sent troops to the border in anticipation of an annexation request. Once received, he cheerfully noted to the president that “the views of our government have been in great measure realized.”Holmes fortunately made this remark privately because Secretary Smith swore “on [his] honor as a gentleman” to the French Minister that the US was ignorant to the entire affair.

Madison, ever concerned about fabricating his reputation as a strict constructionist, fretted that Congress might consider it unconstitutional. Conveniently, the president defended annexation with the necessary and proper clause. When the US annexed the little republic into the Territory of Orleans, upset insurgents protested that they wanted to form their own independent state, ignorant that the Madison administration had used them. Their resistance dissipated after Claiborne’s soldiers arrived in December 1810. Ecstatic, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, an auspicious moderate Republican, supported the West Florida takeover and triumphantly proclaimed: “Ere long, the new United States . . . embracing . . . the entire country east of the Mississippi, including East Florida and some of the territories to the north of us also.”

Madison had only acquired the portion of West Florida close to New Orleans, even though the federal government declared that it owned all of West Florida, authorizing a formal takeover if local insurgents approved it. However, the Spanish still maintained control of the rest of West Florida. The administration then shifted its attention to East Florida, particularly near Georgia’s border.

Although the US never had the audacity to claim East Florida as part of the Louisiana Purchase, in January 1811 Madison secretly met with General George Mathews, the former corrupt governor of Georgia discredited by the Yazoo land scandal. The president gave Mathews vague instructions to explore potential “discontent” in East Florida, promising military and financial support. Madison did not bother to even inform his Secretaries of War or Navy. Mathews agreed and wrote to Secretary of State James Monroe, the former Antifederalist now comfortably ensconced in the halls of power, declaring that the region teemed with rebels (he lied). Unsurprisingly, he requested military supplies.

In March 1812, despite not hearing back, Mathews used his seventy-man strike force of “rebels”—which included only nine actual residents from East Florida—to move in near St. Augustine, a clear act of aggression. When the public found out, the administration saved its hide by disavowing Mathews. Despite this convenient disassociation, Madison appointed Governor David Mitchell of Georgia to occupy the area with troops. While the president gave Mitchell orders to withdraw, he was to do it as slowly as possible to continue American occupation.

Thus, the Madison administration continued Jefferson’s machinations to illicitly acquire Florida. By early 1812, the United States snatched the extremities of West and East Florida. Slowly but surely, the Republican Party moved away from moderation and into the out-right embrace of power.

Public Works Largesse

After the Louisiana Purchase, Republicans embraced a vast network of internal improvements to solidify the empire. In doing so, Jefferson abandoned his laissez-faire instincts and constitutional scruples. The entire episode provides another example of power’s corrupting influence.

By the second Jefferson administration, government provision of public works became paramount. First, many thought that after Congress extinguished the debt it could use surpluses for positive investment. Second, politicians reasoned that internal improvements would stimulate economic development in the Northwest, Southwest, and Louisiana, reducing secessionist impulses. In other words, if the West was going to remain in the Union, it needed a sweetener.

Thus far, states had done their part by granting corporate charters to transportation companies at an increasing rate. For example, by 1811 New York had chartered 137 turnpikes, and by 1820 eight Pennsylvania turnpikes and three bridge companies handled the route between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Southern states continued to rely on navigable river streams. However, many thought federal subsidies and construction, especially in the West, should supersede state involvement.

Gallatin was one such vocal proponent, building off Adam Smith and other Enlightenment economists, who unfortunately had admitted that governments could embark upon these projects when the market “underprovided” infrastructure. Evidently, Gallatin did not understand that to the extent supposed “under provision” occurred in the United States, it resulted from the Napoleonic Wars. The conflict artificially increased the profitability of the transatlantic trade and misallocated scarce resources in the shipping industry. The prominent Republican engineer B. H. Latrobe explained this fact when he wrote in June 1806 that the “suspension of the internal improvements of the country, is the absorption of all our active capital by . . . the foreign trade, which revived with the new War.”Latrobe, whose excellent analysis also applies to the earlier Anglo-French wars and the unofficial Quasi-War in the late 1790s, unfortunately favored government investment to make up the shortfall in private capital. These followers of Adam Smith and other Enlightenment theorists did not yet realize that like wartime spending, government “investment” in infrastructure also misallocates scarce resources because it is not based on profit and loss, thereby breeding economic inefficiency.

