Contextualizing Period 4 in two minutes
- In 1800 the United States had 16 states and about 5.3 million people, nearly 900,000 of them enslaved. Native nations still held most of the land west of the Appalachians.
- Thomas Jefferson took office on March 4, 1801, after John Adams spent his last night in office appointing Federalists. Power changed parties without force, but the 1790s argument over federal power continued.
- The country reached 30 states and the Pacific by 1848, through purchase (Louisiana, 1803), annexation (Texas, 1845), treaty (Oregon, 1846) and war with Mexico (1846–1848).
- Canals, steamboats and railroads tied farms to cities and mills in a market revolution, and Americans began buying what they once made at home. Cotton grown by enslaved people fed the mills.
- Property tests fell and nearly every white man could vote, yet women in New Jersey and free Black men in several states lost it. Revivals fed reform movements.
- The North, South and West wanted different things from Washington, and each new territory raised the question of whether slavery would spread west.
- On the exam: contextualization prompts reward describing the 1800 starting point, a young agrarian republic with slavery, and connecting it to Period 3's open questions and Period 5's sectional crisis.
Topic 4.1 key terms
- Midnight appointments
The federal jobs President Adams gave to fellow Federalists in his last days in office, after Jefferson had won the election of 1800.
- Federalists
The party of Adams and Alexander Hamilton. They wanted a strong national government and a close tie to Britain. Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans had just beaten them in 1800.
- Commission
The signed and sealed paper that makes an appointment to a federal office official. Marbury's was signed and sealed but never handed to him.
- Marbury v. Madison (1803)
The Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall established judicial review: the Court's power to strike down a law that conflicts with the Constitution.
Transcript
Quotes are from the historical record and name their source. Lines marked Dramatized are reconstructions.
The Envelope
March 3–4, 1801
Key terms: Midnight appointments, Federalists, Commission, Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Washington City, March 3, 1801. John Adams has lost the election. He is president for one more night.
Adams is spending it handing out government jobs to his own party, the Federalists.
Sealing their commissions is the Secretary of State, John Marshall. A month ago, Adams also made him Chief Justice. Tonight he's doing both jobs. William Marbury. Justice of the peace, five years. Signed, sealed, and still on the desk when the clock ran out.
It stayed on the desk. In two years, a lawsuit over that commission will let the Supreme Court claim the last word on the Constitution.
At four in the morning, Adams left town by stagecoach. He didn't stay to watch his old friend and new rival take over.
Thomas Jefferson had spent ten years warning that the federal government was growing too powerful. In a few hours, he would run it.
Over the next five years, Jefferson and Marshall would each do something the Constitution never mentions.
Forty-Eight Years
1800 → 1848
In 1800 the United States has sixteen states and 5.3 million people. Almost 900,000 of them are enslaved.
The country stops at the Mississippi. West of the Appalachians, Native nations still hold most of the land.
By 1848 it has thirty states and reaches the Pacific. It gets there by purchase, treaty, annexation and war.
Property tests fall. Almost every white man can vote. But New Jersey women lose it, and so do free Black men in several states.
Canals, steamboats and railroads tie farms to cities and mills. Americans start buying what they used to make at home.
The regions pull apart: Northern mills, Southern cotton grown by enslaved people, Western farms. Each wants something different from Washington.
Americans paint their own wilderness and write their own books. Revivals fill the woods, and reformers take on drinking, prisons and slavery.
And every time the map grows, one question gets louder: will slavery go west?
Under almost every fight sits one argument left from the 1790s: how much power the federal government really has.
In 1801, that government passed to the man who wanted it smaller.