Botany and the Early American Political Parties

Chapter 4 of Andrea Wulf’s Founding Gardeners, “Parties and Politicks”, shows the early separation of the Founding Fathers as the new nation continued to grow and organize into a larger and more powerful union of states. In these pivoting years following the Constitutional Convention and the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison begin a lifelong friendship and political alliance centered on their shared vision of a nation of farming and agriculture. According to Wulf, the essential elements of the emerging political parties what the “revolutionary generation believed ought to be the fabric of American society—the dream of a nation of farmers versus the vision of a merchant and trader elite.” (Wulf 83) Madison and Jefferson took the side of the farmers and Hamilton would become their political enemy as he strived to create a large central government focused on commerce. Wulf explains that Madison was not opposed to a “strong government”, but feared the idea of the new country becoming a “mercantile empire bound to Britain.” (Wulf 84)

            Jefferson, Madison, and Adams would soon find themselves battling Hamilton’s elite trading and commerce visions for the new nation. In 1791, Congress would eventually pass Hamilton’s model of a federal bank, which was inspired by the Bank of England. This created a polarized political split between Hamilton’s Federalist Party and Madison’s Republican party. For the majority of men present at the Constitutional Convention, a large centralized national bank was exactly what they wanted to avoid. Jefferson later remarked that the new national bank was based on the “rotten” British national bank and was “invented for the purposes of corruption.” (Wulf 87)

            As the political separation of the Founding Fathers continued, Jefferson and Madison toured New England promoting their ideas for farming and agriculture. They believed that botany would create a self-sufficient nation and solidify independence from foreign nations. One of the early visions of Jefferson and Madison for the nation’s independence from Great Britain was the farming of American sugar maple orchards. Cultivating American sugar would free the nation’s dependence on the sugar from the British West Indies. As they toured New England, Jefferson and Madison continued to campaign for the planting of sugar maple orchards. Throughout the journey Madison kept extensive notes on the soil and agricultural details of New England. Wulf concludes that while their botanical campaign failed to create a agrarian political party, their efforts did lay the foundations for the emerging Republican party which held close to the political ideologies of Madison and Jefferson.

            Chapter 4 of Founding Gardener’s outlines the fundamental polarization of the early American party system. Wulf does an excellent job highlighting the efforts taken by Madison and Jefferson to advocate agriculture and American independence through the form of a self-sufficient agrarian society. Their campaign to promote American sugar maple orchards proved to be a very successful method of freeing the nations dependence on imported sugar. I find the agricultural passion of the Founding Fathers to be highly inspiring. Not only did they devote their lifetime tirelessly researching and implementing new crops to form a more independent society, they left their idyllic farming lives behind in order to carry the burden of the political responsibilities of the new nation. The true passion for nature and farming is clearly evident through the lifelong friendship and unwavering political alliance of Jefferson and Madison, whose friendship was founded on a shared love of agriculture.