this will Mark the second installment of the module 3 critical period of American History lecture series uh in the previous lecture we covered some economic disputes in the 1790s that gave rise to the emergence of political parties we want to continue that here by building upon what we learned about last lecture in terms of Alexander Hamilton's economic plans because it turns out that there were also some disputes in the 1790s over Foreign Affairs and these disputes had the effect of dividing the American people in similar ways and along similar lines that the economic disputes that we covered in the last lecture did so without further Ado we're just going to jump right into the foreign Affair disputes to understand all the disputes and disagreements among the American people concerning Foreign Affairs one has to look no further than the event that kind of led to all of it and that event is the French Revolution which erupted in 1789. so I want to talk a little bit about the French Revolution the French Revolution in many ways started like the American Revolution uh the masses of the French um want were upset over their monarchy uh about their King King Louis XIV um and France's involvement in not only the French and Indian War but also its involvement in the American war of independence had created a lot of problems for France in fact those two Wars had pretty much bankrupted France uh and so it was very hard uh on the French people uh food was scarce and food was expensive specifically bread which was a big concern among the uh the masses of France but finally in 1789 enough people in France had just become completely disillusioned uh with monarchy they had they believed that King Louis had become a tyrant and so in many ways uh in July of 1789 the French masses uh the Working Poor enraged over all of this and in part inspired by the American Revolution itself rose up against King Louis xiv's absolute monarchy in France and this was known as the French Revolution now uh this was an unexpected event in France as well as in Europe and it sent shock waves through not only France but also all of Europe you gotta remember all of Europe were monarchies at this point and so when a major European power like France is experiencing a revolution that is designed to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with a Democratic Republic uh you have to understand that a lot of the European uh powers are going to look uh look on this revolution with great uh well been lack of a better word fear um now here in the United States the French Revolution just captured the imagination of many Americans especially people like Thomas Jefferson uh and who believed the French Revolution was simply a continuation of the American Revolution and the reason it caught so much attention and Imagination here among the American people is that once again a people were rising up against Royal tyranny and replacing it with a representative democratic government and and many Americans could identify with what the french were going through because we had gone through something similar and so the French Revolution really just came to you know everybody was talking about it everybody had an opinion on it um and so this is the event right the French Revolution that's going to lead to a cascading uh set of consequences for the United States uh and more on that in a second but the to just to reiterate How uh infatuated a lot of the American people were with the Sirens Revolution I want to talk for a second about uh Societies or clubs that began to pop up all over the country um that in many ways represented the harbinger of one of the political parties that would end up forming in the 1790s and these were known as Democratic Republican societies and these were groups of people that uh would come together and they were all over they were clubs right Society they were all over the country and they were groups of people that come together to show their support for the French revolutionaries and what they were doing in France uh believing that there was a kindred uh Spirit uh the spirit of 1776 right that the American Revolution and the French Revolution were one and the same and these Democratic Republican societies would pop up and correspond with people in France correspond with each other here in the United States uh they would host uh French dignitaries that might travel to the United States and throw them big parties uh and the idea behind these Society is just to show solidarity uh with the French revolutionaries uh here in the United States uh and so once again this French Revolution really did just capture the imagination captured the attention for a lot of people here in the country so much so that we began to see entire societies form uh that would Express solidarity and and unity with them okay so let's talk for a second about revolutions um revolutions have a way of starting out for good intentions and then the people that start them losing control of them and revolutions then eating those people alive uh it didn't happen in this country this country's Revolution the people that started it saw it through to its end and maintain their power and control throughout but in the French Revolution um the French Revolution got out of hand really quick and one of the turning points of the French Revolution was in 1791 when surrounding monarchies of Nations around France most notably Prussia and Austria decided to form a coalition and invade France with the intention of stopping the Revolutionary movement there and they were worried about the revolution spilling over its borders uh this Invasion however by the austrians and the prussians Omi inspired the French revolutionaries to grow more radical and to seek greater efforts to kind of spread democracy across Europe and then the revolution really went off the rails in 1793. uh in 1793 a very radical element of the French Revolution came to power