all right this is openstax u.s history chapter 8 growing pains the new republic 1790 to 1820 we'll be looking at section 1 competing visions federalists and democratic republicans so this chapter the new republic this is in reference to the united states we learned previously about how the 13 colonies came together bought a war against great britain and established a new nation that is the united states um and just to kind of briefly catch up to the 1790s we had talked previously about the first government that was created in the united states the first national government i should say and that was called the articles of confederation and that government in short was too weak right too weak to function the nation had a lot of issues under the article's government uh one big one was the economic issue while there are a number of things that the article's government essentially couldn't do and that caused many of the leaders of the nation to meet in philadelphia to create a new national government and what came out of that was simply the constitution right so the constitution is the second and current government of the us of course this consists of our three branches the executive the legislative and judicial and that went into effect in 1789 in 1789 george washington stepped into office as the very first president the very first congress was voted into office in 1789 um you know the house of representatives and the senate and not short afterwards the creation of a judicial branch which was lacking in the article's government also came into effect so this is you know this chapter in particular is looking at you know this sort of new national government this new constitutional government from 1789 really up until the uh present day uh here though competing visions as we'll see almost immediately after the constitution was ratified and the three branches were put into effect um there were differences of opinions particularly between two groups federalists and democratic republicans you want to think of these two groups as the first two political parties in american history and we sometimes call this and this is a good term to be familiar with uh maybe we'll do it in blue we call this the first party system and a party system is simply any sort of um political arrangement in the united states in which there are two political parties that are dominant uh currently today we are in a party system depending on which historians that you you know that you refer to most would say we're probably in the third party system although some say we're in like the fifth or the sixth and that means just essentially wherever you live in the united states there's only two parties to choose from they're competitive all all over and this was very much the case very early on that there were pretty much only two choices either the federalists or the democratic republicans and as you can you know probably imagine here they don't fully agree so initially those who were in power were the federalists now recall that the federalists were the ones who supported the new constitution right you know they very much want a strong central government and you know really the chief sort of federalist so to speak is alexander hamilton we're going to call him not only secretary of treasury because that's what he served as in washington's administration washington of course is the first president of the united states and as president he uh chose the first presidential cabinet that's kind of like his inner circle alexander hamilton was chosen as secretary of treasury but we also want to identify hamilton as really the leading federalist you know when it comes to those who advocate for the strongest central government you know hamilton's really our um you know our guy here so federalists supported the new national con or sorry the new constitution want a strong central government thomas jefferson on the other hand who was also appointed to washington's administration he was appointed as the oops as the secretary of state in many ways becomes the leading democratic republican and uh you know these this political party the democratic republican party doesn't have any direct connection to the two current political parties the democrats and republicans however it is a very confusing name because it includes both of those terms democrat and republican now recall during the debate during the constitution there was you know the the debate was between the federalists and the anti-federalists now it's true that many of the federalists join the federalist party right many of the anti-federalists join the democratic republican party but the anti-federalists are not a political party the anti-federalists were simply people who opposed the constitution so one good example is james madison james madison was a federalist during the constitutional debate he supported the constitution but afterwards he becomes a member of the democratic republican party so again the anti-federalists are not a political party they were simply those people who opposed the constitution many of them did join the democratic republican party which is you know part of this first party system so thomas jefferson becomes really in many ways the leading democratic republican and hamilton and jefferson really best represent um these two competing visions for what the nation ought to be also in washington's administration we're going to go ahead and add henry knox he's the secretary of war all right just maybe good to know these individuals here and like i mentioned before in 1789 the very first congress the first senate the first house of representatives uh was voted into session some important laws and first laws that they passed included the judiciary act which created the supreme court remember there was no judicial branch under the articles system so the supreme court was created and a tariff act which you know thinking in the immediate aftermath of the constitutional convention the biggest issue was the economy and now this constitution allowed the national government to tax a tariff we talked about this previously as a tax on imports and this was designed to raise money for the war debt right the war debt another one of congress's first actions was living up to that promise of passing a bill of rights recalled during the constitutional debate between the federalists and the anti-federalists the primary concern of the anti-federalists in the constitution was that there was no guarantee of protection of people's rights many anti-federalists said that if a bill of rights were to be included then they would get on board and vote for the constitution vote yes for the constitution and so the first congress here we have anti-federalists we'll just make a note those who did not support the news constitution the new constitution and they demanded a bill of rights and uh the first congress passed it this became the first ten amendments to the constitution uh you have a list of the amendments in the in the textbook if you want to see the more detailed uh you know the first amendment talks about freedom of religion uh freedom of speech freedom of the press and uh you know there's a couple more um amendments that are noteworthy that might pop up again in american history so that was some of the first actions taken by congress judiciary act tariff act to raise revenue and passing a bill of rights now like we mentioned before the number one problem in the nation