Jefferson initially resisted his Treasurer. In 1802, the president worried about the federal erection of piers, because they were unconstitutional, promoted cronyism, and led to wasteful spending. But earlier in the year, to displace the Federalist establishment in Ohio and prevent the seizure of land on federal credit, he moderated. The president approved the Enabling Act, a statehood bill which included a Gallatin provision that set aside 10 percent (later reduced to 5 percent) of revenue from land sales for internal improvements. Jefferson’s earlier remarks regarding corruption and inefficiency proved to be prescient: soon enough, local politicians siphoned the Enabling Act’s funds to parochial boondoggles for local constituents.

By his second inauguration in 1805, Jefferson expanded his interventionism when he declared that surpluses could “by a just repartition among the states, and a corresponding amendment of the constitution, be applied in time of peace, to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each state.” Toeing the nationalist line, in 1806 he stressed the burgeoning empire: “the lines of separation [between the states] will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.” Jefferson at least maintained some semblance of his reform principles by requesting an amendment, the distribution of federal revenue to the states, and the limiting of spending to periods of peace and surplus.

But Jefferson’s call for an amendment was meaningless. In early 1806, Congress, building off the Enabling Act, passed a law to construct a national road from Maryland to the Ohio River. The fact that Jefferson hoped the states would ratify an amendment before construction commenced was an empty restraint. Even strict constructionism provided no help: congressmen argued that the road would be useful for national defense and postal routes, goals the Constitution sanctioned. The National Road proceeded undisturbed, and Jefferson’s amendment died in Congress.

Preliminary work on the National Road began in 1806 and 1807. The act authorized Jefferson to appoint commissioners to design the road, establish routes, and request permission from the relevant states. The problems with government internal improvements that Jefferson once tried to emphasize rose to the surface. Thus, in December 1806 the commissioners reported that inhabitants living in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia districts argued they were “entitled to a preference.” Translation: Congress must stimulate their local commerce, land values, and election returns at the expense of other taxed regions. Pennsylvania stipulated consent conditional on requiring that the road run through Uniontown and Washington. Jefferson fretted over this local special-interest pleading, but Gallatin persuaded him to accept the constraint because the road was “a national object of great importance (particularly as a bond of union).” As for Uniontown and Washington specifically, Gallatin lived in the former and insisted that the Republicans needed the latter for the upcoming 1808 elections. Once again, Jefferson acquiesced.

Unsurprisingly, cronyism caused construction delays, excessive costs, districting constraints, and poor management by political appointees. Workers struck ground only in 1811, used expensive stone, and developed a meandering route that finally reached Wheeling on the Ohio River in 1818. In the end, the lack of a profit incentive killed the project, and a network of state-assisted private roads and canals filled the gap. As the decades progressed, the National Road fell into desuetude.

As it commenced construction, Congress eyed even greater largesse. Since 1805, assistance to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and a proposed canal in Louisville, Kentucky, had floated around the legislature. In 1807, it dawned upon Senator Clay that he could increase support for the Kentucky canal if he supported funding for the Delaware canal. In other words: “Support my project and I’ll support yours.” This parochial logrolling appalled Federalist Senator John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, son of the former president and who was rapidly transforming into the preeminent moderate Republican. Instead, Adams proposed much more broad and visionary logrolling, envisioning a vast network of internal improvements that gave each region of the empire a slice of the pie. When support for the two canals fizzled, the Senate adopted such a plan and instructed Gallatin to prepare a report.