they were known as the Jacobins and they were very violent very radical and they had an ax to grind with the former Elite of France and this group of revolutionaries in France they were the ones that started what was known as the reign of terror and what this was was this was where the French Revolutionary government um arrested beheaded uh the king and queen of France as well as hundreds of aristocrats as well as priests it's very nasty very public executions uh just really radical gritty stuff uh this was known as the reign of terror now the Jacobins were of course promoting democracy and religious toleration and things like that um but you know for a lot of Americans This reign of terror was just too much it's just too much uh this was something that a lot of Americans just simply couldn't understand it was something that had not happened here in the United States during the American Revolution and so it would cause a lot of Americans to kind of shun the French Revolution and turn their back on the whole thing uh and make the case that you know this may have had good intentions at the beginning but this is not something the United States should uh become involved in to make matters worse though uh when the French Revolutionary government now controlled by the jacobines uh sees power well in February of 1793 they declared war on neighboring monarchies most notably Great Britain Spain and the Netherlands and by declaring war on those three monarchies it was clear that the French Revolution was not going to be confined to France it was clear that the French revolutionaries intended to spread it Beyond its borders this forced the nations of Spain the Netherlands Great Britain as well as Austria and Prussia pretty much all the great European monarchies the former coalition the purpose of the Coalition would be to squash out the French Revolution in order to prevent its ideals of democracy and anti-monarchy from coming to their hometown this plunged the entire continent of Europe into a conflict that would last nearly 20 years uh these this was known as the wars of the French Revolution they would not be completed until the Napoleonic Wars so this was just the first half of it but in 1792 Europe is now at War France is facing staggering odds as it is uh being confronted with a massive Coalition LED of course by Great Britain the wars of the French Revolution the reign of terror all this stuff it caused a lot of Americans to become very alarmed about what was happening in Europe and in spite of people's best efforts like Thomas Jefferson who tried to calm Americans fears about uh what was happening in France when he famously said that the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants he's of course referring to this these public executions of uh of aristocrats and priests in spite of his best efforts leaders of the federal government in the 1790s of course George Washington Chief among them began to take steps to try to limit American um the potential of an American intervention in the conflict so we want to look now about we want to turn our attention to George Washington who was the president of the United States when all of this erupted it was on his watch that he would have to deal with uh the uh cascading consequences of the French Revolution and so we want to turn now to to him and talk about what was his attitude towards the revolution what was his attitude towards the war in France um Washington understood that without French support the United States never would have won if it's won its independence he understood that but Washington could not ignore the excesses of the French Revolution and the radicalness of the reign of terror he just simply couldn't ignore that and he did not want to Hitch The American Nation in its young infant stage to that radicalness he just simply he wasn't wired that way he didn't think the country was wired that way and he was right when it came to the wars of the French Revolution while a lot of Americans said we need to enter the conflict on the side of France to live up to our obligations that we owe France uh Washington was a little hesitant to agree with that Washington believed that the country was too weak too young uh to go gallivanting off and join a major European conflict by allying with a nation that probably won't win uh he believed it would have been disastrous for the United States to do so so he will adopt a position of neutrality for the United States and in 1793 when pressed by the American people to provide an official policy or official uh standing towards the wars in Europe he um he will proclaim the United States to be neutral now what does neutrality mean it it means that the United States is not going to pick a side in this conflict the United States as you see by his uh Proclamation here will conduct friendly and impartial attitude towards all the belligerent powers Washington was essentially making the case the United States has no dog in this fight that the United States just wants to continue what it's been doing and we don't bother you you don't bother us that's the idea behind neutrality that you don't actively support either side now this proclamation of neutrality was seen by a lot of the American people and by France as a stab in the back a lot of Americans you know they weren't willing to denounce George Washington not yet uh instead denounced his advisors saying that they had stabbed they had convinced the old man to stab France in the back uh France absolutely believed they had been stabbed in the back end and again it all goes back to the American Revolution so why did Washington do it well Washington's the leader of the country he has to put the country's interest Above All Else and he just did not believe entering a major European conflict would have been wise would have been prudent for the United States and he was right so he will declare neutrality what does that mean it means