What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States - Hardcover

Simon, James F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684848708 ISBN 13: 9780684848709

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Synopsis

What Kind of Nation is a riveting account of the bitter and protracted struggle between two titans of the early republic over the power of the presidency and the independence of the judiciary.

The clash between fellow Virginians (and second cousins) Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall remains the most decisive confrontation between a president and a chief justice in American history. Fought in private as well as in full public view, their struggle defined basic constitutional relationships in the early days of the republic and resonates still in debates over the role of the federal government vis-à-vis the states and the authority of the Supreme Court to interpret laws.

Jefferson was a strong advocate of states' rights who distrusted the power of the federal government. He believed that the Constitution defined federal authority narrowly and left most governmental powers to the states. He was suspicious of the Federalist-dominated Supreme Court, whose members he viewed as partisan promoters of their political views at the expense of Jefferson's Republicans. When he became president, Jefferson attempted to correct the Court's bias by appointing Republicans to the Court. He also supported an unsuccessful impeachment of Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase.

Marshall believed in a strong federal government and was convinced that an independent judiciary offered the best protection for the Constitution and the nation. After he was appointed by Federalist President John Adams to be chief justice in 1801 (only a few weeks before Jefferson succeeded Adams), he issued one far-reaching opinion after another. Beginning with the landmark decision Marbury v. Madison in 1803, and through many cases involving states' rights, impeachment, treason, and executive privilege, Marshall established the Court as the final arbiter of the Constitution and the authoritative voice for the constitutional supremacy of the federal government over the states.

As Marshall's views prevailed, Jefferson became increasingly bitter, certain that the Court was suffocating the popular will. But Marshall's carefully reasoned rulings endowed the Court with constitutional authority even as they expanded the power of the federal government, paving the way for later Court decisions sanctioning many pivotal laws of the modern era, such as those of the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In a fascinating description of the treason trial of Jefferson's former vice president, Aaron Burr, James F. Simon shows how Marshall rebuffed President Jefferson's claim of executive privilege. That decision served as precedent for a modern Supreme Court ruling rejecting President Nixon's claim that he did not have to hand over the Watergate tapes.

More than 150 years after Jefferson's and Marshall's deaths, their words and achievements still reverberate in constitutional debate and political battle. What Kind of Nation is a dramatic rendering of a bitter struggle between two shrewd politicians and powerful statesmen that helped create a United States.

About this title

About the Author:

James F. Simon is the Martin Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at New York Law School. He is the author of six previous books on American history, law, and politics, including What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States, and lives with his wife in West Nyack, New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter 6: "The Fangs of Jefferson"

After he was selected to lead the Republicans' presidential ticket in 1800, Jefferson projected the image of a political ascetic, wishing only that his pure republican principles be put before the voters. He told his opponent, John Adams, that the presidential contest had nothing to do with their personalities, and everything to do with their conflicting political principles. "Were we both to die today," Jefferson told Adams, "tomorrow two other names would be put in the place of ours, without any change in the motion of the machinery."

As the candidate of lofty principle, Jefferson often appeared to view the day-to-day business of winning the presidency as beneath him, or at least irrelevant to his role as the Republican standard-bearer. His determination to avoid any opportunity to bring public attention to himself was apparent when he made plans to return to Virginia after the adjournment of the spring congressional term. He wrote Virginia Governor Monroe that he hoped to meet with him in Richmond before returning to Monticello. But he cautioned Monroe that their meeting should take place without the public's knowledge.

"Besides my hatred of ceremony," Jefferson wrote Monroe, "I believe it better to avoid every occasion for the impression of sentiments which might drag me into the newspapers." He acknowledged that the Federalists had put public displays to powerful political use, rallying support by furnishing occasions for "the flame of public opinion to break out from time to time." But Jefferson thought such public events unnecessary, even detrimental, to the achievement of his ambitious goals.

Despite his public image of detachment, Jefferson was anything but aloof in his behind-the-scenes political activities. He and Madison, in particular, discussed both broad issues of political principle and specific strategies for partisan advantage. Jefferson had firm ideas on how to exploit the growing fissure between the moderate and conservative Federalist factions over the second Paris peace mission and the related issue of a standing army. He knew that Adams and Marshall supported the peace mission and wanted to maintain the army only for defensive purposes, whereas the High Federalists, led by Hamilton, opposed any settlement with France and favored an expansive, permanent military presence.

Jefferson believed it was important that the Republicans give the warring Federalist factions no reason to unite on the issues. Republicans should continue to advocate a peace settlement with France without saying or doing anything that could provide the Federalists a pretext for keeping a large standing army in peacetime.

At the same time that he was setting the broad parameters of the Republicans' national strategy, Jefferson maintained a very active interest in his party's organization, down to the local county level -- as his directive to Virginia's Republican chairman to distribute Thomas Cooper's Political Arithmetic demonstrated. He was, moreover, vigilant in urging that the party's message be widely disseminated by the fervent Republican press and the party's most effective pamphleteers. He could justifiably deny that he was "the Chief Juggler" of partisan Republican writers like Duane, Cooper, and Callender -- but he knew and encouraged their work.

