Downfall of the Federalists

The Downfall of the Federalists"

The Federalist were a powerful and incredibly influential party in the nations beginning history. Their party was packed with influential, men such as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and Charles Pinckney. Although they are an example of great parties in our nation, they are also a tragic example of the quickness of political downfall. The Federalists’ downfall was caused mainly by the personalities of their party members, and therefore the collective personality of the party, namely their stubbornness, arrogance, inability to adapt their beliefs to public opinion, their tendency to argue every detail of decisions, and their various loses in power and loses of members.

Even president Jefferson at one point took advantage of the widening gap between Federalist groups and the obvious disagreements that led to less and less decision making.1 The Federalists lost power because of their infighting. Such infighting allowed their enemies to exploit weaknesses in the party and gain power over the Federalists, slowly inching them to their demise. Madison’s retirement proved to be another crushing blow to the Federalists, as it allowed their enemies, the Anti-Federalists, to have a leader that would have no antithesis with the Federalists.2 Madison supported Federalist ideas because while he was not a pledged Federalist, he had been in his earlier days. His position of power would have allowed for the Federalists to pass a few laws, but that opportunity was short lived and was not taken advantage of, therefore delivering a blow to their power. Loss of power once again proved detrimental to the Federalist when they squandered a majority in Congress. If not for the headstrongness of the members, the Federalists would have remained in power when they had a majority and could have done much to keep themselves in power or to benefit themselves.

The Federalists also had very dry predictable stands on issues, no matter what the time, shown in the statement that “it was known that no matter what the conflict, the Republicans would support the French, and the Federalists the English.” 3 The inability to change would become a recurring theme when looking at the Federalists’ downfall. Their stark support for the English, and stark beliefs that were not at all able to be changed would disallow the party to adapt to the times, not that members of the party would necessarily want to do so. However, the same beliefs and tenets do not stand up for every situation, and no matter what at some point revision is necessary in the political system. Because the Federalists did not understand this, they dug their grave even further. At one point during the Federalist reign, a special committee announced its readiness to discuss the repealing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. In the opinion of the committee, the acts were completely constitutional, the acts were expedient, and the acts were most of all necessary. The Federalists had already resolved to repeal the acts, and whenever someone attempted to say otherwise they were met with coughing, laughing and generally loud behavior.4 The Alien and Sedition Acts would go down as probably the most important event in the downfall of the Federalists. The belligerence showed by the Federalists showed the true colors of the members, leading to another public opinion downfall.

Madison, for the opposition, predicted that the Federalist policy would be to publish broadcast the great prosperity of the country, to confound opposition to the treaty with personal hostility to President, and to indulge in gloomy predictions of the war and confusion which much necessarily follow the rejection of their favorite measure, and Madison proved correct.5 Federalist tactics were akin to what propaganda is today, attack the opposition, alert the populous to false prosperity fabricated for the sole purpose of bending public opinion and exploit the war to get votes. This plan backfired terribly and took a toll on public opinion. The Federalists were notoriously sneaky, and printed thoughts of hidden meaning, half-concealed plots and disguised treason in the Mazzei letter.6 The Mazzei letter was a letter drafted by Thomas Jefferson sent to one Phillip Mazzei that called the Washington administration various politically derogatory adjectives, like Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical. Time and time again throughout history, dissenters have been punished and the Mazzei letter’s leaking is no exception. Because Jefferson was representative of the Federalist party, the views he expressed that directly opposed the average support of Washington and his administration led a ripple effect that had repercussions on the part as a whole. The Election of 1800 was another instance where the Federalist attempted to use unconventional and dishonest techniques to further their agenda. In today’s world, electors in the Electoral College often represent the state’s will. However, in 1800 the Federalist Party decided to send a vote from all of their electors to Adams. Then the last man would send both his votes to Burr, leaving Adams as president and Burr as vice president. The plan quickly went awry when other parties and southern electors sent their votes to other candidates, something the Federalists had pushed to the side as a non-issue. At the end of 1800, Adams found himself outside of the office of president. The scheme to divert votes from Burr to Adams, once it had light shed on it, had a crippling effect on the Federalist party’s reputation and honor and shows two recurring themes of their downfall. One is missed opportunities. Without the convolution of the plan, the party would have clinched the executive office and been able to continue the nation in the direction they had planned to from the start. The other is public opinion downfall. Once a member of the opposite party took power, public opinion took a radical change in many Americans, and even before this the sneaky attempt at power in the Election of 1800 left many citizens of the new nation uncomfortable.

Adams was blinded by his own personal qualities, displayed his blind temper towards trifles. This at times proved a disservice to his party members as various bills were unable to be passed by the aforementioned detriments to Adams’ character.7 While this was not a quality of the entire Federalist party, Adams’ childish behavior was reflective of what the Federalist party’s members sometimes acted like. Missed opportunities were a major player in the downfall of the Federalists, and the missed opportunities caused by Adams’ qualities are no exception. While when General Gerry made enemies in the Senate the Republicans simply did not support his endeavors, the Federalists completely overreacted to his actions and attempted to try the general on account of treason.8 While this particular incident did not especially lead to the downfall of the Federalists, the overreactions of the party did lead to falling outs of public opinions, something that was in no shortage for them. This illustrates the frequency of overreactions about supposed attacks on the party .Public opinion took a huge toll on the Federalists, as evidenced by the fact that “the American nation had outgrown the Federalist party.” Deciding factors in the turn of opinion near the demise of the party include “the superior intellect, greater courage and reputation, and more highly developed political skill of men who were naturally conservative in their views.” If public opinion matters were still not convincingly problematic, this evidence shows that public opinion did indeed play probably the biggest role in the downfall of the Federalists. The more likeable qualities of the Republicans made Americans give Republicans their support and forget about the Federalists.

As illustrated previously, public opinion played the sole role in the downfall of the Federalists because of its correlation to election and therefore position of power. The only variation in the players in the downfall of the party came with the stems of public opinion downfalls, such as secrecy and dirty politics, headstrongness, arrogance and other negative character traits of the party members, and the unadapting hive mind mentality that the Federalists adopted for themselves. Although they were one of the biggest political movements in the nations’ history, the Federalists succumbed to shortcomings and outside factors.

End Notes:
1. John Clark Ridpath, The New Complete History of the United States of America (Cincinnati, OH: The Jones Publishing Company, 1920) p. 401.
2. Ibid, 307.
3. Ibid, 392.
4. Alexander Hamilton, "Issue #1," The Federalist.
5. Ridpath, The New Complete History of the United States of America, 209.
6. Ibid. 481.
7. Ibid, 453.
8. Ibid, 383.

Bibliography:
Hamilton, Alexander. “The Federalist Issue #1,” The Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa01.html

Ridpath, John Clark. The New Complete History of the United States of America. Cincinnati: The Jones Brothers Publishing Company, 1920.

“The Federalist Papers,” Library of Congress. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html.

Bibliography: Hamilton, Alexander. “The Federalist Issue #1,” The Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa01.html Ridpath, John Clark. The New Complete History of the United States of America. Cincinnati: The Jones Brothers Publishing Company, 1920. “The Federalist Papers,” Library of Congress. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html.