by engaging in a quasi war with france and signing alien and sedition legislation john adams did much to alienate thomas jefferson and his democratic republican supporters and not surprisingly then john adams became the first one-term president in american history he was defeated in the presidential election of 1800 and that brought thomas jefferson to the presidency i want to spend a little bit of time talking about the election of 1800 and then we're going to explore thomas jefferson's presidency in a little greater detail in this lecture now the election of 1800 was a very um unusual election in order to understand it you have to remember that presidential elections weren't always they didn't always follow the rules that we have today okay so for example originally the president of the united states was the individual who won the largest number of electoral votes in the electoral college and the vice president was the individual who won the second largest number of electoral votes and for that reason then you had a situation where presidents and vice presidents came from different parties because originally parties didn't run two candidates they only ran one candidate okay and so for example john adams was elected president in 1796 the man with the second number of votes second largest number of votes was his political rival thomas jefferson which meant that thomas jefferson became vice president so you have this strange situation where the president and the vice president are two different parties well in order to avoid that circumstance in 1800 federalists decided to run two candidates for the presidency they were they elected john adams um the incumbent to run again and then they also um uh selected charles pinckney um to run as um the vice president and then um what would happen is charles pinkney would instruct one of his electors to throw out a one of their ballots so that he would come in second and adams would come in first and he would be the vice president and the republicans followed the same strategy they ran for the presidency thomas jefferson uh and a man from new york by the name of aaron burr now aaron burr um agreed that he would throw out one of his ballots and that he would then defer to jefferson as the president and in 1800 or by 1800 remember adams had become extremely unpopular because of the war with france and because of alien and sedition legislation and not surprisingly then thomas jefferson's republicans won this election but in so doing aaron burr refused to throw out one of his electoral ballots and so what we had was a situation whereby jefferson and burr actually tied um in the electoral college they had the same number of electoral votes and burr was not deferring okay jefferson was furious okay this was his party uh aaron burr had no business i'm trying to take over nevertheless he was challenging jefferson for the presidency well the constitution stipulates that if the electoral college can't decide the outcome then the election is thrown into the house of representatives and the house of representatives was also divided on this especially between northerners and southerners and the point being is the they had to call the role 36 times uh before finally one of burr's supporters changed his support to jefferson and after 36 ballots thomas jefferson in 1800 was elected um president the fact that aaron burr became vice president now is very important because aaron burr um in challenging jefferson now is going to become notorious um and we'll talk about um the uh we'll talk about aaron burr in greater detail as we go along in this lecture all right so in 1800 jefferson won the election and not only did jefferson and the republicans win but they won control of both houses of congress as well both the house of representatives and the senate went to republicans which meant that federalists suffered a horrendous defeat and the party of alexander hamilton now seemed to be um you know at a severe disadvantage well the one area of government that that federalists still had control of was the judiciary okay the branch or the two other branches of government were controlled by republicans now but the judiciary was controlled by federalists and now before leaving office john adams is going to move to strengthen the federalist position even more in fact he's going to move to pack the courts with federalists and so just before leaving office he signs the judiciary act of 1801 it creates 13 new federal uh judgeships and before leading leaving office in fact the night before jefferson is due to be sworn in okay john adams um makes his famous midnight appointments 13 new federalist judges are going to be pointed and that's going to give the federalists now a long-term influence over all of the federal courts okay now all of those appointments went out except for one okay one of those appointments it was supposed to go to a man by the name of william marbury was not delivered okay william marbury was to become the justice of p of the peace for the newly created district of columbia okay william marbury did not receive his appointment and he waited and he waited and it did not come and finally he went to jefferson's administration and he specifically went to the secretary of state james madison and he appealed he said um where is my appointment it was supposed to be delivered and madison thomas jefferson's secretary of state basically responded that the federalists may be able to pack the courts um with 12 new appointments but james madison who was jefferson's re appointment a republican was not going to give william marbury his appointment okay and so now we're going to have a legal struggle the very famous case of marbury versus madison and it's going to be one of the most important um supreme court decisions in american history it's really a rather trivial um case to be honest