ABSTRACT
The period from 1789, when the new national government under the Constitution was organized, to 1801, when America's first political party, the Federalists, was ushered out of power and Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans took over has often been called the Federalist Period or Era. This chapter realizes if the sweeping Jeffersonian election of 1800—which was in large part a reaction to and repudiation of the Federalists, and had a democratizing tone to it—and its aftermath signaled at all a departure from that vision. It lists the basic Jeffersonian principles and discusses how the Thomas Jefferson and James Madison administrations adopted a number of the policies of the Federalists before them. As noted, the Jeffersonians had a dislike of large military establishments, even if in practice the War of 1812 seemed to change their sentiments. American religion in the Jeffersonian Era was in agreement about morality, even among the deists.