that France is pissed so let's turn now and talk for a second about what France did to try to uh dislodged this American uh proclamation of neutrality and try to convince the United States to enter the conflict in 1793 the country experienced a a pretty big Scandal of a political and diplomatic nature it was known as the Janae Affair I love these words the affair the Scandal right the Janae Affair sounds like something out of a soap opera uh now what was it well the Janae Affair came at the same time President Washington issued the neutrality proclamation uh he had been convinced that even though you've declared neutrality and you don't want to actively support the French government he had been convinced by Secretary of State Jefferson to recognize the French government and to accept its ambassador uh the Ambassador from the French government was a guy by the name of Edmund Charles Janae and here he is right there now if you're looking at that picture saying man he looks uh uh fairly young well he was he was only 29 years old when he became an ambassador to the United States now who cares about his age uh means he's cocky and boy he was this guy should have arrived in the United States and gone immediately to Philadelphia which was the capital at the time to meet with President Washington lay his papers of ambassadorship in front of him and speak with the president right or to speak with Jefferson but that's not what Edmund Charles Janae did instead Janae knowing that President Washington was unlikely to renege on his Proclamation decided that he would take his case for the America for the United States supporting France take his case directly to the American people and so rather than coming to Philadelphia uh Janae or citizen Janae as they called him during the French Revolution guys everybody just called citizen was like Mister it's like yo you're a citizen of the French Republic right that's how it works so you were citizen Janae I would have been citizen Hamilton it's good stuff right uh instead of going to Philadelphia uh Janae went to South South Carolina and while he was down there he began handing out in clear open violation of U.S neutrality he began recruiting American Sailors and American captains who were very pro-french he began recruiting them to come fight for France and essentially what he was doing for a lot of these ship captains is he was handing out letters of Mark letters of rank given to him by the French government in which this captain of an American ship would now have the rank of whatever in the French navy and they were then encouraged to go out and attack British Commerce ships or and British Naval vessels guys this is illegal by American law uh you can't do this it also is not the way diplomacy is handled again it speaks to janae's Cockiness but it also speaks uh to perhaps the French's anger towards Washington's Proclamation now after five weeks down in South Carolina recruiting Americans to go fight uh for the French Republic uh he finally traveled to the American capital of Philadelphia uh were his efforts to trawl the United States onto France's side where in uh embarrassed any friends and allies he had in the nation's capital even Thomas Jefferson couldn't defend the guy Thomas Jefferson ended up having disavowam calling him a French monkey um he did meet with President Washington in which he appealed directly to the president to support France but Washington remained firm in his uh idea of neutrality this of course angered Janae and in typical Cockiness fashion Janae threatened to go around President Washington and appeal directly to the American people uh as a result of that Washington uh demanded that the French government recall Edmund Janae as the ambassador to the United States which they did now What's significant about the Janae affair well it shows you the level of anger that France has towards uh the United States position of neutrality but it's also a reflection right Janae knew there were people here in the United States that were also angry with with Washington's proclamation of neutrality so the Janae Affair is significant because it exposes some of the clear divisions among the American people over what the United States course of action should be concerning the wars of the French Revolution a lot of people think we ought to stay out of it like Washington uh but some think we should get involved and the Janae Affair exposes that okay next major foreign policy dispute was something known as the J treaty so before we talk about what this treaty was or who the heck is Jay let me talk to you about the background to this the Jade treaty or Jay's Treaty uh was an economic treaty between the United States and Great Britain which was agreed to in 1794. now the reason there was an agreement between the United States and Great Britain is that by 1793 the United States was on the verge of having to declare war on Great Britain meaning in spite of Washington's best efforts to keep the United States out of the war um Great Britain did pretty much everything they could uh to force Washington's hand to support France um let me give you two examples of what they were doing you see on this map here that green area the Northwest Territory this is an area of the United States that was won by the Americans as a result of the American war of independence it was territory recognized in the Treaty of Paris 1783 as American there are forts in that Northwest Territory that were built decades before by the British and in spite of their agreement in the Treaty of Paris 1783 to vacate those forts they had not now why they had not vacated that Fort because nobody was there to tell them to go nobody was there to force him to leave so what are they doing out here what they're doing out here is they are arming and encouraging Native Americans in the Northwest Territory to violently oppose American expansion into the territory now how much were