but in rendering a decision now john marshall the man pictured in this in this slide now is going to effectively establish the power of the federal courts okay so this is a case that marbury figures to win because the chief justice of the supreme court court is a man by the name of john marshall john marshall is a federalist okay the court is controlled by federalists by bringing suit against james madison the secretary of state marbury fully expects to win okay a case like this is going to be heard it's going to be tried in the supreme court okay so what's going to happen well at issue in this famous case is the interpretation of the judiciary act of 1789 okay the judiciary act of 1789 was basically the legislation that defined the bylaws and the operational procedures of the federal courts okay and so basically what's going to happen now is john marshall is going to look at the judiciary act of 1789 and he's going to rule upon it very strictly okay and in ruling on this case he's going to find nothing in the judiciary act of 1789 that says that madison has to give marbury his commission there's nothing in there and there wouldn't be i mean there was no way that in 1789 they could have anticipated some kind of bizarre situation in which one um one administration failed to give uh a judgeships to another administration so basically long story short is john marshall is going to defy all predictions he's a federalist he should be finding in favor of marbury and yet he's going to find in favor of james madison and he's going to rule and say and say the judiciary act doesn't say that madison has to deliver the appointment and so james madison doesn't have to deliver the appointment okay so why would john marshall rule against his own party why would he rule against william marbury and the answer is quite simple because john marshall is now going to honor and recognize the rule of law he's not going to rule in favor of political persuasion or political alliances william marbury isn't going to be happy basically he says well that's tough i mean marshall says that's tough he's going to surrender one judgeship okay he's going to lose the district of columbia the jp for the district of columbia is going to lose that but in so doing he's going to do something much much more important because remember there really was never there wasn't a federal govern or federal court system before and the court had never really ruled on an act of congress now what what matters or what marshall is doing is he's he's interpreting law he's interpreting the judiciary act of 1789 and saying nothing in there says you have to do it and so he's upholding the law and he's upholding james madison's position so he's establishing two very important principles in one case first of all judicial review the power of the courts to rule on the constitutionality of a congressional law okay that's what judicial review is all about and that's the check and balance that the court has over congress okay so he's empowering the courts with judicial review but equally important now he's establishing the courts as non-political okay this is a man who's ruling against his political party uh in on behalf of the of the rule of law okay so judicial review non-political judiciary these are the reasons why john marshall is often referred to as the father of the court again it's a rather trivial case but in ruling the way he did marbury versus madison now is going to make the courts powerful okay it's going to empower the courts all right and this is happening now during jefferson's presidency okay now what happens then well now that jefferson's president in 1801 he's finally gonna have an opportunity um to make his vision of america a reality remember jefferson stands for an agrarian farming america okay so if america is going to grow as a farming society then there are certain things that are going to have to happen under john thomas jefferson as president okay the first thing is that if the population is going to continue to grow well america is going to need more western land okay as the american population grows land you know a farming society it needs land so western land and expansion now are going to be critical aspects of thomas fit jefferson's um vision western land expansion but in addition to western land and expansion now he also is going to need to have navigation rights on the mississippi river okay and the reason for that is simple geography as farmers moved out into the ohio river country okay into ohio indiana illinois tennessee kentucky okay as they move west of the appalachian mountains the only way to move their agricultural goods their commodities to the markets on the atlantic seaboard is by floating them down the ohio down the mississippi river then around florida and up the coastline there are no real good roads through the appalachian mountains and so transportation requires navigation on the mississippi river and in 1802 that became a serious problem because in 1802 the emperor of france napoleon bonaparte announced that now um things were not going to be as easy in new orleans okay in an attempt to make money in europe napoleon who controlled new orleans is now going to start levying taxes on traffic up and down the mississippi river okay if americans want to travel on the mississippi river certainly napoleon's going to welcome that transportation that traffic but oh by the way they're going to have to pay a tax as they pass through new orleans and that was something that farmers in the american west were furious about okay and they demanded the president thomas jefferson must do something about that circumstance and so jefferson does he proposes to his um his ambassador in france a man by the name of robert libenstein livingston make an offer to napoleon see if we can purchase the claims to new orleans from him we'd really