Page 234 - US History

224 Chapter 8 | Growing Pains: The New Republic, 1790–1820
Figure 8.8 Notice the contrasts between the depictions of federal and native representatives in this painting of the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. What message or messages did the artist intend to convey?
8.3 Partisan Politics
George Washington, who had been reelected in 1792 by an overwhelming majority, refused to run for a third term, thus setting a precedent for future presidents. In the presidential election of 1796, the two parties—Federalist and Democratic-Republican—competed for the first time. Partisan rancor over the French Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion fueled the divide between them, and Federalist John Adams defeated his Democratic-Republican rival Thomas Jefferson by a narrow margin of only three electoral votes. In 1800, another close election swung the other way, and Jefferson began a long period of Democratic-Republican government.
THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN ADAMS
The war between Great Britain and France in the 1790s shaped U.S. foreign policy. As a new and, in comparison to the European powers, extremely weak nation, the American republic had no control over European events, and no real leverage to obtain its goals of trading freely in the Atlantic. To Federalist president John Adams, relations with France posed the biggest problem. After the Terror, the French Directory ruled France from 1795 to 1799. During this time, Napoleon rose to power.
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify key examples of partisan wrangling between the Federalists and Democratic-
Republicans
• Describe how foreign relations affected American politics
• Assess the importance of the Louisiana Purchase
This OpenStax book is available for free at https://cnx.org/content/col11740/1.3