The presidential election of 1800 was one of the most
dramatic political contests the United States has ever seen. James
Madison's career was bound up in its outcome, although while the
great controversy ensued, he awaited news updates at his home in
Montpelier, suffering a bout of ill health. The main players in
the contest–Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton–were
all men Madison knew personally and for whom he had strong feelings.
The presidential race began as a contest between the leader
of the Federalists, President John Adams and the great representative
of the Democratic-Republicans, Thomas Jefferson. Aaron Burr ran alongside
Jefferson for the Vice Presidential spot. Jefferson won in the
Electoral College seventy- three votes to Adams's 65. Since the College
had not been designed with institutionalized political parties
in mind, the government was thrown into confusion when Burr himself
received seventy-three electoral votes. Following the Constitution,
the election was sent to the House of Representatives, to see if
Jefferson or Burr would become President. Federalists in the Congress
supported Burr over Jefferson, seeing him as a less harmful Republican.
For six days, neither candidate received majorities in the House.
The election was at a standstill until Alexander Hamilton
came forward and, in a remarkable move considering his ideological opposition
to Jefferson, supported the Virginian over his fellow New Yorker,
condemning Burr as "deficient in honesty," and "the last man in
the United States to be supported by the Federalists." Hamilton's
influence and strong words tipped the scales in favor of Jefferson,
who was finally elected on February seventeen, 1801, with Burr
named as Vice President. When Jefferson finally took office on March
4, he named his old friend James Madison his Secretary of State.
The Madisons arrived in Washington on May 1, and lived
in the White House until the fall, when they were given their own
residence nearby. Madison's State Department consisted of ten men–the
Secretary himself, his chief clerk, seven other clerks, and a messenger.
Its chief preoccupation was foreign affairs, and Madison found
his official business all-consuming. He worked very hard as Secretary
of State, and also worked very closely with the President.
When Madison came into office, foreign affairs were relatively peaceful.
Britain and France were headed toward agreement, with the Treaty
of Amiens being negotiated. Problems arose, however, when
Spain ceded back to Napoleon's France the vast stretch of land
known as Louisiana, the middle portion of the area that is today
the continental United States. This cession gave France control
of much of the Mississippi River as well as the important trading
port at the river's delta in the city of New Orleans. Jefferson
and Madison both watched with apprehension, wondering whether Napoleon
would send a fleet to the Mississippi to begin taking actual control
of the territory. However, as war with Britain began to loom again
for the French, no such action was taken.
Early in 1803, Jefferson sent James Monroe, a future president
of the United States, to France to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. Madison
supervised the effort from the State Department, drafting the articles
of the plan, and authorizing Monroe to offer a price starting from
ten million dollars for the land. By mid-April, the French had
agreed to the offer, and Monroe returned to America having been
the agent for a virtual doubling in size of the territorial reaches
of the United States of America. Madison was greatly satisfied by
the outcome of the negotiations, as it gave his country total control
of the Mississippi and strengthened America's power and independence
from European influences.
While Madison was primarily occupied with foreign affairs
during his years as Secretary of State, one major incident of internal import
at this time involved him as a primary actor: the Marbury v. Madison
decision of the Supreme Court, which set the precedent of judicial
review of the other branches of the government. The State Department
was, early in American history, in charge of delivering commissions
to judges, and when Madison refused to deliver one to a certain
William Marbury, Marbury sued the Secretary of State. The Supreme
Court overruled Madison's decision, thus asserting a kind of judicial
review over the executive branch of the government which would
be a foundation for future decisions of a similar nature.
In President Jefferson's second term, foreign affairs
became preoccupied with America's relations with Great Britain.
In 1805, Europe was once again consumed by war, with Britain leading
the fight against Napoleon's France. British ministers were angry
that the United States refused to take sides in the conflict, and
overlooked repeated acts of hostility by the British Royal Navy
against American merchant ships. American seamen were taken captive
and made to work on British ships, and American merchant ships
were being plundered in American waters as well as on the high
seas. Madison led a federal investigation of this problem, and
by the end of 1807, he and President Jefferson had launched a policy
of "commercial coercion," as Madison called it, whereby America
refused to trade with Britain until they saw fit to curb acts of
aggression against American merchant ships and sailors. On December twenty-two,
the Embargo Act cut off American foreign commerce, and the Nonimportation
Act against Britain kept away all British goods from American consumers.
A great deal of domestic opposition to the Embargo Act
arose New England in 1808, and flavored the ideological battles
of that year's presidential contest. Madison himself had emerged
as the chief candidate for the Republicans, and he ran against
the Federalist Charles Pickney and two other Republicans, George
Clinton and James Monroe. Madison won the election by a wide majority,
with Clinton becoming his Vice President.