like to do that and robert livingston attempts to do that and napoleon of course says not a chance okay this is a chance to make money and the reality is napoleon had all kinds of hopes he was not only going to tax americans he was also going to engage in profitable trade with indians in the mississippi river valley and so new orleans was critical to his economic views and he was you know ultimately had aspirations for occupying all of europe building armies and new orleans was critical to the money necessary to building uh his armies okay so yeah napoleon had no interest in selling new orleans until things began to unfold on the island of haiti okay haiti was a french colony in the west indies and it was dominated almost exclusively by a black slave population there were only a handful of of um of french planters there and a man by the name of tussaint lovritur launched an uprising in 1802 against the french occupation the french occupation in haiti actually haiti is not an island it occupies the western half of the island of hispaniola but the point is it was a french colony and to saint lo vertur with with incredible um a population advantage launched what was without a doubt the most successful slave rebellion um in the history of the western hemisphere napoleon found it impossible to put down this haitian revolt and it was costing him so much money that it was undermining his efforts to to expand his his territory in europe and so consequently as a result of the the expense of fighting he finally decided i'm just going to sell haiti sell my claims to haiti um and he ultimately ended up gig granting independence or the haitians into ultimately secured their independence and to go further he's simply gonna offer louisiana for sale okay and so in 1803 he offered um jefferson not just new orleans but the entire louisiana territory or the claim to louisiana for the price tag of 15 million dollars now 15 million dollars was a tremendous sum of money and of course federalists were in no way interested in buying louisiana 15 million dollars could be used to help pay down the the war debt um with with great britain and the idea you know if republicans were going to block the tariff legislation um this louisiana purchase was not going to be ratified by federalists uh in congress all right so the point is it became a real um it became a political hot potato okay to put it mildly okay federalists demanded where does it say in the constitution that the president of the united states has the power um to to do a purchase and the answer is well the president doesn't uh but congress does have the power and and so um the president can sign the louisiana purchase but ultimately it's congress that will um put up the money um to to um to make the purchase okay and then basically um the republicans jefferson pointed um to um article one section eight of the constitution which came to be known by it to republicans as the elastic clause and it basically says that congress shall have all power to make or we shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all the powers vested in this constitution in the government of the united states okay so the point is that um all the the power to to make laws relevant to all laws or all laws which shall be necessary and proper well this is going to be deemed to be necessary in property long story short um the the congress does with republican support does ratify the louisiana purchase and put up 15 million dollars and in 1803 um jefferson won a major political value or battle um and and um secured uh for the price of 15 million dollars louisiana but what did he purchase okay well one of the things that he purchased of course is was new orleans but it was more than just new orleans it was france's claims to the interior of north america the problem is there were no boundaries to that claim the louisiana purchase as it was signed in 1803 contained no boundaries and in the western united states britain spain russia all of these other countries had claims to that territory and so if the united states is now going to claim this louisiana territory then the first thing that jefferson now has to do is go out and explore that territory and enhance america's claim to that territory and so in 1804 the following year thomas jefferson commissioned mary mary weather lewis and william clark to do an exploration okay they organized an expedition a party of men basically um that came to be known as the core of discovery and this party of men basically proceeded to sail up the missouri river from st louis all the way as far as montana then over the rocky mountains then down into the columbia river valley of present-day oregon and all the way up to the pacific okay the core of discovery the lewis and clark expedition was one of the really important events uh in american history okay it's certainly one of the most remembered events in american history okay and i wish i had more time to talk about the details of the lewis and clark expedition but we don't have as much time what i do want to do however is especially stress why the lewis and clark expedition the core of discovery was so important what the accomplishments were first of all it is important to remember that thomas jefferson justified this expedition as scientific okay this was all in the name of science it was all in the name of the enlightenment okay and he especially did that to kind of allay the fears of the british the spanish uh and the russians we're just out there because we want to learn about this new place and all of the wonders that that it presents okay but the truth of the matter is this was very much an economic and very much a political agenda okay the lewis and clark expedition first of all introduced the americans to a host of new indian tribes tribes that had previously been trading with the british and tribes