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The Republican ob jections might have been made in court, on the first trial. But the Republican leaders had strong doubts of the impartiality of the Federal judges, who were Federalists. They resolved to en trench the party in the State legislatures. The Virginia legislature in 1798 passed a series of resolutions prepared by Madison, and the Kentucky legislature in the same year passed a series pre pared by Jefferson. Neglected or rejected by the other States, they were passed again by their legislatures in 1799. The leading idea expressed in both was that the Constitution was a "compact" between the States, and that the powers (the States) which had made the compact had reserved the power to restrain the creature of the compact, the Federal Government, whenever it undertook to assume powers not granted to it. Madison's idea seems to have been that the restraint was to be imposed by a second convention of the States. Jefferson's idea is more doubtful; if it meant that the restraint should be imposed by any state which should feel aggrieved, his scheme wa:; merely Calhoun's idea of nullification; but there are some indications that he agreed with Madison.
The first Congress of Adams's term of office ended in 1799. Its successor, elected in the heat of the French war excitement, kept the Federalist policy up to its first pitch. Out of Congress the execution of the objectionable laws had taken the shape of political persecution. Men were arrested, tried and punished for writings which the people had been accustomed to consider within legitimate political methods. The Republican leaders made every trial as public as possible, and gained votes constantly, so that the Federalists began to be shy of the very powers which they had sought. Every new election was a storm signal for the Federalist Party; and the danger was increased by schism in their own ranks.
Hamilton was now a private citizen of New York; but he had the confidence of his party more largely than its nominal head, the President, and he maintained close and confidential relations with the cabinet which Adams had taken unchanged from Washington. The Hamilton faction saw no way of preserving and consolidating the newly acquired powers of the Federal Government but by keeping up and increasing the war feeling against France; Adams had the instinctive leaning of an American President towards peace. Amid cries of wrath and despair from his party he accepted the first overtures of the new Napoleonic Government, sent envoys to negotiate a peace, and ordered them to depart for France when they delayed. Then, discovering flat treachery in his cabinet, he dismissed it and blurted out a public expression of his feeling that Hamilton and his adherents were "a British faction." Hamilton retorted with a circular letter to his party friends, denouncing the President ; the Republicans intercepted it and gave it a wider circulation than its author had intended. The result depended on the electoral vote of New York; and Aaron Burr, who had introduced the drill and machinery of a modern American political party there, had made the State Republican and secured a majority for the Repub lican candidates. These (Jefferson and Burr) received the same
number of electoral votes (73) and the House of Representatives (controlled by the Federalists) was thus called upon to decide which should be President. There was an effort by the Federalists to disappoint the Republicans by making Burr President; but Jefferson obtained that office, Burr becoming vice president for four years. This disputed election, however, led to the adoption in 1804 of the 12th amendment to the Constitution, which pre scribed that each elector should vote separately for president and vice president, and thus prevent another tie vote of this kind.
The "Revolution of 1800" decided the future development of the United States. The new dominant party entered upon its career weighted with the theory of State sovereignty ; and a civil war was necessary before this dogma, put to use again in the service of slavery, could be banished. But the democratic devel opment never was checked. As the Republicans obtained control of the States they altered the State constitutions so as to cut out all the arrangements that favoured property or class interests, and reduced political power to the dead level of manhood suffrage. In most of the States outside of New England this process was completed before 1815; but New England tenacity was proof against the advancing revolution until about 1820. For 20 years after its downfall'of 180o the Federalist party maintained its hopeless struggle, and then it faded away into nothing, leaving as its permanent memorial the excellent organization of the Federal Government, which its successful rival hardly changed. Its two successors—the Whig and the second Republican party—have also been broad-constructionist parties, but they have admitted democ racy as well.
The disputed election of 180o was de cided in the new capital city of Washington, to which the Gov ernment had just been removed, after having been for ten years at Philadelphia Its streets and parks existed only on paper. The Capitol had been begun ; the Executive Mansion was unfinished, and its audience room was used by Mrs. Adams as a drying room for clothes; the congressmen could hardly find lodgings. The inconveniences were only an exaggeration of the condition of other American cities. Their sanitary conditions were bad, and yellow fever and cholera from time to time reduced several of them al most to depopulation. More than once during this decade the fever visited Philadelphia and New York, drove out most of the people, and left grass growing in the streets. The communication between the cities was still wretched. The traveller was subject to every danger that bad roads, bad carriages, bad horses, bad inns and bad police protection could combine to inflict upon him.