the British involved in this it's tough to say we do know from evidence they were involved in some armying and encouraging and helping Native Americans to uh launch attacks against American migration into the territory we just don't know how widespread it was now we know that today but in the 1790s Americans knew it as well and it greatly angered the American people and so while Washington wants to keep us neutral what the British are doing in the Northwest Territory is making it very difficult for Washington to keep the United States neutral it means a lot of Americans are demanding that the U.S should enter the wars of the French Revolution but instead of entering the war on the side of uh uh or enter the war on the side of France as a means of National Honor that you can't let the British do this you know Washington says this is a matter in in the war in Europe doesn't affect us but it does because here are the British doing these things here France is fighting the British let's go fight with France in addition to what the British were doing in the Northwest Territories they were also engaged in some pretty nefarious things in the Atlantic Ocean most notably the British Navy in spite of our Declaration of neutrality would stop American commerships and seize cargo that they believed was bound for France they would also oftentimes kidnap Sailors off of these American vet Commerce vessels and pressed them into service in the British Navy now this is a policy known as impressment and that's what's being depicted here in this etching now impressment is a tough one because the British would say they were taking Sailors off of American vessels that were runaway British Sailors now was that true oh yeah I'm sure in a lot of cases it was but you're not going to be 100 accurate all the time which means there's going to be numerous instances in which American Sailors would be kidnapped off of their their Commerce vessels impressing the service in the British Navy what's wrong with that well hopefully you can see what's wrong with that that's kidnapping it's a gross violation of American neutrality and coupled with what they're doing on the Atlantic Ocean with what they're doing in the Northwest Territory this is all just too much for some Americans it means that by 1794 a large number of Americans are demanding as a matter of National Honor that the United States declared war on Great Britain enter the wars of the French Revolution on the side of France and let's have it out now is that what Washington wants to do Washington wouldn't have issued a proclamation of neutrality if he wasn't intent on maintaining it so in spite of all this public pressure that begins building on President Washington to declare war on Earth to seek a declaration of war against the British I gotta hand it to him he did not give in so how does he find a way around all this public pressure well think about it if the public pressure on him is being created by the tension between Great Britain and the United States over what's happening in the Atlantic and what's happening in the Northwest Territory then find a way to release the tension and the way you release that tension is diplomacy in 1794 George Washington dispatched as a special Envoy to London England John Jay very trusted friend of President Washington John Jay in 1794 was actually the Supreme Court chief justice and he had to resign that position because he could not serve two positions in the federal government that's how important this Mission would be Washington knew he would have to resign but he trusted only Jay to handle this mission Jay would be sent to London England with specific orders to find a way to ease the tensions and he was successful the agreement or the treaty that was negotiated between the United States and Great Britain Bears his name still today the Jade treaty or Jay's Treaty now this treaty was negotiated by John Jay on behalf of the president of the United States it would be President Washington that laid this treaty in front of the U.S Senate who had the ratified and only because Washington threw his full support behind it was it very narrowly uh passed so what was in it as I mentioned at the beginning of this Jay's Treaty was an economic treaty okay it wasn't a military Alliance the United States was not going to enter this conflict in fact quite the opposite Jay's Treaty kept us out of the conflict so what's in it well a couple of interesting things are in it number one you can see that the British and the Americans both got agreeing agreements to things they'd already agreed to in the Treaty of Paris 1790 or 1783 we had told the British that we would pay any debt we owed them but we had not done so we agreed to do it again right here now what would we what would the British also get we agreed to stop trading with France we cut them off some Americans would say we stabbed them in the back now what did we get out of this well we got the British to agree to actually leave the forts in the Northwest Territories and they did we got the British to stop impressing American Sailors and stopping American commerships which they did and since we agreed to stop trading with France a primary trading partner Great Britain allowed us access to their markets in the Caribbean and in in and in India so you see this isn't a military treaty right this is this is an alliance per se this is an economic treaty uh these are negotiated every day now what's important about it what should you take away from Jay's treat What's significant about this diplomatic Accord Jay's Treaty is important for two reasons the first is that it prevented the United States from having to enter the wars of the French Revolution without this treaty public pressure would have been too much for Washington at some point he would have had to have given in because the British were pretty much making it impossible for him to remain neutral so what this treaty