now that the americans hoped to engage in trade with okay the hope was that they could effectively wrestle um indian trade away from the british and that trade could be very profitable but in addition to indian trade or indian commerce they hoped um and and did um gather up all kinds of uh information about um the land itself okay what kind of natural resources existed okay what kind of mineral resources existed what kind of timber resources existed what kind of farming possibilities uh existed okay all of these things were very critical because remember in jefferson's mind westward expansion was critical to the expansion of an agricultural society all right so a resource inventory very important finally this expedition aided in expansionism the united states was now going to po point um to the lewis and clark expedition as evidence that the united states had explored this territory yes the spanish had claims in this territory but they had never explored them they had never documented what was there yes the russians and the british had been there but they hadn't fully explored these regions now the americans are going to be able to point to lewis and clark and say we have a right to this territory by by right of prior exploration okay and that then is going to lead to justifications for settling uh in in the in the territories of the west all right so the point is the lewis and clark expedition now very important for establishing u.s claims in the west and basically aiding jeffersonian notions of expansionism all right now when we as we talk about expansionism we're going to talk more about um new orleans we're going to talk about louisiana more generally and the governor of louisiana and his involvement with the vice president of the united states a man by the name of aaron burr okay we'll make the link between aaron burr and james wilkinson in our next slide but before we do that we have to deal with a very important political feud that took place between aaron burr and alexander hamilton and ultimately led to the death of alexander hamilton the burr hamilton feud is one of the most um well it's just one of the most fascinating um events in early american history okay because um you have a situation now where the former secretary of the treasury okay alexander hamilton is going to engage in a feud with the vice president of the united states that's going to result in in the death of the former secretary of treasury okay so the burr hamilton duo it's it's it's fascinating okay let's first of all kind of explain the backdrop though aaron burr became vice president he wanted to be president of the united states that was his goal the problem was by challenging jefferson he would never have jefferson's support and his hope of becoming a president as a republican was non-existent if he was going to become president the only way he could be president was if he became a federalist he was a new yorker now and so he suddenly in 1804 gonna change his party affiliation he's no longer a democratic republican he's now a federalist and in 1804 he's going to run for the governor's office in the state of new york now in so doing he's going to cross with the most powerful federalist in new york and that was alexander hamilton all right so hamilton doesn't trust burr okay hamilton sees burr as a political opportunist he's not a federalist he's somebody who will be whatever party works best for him if he thinks he can become president by being a republican he'll be a republican if he thinks he can be a president by being a federalist he'll be a federalist he's committed to himself not to federalist principles okay and so hamilton starts to criticize burr and some of these criticisms start getting into the newspaper and in fact just before the gubernatorial election the new york newspaper publishes a line in which hamilton is heard and even quoted to have said that aaron burr was a dangerous man who ought not be trusted okay now those words were not particularly inflammatory but given the power that hamilton had and given that burr went on to lose this race burr now blamed hamilton for his loss okay he was insulted he was offended by this by the by these words and the fact that they were made that they were made public um in the newspapers and ultimately burr demands of hamilton a public apology that he retract his comments and that he apologized well hamilton had no intention of doing this mainly because hamilton said he never remembered even saying this it was reported in the newspaper that he said it as at a party but he didn't recall ever having said it and so it became just a matter of pride okay hamilton wasn't going to retract and apologize and burr was demanding that he retract and apologize well when hamilton didn't retract and apologize burr challenged hamilton to a duel okay now dueling was outlawed in both new york and new jersey at this time but new jersey's laws were were more lenient not necessarily on the combatants but actually the bigger concern was for the witnesses okay because in new york if you were a witness to a duel you were liable um and you could be prosecuted in new jersey um you were not and you were a witness you were not uh you could not be prosecuted so point being that um um burr and hamilton agreed that they would do their duel not in new york uh but across the hudson river in um in new jersey okay now efforts were made to try and end the dispute okay but without any um success okay and so in the early morning hours in july of i think it was july 11th of 1804 the two parties rode across the uh hudson river up to new jersey um they selected arms uh and basically received their instructions okay what happened next once the once the instructions were given um well becomes a matter of uh differences of opinion the two men basically were back to back they marched their paces they were