Jefferson also demonstrated a sure grasp of the electoral process. He prided himself on his ability to know how each state's electors were likely to vote, and indeed boasted that in the 1796 presidential election his prediction was within one or two votes of the outcome. He was somewhat less confident of his prognostications in 1800, but nonetheless ventured to make an educated estimate of the Republicans' chances. He conceded the New England states to Adams and counted most of the Southern and Western states in the Republican column, though he was concerned about Federalist inroads in the Carolinas. The election, Jefferson thought, would be decided in the Middle Atlantic states.

Jefferson had received reliable reports that the two houses of the Pennsylvania legislature -- one controlled by Federalists, the other by Republicans -- were deadlocked and would not agree on an electoral law, thereby neutralizing the state in the presidential election. Despite assurances from Republican supporters in New Jersey that his party would prevail, Jefferson was not prepared to make such a prediction. His attention, therefore, turned to New York, and more particularly to New York City, where the April election of the city's representatives to the state assembly would determine which party would control the state's electors -- and probably the national election.

The fate of the presidential election was, in effect, placed in the hands of the rival political leaders in New York, the Federalists' Alexander Hamilton and the Republicans' Aaron Burr. During the campaign, Burr not only demonstrated superior organizational skills but also proved to be a better strategist than Hamilton. Hamilton's task appeared somewhat easier than Burr's, since the Federalist incumbents already held a majority in the state assembly. But the Federalists made a fatal miscalculation by naming a lackluster list of candidates from New York City for the new assembly. Burr had shrewdly withheld his own slate of Republican candidates until the Federalists had named theirs. Once the Federalist candidates had been announced, Burr stunned Hamilton and other members of his party by announcing a dazzling Republican ticket that included some of the most illustrious names from the American Revolution -- former Governor George Clinton, Judge Brockholst Livingston, and General Horatio Gates.

Hamilton was furious that he had been outmaneuvered by Burr, whose Republican slate in New York City won, and took the desperate step of pleading with Governor John Jay to call a special session of the state legislature to nullify what appeared to be a certain Republican electoral victory in the state. Since the old Federalist-dominated assembly was still in office, Hamilton reasoned, the governor could ask the lame-duck legislature to adopt an electoral plan that would take the presidential vote away from the new Republican majority in the assembly and give it to the state's districts, where the Federalists were likely to be victorious.

To Hamilton, such an extraordinary measure was necessary to prevent a Jefferson victory, a catastrophe he compared to "the overthrow of the government...a revolution after the manner of Bonaparte." And if that specter of national disaster did not move Jay, Hamilton provided another: the governor must act "to prevent an Atheist in religion, and a Fanatic in politics, from getting possession of the helm of state." Despite Hamilton's dire warnings, Governor Jay refused the invitation to participate in the electoral scheme.

The New York City election, which appeared to clinch the presidency for Jefferson, dramatically lifted Burr's political fortunes within the Republican party. Although Burr had been on the Republican presidential ticket with Jefferson in 1796, he had never been fully accepted by Virginia's Republican establishment. Jefferson himself had met with Burr only once before the election. The 1796 election had only deepened Burr's distrust of the dominant Southern wing of the party when all but one of Virginia's electors withheld their votes from him.

With his brilliant success in New York City's election, Burr's name was again prominently mentioned for vice president on the Republican national ticket. The Republican House leader, Albert Gallatin, made inquiries about the availability of either George Clinton or Burr to run with Jefferson. Clinton declined for reasons of age and poor health.

Burr could well have afforded to turn down an offer to run with Jefferson, for he was almost assured election as New York's next governor if he chose to make the race. He let it be known, nonetheless, that he was interested in the vice-presidency, if he could be assured that there would be no recurrence of the 1796 electoral slight by Southern Republicans. He would agree to be on the ticket with Jefferson only if he received the total allegiance of his party, including the Virginia electors. After those assurances were made, Burr was officially nominated to the ticket with Jefferson at the Republican congressional caucus in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, the Federalists were in disarray. Their hopes of retaining the presidency had plummeted with news of the Republican victory in New York City's election. Inside the party, the feud between Adams and Hamilton intensified. For more than a year, Hamilton and his followers had condemned Adams for sending a second peace delegation to Paris. With Adams's determination to support the peace initiative and his resolve to resist the High Federalists' demand for a large standing army, Hamilton had thoroughly soured on the prospect of a second Adams presidential term.

As John Marshall had reported to his brother James during the congressional session, Hamilton intended to undermine Adams's candidacy by urging Federalists to divide their support between the president and South Carolina's Charles Cotesworth Pinckney equally. Hamilton expected Federalist electors in all states but South Carolina to give Pinckney the same number of votes as Adams. In Pinckney's home state, Hamilton calculated, Pinckney would split the vote with Jefferson, not Adams. The result, Hamilton hoped, would be the presidential election of Pinckney, over both Adams and Jefferson.

It was a devious plan but one, Hamilton insisted, that was necessary to save the country from both Adams and "the fangs of Jefferson."

On May 15, Jefferson left Philadelphia for the last time. The three years he served there as vice president had been pocked with relentless political rancor, so he had few regrets about his departure. Jefferson returned to Virginia by way of the Eastern Shore, stopping briefly for a private visit with Governor Monroe in Richmond before reuniting with his daughter Maria at her home in Mont Blanco. At Monti...

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0684848708
• ISBN 13: 9780684848709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352