in 1789 is the bad economy you know this was largely a result of the war this was a result of the war debt this was a result of printing money and high inflation this was a result of the united states being cut off from all trade by great britain during the war so they couldn't do business and really failing to do business in the aftermath of that so the economy isn't a you know it's it's a big problem and it was really one of the main reasons why a new constitution was created to begin with and the person responsible for solving this economic issue is alexander hamilton who you see pictured right here as the secretary of state now there are a number of debt problems um you know states have debts i'd say state debt there's you know sort of a national debt uh there are money owed to uh you know domestic people need money you know troops veterans of the war haven't been paid yet uh there are foreign nations that haven't been paid paid back yet so a lot of debt to go around a lot of people are owed money and a lot of people want that money pretty soon so hamilton creates a couple of reports to address the nation's economic issues the first one is the report on public credit and this mostly has to do with things like debt what hamilton's plan is or essentially what he favors is the creditors the creditors are the people or we might say institutions that loaned money right that loaned money so hamilton is concerned about the people who have loaned money in his words the united states needs to do justice to creditors particularly and specifically those foreign you know places like france for example maybe places like great britain right in this case we would refer to these two as creditor nations because they lent the united states money the united states would be a debt nation in this case and the reason why hamilton wants to focus on these foreign powers so much why he wants to pay back france first and pay back great britain first is to make the us legitimate right make it legit and as long as the united states can pay back its foreign debt pay it back to powerful countries like france and great britain they'll recognize the united states as a legit nation whereas if the u.s didn't pay back its foreign debt first those nations aren't going to look at the united states as a legitimate nation now recall you know the united states or sorry the united states is in a very early period in its history it's very vulnerable it's already gone through one change at the national government you know at this rate the united states ought to change its constitution every 10 years or so um so you know hamilton wants to make sure that the united states isn't like a joke in the eyes of pretty much everywhere everyone around the world that's why the creditors are given priority he also allows for the u.s government to sell bonds this is a way to raise money a bond is uh you know an interest uh accruing note essentially you purchase bonds from the government you give the government money they give you a note and they say within 5 10 20 years they'll give you you know whatever you paid plus five percent ten percent whatever it is this is an easy way for governments to raise money immediately it's essentially a way for people to kind of like bet on their country they're betting that in the future their country will be better off and able to pay back that bond so again all these different ways of trying to raise money however this led to intense debate about um about the nation's finances one thing that hamilton wanted to do was to combine all debts to make it easier to manage particularly among the states and so you know by paying these things back ultimately led to various debates first of all was the debate via speculators speculators were people or institutions we're just going to say people to make it easy here who bought debt or a discounted rate so for example you know you're a revolutionary war veteran you know this guy's going to be a revolutionary war veteran uh let's see where they were triangle hats back in those days that looks like a triangle hat and uh you know there's his his gun it doesn't really look like a good gun um but you know you're a revolutionary war veteran you fought in the revolutionary war but you still haven't been paid back your money you have this iou for let's say a hundred dollars now you're waiting after the war and you're waiting for the government to pay you this money back and as each month goes on as each year goes on uh you're becoming more concerned or more you're betting that that money is not going to be paid back so a speculator and we'll make the speculator wear a fancy top hat and uh a monocle um i guess that's a monocle and a cane a speculator comes up and says look you're probably never going to see this money the government's never going to pay you back so i'll buy this iou from i'll buy this iou off of you for let's say ten dollars right and in this case a lot of the veterans a lot of the people who were holding these ious said okay i'll take the ten dollars and this iou then ended up in the hands of speculators and so hamilton by paying back the debt was ultimately giving money not to uh the people who still well he was giving money the people who held or still held the ious but many of these things had gone on to uh speculators and many people like james madison thought that it was unfair to pay those back so that ultimately um led to you know intense debate about that particular issue you know was this actually ending up in the hands of people who who deserved it another big debate was about combining all the debts particularly among the states so for example there were some states that owed a lot of money there were some states that owed little money and you know by combining all these debts together essentially they were punishing the states that had paid back their debts and rewarding the states that had very big debts because now they weren't responsible for it ultimately this debate was between hamilton and jefferson on a fundamental level ultimately there was an agreement the debts were combined hamilton did get his economic program and in return what the opponents of hamilton got was a new location for the nation's capital so we might say of the nation's capital a new location in the south this would become of course today where washington dc is and the idea behind creating the nation's capital in the south as opposed to new york city which was actually where the first congress uh met was that new york was considered to be like the financial district right that congress and wall street were literally right next door to each other and what opponents of hamilton wanted to do was to move the nation's capital outside of the center of um you know economic interest banking interest business interests uh and so uh the nation's capital was you know after that agreed upon to be in dc and it was built there and that's where government would be housed once the construction was complete so um you know the issue of debts was being addressed the second report that hamilton created the report on the national bank the national bank was something that england had it was a way for a nation to really manage its finances the national bank could loan money to american merchants it could store money and invest it it can make the the nation grow economically more or less we can just summarize a national bank as being a way for the federal government