supposed to turn and fire okay now according to hamilton's second alexander hamilton um was going to waste his shot okay that is he was not going to shoot at burr he was not going to take burr's life basically wasting your shot was a common way of avoiding killing the other the other person in the duel the problem is usually when the parties waste shots they fire into the ground okay according to hamilton's second uh hamilton was wasting his shot by firing it up in the air and when he raised it up into the air burr's second claim that burr fired on hamilton and shot hamilton um in self-defense okay hamilton's second claim that burr shot him you know that that he shot him um that he was a bloodthirsty uh killer okay the point being there were differences of opinion uh between the seconds what we do know is that the the shot that aaron burr fired struck alexander hamilton in the chest and over the next basically 10 11 hours alexander hamilton died a very slow and very painful death he was rode back to new york city um he died later that afternoon um in um in new york and when word began to circulate then of the of the duel hamilton's supporters now were outraged um aaron burr fearing for his life fled new york he claimed it was self-defense and that there was nothing he could have done and consequently um he didn't literally to avoid a lynch mob he fled new york and he traveled down um to to philadelphia okay uh and it was in philadelphia then um a short time later that that aaron burr encountered a man by the name of james wilkinson okay now aaron burr undoubtedly knew james wilkinson because james wilkinson had been appointed by thomas jefferson the president to serve as the territorial governor of louisiana okay so the two men undoubtedly knew one another okay he had been vice president um wilkinson was the new territorial governor okay exactly what they had planned has always been a matter of dispute of course okay it has been challenged but charges were made against burr that he met with james wilkinson and burr and wilkinson worked out a plot okay that plot was they were going to organize an army would lead this army down the ohio river to new orleans and basically james wilkinson under threat from this army would surrender louisiana to this army and the army would then turn um louisiana new orleans specifically over to spain and spain according to this convoluted um conspiracy theory spain would then compensate both wilkinson and burr with various gen very generous grants of land in texas okay so it became a really convoluted conspiracy um that that aaron burr was believed to be involved in okay burr met with a man by the name of harmon blenner hassett and blenner on blender hassett's island in the ohio river burr began to assemble this this army okay harman blenner hassett was organizing and leading that organization okay but word leaked out and when thomas jefferson learned of this army he quickly sent the u.s army to blenner hassett's island they seized control and put down um the the the movement okay blenner hassett then made this claim about aaron burr and james wilkinson and aaron burr now was placed on trial for treason okay he was launching a rebellion against the united states of america to try and liberate new orleans from the united states all right so aaron burr by this time he had been removed as vice president as now um is now going to be uh charged uh with treason okay and if uh if uh if found guilty at the very least he would be excommunicated he could be could have been uh executed okay this the the the treason trial of uh aaron burr is going to take place in the supreme court and that means john marshall is going to preside over this case okay now john marshall a strict jurist and the constitution actually is very clear on proving treason okay treason has to be proven by um a third party okay it can't simply be one man's word against another if there is a meeting that takes place um that that in which talk of of of uh treason is discussed in other two in other words two people are conspiring then there has to be a third person who can testify as to what they were talking about and burr and wilkinson were very careful apparently okay james wilkinson denied any involvement in this whatsoever aaron burr said it was all crazy okay and because nobody could prove that wilkinson and burr actually met and that they actually talked about this this conspiracy aaron burr was acquitted okay he was not found guilty and by this time again he was no longer vice president of the united states he was acquitted but at the same time he had been disgraced and he became one of the most villainous astound roles of early american history he actually went into exile left the united states spent most of the rest of his life uh in europe and actually came back to the united states uh towards the end of his life and he he died and was buried here in the united states but the point is that aaron burr as i said one of the most disgraced period or individuals in early american history one of the ironies is most people in early american history experience revisions okay there's differences at different periods of time in the way historians look at individuals in the case of aaron burr there's never been a revisionist interpretation of aaron burr that has tried to um explain his actions um in anything other than just self-serving selfish motivations okay so there's never been a revisionist uh interpretation of burr uh and so there's generally consensus among all historians that this this was a man who was who was purely purely self-serving okay i'll wrap up my discussion of uh jefferson's presidency here when we come back uh in our next discussion um actually we'll talk about some foreign policy issues um during jefferson's presidency and then start taking the country in the direction of the war of 1812