Madison and Jefferson also strongly opposed Hamilton’s proposal to encourage industry through protective tariffs on foreign manufactures. The tariffs greatly injured the majority of citizens and resulted in high raised prices. The Whiskey Rebellion was an example of the fire ignited by Hamilton’s financial program. His program called forth taxes on the domestically produced whiskey which would distribute the expense of financing the national debt evenly across United States. Hamilton’s exercise on taxing whiskey extremely hurt the farmers and was enough to wipe out their profit. Violence erupted on July 1794 when a hundred men attacked the U.S. Marshall and five hundred burned the chief revenue officer’s house, torched buildings and assaulted tax collectors. Congress ultimately refused high protective tariffs yet succeeded in setting higher duties on goods imported into U.S. by British. Hamilton’s proposal for the nation’s credit provided enormous gain for Revolutionary debtors and to many Northeasterners who supported industry and commerce. After the separation of the views on the national bank, Hamilton’s supporters became known as Federalists, who favored national government. However, Hamilton’s proposals also brought resentment to areas that provided few benefits. The southerners, mid-Atlantic region and westerners, all saw the national economic program mostly benefiting the northeasterners and challenged Federalists for control of government by siding with Jefferson’s and Madison’s Republican party.
After the French Revolution in 1789, the French abolishes nobles’ privileges, wrote a constitution and bravely fought invading armies from Austria and Prussia. After becoming a republic in September 1792, they claimed war against all monarchs. There was great enthusiasm for pro-French foreign policies in south and west after they went to war against Spain and Britain in 1793 since it would leave the Spain and Britain military too exhausted to continue to aid the Indians and fight for the western lands. Also slave uprisings in Saint Domingue in the Caribbean generated anti-British feelings in south. However, the south was against French since good relations with Britain were essential for their region’s prosperity. Jefferson and Madison demanded that British imports be reduced since it threatened the economic well-being of Britain. The Federalists however, stated that they wouldn’t stand by while a weak French ally pushed them into depression. Washington on April twenty-second, 1793 proclaimed American neutrality on the war between British and Spain vs. France. The split between the French and British was another big difference between the views of the Federalists vs. Jefferson and Madison that led to two individual political parties.
Following the war between British and Spain vs. France, the French ambassador Genet gathered Americans from the south that helped seized more than eighty British vessels. The British responded by the shock of Americans helping the France by seizing more than two hundred and fifty American vessels and would look aboard American vessels to see if there were any British soldiers that were escaping the tough, poorly paying British system. To drift away from war, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to Great Britain and Thomas Pinckney to Spain to negotiate treaties. The treaty with Great Britain, which became known as Jay’s Treaty, promised British evacuation from western forts on American soil and also allowed access to West Indian markets for small American ships, which greatly benefited the Federalists in the Northeastern states since their economy was primarily based on trading, manufacturing, and shipping. Pinckney’s treaty between Spain, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, allowed for the port of New Orleans to be opened to western farmers and an unrestricted, duty-free access to world markets via the Mississippi River, which greatly contributed to the agriculture of the southerners. Spain also recognized the thirty-first parallel as the United States’ southern boundary and dismantled all fortifications on American soil along with discouraging Indian attacks on the western settlers. The foreign policies during this period left the Americans of the nation more deeply divided in 1796 then they had been in 1789.
The many adverse views between the people of the United States that were caused by the actions of the government, led to the formation of the Federalist and Republican parties in the early 1790s. The highest majority of Federalists were the Northeasterners who supported trading, manufacturing, and shipping and were in favor of the British while the Republicans mostly consisted of southerners, mid-Atlantics, and westerners who were mostly farmers and favored the French. Events in the late 1780’s to the early 1790’s such as Hamilton’s proposal for the national bank, protective tariffs on foreign manufacturing, French Revolution, and foreign treaties were some of the most considerable events that shaped the split of the two political parties. By the late 1790’s, the two political parties were so distinctly separated, that it slowly led to the division of the nation.