In April 1808, Gallatin delivered his Report on Roads and Canals, recommending a massive system of canals and turnpikes. The Treasurer estimated the cost at an enormous $20 million, financed over ten years by annual appropriations of $2 million from surplus tax revenue and land sales. But even this would be inadequate, for construction on similar projects demonstrated that Gallatin vastly underestimated expenses. Much like Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures twenty years earlier, Gallatin’s boondoggles, which special interests covetously eyed, went nowhere. Collapsing revenue from recent trade restrictions, threats of war, and ideological resistance from Old Republicans killed the plan. Despite this setback, moderate Republicans continued to dream of internal improvements financed by the federal trough.

Most notably, in 1811 the Federalist Gouverneur Morris and Republican DeWitt Clinton lobbied Congress for funds to build a New York canal to the Great Lakes, a longtime goal of New Yorkers and a project Gallatin previously proposed. Fellow New Yorker and ex-Federalist turned moderate Republican Congressman Peter B. Porter assisted their endeavors. He had his own interests in mind, though, hoping that the canal would benefit his mercantile Porter, Barton & Company. The men from New York failed for the same reasons as Gallatin’s Report.

The Republicans’ embrace of federally funded public works, justified by broad constructionism, heavily shifted the party into the big government camp. They no longer even tried to adhere to the party’s former libertarian principles.

Protecting Merchants and Manufacturers

Foreign diplomacy and international trade constituted the most disastrous policies of Jefferson’s second term. The anti-war Jefferson slowly but inexorably supported a military buildup and aggressive trade legislation against Great Britain—the age-old enemy—and dismissed the peaceful 1806 Monroe-Pinkney Treaty. The primary rationale once again concerned land: conquering Canada and Florida for the empire. In addition, Jefferson and his moderate Republicans wanted to privilege anti-British shippers and manufacturers. While Jefferson’s Embargo Act was too excessive of a restriction for merchants, the law, along with Madison’s protective tariffs, pleased manufacturers. Old Republicans harshly criticized the moderates but could not stop the trends.

In May 1803, Great Britain and France resumed hostilities, benefiting America’s shipping trade: in a pattern reminiscent of the 1790s, total exports shot up 94 percent from 1803 to 1807. However, as in that decade, Great Britain and France focused on crippling each other (and benefitting their own merchants) by stepping up seizures of American ships and personnel trading with the enemy. In this regard, Britain was the bigger aggressor: while France seized 558 ships from 1803 to 1812, the former mother country seized 917 ships. Concerning their impressments, which increased from 2,400 in 1792 to 6,000 in 1802. The British stood on somewhat solid ground since over a third of American sailors were actually British. Britain even recognized the impressment controversy, making efforts to placate the US as much as feasible. Thus, in July 1804, Ambassador to England James Monroe confidentially reported “the truth is that our commerce never enjoyed in any war, as much freedom, and indeed favor from this govt. as it now does.”

Although the situation remained unfortunate, America had few realistic options. The Republicans cogently recognized that war would be too costly, but unfortunately did not realize that commercial retaliation, which they yearned to try, would not soothe tensions. In late 1807, Jefferson succinctly described the available policies as “War, Embargo or Nothing.” Unfortunately, as in all cases of government intervention, the insatiable desire for politicians to do something was a cure worse than the supposed disease of doing nothing.

In 1805, when Great Britain authorized a greater seizure of American ships engaged in the re-export trade, the situation escalated. Although Britain released many seized vessels to “tranquilize” the country, in Monroe’s wording, costly delays caused American merchants to suffer heavy losses and a quadrupling of insurance rates.

In 1806, an embarrassed Britain restored the American re-export trade to its old status (still liable to seizure, but with less restrictions). Despite this, American merchants demanded one of their old crony desires, a larger navy to mitigate market risk.

