Tag Archives: Jefferson

How Opposition to the Three-Fifths Clause Merged with a Moral Campaign

Opposition to slavery, as a tenet of Congregationalism, began with Samuel Hopkins.   Hopkins (1721-1803) graduated from Yale College in 1741.  As a senior, he was attracted to the revivalism of the Great Awakening, a movement led by the Congregational clergyman Jonathan … Continue reading

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How the French Influenced Sectional Discord

First with the Constitution, and next with the Jay Treaty, the more liberal New England Federalists migrated to Jefferson and Madison’s Democratic-Republican Party.   That caused the more conservative faction, the Essex Junto, to gain prominence.   Fisher Ames, one of the post-revolutionary leaders … Continue reading

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How Jefferson’s Newspaper Politics Challenged New England’s Federalists

By 1800, the state of Massachusetts was split politically between Jefferson’s party and the Federalists.  Roughly 20,000 voters were Democratic-Republican.  About 25,000 voters were Federalists.[1] Following the election of 1800, Democratic-Republicans set their sights on augmenting their gains in New … Continue reading

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How the Jay Treaty Affected New England

A Recap of the Jay Treaty Issues: The British impressed American sailors—an issue especially important to New Englanders More than two hundred merchant ships were confiscated by the British—another issue important to New Englanders Merchants wanted trade reopened in the … Continue reading

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How the Federalist Party in New England Evolved (continued)

Differences of opinion among the Massachusetts Federalists became apparent in their responses to ratification of the Constitution.  James Madison drew up the “Virginia Plan” for the Constitution on which debate by the delegates began.  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were … Continue reading

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Who was Theophilus Parsons?

Theophilus Parsons (1750-1813) like Timothy Pickering and George Cabot, was born in Essex County, Massachusetts.  Parsons, the son of a Congregational minister,  graduated from Harvard College in 1769.  While he studied law he taught school in what is now Maine.  Like … Continue reading

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Who was Fisher Ames?

Fisher Ames (1758-1808) was born outside of Essex County, near the southwest corner of Boston, in Dedham.  Intellectually precocious, Ames entered Harvard when he was twelve.  At an early age, he excelled at oratory and elocution.  He participated in a … Continue reading

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Who was George Cabot?

George Cabot (1752-1823), like Timothy Pickering, was born in Salem, in Essex County Massachusetts.  He too, attended Harvard.  He was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1775.  He was a delegate to his state’s constitutional convention in 1777 … Continue reading

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How Mathew Carey Singled Out John Lowell and the Clergy

Carey compared the state of Massachusetts with Georgia.  He noted “The state [Massachusetts] enslaved by faction, whines, and scolds, and murmurs, and winces, and curses the administration for not defending it, although every possible  exertion was made to enfeeble the administration … Continue reading

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Why Specie Flowed to New England

Boston’s Federalists crippled Madison’s war efforts economically.  First, using their newspapers and Congregationalist pulpits, they urged New Englanders not to subscribe to government loans—the war bonds of the era.[1] Carey noted that most Federalists from the mid-Atlantic did not take … Continue reading

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