Thursday, February 28, 2008

Class Plan:
1. Explain how Adams avoided full out war with France.
2. Federalist vs. Democrat-Republicans
-Alien/Sedition Acts
-Kentucky/Virginia Resolutions
-State Rights'


In Class:
Discuss: How Adams avoided full out war with France (there was a sea war with ships, but never a full-fledged war.)
Answer: He negotiated with them by sending three diplomats to France. (He learned from how George Washington handled the situation when Britain was stopping American ships and made Jay's Treaty.) The three diplomats met with three French people (X, Y, and Z) who told them to give them $250,000 for Tallyrand and $10 million to France before they were even allowed to talk to Tallyrand. America responded with, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" Americans become very anti-French, and Adams even builds frigates to build up the military, but still doesn't want to go to war at all. Then Adams sent over other American diplomats. The Federalits in Congress were against this, and they saw it as a sign of weakness. Before they got there though, Napolean overthrew the Directorate of France, and he was willing to talk to America. They then were able to negotiate an agreement to end hostilities.

Political War: Federalists vs. Democrat-Republicans
Adams Federalists: agreed in sending over second set of diplomats, building up the military, and avoiding war
Hamilton Federalists: calling for war against France
Decomcrat-Republicans: mostly Southerners, farmers, support Jefferson and Madison

• Adams didn't consider himself a Federalist because he didn't believe in political parties, but his actions were Federalist.
• Hamilton and Adams didn't like each other. Adams thinks Hamilton is dangerous for America and thinks he has plans to turn America into a monarchy. Hamilton thinks Adams is a lousy president and isn't up to the job.
• Democrat-Republicans were out of power and all of them strongly looked up to Jefferson in unity because they were so against the Federalists.

Federalists wanted to maintain power, and didn't want to lose it to their enemies, the Democrat-Republicans.

So they pass laws to help them maintain power: Alien Act and Sedition Act.

New immigrants all want to vote for the Democrat-Republicans because they're more pro-French. So the Federalists created the Alien Act, which meant immigrants couldn't become citizens for 14 years after they moved to America, so they couldn't vote for a very long time.

Jefferson, Madison, and other Democrat-Republicans are verbally personally attacking John Adams. So Adams passed the Sedition Act to stop speaking out against the government and writing anti-Adams reports. Democrat-Republicans, NOT Federalists, were fined and punished under this act.

Democrat-Republicans saw these acts for what they were: political acts to keep power away from them.

John Adams didn't want to pass the Sedition Act because he thought it was going too far. He also realized that if Federalists fell out of power, the Sedition Act would be very dangerous for them. But Abigail convinced him to because she wasn't happy that he was being attacked. (They loved each other very much.)

Jefferson and Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions on what their states believed. They said that states should have the power to nullify any federal law that they believe is unconstitutional (which is what the Supreme Court does today). This is one element of states' rights.

Most Democrat-Republicans believed in states' rights and they lived in the South. The Federalists for the national government mainly lived in the North.

By the 1800's, there were no Federalists in the executive branch and few in Congress, though Adams did place some in the Supreme Court (which is a lifelong term.) So in the long run, the Democrat-Republicans were the winners.

The Federalist party was just too divided. Adams lost the next election to Jefferson, and basically went out of the public eye.

Hamilton was kind of depressed. His son died in a duel. Hamilton was shot by the vice president... More about that later.

The Sedition Act basically killed the Federalist party because they were seen as going against the constitution.

No work or papers or homework, just discussion and explanations all class.