Jefferson and the moderate Republicans always remained open to enlarging their political base. They had increasingly taken advice on commercial matters from Massachusetts merchants, particularly Congressman Jacob Crowninshield. The president even offered Crowninshield the secretary of the Navy position in 1805. Although he declined, Madison awarded his brother Benjamin the position in 1815. To please these commercial interests, the president’s bellicose message to Congress in December 1805 advocated increasing seaport town fortifications and gunboats, constructing formal navy ships, and creating a naval militia reserve. Jefferson also wanted to assist northern manufacturers. In his 1805 inaugural speech, when discussing the budget surplus, Jefferson dismissed lower tariffs, insisting manufacturers needed protection, a stark contrast from the Jefferson of the 1790s, who supported free trade and condemned Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures.

In early 1806 the House bypassed Randolph so it could do some-thing about the British question. Pennsylvania Republican Andrew Gregg introduced a sweeping resolution banning all British imports. Another proposal, written by Senator Samuel Smith, only banned British goods Americans could domestically produce. The mercantilist Smith also wanted a new navigation act restricting British merchants but found little support for his measure. Maryland’s Joseph Nicholson introduced Smith’s nonimportation bill in the House. Both the Gregg and Nicholson proposals created an umbrella that protected northern manufacturers and merchants.

Randolph blasted Gregg’s Resolution and reminded Republicans of their traditional principles, especially their attacks on merchant protections in the Quasi-War. Randolph, devoted to Adam Smith’s free trade principles, declared that the Resolution supported the manufacturing North at the expense of the importing South, sacrificing cheap imports to protect merchants engaged in the re-export trade. Furthermore, the measure violated American neutrality and “plung[ed] [the country] at last into war,” increased the president’s power, and violated the Constitution. Lastly, he mentioned moderate Republicans’ hidden desire to conquer Canada. Speaker Macon supported Randolph on the floor, criticizing the warmongering patriotism and protectionism infecting the Republican Party. Although Randolph and Macon defeated Gregg’s Resolution, the House passed Nicholson’s Resolution against Federalists and a crumbling minority of Old Republicans. Senator Logan failed to stop the bill’s passage in the Senate. However, the Non-Importation Act only started at the end of 1806; Congress subsequently pushed back the date to December 1807.

With his resistance, Randolph forever severed links with Jefferson. Even the free trader Thomas Cooper sided with the moderate Republicans, supporting retaliatory measures and protection for manufacturers. Significantly, Cooper later justified his stance by appealing to the ideas of Adam Smith, a demonstration that the classical liberal economists did not always offer the Invisible Hand solution. Dreams of war, conquest, and national might shifted more and more members of the Republican Party away from their cherished libertarian principles.

There is no clearer demonstration of Jefferson’s transformation than his decision to torpedo peaceful negotiations with Great Britain. When the president sent a commissioner to assist Monroe, he dismissed recommendations to appoint Randolph and sent Maryland Federalist William Pinkney, another courting of the opposition. Despite this, the Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806 was a sensible compromise, decidedly improving over the one-sided Jay’s Treaty that lapsed in 1803. Britain refused to yield on impressment but instead offered to observe greater caution and a quicker rectification of mistakes. Furthermore, Britain promised not to interfere with the re-export trade if Americans paid a minor transit duty when they stopped in the US, a fee smaller than what they normally paid; narrowed classification of contraband; offered to give notice of blockades; agreed to refrain from seizures or impressments five miles from the American coast; reduced taxes on American ships in British ports; continued American access to the British Indies; and even granted a quasi-insurance clause that required indemnification of improperly violated American merchants. The US only had to relinquish the ability to employ discriminatory commercial sanctions (i.e., those that applied unequally to Great Britain, such as the Non-Importation Act of 1806).

However, Jefferson and Madison wanted to end impressment and keep the right to employ commercial sanctions. Although unstated, Jefferson might have also realized that a treaty with Britain made it harder for the US to take over Canada. “To tell you the truth,” Jefferson reportedly admitted to a close friend, “I do not wish any treaty with Great Britain.”Madison and Jefferson refused to even submit the Monroe-Pinkney Treaty to the Senate for potential ratification, deeply disturbing Senator Logan. Donald Hickey rightfully considers the rejection “a great turning point in the Age of Jefferson.” The Republican Party decided to forgo a peaceful resolution in favor of aggressive actions.

