Jefferson wins in 1796

What if Jefferson won the 1796 presidential election? How might this happen? What might the results be? How would US/French relations be effected?
 
Well, the things that come to mind immediately:

No Alien or Sedition Acts.
No penetration of the judiciary by the Federalists.
No Judicial Act of 1801 accomplishing the aforementioned Federalist goal.

Really starting the Jeffersonian Revolution a few years early drastically butterflies American history. On one hand there's only been one Federalist administration, and that was Washington, so the Federalists aren't so seriously discredited as a party as they were IOTL. Butterflies might preserve Hamilton against Burr, too. On the other hand, it's Thomas Jefferson and he's president. If the Democratic-Republicans don't gain dominance in Congress in the mid-term elections I'd be mildly surprised. The Federalists might just become irrelevant as the electorate expands away from the monied coastal urban enclaves that made up their base.
 

The Sandman

Banned
On the other hand, Jefferson is far more likely to do something intensely stupid as a result of his uncritical support of the French Revolution.
 
On the other hand, Jefferson is far more likely to do something intensely stupid as a result of his uncritical support of the French Revolution.

He managed well enough IOTL, I would actually ask you to give some sort of substantiation here. He believed as strongly in American neutrality as anyone else, even going so far as to embargo BOTH Britain and France during the 1803 round of wars.
 
He managed well enough IOTL, I would actually ask you to give some sort of substantiation here. He believed as strongly in American neutrality as anyone else, even going so far as to embargo BOTH Britain and France during the 1803 round of wars.

The difference is the date and the affairs in France. in 1796 Napoleon is not an emperor and Robespierre still runs the show. Jefferson had some very flattering things to say about the directory and their love of the guillotine. I can see Jefferson really messing up this situation at least from a foreign policy aspect. He is not a military man (neither was Adams) but Adams had Jefferson trumped in the sense that he understood Hard power and Soft power and America's lack thereof. America is just ill equiped to fight any kind of war with any European power and Jefferson may not be the person to keep us out of a war with France. We seem to forget that Adams kept us out of a war with France much to his political detriment. Jefferson's main constiuency would be issuing a call to arms at attacks upon American honor. There would be a call to arms coming from the South that may be hard to ignore. How does Jefferson say to the North and South that our Republican brothers in France are just misguided and won't steal our ships much longer. In my mind Jefferson was a much better visionary and theorist than a practioner of Realpolitik that the France situation at this time required.

Domestically, the Federalists will be impossible to predict, they were never really a minority party in this country, in OTL they just sort of faded away. If Jefferson wins than what is the role of Aaron Burr? in OTL he played a huge part in getting Jefferson some Northern Electoral votes. if it is assumed that Adams and Jefferson switch places than I don't know what happens, I seem to remember Adams saying he wouldn't take the position if he got it again but that could be BS, in that case the third highest EC vote getter is the infamous Burr:eek:. Who gets VP if they 2nd place man says no? What would Hamilton's reaction to Burr's ascendancy be? No question Hamilton runs for Gov. of NY or Senator at the first possible opportunity. I think this butterflys the Hamilton Burr Duel and we see these two giants continue the founding debate well into the next century. The interesting question is if Burr is the VP and Hamilton is his opposition do we butterfly the Virginia Dynasty? this makes Burr the obvious successor to Jefferson and Madison and Monroe mere side figures.

Depending upon Jefferson's skill at staying out of European troubles which I give a 50-50 shot. we could see him go one term as well. I don't see a 1796 Jefferson POTUS beign all that effective and perhaps disastrous
 
No Alien or Sedition Acts.
I don't know about this. The First Party System was a very paranoid time for partisan politics. One of 'em was bound to make human rights violations sooner or later; just depended on who was in power during the late 1790's crisis.

No penetration of the judiciary by the Federalists.
Quite. Instead, we'll have the penetration of the judiciary by the Democratic-Republicans. ;)

The difference is the date and the affairs in France. in 1796 Napoleon is not an emperor and Robespierre still runs the show. Jefferson had some very flattering things to say about the directory and their love of the guillotine.
Not quite. Robespierre was from the Convention and Committee of Public Safety period. He died in 1795. The Directory was what came after, and was relatively conservative.
 
I don't know about this. The First Party System was a very paranoid time for partisan politics. One of 'em was bound to make human rights violations sooner or later; just depended on who was in power during the late 1790's crisis.

Except, the Federalists were led by a man who wanted the United States to be a monarchy, while the Republicans evolved out of the anti-federalist movement, which had the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution.

Although Jefferson did violate the Constitution he loved so much, when he bought the Louisiana territory without Congressional approval, I don't think he would stoop so low as to limit freedom of speech.
 
