Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the British Challenge to Republican America, 1783–1795 by Michael Schwarz (review)

In Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the British Challenge to Republican America, 1783–1795, Michael Schwarz argues that the relationship between the United States and England following the end of the Revolutionary War had a much greater influence on American politics than is usually acknowledged. Schwarz traces Anglo-American affairs from the adoption of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 to the ratification of the Jay Treaty in 1795 and demonstrates that questions about how the new nation should respond to predatory British trading practices and violations of the peace agreement played an important role in virtually every major political debate. He argues that any hope of an amicable relationship between the young republic and its mother country faded shortly after 1783 when the British cut off American trade with the British West Indies and refused to evacuate troops from the frontier. Because the impotent Confederation Congress lacked the power to retaliate against British transgressions, Americans, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, concluded that the nation needed a stronger central government. In fact, Schwarz contends that frustrations with the British "played a leading role in the reform movement that led to the Constitutional Convention" (p. xiii). Delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not discuss foreign affairs in detail, but Schwarz argues that their silence should not be viewed as evidence that relations with England did not matter. Rather, the cursory coverage of the subject reflects the fact that delegates agreed on the best course of action. According to Schwarz, in 1787 a "nationalist consensus" existed that the United States must have the power to retaliate against Britain's mercantilist trading practices (p. xiii). This consensus, however, dissolved following ratification of the Constitution, when Alexander Hamilton changed his position and began opposing discrimination against the British. Despite Madison's and Jefferson's efforts, Hamilton's position triumphed with the adoption of Jay's Treaty, an accord that granted England "most-favored-nation" trading status (p. 99).

One of the more novel points to take away from Schwarz's analysis is that Jefferson and Madison, who are typically associated with limited government and states' rights, consistently supported the more nationalist approach to dealing with England. This perspective not only complicates our understanding of Jefferson's and Madison's political philosophy but also challenges the standard account of what caused the rupture between Madison and Hamilton following the adoption of the Constitution. Historians have, in large part, accepted Hamilton's version that Madison abandoned his nationalist views after falling under Jefferson's spell. Schwarz, however, demonstrates that it was Hamilton, not Madison, who changed his position.

While Schwarz effectively illustrates the importance of the British-American relationship, his argument is strained at times. He contends that the breakdown of the nationalist consensus precipitated the rise of party politics in the 1790s. Concerns over how the United States should position itself in relation to England certainly factored into the split between Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, but so did disagreements about domestic fiscal policy, the relationship between the states and the federal government, and political style. Similarly, arguing that trade with England was the primary impetus for reforming the Articles of Confederation overlooks the very real domestic problems facing the new nation. In fact, in "Vices of the Political System of the United States" (1787), Madison listed "Failure of the States to comply with the Constitutional requisitions" and "Encroachments by the States on the federal authority" before discussing problems with the British. More generally, Schwarz tends to overstate Jefferson's and Madison's roles in shaping Anglo-American relations in the postwar years and downplays the importance of other men, particularly John Adams, who served as the first ambassador to England. Nevertheless, the book is a useful reminder of how Britain continued to dominate American politics after the Revolution.