Relations with Great Britain sharply deteriorated in 1807, after the infamous attack on an American ship, the Chesapeake, by the British Leopard. The incident caused a furious uproar in America, though Macon and Gallatin wisely supported peace. Great Britain realized the gravity of the situation: they disavowed the attack, recalled the commander of the Leopard and gave him another assignment, offered to pay reparations, and returned three of the four impressed men. Unfortunately, Jefferson wanted more, such as an end to all impressments, and this demand delayed settlement for years. Of course, what Jefferson really desired was Canada.

By the time Congress convened in October 1807, the Old Republicans’ strength had crumbled, particulary after moderate Republicans ousted Macon and Randolph from the Speaker of the House and the Ways and Means Committee. In addition, Logan retired, and the newly elected William Crawford of Georgia succeeded him as the pre-eminent Old Republican in the upper house. The forces of liberty could do little to stop Jefferson’s plans.

By December, Jefferson decided that a draconian embargo was somehow the best option. He planned to block trade with Great Britain and France, particularly withholding American exports, to make them realize their dependence on the young empire. The mercantilist Madison predictably favored the idea while Gallatin strenuously opposed it, recognizing that an embargo would do little to change Europe while devastating the US economy. Ever influenced by Smithian laissez-faire, the Treasurer reasoned that “Government prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than themselves.”

However, Jefferson was convinced of his righteousness. In December, with the Non-Importation Act finally in effect, the president fatefully recommended additional commercial retaliation, a regulatory net too restrictive even for the merchants. In the name of impressed sailors and seized goods, the Embargo Act ended all foreign trade on American ships “except vessels under the immediate discretion of the President.”Moderate Republicans loyally supported the policy while Federalists, defensive of Great Britain and connected with the northern commercial trade, balked. The Senate secretly passed the bill within hours of Jefferson’s message, with only Crawford and Federalists opposed. Despite greater resistance by Old Republicans and Federalists in the lower chamber, the House followed three days later.

Republicans poorly conceived the Embargo Act, and many resisted it. Ironically, Federalist shippers criticized it as too harsh a retaliatory policy, though some prominent Republican merchants managed to secure benefits. John Jacob Astor lobbied for a ship’s exemption on account that its trade with China would improve foreign relations. He earned $200,000 from the voyage. Stephen Girard transferred his foreign wealth to the US by purchasing government bonds and stock in the Bank of the United States. The mercantile Crowninshield family and William Gray, reportedly the wealthiest merchant in America, publicly supported the embargo. Critics attributed Crowninshield and Gray’s support to cronyism: they planned to gobble up smaller merchants’ businesses at artificially low prices and obtain a monopoly. But, these exceptions aside, the mercantile class heavily opposed the law and their resistance only grew as 1808 progressed.

Over the year, Congress passed a patchwork of additional regulations and the Treasury issued a flood of directives to stop smuggling. But smuggling only grew, particularly in New York and Vermont. Jefferson even declared the regional militia needed to suppress an “insurrection.” The president had come a long way from his free trade and anti-war principles. By early 1809, a disparate coalition had formed to drastically reduce the restrictions. Matters got so bad in New England that the rank and file supported nullification and secession, something the Federalist leaders quickly quashed. But the Federalist congressmen still joined Clintonians and Old Republicans to create what Jefferson dismissively described as an “unaccountable revolution of opinion.” Congress ended the Embargo, substituting it with a Nonintercourse Act that reopened trade with all nations except Great Britain and France (if either country suspended restrictions, Congress could restore trade). Jefferson bitterly signed the Embargo Act’s repeal in March. For now, the nation avoided continued economic calamity.

