2. Review  The Constitution had become the Law of the Land  George Washington was elected and served two terms  Under Washington many policies and actions of the government were established.  Also, during Washington’s term, political parties emerged; the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans.  Andrew Hamilton was seen as one of the Federalists leaders  Thomas Jefferson was seen as one of the Democratic Republican leaders  John Adams was then elected the 2 nd President of the United States,  As the United States began to evolve as a nation several problem became apparent: finances, foreign affairs, domestic affairs and politics,  These were the issues which came to define the president’s legacy,  John Adams, a Federalists only served one and was defeated by Thomas Jefferson

3. Early Career  Jefferson rose to fame as the draftsman of revolutionary state papers, first in Virginia and then in the Continental Congress where, of course, he became the author of the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration's celebrated preamble, Jefferson reduced the "natural rights" philosophy of the age to a set of first principles that had a profound influence on the course of the American Revolution.  In 1784, after a brief turn in Congress, Jefferson was sent to Europe on a diplomatic mission. The following year he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as American minister to France.  In 1790, Jefferson was named secretary of state in the new national government. He had approved of the Constitution, especially with the promised addition of a bill of rights, and accepted high office under President George Washington out of a sense of loyalty to him and responsibility to the new experiment.

4. Early Career  The conflict with Hamilton extended to domestic policy and came to involve fundamentally different conceptions of republican government under the Constitution.  Elected vice president in 1796, Jefferson at first hoped for a restoration of political concord in the administration of his old friend John Adams.  Instead, the nation was again plunged into a foreign crisis growing out of the war between France and Great Britain. The administration was Federalist; and Jefferson, found himself thrust into the leadership of the Democratic Republican party.  Passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 brought the conflict between these parties.  Considering the laws oppressive, unconstitutional, and designed to cripple the Republican party, Jefferson went outside the general government, fully controlled by the Federalists, to start "a revolution of opinion" against them.  The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions (1798–1799), authored respectively by Madison and Jefferson, invoked the authority of these two state legislatures to declare the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional.

5. The Election of 1800 The Revolution of 1800  In the election of 1800, the Republicans again backed Thomas Jefferson for president and Aaron Burr for vice president, while the Federalists supported John Adams for reelection.  The Federalist Party began to fragment late in Adams' first term with the way France was being dealt with.  Republicans, for their part, were in full support of Jefferson and Burr.  Adams eventually lost the election of 1800 in the Electoral College which produced a tie between Jefferson and Burr.  Over six days, the House took 35 ballots, failing to choose either man with a majority.  Finally, several moderate Federalists changed their positions, granted assurances that Jefferson would not totally eliminate the Federalist system.  After 36 ballots Jefferson was president, and Burr vice president (Hamilton broke the tie)  Jefferson would later describe his victory in the election of 1800 as the "Revolution of 1800.“ considering it "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776"

6. The Midnight Appointments  The new president named to his cabinet men known to be moderate Democratic Republicans with James Madison, as Secretary of State  During the early months, Jefferson found the task of making appointments to office exceedingly irksome. Not counting military officers, postmasters, and other minor civil functionaries, there were 316 major offices in the gift of the federal executive.  They were monopolized by Federalists. Jefferson's preference was to remove as few as possible, with a view to converting the mass of Federalists to the Republican cause.  He did not agree with the principle, of making party affiliation the sole or primary test of public appointment. He considered the politics of spoils degrading to a republican form government.  Nothing more should be asked of civil servants, he said, than that they be honest, able, and loyal to the Constitution.  A few weeks before his term as president was over, John Adams signed into law the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reorganized the federal court system. The “midnight judges” were selected by President John Adams, who signed appointments up until midnight on his last day in office. President Jefferson refused to recognize their appointments, leading to the case Marbury v. Madison.

7. Marbury v. Madison  At the very end of his term, President John Adams had made many federal appointments, including William Marbury as justice of the peace in the District of Columbia.  Thomas Jefferson, the new president, refused to recognize the appointment of Marbury.  The normal practice of making such appointments was to deliver a "commission," or notice, of appointment. This was normally done by the Secretary of State. Jefferson's Secretary of State at the time was James Madison.  At the direction of Jefferson, Madison refused to deliver Marbury's commission. Marbury sued Madison, and the Supreme Court took the case.  Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that the Judiciary Act of 1789, which spelled out the practice of delivering such commissions for judges did not allow one branch of the Federal government to force action on the part of another branch.  In Marbury v. Madison, John Marshall said that William Marbury was entitled to the position that was granted by John Adams, but the final decision ultimately belonged to the new President, Thomas Jefferson.  Thus, the Supreme Court said, the Judiciary Act of 1789 was illegal and not to be followed.  This was the first time the Supreme Court struck down a law because it was unconstitutional.  It was the beginning of the practice of "judicial review."

8. Fiscal Reform  Republican reform was grounded on fiscal policy.  Jefferson believed that government debt and taxes were evil.  The debt drained money from the citizens, diverted it from the productive enterprise of individuals, and led to a system of privilege, coercion, and corruption that was the bane of every government and fatal to a free one.  The alternatives were clear: "Economy and liberty, profusion and servitude."  The debt, which had actually increased under the Federalists, stood at $83 million and consumed in annual interest almost half the federal revenue.  Jefferson’s administration developed a plan to eliminate the debt in sixteen years by reducing taxes. All the internal taxes—Hamilton's whiskey excise, the land tax of the Adams administration—would be repealed.  The government would depend entirely on the revenue of the customhouses. The plan required deep retrenchment: reductions in the army and navy, in foreign embassies, and in civil offices, beginning with the tax collectors.