does is it prevents the United States from entering a war that Washington and I'll tell you right now would have been disastrous right for the United States and the reason historians say it would have been a disaster is that we ended up going the war against the British in 1812 you'll learn about it later on and it was a disaster so the first reason today's treaty is important is that it prevents successfully prevents the United States from having to enter a disastrous War the second reason Jay's Treaty is important is that perhaps bigger than almost anything we've talked about so far this treaty divided the American people only a lot of Americans were very upset about Jay's Treaty now they weren't willing to blame Washington nobody does that all the scorn came down upon John Jay the reason the treaty divided the American people is that a lot of people could I could identify with what Washington was trying to do here in terms of putting the United States interest above all else right and so there were large groups of people that agreed with the jade tree thought it was a great move by President Washington but just as many Americans believed it was a stab in the back of our long Ally our friend France and so perhaps more than anything else we've talked about so far Jay's Treaty was a key moment in dividing the American people when it came to Foreign Affairs and that division among Americans and to those that supported it and those that disagreed with it that division would help cement and create the first two political parties in American history okay so that will finish the Jade treaty discussion the next two uh events um are gonna take place during the administration of the nation's second President John Adams and I'm going to talk about him in just a second but to set the stage of what's going to happen after the Jade treaties think of it like this if a large number of the American people believe that today's treaty stabbed the friends in the back imagine how the French feel the background of what's coming next is that we begin to see a very hostile uh French Republic towards the United States and that hostility towards the United States was going to play out in the Atlantic Ocean where before Jay's Treaty American commerships would oftentimes be engaged by British Naval vessels well that stopped after Jay's Treaty after Jay's Treaty it was no longer British Naval vessels that would begin harassing American commerships that would now be French naval vessels and what happened by about 1794 1796 is a Quasi War uh erupted between American commerships and French naval vessels uh and we're going to look at that quasi-war just here in a second now the election of 1796 was the third presidential election in American history the first two in 1788 the second one in 1792 were both won by George Washington and he was unanimously elected in both of those elections he could have run again in 1796 he could have run a third fourth fifth he could run as many times as he wanted to there were no law there was no amendments to the Constitution against any of that at this point but he chose in 1796 to step down for a couple reasons he he'd been president for eight years he was very old uh he'd lived much longer than any other male in any of in his entire family uh so he believed he was on borrowed time he was tired also right and and he did not want to seek a third term he knew he'd be elected to it but he was afraid he might die in office and he didn't think the country and its young infants stage could handle that and he was right about dying in office he died in 1799 which meant he would have died before the next election so he'll step down in 1796 and in that election we're going to see a victory by John Adams who was George Washington's vice president now Adams was uh the second president in American history before that he was the vice president uh long career in politics one of the preeminent leaders of the American Revolution remember he was part of the committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence uh from the great state of Massachusetts we're going to learn later on about his son who was also a pretty good uh uh uh politician John Quincy Adams well it'll be under John Adams he has he inherits this Quasi War uh which had been raging in Washington new no way to end it now so Adams has to deal with this cause I want again what this is this is French naval vessels for the French military you know it's it's Navy right would be firing upon and preventing physically preventing any American commership that was bound for any British colony or Great Britain itself uh what ended up happening then since since uh the U.S was not going to enter this war do anything about it in terms of its military a lot of these Commerce captains just started arming their own vessels with cannons and uh and muskets and essentially you had a Quasi War quasi meaning it's it's not real it's not an official War but it's happening right so John Adams inherits this now here's the thing about a quasi-war they can sometimes spiral out of control and become a real war and that's something John Adams like his predecessor George Washington desperately want to avoid so what John Adams does he takes a page out of the George Washington diplomatic handbook and he will send a diplomatic mission to Paris France to negotiate with the French government to try to find an agreement or a treaty or something to ease these tensions and the gentleman you see on the screen here are the three diplomats that President Adams sent John Marshall Albert's Jerry and well look at this guy Charles paintley uh John Marshall will be a major player later on in the course when he becomes the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court one of the most influential and impactful Supreme Court Justices ever uh but right now he's a diplomat along with Jerry and Pinckney sent by President Adams to go over to