to be more say financially active right we'll just say more financially active and this was also a way for the national bank to discipline the state banks or the local banks kind of overpower them in a certain sense uh jefferson for example believed the national bank was too powerful and uh you know objected to it but ultimately hamilton got his wishes from president washington you know once washington put the seal of approval on something it was very hard to oppose it and a new national bank was created lastly the last thing that hamilton reported on was manufacturers you can think of manufacturers as being production this also included ways to raise revenue so for example alexander hamilton put into effect a tax on whiskey again ray's way to raise money additionally protective tariffs were issued like we said before tariffs were used to raise money but it could also um help american businesses right so a protective tariff is a tax that not only raise money to tax on imports but really the design say designed to you know protect it's right there in the word we'll just say promote us industry right so for example if we got england and we got the us right and uh they're making iron say iron and let's just assume that the quality of iron is the same however the us iron cost two dollars and english iron cost only one dollar in this circumstance most people would buy the iron from england same quality it's cheaper but one way that the united states can help foster its own domestic industry is by placing a tariff right and so if the tariff or tax is two more dollars that brings the overall cost of english iron to three of american iron to two and that means most people are going to buy now stuff from the u.s and that's good for the american economy because when american businesses do good they can grow they can hire more people unemployment goes down etc etc etc etc so not only did it raise money in a sense that you could collect this two dollars and you know store it for the national government it was a way to promote or protect right protective tear-ups um us industries hamilton also wanted subsidies this was kind of economic we'll just call this economic aid aid slash maybe incentives or u.s business right so you know think of hamilton and the federalists as being very business centered very banking centered uh very much wanting to emulate and copy england you know turn the united states into an industrial financial trading kind of urban in some ways power in much the same way that the powers of uh of europe were like we mentioned before not everyone agreed so before we jump ahead hamilton did get all of his economic plan right so hamilton did get all of his economic plans so all the debts were combined together uh bonds were issued under hamilton uh you know the deal that was made a new nation's capital was created that wasn't really hamilton's uh idea but um you know that's what uh sort of what compromise came out of that a new national bank was created the first national bank as we call it a tax on whiskey was created protective tariffs were created and subsidies were given to american businesses and for the most part we can you know somewhat um you know we could say without controversy that uh you know the underlying issue of the economy got better right the economy got better that for all practical purposes we could say that alexander hamilton's economic plan kind of you know got the united states out of the rut of the um you know of the 1780s and the 1790s however there does come a lot of opposition namely james madison and thomas jefferson of virginia um james madison and jefferson feel like much of hamilton's economic plan is too much centralized power you know they really believe that hamilton is favoring the bankers and elite businessmen at the expense of the ordinary citizen in thomas jefferson's eyes hamilton's trying to create a country that is really antithetical to a democratic republic instead an emphasis should be made on the united states being a rural nation jefferson's vision of the yeoman farmer a yeoman farmer is an independent land owning armor and the idea is is that in order for a democratic republic to survive in which peop you know one person has one vote people need to not rely on corrupt institutions like businesses and banks and it's only when you own your own land that you're truly independent in that sense and so instead the united united states ought to be an agrarian nation it shouldn't copy europe and become an urban manufacturing nation of course in the long run thomas jefferson was wrong about this um but this was what he believed and pretty soon those who opposed the federalists began you know publishing newspapers to counter the federalist position newspapers were really where ideas we'll say between the first party system uh were published you know it was sort of a way of kind of bickering or debating back and forth there were certain newspapers that were federalist uh positioned in certain newspapers that were you know in favor of the democratic republican one critique of washington and hamilton was this right here rules for changing a republic into a monarchy again this idea of monarchy harkening back to this notion of too much centralized power right that hamilton and washington were trying to do that like we mentioned before the democratic republicans come to create their own political party they tend to be more rural they tend to be more of the farmers uh we might call them the non-elites whereas the you know the elites tend to uh favor the federalist party uh and artisans artisans is a good term to be familiar with uh an artisan is simply a person who say a person who makes things so these might be people who live in cities but are skilled workers right so they might be like a blacksmith or a shoemaker a barrel maker you know whatever it may be so artisans you're much more likely to find artisans in cities again they're they're not really amongst the elite classes but they might vote for the democratic republican party so that kind of gives you an idea of some of these early debates you know in the nation between jefferson and his followers and hamilton and his followers one last thing uh that the first congress did kind of important in shaping uh the early united states was how the united states defined citizenship we'd mentioned this previously uh in a past chapter but in 1790 naturalization act this was a law passed which defined uh u.s citizenship and in that language was free white persons and that was essentially defining the united states as a white republic and this would very much be the case really all the way up until some of the abolitionists begin to challenge this notion of what it means to be an american citizen uh we'll talk a little bit more about that however though on the state level recall that when it came to states and voting rights that it was not just white and male but it was also some sort of financial requirement either property ownership or paying taxes something along those lines one sort of interesting note here is new jersey the reason why new jersey is interesting is that because between the year 1776 and 1807 unmarried women voted this was the only state in which that occurred in 1807 that would change back and then you know in the mid 1800s you begin to see the formation of a women's suffrage movement which goes on all the way into the 1920s before federal women's suffrage is achieved