CHAPTER VIII

THE JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICANS, 1801-1812

Books for Consultation

General Readings. - Johnston's American Politics, 55-77; Higginson's Larger History, 344-365; Hart's Formation of the Union, 176-206; Walker's Making of the Nation, 168–229; Schouler's United States, II, ch. vii.

Special Accounts.

Wilson's Presidents; Schouler's Jefferson (M. A.); Morse's J. Q. Adams (S. S.); Gay's Madison (S. S.); Adams's John Randolph (S. S.); Roosevelt's Winning of the West; Larned's History for Ready Reference; Schouler's United States; *Hildreth's United States; Maurice Thompson's Louisiana. biographies of the leading statesmen, Guide, § 25.

Larger

Sources. Cooper and Fenton, American Politics; Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature; Benton's Abridgment; American History Leaflets; Williams's Statesman's Manual; Adams's New England Federalism. Writings of the leading statesmen, Guide, $$ 32, 33.

Maps. Mac Coun's Historical Geography; Hart's Epoch Maps; Winsor's America.

Bibliography. Channing and Hart, Guide to American History, §§ 56 a, 56 b (General Readings), §§ 167-171 (Topics and References). Illustrative Material. McMaster's United States; Maclay's United States Navy; Goodrich's Recollections; Dwight's Travels; J. Q. Adams's Diary; Parton's Burr, Jackson, and Jefferson; Schuyler's American Diplomacy; Sullivan's Familiar Letters; Basil Hall's Voyages and Travels; Drake's Making of the West.

Bynner's Zachary Phips; Hale's Man Without a Country and Philip Nolan's Friends; Paulding's Diverting History of John Bull.

THE JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICANS, 1801-1812

American

213. American Ideals, 1800. Before 1800, the Ameri- Rise of can mind seemed dormant, as if embedded in the traditions inventive and prejudices of the past. The great political overturn genius.

which some writers call the Revolution of 1800, marks the point of time when this mental lethargy gave way to an expansion of intellect and to a fertility of invention that, in the life of one generation (1800-30), transformed the American people into the energetic race it has ever since been. It lost much of its natural conservatism and prepared itself to take advantage of the great opportunities which the application of modern invention to the boundless natural wealth of the United States placed within reach. At the same time, the American people sought to elevate the intellectual and the material position of the average

Numbers, 1800.

citizen. These tasks were arduous, the workers were few, and a less sanguine race might well have been appalled at the magnitude of the burden imposed upon it.

214. Population in 1800. The census of 1800 gives the total population of the United States as about five millions (5,308,483), in comparison with a population of four millions in 1790, and sixteen hundred thousand in 1760. At the beginning of the century the population of the British Islands was some fifteen millions, and that of France, over twenty-seven millions. These five million Americans were scattered over nearly three hundred thousand square miles of territory, that being the "settled area" according to the census. At least two thirds, or three and one half millions, lived on tide water, or within fifty miles of it. The remainder inhabited the slopes of the Alleghanies or the new settlements in the Northwest Territory,

1800]

Population in 1800

319

Kentucky, and Tennessee, which were then frequently

spoken of as "The West."

The growth of this latter region had been phenomenal Settlement for those days, before the time of steam. In 1790 there of the West.

were about one hundred and eleven thousand settlers in the West; their number had increased in ten years to three hundred and seventy thousand, distributed as follows: in Kentucky, two hundred and twenty thousand, including forty thousand slaves; in Tennessee, one hundred and five thousand, of whom fourteen thousand were slaves; and in the Northwest Territory, forty-five thousand, all free.

tion.

The center of population was near Baltimore, but it Distribution had already advanced forty-one miles on its westward of populamarch, in 1790 it had been twenty-three miles east of Baltimore, and now it was eighteen miles west of that city. The inhabitants of the original thirteen states and of Vermont were distributed somewhat as follows: north of Mason and Dixon's line (p. 116) there were nearly two million seven hundred thousand, including one hundred thousand slaves; south of that line there were two million two hundred thousand, of whom nine hundred thousand were slaves. The white population of the South was therefore just one half of that of the North. The state which possessed the largest slave population was Virginia, with three hundred and fifty thousand slaves, in a total population of nearly nine hundred thousand; in South Carolina there were thirty thousand whites and seventy thousand blacks.

It has long been customary to regard the American peo- Racial ple as English, and, as a matter of fact, that race was the elements. most numerous and the most important; and American institutions are derived mainly from English precedent, through colonial adaptation. The first three quarters of the eighteenth century had witnessed a great immigration from Europe to America; but from 1775 to 1800 few immigrants landed on the shores of the United States. Many men who played prominent parts in the formation of the