Paris France and negotiate some type of an agreement to ease the tensions to prevent the Quasi War from becoming a real war now when they arrived in Paris France the gentleman they have to meet with is this guy here talaran he was the French foreign minister and he was an overall jerk French Foreign ministers like the United States Secretary of State they handle foreign policy this is the guy you gotta negotiate with if you want any type of the Diplomatic agreement now I said he's an overall jerk and that's putting it lightly Napoleon Bonaparte described this guy as a Silk Stocking filled with dung so you get what I'm going for here this guy was a real dirtbag and when our guys arrived in Paris they didn't even get get to meet with Tyler ran uh instead they were approached by three agents that worked for taloran and these three French agents demanded two things from our diplomats in order to talk to taloran the first was it talaran needed a bribe he needed twenty five thousand dollars hard cash right now Pony up well that's not how diplomacy works okay you don't pay bribes to meet with official uh with official government officers the second thing that these three French agents demand is that alone a three million dollar loan from the United States to the French government to help it fight to help fight its Wars we've got both of these things are highly irregular highly undiplomatic but above all our diplomats are not able to agree to any of this so they have to write a report and they have to inform president Adams about their failed mission they send this report back to president Adams and after Adams reads it he has to inform the United States Congress about any diplomatic negotiations so Adams is going to submit the report to the U.S Congress but in submitting the report to the U.S Congress John Adams took out deleted the names of the three French agents and replaced them in the report with the letters x y and z now the reason John Adams did this is he wanted to protect the names the identities of these three agencies as so as not to embarrass them and potentially sour any future negotiations well there were people in the U.S Congress that took this report and realized how damaging it would be to the United States standing in the uh to John Adams Administration but also how damaging it would be to the continued uh refusal by John Adams to give in to a war with the French this became then known as the XYZ Affair now the XYZ Affair was significant because it caused a lot of the American people to demand not war with Great Britain now but they won a war with the French okay and the reason they want to worry with the French now is that the frencher they're violating our rights as a nation on the uh in the Atlantic they're treating us uh undiplomatically you know they're treating this is not how Nations talk they have no respect for us it's a lot of Americans after the XYZ report is put out and as a result of the XYZ Affair they're demanding that the United States go to war only this time go to war against France well again that's something John Adams is not going to allow uh so what ends up happening by 1798 since John Adams will refuse to declare war against France is the quasi-war becomes essentially an undeclared naval war where we're not talking about small skirmishes anymore in the Atlantic we're talking about American Commerce ships arming themselves to the teeth with rifle arming with muskets with artillery with everything and when they see a French naval vessel they're not even going to wait to find out what the French's intentions are they're just gonna open fire as if they are at War so the XYZ Affair was significant because it not only divided the American people but it leads to the undeclared naval war this made it very difficult for John Adams now I got a hand of John Adams and it probably cost him re-election but John Adams was able to keep that naval war with France Undeclared uh buying time for American negotiators to make a breakthrough in Paris and that broke through finally came in 1800 when uh power and authority in France began to be Consolidated in the hands of this gentleman here Napoleon Bonaparte he looks like a pretty happy guy there didn't he real laid back anyway by 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte had emerged as the leader of the French Nation he had Consolidated the craziness of the French Revolution into his own hands and it is he was well on his way to establishing himself as the emperor of France meaning this guy is the guy that sets policy uh for France and by 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte does not want France to be distracted with an undeclared naval war with the United States he wants to focus on a war with the British and so in 1800 in September of 1800 uh our diplomats in Paris are able to sign an accord with France as well as other nations this was at something known as the convention of 1800 and this ended up easing the tensions between France and the United States in the 1790s now I know that was a lot of information and I know this was a long video but as you can see a lot of stuff happened here so let me just kind of review to have yeah that French Revolution really was what set everything in motion okay we saw the rise of these Democratic Republican clubs which are going to be harbinger of one of the political parties that are going to form the wars of the French Revolution the reign of terror causing the American people to decide what they want to do Washington declaring neutrality the Janae Affair exposing the division among the American people the Jade treaty really dividing the American people and then you have things like the XYZ Affair and the undeclared naval war all of these things guys were disputes among the American people in the 1790s all of them over foreign affairs and all of them had the had the effect of dividing the American people into political parties