Madison, 'Dambargo' and 1808 Election
Part 3 of a series. See complete list of series here.
This spring, a small cadre of Williams College students is participating in an experimental history course on the American Presidents. Instead of producing papers, as is the norm in most history classes, the students will create video campaign ads for the presidential elections from Washington to Lincoln.
There’s a catch, though. The students can only use images, quotes, documents, and music from the era. They cannot use anything that came afterward. An image of the White House burning in 1812 would not work for the election of 1808. They cannot use images of Leutze’s famous Washington Crossing the Delaware, a product more reflective of the 1840s than the 1770s. Their assignment is to capture the spirit of the age – not the spirit of our historical memory.
RealClearHistory has agreed to partner with our class. Every week or so, RealClearHistory will display the best videos the students produce.
We began with John Adams’ 1796 election and we will continue to Abraham Lincoln, stopping at all the major, transformative elections. This week, we examine James Madison’s election in 1808. At this time, the country was experiencing a major economic downturn, and many people blamed Thomas Jefferson for it. Others feared war was on the horizon. Madison, as Jefferson’s closest advisor and Secretary of State, had to fend off these criticisms.
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Considerable success marked Thomas Jefferson’s first term. He acquired Louisiana, reduced government indebtedness, and maintained party uniformity in the legislature.
European affairs marred his second term, however. War between Great Britain and France continued to cause problems for American shippers. Jefferson’s more doctrinaire side drove his policy decisions in this crisis. In an attempt to coerce European countries to play nicely with the Americans, Jefferson enacted an embargo in 1807. The act forbade Americans from exporting their goods to any European country and limited the goods imported from Europe. Jefferson believed that Europeans had become so dependent on America’s surpluses that depriving Europe of these goods would force them to recognize to America’s neutral rights.
The embargo failed miserably. It had little effect on European views of American shippers, and it was too short-lived to have any bearing on European supplies. Ultimately, it hurt American citizens most. The unpopularity of the embargo crossed party and regional lines. Farmers, merchants, traders, and artisans alike felt the pain as the American economy contracted. Divisions in the Republican Party began to appear too, as New Englanders became strident in their opposition to the “dambargo” and Jeffersonian foreign policy more generally.
In 1808, Jefferson decided to follow Washington’s precedent in serving only two terms. Indeed, Jefferson deserves perhaps as much credit as Washington in establishing this tradition. A precedent only becomes established when people choose to follow it. Jefferson was the first one who had the opportunity to legitimate Washington’s actions. Had he chosen to serve a third term, which was a real possibility, Washington’s two-term limit would not have become such a central part of the American presidency.
With Jefferson’s retirement, the Republican Party had to pick his successor. In this period, Congressional caucuses nominated their presidential candidates. This process also conformed to Republican Party ideals that considered the legislature the body that best represented the views of the people. James Madison, the author of the Constitution and Jefferson’s Secretary of State, was Jefferson’s heir-apparent. Madison won easy nomination, although some in New York opposed his nomination because of the embargo and some in Madison’s own commonwealth of Virginia preferred James Monroe.
With the economy in free-fall and the embargo a hugely unpopular act, the Federalist sensed an opportunity to regain control of the presidency. They put forward Charles Pinckney, a prominent politician from South Carolina who had run against Jefferson in 1804, in the hopes that his nomination could give the party some geographic reach outside of its New England base.
Foreign policy once again took center stage in the election of 1808. Pinckney and Federalists railed against the Embargo Act, which they argued had unnecessarily plunged the American economy into a depression. Republicans played up Madison’s service to his nation and attacked Federalists as being elitist and a regional party only.
(Madison and Pinckney campaign ads videos on Page 2)
