Board 8 > B8 ELECTS - The Election of 1808 - Madison (R) vs Pinckney (F) vs Clinton (R)

(+) Yeah! (+)

1788/1792 - The Federalists took the House and Senate with 100% of the vote
1796 - John Adams (F) d. Thomas Jefferson (DR) with 73.6% of the vote
1800 - John Adams (F) d. Thomas Jefferson (DR) with 80% of the vote
1804 - Thomas Jefferson (DR) d. Charles Pinckney (F) with 66% of the vote

Hey all welcome to Board 8 Elects! a topic series in which we discuss each historical election from the perspective of the year it took place in!

The idea here is to re-litigate each election from the perspective of when it took place. I will be providing each candidates platform (where possible) so the merits of the election can be discussed and voted on. If possible lets speak of the issues in the present tense.

I am going to ask you vote via BOLDING the name of the candidate rather than providing a poll because I feel the poll encourages gut voting and I would really like to see some discussion.

Topics will be live for 3 or 4 days - basically until I make the next topic voting will be active in this one.
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Welcome to the Election of 1808. Not much has happened since we last met - the United States has won the Barbary War! There's been a huge Trade Embargo which I am sure will have no economic effect in a country that just repealed it's direct taxes! Congress has enacted a bill that will enforce the constitutionally prescribed ban on importing slaves! Louisiana!

Meet the Candidates

The Republicans have nominated one of the chief architects of the Constitution, former Congressman and current Secreatary of State, 57 year-old James Madison to be their candidate. His running mate is the sitting Vice President, George Clinton. Clinton, however, strenuously objects to a Madison presidency on the grounds that he is a 'secret federalist' that favors a strong central government (given his role as an author of the Federalist Papers) and war-monger and is openly lobbying for electors to vote Clinton for president instead of vice president.

The Federalist Party has nominated the 62 year-old former French Ambassador and former Vice Presidential and Presidential candidate from South Carolina Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for the presidency on the basis of national fame for his tough stances regarding France. His running mate is former New York Senator and former Ambassador to Great Britain under Adams, Rufus King. The hope is Pinckney will win Southern votes and that King will help contest the middle colonies- yes again.

The Issues

• First and foremost on everyone's mind is the Embargo Act. The bill has banned ALL foreign trade (imports AND exports) with the exception of some extremely limited trade with Britain that is protected by treaty - though with the expiration of the Jay Treaty in 1806, it is much less than it would have been even two years ago. This was a response to a steep escalation in the conflict between Great Britain and France over the last several years. US Merchant ships - with no navy beyond a coast guard to protect them - were being seized by both the British and the French who felt entitled to American aid in the war effort due to overtures made by past administrations. Jefferson did not want to be dragged into the Napoleonic Wars more than he already had been and at Madison's urging simply banned all foreign trade to prevent ships from being seized and American sailors from being impressed as soldiers in these European wars.
• At home, the ban has been hard on the economy and on the American people - Ships sit idle in docks, and farmers are stuck with rotting cash crops that they had hoped to sell before the unexpected cessation of trade. The Federalists have managed to get up off the mat and vociferously oppose this effort calling it a total disaster. The entirety of their campaign is staked on their promise to repeal the Embargo Act and better navigate foreign policy after 8 disastrous years of Democratic rule on that front - Madison is tied to all of this as Secretary of State and suddenly Pinckney's hardliner attitude from the XYZ Affair is appealing to the populace again.
• There is quietly trouble brewing regarding the future of the Louisiana territory but its not quite on anyones radar yet - still the Federalists would likely take a stronger hand in organizing this territory while the Republicans are content to allow it to go on laissez-faire.
• For what it's worth, Clinton doesn't own slaves while Madison and Pinckney both do.

The Campaign

• This was a very one issue election which naturally led the campaign to have a lot of strange twists and turns. Madison is widely seen as a controversial candidate for the office. Despite being one of the founders of the Democratic-Republican party, the acts of the Jefferson government that saw an increase of strength for the federal government all came via foreign policy and at the advice of Madison. Further, Madison is largely credited as being the voice who saved the National Bank - a hated institution whose creation sparked the creation of the Democratic-Republican Party just to oppose it. His old working relationship with Alexander Hamilton is now the talk of skeptical critics of his - though this may have the effect of making him more appealing to Federalists who are skeptical of Pinckney.
• Madison made an issue of his political strategy being one that got a congress that is largely in favor of slavery to enact funding to enforce a ban on the international slave trade and forced South Carolina's hand in ending the trade in order to make himself more appealing to middle staters, while still leaning on his Virginian pedigree to avoid losing the South. Pinckney wisely has avoided hopping into this debate, opting to instead keep the focus on Embargo and France.
• Clinton leads the faction that is skeptical of Madison, promising to end the National Bank and bring the federal government back under control. He is representative largely of the faction of Democratic Republicans who were once Anti-Federalists and such strongly favors a weakening of the federal government in favor of states' rights. Unlike Madison, he is not explicitly tied to the foreign policy decisions of the Jefferson administration. A strike against is that he was a largely ineffectual Vice-President as he did not have any interest in the Senate and was not invited to play a larger role than that in the Jefferson administration.
• Clinton also has widely circulated a pamphlet in which he tears the Jefferson administration a new one for its handling of the French and English relationships, calling the Embargo a disaster and promising to replace Madison's misguided meddling in European affairs, where the United States tries to play both sides and gets crushed by both with a policy of "dignified neutrality", promising to negotiate treaties that protect our ships in exchange for promising to favor neither Britain nor France in trade.