I don't know about this. The First Party System was a very paranoid time for partisan politics. One of 'em was bound to make human rights violations sooner or later; just depended on who was in power during the late 1790's crisis.

On a state level somewhere, maybe, but Jefferson was all about being a strict constructionist and the most embarrassing part (for him) of his OTL presidency was the situation surrounding the Louisiana Purchase (the Federal government technically didn't have the power to purchase land from a foreign country). He isn't about to pass proto-fascist laws against free speech, one of the rights he (and other D-Rs) fought to have explicitly protected in the Bill of Rights.

Not to mention he doesn't really have to. As I said before, the Federalists were a minority party of wealthy urban merchants, whereas the Democratic-Republicans were populists, it should be easy to see who gains from censoring public writings and who doesn't.
 
John Marshall won't become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Which means no Marbury v. Madison and Judical Review. Supreme Court has much less power then it does now. Justices will look at there postition on the court as unimportant and more will leave if they have the ability to get better positions in other places.
 
On a state level somewhere, maybe, but Jefferson was all about being a strict constructionist and the most embarrassing part (for him) of his OTL presidency was the situation surrounding the Louisiana Purchase (the Federal government technically didn't have the power to purchase land from a foreign country). He isn't about to pass proto-fascist laws against free speech, one of the rights he (and other D-Rs) fought to have explicitly protected in the Bill of Rights.

Not to mention he doesn't really have to. As I said before, the Federalists were a minority party of wealthy urban merchants, whereas the Democratic-Republicans were populists, it should be easy to see who gains from censoring public writings and who doesn't.

The Federal government did have the power to purchase land from a foreign country. The debate was if the Executive branch had the power to purchase land that they weren't given permission to by Congress.
 
Although Jefferson did violate the Constitution he loved so much, when he bought the Louisiana territory without Congressional approval, I don't think he would stoop so low as to limit freedom of speech.

If I may quote The Godfather:
"Oh? Now who's being naive, Kay?"
 
Not quite. Robespierre was from the Convention and Committee of Public Safety period. He died in 1795. The Directory was what came after, and was relatively conservative.

Either way, Jefferson still has tell the French no you can't do this in a way that doesn't lead us into a war we can't win. Jefferson is not the man to do this, Adams was. We fight a war while we are in our infancy as a nation and opportunists like Burr or Hamilton will take advantage.

Jefferson considered his biggest presidential failure to be slavery. He couldn't figure out a way to get rid of it, he knew it was wrong but couldn't get rid of it.

To characterize the D-R's as populists is like calling Federalists monarchists. just not true. Both parties had different elite constituencies that they catered to. Another key difference, is take a look at how voting rights are given out in Federalist vs. D-R states of this time, Federalists is income and D-Rs is property size. Both had ways of disenfranchising the normal people (these are mostly gone by 1800). The difference is, in my opinion, is that Federalists were trying to found a system based on wealth and the D-R's on size of property. look at the two parties' elite constituencies, D-R's were plantation owners and Federalists were Urban Merchants. The difference was D-R's ability to take advantage of peoples ignorance of finance and banking to scare the living crap out of people (most plantation owners were in debt so deep they couldn't get out of it or even begin to understand how to get out of it, so they just encouraged the idea, that is if they wanted to. I remember a story about Jefferson when he was Minister to France in the 1780s were he just kept on buying French furniture and clothes like he was 16 year old with daddy's credit card) and while on the other hand the Federalists couldn't do the same because everyone understood land and what do with it. But what average joe in 1796 could have explained the what an interest rate was. Take a look at our American Dream now, its a manifestation of Jefferson's Yeoman tenant fantasy: we all live in big houses out in suburbia because we can. As you can tell I get a little steamed when people call Federalists Monarchists, that isn't nearly nuanced enough. Federalists just believed people should earn things and D-Rs just wanted to give away the store. :D

Which brings me around to Alien and Sedition, a very hard thing to explain and can only be explained by the idea that the Federalists saw themselves as really the guardians of the system of Govt. that was being built at the time. I don't excuse it and happen to find the idea of Alien and Sedition to be revolting in the mildest and absolutly sickening at the extreme. Doesn't seem to me to be all that different from the Patriot Act and the wiretapping that is going on now, except instead of 9/11 (not to diminish 9/11 but the parallels are eerily similar) they had Jacobin clubs, riots, and some the most blatant partisanship that would make Karl Rove say,"damn, I couldn't even get away with that" some of it federally funded too. Pretty disturbing for folks who admired the civility of their discourse huh?
 
John Marshall won't become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Which means no Marbury v. Madison and Judical Review. Supreme Court has much less power then it does now. Justices will look at there postition on the court as unimportant and more will leave if they have the ability to get better positions in other places.

Judicial review would have come around one way or another. It was already an understood power of the court that had just never been formalized yet.
 
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