The Embargo was an unmitigated disaster. America’s commercial retaliation caused no political changes in either Great Britain or France, only an unambiguous decline in the economy. Over 1808, exports collapsed by 80 percent and imports 60 percent. Unemployed sailors and ships languished on the coast. From 1808 to 1809, the federal government’s revenue decreased 55 percent. Industrial production decreased 17 percent in 1808 alone, while real GDP did not change at all.

However, a silver lining emerged, at least for moderate Republicans. When he left office, Jefferson praised the Embargo Act because it encouraged domestic manufacturing. In particular, the number of cotton mills increased from fifteen to eighty-seven from 1807 to 1809. Notably, Baltimore industrialists formed the Union Manufactory, a million-dollar chartered corporation that became the largest cotton factory in the country. In 1809 and 1811, Massachusetts and New York enacted general incorporation statutes that allowed some manufacturers to create companies without a formal legislative charter. While these limited general incorporation statutes were anti-crony, most of the new companies depended on the embargo privilege and soon advocated increased restrictions on foreign goods.

The corrupt Republicans were ready to listen to this constituency, in particular Madison, who supported “permanent duties for encouraging manufactures.” In April 1810, at the behest of congressional Republicans, Gallatin presented his Report on Manufactures. Unlike Hamilton, the Smithian Gallatin shied away from moderately protective tariffs and outright subsidies. However, he argued that Congress should create a gargantuan fund of $5–20 million for loans to manufacturers. If enacted, the federal government could pick winners and losers based on political favoritism, and the largesse would morph into an engine of Republican cronyism far greater than what Gallatin (and Jefferson) once trenchantly criticized. Fortunately, this expensive boondoggle died in Congress. But the undeterred Madison pushed ahead with protective tariffs. By 1812, Congress had increased the average rate on total imports from 30 percent to 37 percent. Northern manufacturing, particularly large mills and factories, quickly blossomed. Thus, ironically, the Republicans, not the Federalists, enacted the mercantilism necessary to protect manufacturing interest groups.

Jefferson assumed office carrying the torch of the libertarian Revolution of 1800. But he abandoned his constitutional scruples for the immense Louisiana land grab, a corrupting acquisition for his Empire of Liberty. To benefit new constituencies and prevent the enlarged empire from breaking apart, he and other moderate Republicans embraced bailouts to speculators, aggression in Florida, public works subsidies, and various layers of privileges for merchants and manufacturers. They transitioned from fighting Federalist privileges, to sanctioning them, to actually pursuing their own. This trend only continued to worsen.

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Alexander DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), pp. 95–96, 119–21; Walter Nugent, Habits of Empire (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), pp. 54–61; H. Arthur Scott Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” in Reassessing the Presidency, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2001), p. 57; Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 369.

DeConde, Affair of Louisiana, p. 128.

Ibid., p. 139.

Ibid., p. 140.

Ibid., pp. 127–28, 134–35, 138–40; Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 1 (New York: Viking Press, 1946), pp. 316–17; Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1970), pp. 277–81; Nugent, Habits of Empire, pp. 60–62; Steven Siry, DeWitt Clinton and the American Political Economy (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), pp. 93–95; Frederick Tolles, George Logan of Philadelphia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 234–36.

Nugent, Habits of Empire, p. 63. See also Malone, Jefferson, First Term, pp. 293–96; Nugent, Habits of Empire, pp. 62–66.

DeConde, Affair of Louisiana, p. 191.

David Carson, “Blank Paper of the Constitution,” Historian (March 1992): 478–80; DeConde, Affair of Louisiana, pp. 177–84; Malone, Jefferson, First Term, pp. 272, 311–15.

Malone, Jefferson, First Term, p. 318.

Irving Brant, James Madison, Secretary of State (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), pp. 141–43; Carson, “Blank Paper,” pp. 480–82; DeConde, Affair of Louisiana, pp. 184–86; Malone, Jefferson, First Term, pp. 315–24.