EASY VOTE FORM -
Madison/Pinckney/Clinton

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Eddv posted...

Further, Madison is largely credited as being the voice who saved the National Bank - a hated institution whose creation sparked the creation of the Democratic-Republican Party just to oppose it.

Would like to hear a little bit more about this

Let's talk about the National Bank!

So a central bank, which is essentially what this was, is an institution that manages the National common currency. But it also allows Americans to buy a portion of the federal debt to hold as bonds. These bonds are essential building blocks of industry as they allow large amounts of money to be traded in the form of mutually valuable liquid assets with no beef to fully liquidate hard or "real" assets like land or other property. Instead, you could borrow bonds leveraged against your property to make use of the value to take on new ventures.

This alleviated what was a major problem in the early American period where there were simply not enough real assets to facilitate meaningful ability of business interests to nimbly meet needs. It's how you have situations like the one New York faced where it desperately needed a water company but no one had the liquid assets to make one a reality until years down the line.

The central bank also backed a common currency - typically backed by a 'hard' currency asset such as silver or gold - that allowed for meaningful interstate commerce.

This was opposed by Jefferson and Madison because they felt that it was a waste of taxpayer money, had no constitutional mandate to exist, took power away from the state's by robbing them of their ability to manage their own monetary policy. Most importantly they felt it only benefitted wealthy New England and New York bankers and took money out of the pockets of "common people". It also had largely no nexus to agricultural business practices while costing taxpayer money which made it deeply unpopular in the South.

However once Jefferson took office, Madison and Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin found the bank in practice did not actually cost the taxpayer very much at all while having fringe benefits that helped them manage their budget surplus into for example completely overhauling the Navy to fit Jefferson's new vision.

This has left people who opposed the bank on moral and legal grounds deeply skeptical of Madison who seemingly only opposed the bank on practical grounds, hence the 'secret federalist- label.


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I dunno what to do with this one so I'll wait for a convincing argument from someone else

Up for the afternoon crowd

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Madison. I don't think Britain or France really respect America now and I doubt there's much diplomacy we could conduct to make them stop impressing our merchants, seeing as it's a pretty blatant way to torch our relationship. And tbh, fuck them. The embargo sucks ass but we'll still be in better shape than them after the war, and by not giving in now we can probably negotiate better agreements in the future, or at least have the opportunity to sell to the weakened countries.

Pinckney hasn't done anything to win me over more and wtf is Clinton doing?

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I'm leaning Clinton right now.

Still dont like Pickney and Madison is connected with like every bad decision of the Jefferson administration.

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Night bump

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Madison

These are terrible options.

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Wow. This is rough. I suppose, with the information provided, I'll go with Pinckney. He doesn't seem strong on any particular stances but this:

Jefferson did not want to be dragged into the Napoleonic Wars more than he already had been and at Madison's urging simply banned all foreign trade to prevent ships from being seized and American sailors from being impressed as soldiers in these European wars.

And the fact that Clinton is essentially running on the platform of "this guy is not anti-federalist enough I will be even more anti-federalist" makes it the least bad option.


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Up

For no more trade!

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I gotta go with Madison. Pinckney's still a nothing candidate who possesses none of the Federalist Party's best qualities and a few of its worst flaws, while Clinton wanting to tear down the National Bank makes me not trust him either. Madison, meanwhile, has historically been a voice for a strong central government, even though he has trended a bit too far to the Jeffersonian side of things in recent years. He also is often very possessive of sticking to the letter of Constitutional law, which can be either a help or a hindrance depending on the issue at hand. And hey, at least he's not as much of a slaver as Jefferson (or, for that matter, Pinckney), although that's definitely small consolation for those of us who think the institution should have been banned back when the Constitution was written in the first place.

This also may be a minority opinion but I don't think the Embargo Act was all THAT bad of an idea, impressment being the huge problem that it's become. Europe is a mess right now. They may be harsh measures, but it might be the safest course of action in a scenario where no course of action is a particularly great option.

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Clinton

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These topics deserve more posts and conversation. I am not informed enough to contribute, however.

Vengeful_KBM posted...

Pinckney's still a nothing candidate

This is definitely the impression I get, but: does anyone have a counterargument to this? I feel like there must have been some positive reason for supporting him (i.e., a reason other than tribalism / anti-Jeffersonian-ism)
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The biggest things he has going for him were

a) A national profile. The Federalists don't have many well known figures on the national level and for better or worse Pinckney - who is well known for his role dealing with France during the Quasi-War - is all they have with Adams retired, Hamilton Dead and Chief Justice John Marshall refusing to seek the presidency.

b) His role in the XYZ affair paints him as staunchly anti-French and tacitly pro-British which is still an appealing talking point. His resolution to this whole affair would likely be to pursue tighter relations with Britain as long as the US was free to stay out of the Napoleonic wars.

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Pinckney

I'll say I'm glad(?) that terrible elections have been a US tradition right from the get-go, it makes current times seem less like an awful exception and more like something shitty to just slog through.

Edit: Also 'damn they ran Pinckney again, what the f.. OH fuck okay Pinckney it is then carry on'

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Pinckney

Ugh, fuck it, I'm just a little too tired of the D-R's shit right now, I know I shouldn't vote based on knowing what happens in the future but it isn't hard to see the potential disaster that lies on the other side of Madison's foreign policy