9. Fiscal Reform  The plan, which Jefferson outlined in his first annual message to Congress, was liable to two main objections. It was based on the principles of the Peace and economic growth through release of the energies, talents, and resources of free individuals without the direct aid or favor of the government.  This opposed Hamilton’s theory which assigned the government a positive role in economic development. It supposed that a nation might grow out of debt by going deeper into debt to promote development. The logic of this escaped Jefferson, but he knew that Hamilton's system of debt and taxes involved powers and privileges that were incompatible with republican government under the Constitution.  Jefferson's fiscal program placed the administration on unassailable ground with Republicans in Congress. Men rubbed their eyes in disbelief at the spectacle of the chief magistrate renouncing taxes, patronage, and power.  The program was rapidly put in place. During the next seven years the nation was liberated of $33 million of debt. In the end, of course, the program was derailed by foreign crisis and war. Thirty-four years would pass before retirement of the national debt.

10. Louisiana Purchase  When Jefferson became president, peace was pending in Europe and he did not have to deal with foreign politics.  Far more important, of course, was the growing crisis on the Mississippi. Through a secret Treaty in 1800, Spain had ceded Louisiana to France. This gave rise to a revival of the old French dreams of empire in the New World.  Over the years the United States had worked out an accommodation with Spain on the Mississippi. The Pinckney Treaty of 1795 granted the Americans free navigation of the river through New Orleans. This was essential to western trade development for American to utilize New Orleans.  When Jefferson heard that France had acquired Louisiana, he sent Madison to see if the US could purchase New Orleans and the Floridas.  However, with yellow fever and rebel arms annihilated one French army after another and war clouds again gathered in Europe, Napoleon gave up on Louisiana  With his dream of New World empire fading. He could not defend, or even possess, Louisiana while marching to the East; he needed assurances of American neutrality in that venture; and he needed money to fuel his war machine.

11. Louisiana Purchase  The purchase treaty was quickly arranged. However, it included all of Louisiana, which had never been contemplated, together with New Orleans, but not the Floridas, which remained Spanish. “  The total price, was $15 million. This was less than 5 cents per acre and would equate to about $280 million dollars in today’s economy  By completing this purchase, Jefferson had to put aside his principles because the allowance for this type of transaction was not expressly listed in the Constitution. Waiting for a Constitutional amendment might cause the deal to fall through. Therefore, Jefferson decided to go through with the purchase.  What were the effects of Jefferson's decision to go against his own philosophy concerning a strict interpretation of the Constitution? It can be argued that his taking liberties with the Constitution in the name of need and expediency would lead to future Presidents feeling justified with a continual increase in the elasticity of Article I, Section 8, Clause 18.

12. Lewis and Clark  An event of the magnitude of the Louisiana Purchase affected everything to come after.  The government would have to assume new responsibilities. The nation's destiny was firmly oriented westward guaranteed that the economy would remain primarily agricultural for decades to come and would characterize American society and government.  The United States acquired much greater security on its own borders as well as greater power and self-assurance in international affairs.  With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Jefferson wanted to send an expedition across the continent.  Captain Meriwether Lewis, whom he had chosen to lead this expedition, set forth from Washington on 5 July 1803.  Presenting it to Congress Jefferson emphasized its commercial purpose: to chart a continuous line of navigation along the Missouri River route to the Pacific. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was originally called The Corp of Discovery

13. in Summary  There was so much to President Jefferson’s presidency that we can only highlight some of the major events.  The United States at this time was growing at an incredible rate. And Jefferson was presented with many issues.  Not only the election, establishing his cabinet, guiding the nation in a new direction, towards a Democratic Republic viewpoint and approaching the nations finances from a different perspective. There were other issues.  The Embargo Act of 1807 – This was a law passed by Congress and signed by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807. This law stopped all trade between America and any other country. The goal was to get Britain and France, who were fighting each other at the time, to stop restricting American trade. The Act backfired, and the American people suffered. The Act was ended in 1809.  Aaron Burr With his political career ruined in New York and under indictment for the murder of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, Burr plotted western separation and the creation of a new confederacy. It became the president's duty to hunt him down and bring him to justice.

14. Retirement  Jefferson's popularity, though shaken, remained high to the end, and he retired to his beloved Monticello with the gratitude and the affection of the overwhelming majority of his countrymen.  More than most former presidents he exercised an influence on his successors, although the extent of this was often exaggerated by political enemies. He rejoiced at "shaking off the shackles of power," wanting nothing so much as to return to his farm, his family, and his books, which had always been his supreme delights.  The Sage of Monticello died there on the fiftieth anniversary of American independence, 4 July 1826. Ten days earlier, barely able to hold pen in hand, he had declined an invitation to attend ceremonies in Washington marking this golden anniversary.  Death would not end Jefferson's influence. Generations of Americans turned to him for inspiration and guidance in the successive crises of the nation's affairs.  And thus it was that John Adams, who also died on that fateful day of jubilee, uttered a prophetic truth in his last words, "Thomas Jefferson still survives."