DeConde, Affair of Louisiana, pp. 186–89; Richard Ellis, The Union at Risk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 5–6; Reginald Horsman, “The Dimensions of an ‘Empire for Liberty’,” Journal of the Early Republic (Spring 1989): 7; Jon Kukla, A Wilderness so Immense (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), pp. 290–93, 308; John Miller, Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), pp. 562–63.

David Johnson, John Randolph of Roanoke (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), p. 65.

Nugent, Habits of Empire, p. 68.

American Political Leaders (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), pp. 228, 248, 302; Carson, “Blank Paper,” pp. 484–88; DeConde, Affair of Louisiana, pp. 189–90; Nugent, Habits of Empire, pp. 65–66; Tolles, George Logan, pp. 240–42; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 371–72.

James Banner, To the Hartford Convention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), pp. 105–07; Thomas J. DiLorenzo, “Yankee Confederates,” in Secession, State and Liberty, ed. David Gordon (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998), pp. 138–41, 145–46; Richard Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 89; Miller, Alexander Hamilton, pp. 563–66, 575; Sean Wilentz, No Property in Man (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), p. 174.

James Broussard, The Southern Federalists (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1978), pp. 60–61; Kukla, Wilderness So Immense, pp. 311–13; Malone, Jefferson, First Term, p. 361; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 372–73, 529.

Broussard, Southern Federalists, pp. 314–15; Wilentz, Property in Man, pp. 174–75; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 523–24; Nicholas Wood, “John Randolph of Roanoke and the Politics of Slavery in the Early Republic,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Summer 2012): 115–17.

John Devanny, “A Loathing of Public Debt, Taxes, and Excises,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Winter 2001): 400.

Ibid., pp. 400–01; Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1997), pp. 204–05.

Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis, pp. 87–89, 93–94, 213; Paul Goodman, The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 183–84; David Johnson, John Randolph of Roanoke (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), pp. 83–86; Curtis Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 149; Norman Risjord, The Old Republicans (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), pp. 38–42.

American Political Leaders, p. 425; Philip Burch, Elites in American History, 1 (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1981), p. 111; Johnson, John Randolph, p. 86; Brion McClanahan, How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2017), pp. 104–10; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, p. 154; Aaron Sakolski, The Great American Land Bubble (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1932), pp. 139–41.

Burch, Elites in American History, 1, pp. 110–12, 125–26; Goodman, Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts, pp. 183–84; Daniel Howe, What Hath God Wrought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 122–23; John Larson, Internal Improvement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 123–24.

Nugent, Habits of Empire, pp. 69, 102–04, 111; Scott Silverstone, Divided Union (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 108.

Risjord, The Old Republicans, p. 48.

Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President, Second Term (Boston MA: Little, Brown, 1974), p. 75.

Johnson, John Randolph, pp. 100–04; Malone, Jefferson, Second Term, pp. 69–78; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 43–50.

Adam Tate, Conservatism and Southern Intellectuals (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005), p. 24.

Johnson, John Randolph, pp. 112–13; Malone, Jefferson, Second Term, p. 93.

Horsman, “Dimensions of an ‘Empire for Liberty’,” p. 11.

John Kaminski, George Clinton (Madison, WI: Madison House Publishers, 1993), pp. 280–81, 332; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 375–76.

Nugent, Habits of Empire, p. 107.

Ibid., p. 108.

Horsman, “Dimensions of an ‘Empire for Liberty’,” pp. 12–13.

Robert Higgs, “Not Merely Perfidious but Ungrateful,” The Independent Review (Fall 2005): 303–10; Horsman, “Dimensions of an ‘Empire for Liberty’,” p. 12; Nugent, Habits of Empire, pp. 104–10.

Nugent, Habits of Empire, pp. 111–14; Silverstone, Divided Union, pp. 105–11.

Albert Fishlow, “Internal Transportation in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” in The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, vol. 2, ed. Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 550; Gregory May, Jefferson’s Treasure (Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 2018), pp. 133–34; Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 484.

Talbot Hamlin, Benjamin Henry Latrobe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955), 211–12.

