Constructionist View Of The Constitution

In the early years of American history, the nation was divided between two political parties that had opposing views of the other. Led by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, each party obtained ideals specific to themselves. In the advent of Jefferson’s election, the view of the Constitution was stuck in between two political parties with two completely different ideas, but during the years 1801-1817, the nation witnessed a series of events that shifted the traditional ideals of the parties.

The election of 1800 was the battle of two strong political parties: the Federalists and the Republicans. Until then, the White House had been dominated by the Federalist party, and their broad constructionist view of the Constitution. They believed in

a strong national government, which was, in the eyes of their opposition, a call to a monarchy (Document A). Republican, strict constructionist government was “attached to the federal preservation of the government,” and advocated for the power of small, state governments (Document A). They believed in interpreting the Constitution in the exact manner it was created. The two parties were constantly at odds trying to decide how the interpret the Constitution; there was not a set interpretation of each law which left a large hole for each party's’ own interpretation. But as Thomas Jefferson beat out John Adams in the election of 1800, the present broad constructionist society was being replaced with the Republican strict constructionist view.
Prior to his presidency, Jefferson represented the argument that a government should never take any action that was not specifically laid out in the Constitution, but after his election, these views began to shift.

The first of a few broad constructionist actions on Jefferson’s behalf was the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803. Though the Constitution never granted the executive branch the power to expand the nation, Jefferson did not have the time to proceed with the purchase properly, and instead took on a very broad constructionist view that the purchase was merely a treaty with France. He, later on, adopts the same broad constructionist view with the Embargo Act of 1807; the act was seen as an overreach of power by the government as creating an embargo was not a part of federal law. It prohibited trade in all foreign ports as a precautionary measure after unreasonable search and seizure of American vessels began to occur in French and British waters (Document C). But it wasn’t just the Republican party shifting ideas in governance, but also the Federalists began to adopt strict constructionist views as they watched Jefferson’s policies unfold. They began to criticize and fear the expansion of the nation and what could happen economically. Jefferson’s terms in office are where the precedent of changing political values when it is convenient

began.
With the rise of the War of 1812, the political parties began to increasingly alternate between strict and broad constructionism.

When war broke out, James Madison was the current President of the United States, and a strict constructionist for the most part. But in the events of the war, Madison evoked one major broad constructionist view that was completely opposed by the Federalists and encouraged even more tension between the two parties. Madison unsuccessfully drafted a bill that would draft tens of thousands of men to the United States Army during the war. This bill was fiercely opposed by the Federalist members of congress. They argued that nowhere in the Constitution was it written that a national draft shall be created, and that they are not given the right to “take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of the government may engage it,” (Document D). New Hampshire representative Daniel Webster was a Federalist, yet when word of the conscription bill got out, he fought against it to no end. He even says that should Congress “be able to enact a law enforcing a draft of men out of the militia into the regular army, he will at any time be able to prove quite as clearly that Congress has the power to create a dictator,” (Document D). The Federalist party began to adopt the views of a strict constructionist through this opposition to conscription. Conscription was

a very broad interpretation of the Constitution, as it was not directly written anywhere for the president to do, but that was the exact thing the Federalist party argued against. Just a month after the failure of the conscription bill, several Federalist party members gathered at the Hartford Convention in 1815 to discuss the succession of New England from the nation. The convention drafted a list of resolutions in protest of Madison’s war policies; they believed the government was partial to the southern states, and favored the strict constructionist (Document E).