was elected the second US President in 1796 after competing with Jefferson. It took months for the Electoral College results to come in. Adams, an aggressive personality, once was close friends with Jefferson, but criticized his endorsement of the French Revolution (Jefferson later changed his mind) as well as his elaborate lifestyle and debt. Jefferson refused a spot on the new cabinet. Political parties already had formed, with Adams at the head of the Federalists and Jefferson leading the opposing Democratic-Republicans (later the Democrats).241
Jefferson then defeated Adams in the election of 1800. Trust had eroded between the two former friends to the point that they stopped speaking after 1797 and only began corresponding again in 1813.242 They both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826. Adam’s last words were “Jefferson still lives,” but Jefferson actually just had died.
In the early 1800s the expanding white population and westward migration increased the pressure on indigenous Americans, forcing them into a smaller area of land. For most of them even the idea of land ownership was foreign. Andrew Jackson, a notorious Indian fighter, was elected US President in 1828. He ignored the order of the US Supreme Court under John Marshall that the Cherokees could not be removed from their lands in Georgia. Nearly all Native tribes east of the Mississippi were made to leave. The Cherokees were submitted to a forced march, the “Trail of Tears,” from their ancestral home in Georgia to Oklahoma. Out of the 16,000 who were forced to take that march in the middle of winter, about half died.243
The early 1800’s saw the birth of Romanticism in Europe and the US which put aside the rationalism of the Enlightenment and evoked identification with a spiritual side of humanity outside the influence of religion.244 Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason disputed the idea that reason can necessarily lead to truth, showing that both sides of any argument can be made to seem valid. Thus there must be an a priori knowledge, or understanding that precedes logic. Kant claimed that this essential knowledge is the understanding with which every human being is born.245 Kant still is influential, often referred to by scientists and philosophers to this day.
In 1774, Thomas Jefferson had wine grapes planted on his estate in Monticello, Virginia. This didn’t work out well due to poor weather and the distraction of the upcoming Revolutionary war.
He served as America’s Foreign Minister to Paris from 1784-89. Always the entertainer and bon vivant, Jefferson took two tours of European wine country beginning in 1785. He visited all major wine areas in France, plus some in Northern Italy and Germany. He sent back cases of great Bordeaux chateaux, such as Lafite and Yquem, which he later used for entertainment at the White House and his Virginia estate. At that time wines that now sell for hundreds of dollars per bottle sold for about one dollar, a lot of money for a drink at the time.
Jefferson died $10,000 in debt, over one million of today’s wine dollars, which made it impossible for his slaves to be freed at his death as was his wish. Perhaps there’s a cautionary tale here for those who like to collect wine. See Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson
A movement toward independence in Mexico was sparked in 1810 by a priest, Miguel Hidalgo, when he joined wealthy revolutionaries to overthrow their Spanish rulers. The desperately hungry peasants erupted in favor of the revolution, which moved quickly from Guanajuato to Mexico City. The royalists eventually were able to crush the revolutionary forces. Resistance resumed about one year later under another priest, Jose Maria Morelos, who had greater leadership skills. After a two year struggle independence was declared on November 6, 1813, but this rebellion also was crushed.246
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