Joseph Harrison, “‘Sic Et Non’,” Journal of the Early Republic (Winter 1987): 342; Larson, Internal Improvement, pp. 59–63; John Nelson, Liberty and Property (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 119–21; Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 332.

Harrison, “‘Sic Et Non,’” pp. 338–41; Larson, Internal Improvement, p. 54; George Taylor, The Transportation Revolution (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1951), p. 19.

Harrison, “‘Sic Et Non’,” p. 341.

Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 484.

Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 25.

May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 134–35.

Burton Folsom and Anna Folsom, Uncle Sam Can’t Count (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014), pp. 4–7; Goodrich, Government Promotion, pp. 25–26; Harrison, “‘Sic Et Non,’” pp. 341–43; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 134–35; Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 482.

Goodrich, Government Promotion, pp. 26–37; Harrison, “‘Sic Et Non,’” pp. 342–43; Larson, Internal Improvement, pp. 58–59; Thomas McCraw, The Founders and Finance (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2012), p. 419.

Goodrich, Government Promotion, p. 36; Brian Murphy, Building the Empire State (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), p. 177; J. Stagg, “Between Black Rock and a Hard Place,” Journal of the Early Republic (Autumn 1999): 386, 394–96, 403–05.

Donald Hickey, The War of 1812 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012), p. 10. See also p. 10; Douglas A. Irwin, Clashing over Commerce (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), pp. 99–100; McGraw, Founders and Finance, pp. 272–73; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, p. 396; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 642, 646.

Malone, Jefferson, Second Term, p. 469.

Hickey, War of 1812, p. 10.

Ibid., pp. 10–11.

American Political Leaders, p. 136; Burch, Elites in American History, 1, pp. 98, 273; Hickey, War of 1812, 10–11; Larson, Internal Improvement, p. 57; Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 644.

Johnson, John Randolph, p. 108.

American Political Leaders, p. 224; Cassell, Merchant Congressman, pp. 127–29; Devanny, “Loathing of Public Debt,” pp. 391, 411; Johnson, John Randolph, pp. 107–10; Kirk, John Randolph, p. 326; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 53–64; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 644, 649.

Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 2 (New York: Viking Press, 1946), pp. 529, 531–32, 535–36.

Hickey, War of 1812, p. 15.

Ibid., p. 15.

Hickey, War of 1812, pp. 13–16; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, p. 101; Malone, Jefferson, Second Term, pp. 400–10; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 159–63; Murray N. Rothbard, “Report on George B. DeHuszar and Thomas Hulbert Stevenson, A History of the American Republic, 2 vols,” in Rothbard, Strictly Confidential, ed. David Gordon (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2010), pp. 108–09; Tolles, George Logan, pp. 279–80; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 647–48.

Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” p. 91.

William Watkins, Reclaiming the American Revolution (Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute, 2004), p. 87.

American Political Leaders, p. 224; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 102–03; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 63–66; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 80–83; Watkins, Finance and Enterprise in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978) pp. 86–87; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 649–50.

Donald Adams, Finance and Enterprise in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), pp. 7–11; Dorfman, Economic Mind, 1, p. 320; Goodman, Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts, pp. 192–95; John Haeger, John Jacob Astor (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1991), pp. 104–05; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, p. 340.

Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” p. 87.

Ibid., p. 97.

Banner, Hartford Convention, pp. 294–306; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 104–10; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, p. 168; Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” pp. 89–90, 96–99; Watkins, Reclaiming the American Revolution, pp. 87–88; Thomas E. Woods Jr., Nullification (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2010), pp. 60–65.

Joseph Davis, “An Annual Index of US Industrial Production,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 2004): 1189; Historical Statistics, 5, p. 80; Johnson, John Randolph, p. 134; Louis Johnston and Samuel Williamson, “What Was the US GDP Then?” Measuringworth.com; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, p. 171; Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 655.

Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, p. 111.

Historical Statistics, 5, p. 510; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 121–24; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 194–98; Lawrence Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 134, 166–67, 170–73, 185; Wood, Empire of Liberty, p. 702.