A bitter class and cultural divide that gave their disagreements an increasingly ugly tone

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 85.

In the 1808 U.S. elections the Federalists doubled their seats in the House of Representatives, and though still a minority, the party was riding a rising a tide of New England resentment over the embargo. Behind the parties’ differing economic and regional interests lay a bitter class and cultural divide that gave their disagreements an increasingly ugly tone. Federalists looked at Jefferson’s supporters and saw an irresponsible—and hypocritical—rabble that spouted stock phrases about egalitarianism while defending slavery, that was always willing to rattle the sabers toward Britain but never willing to raise taxes to pay for the navy, and that had replaced the virtuous selflessness of the Revolutionary generation with a politics of crude and self-interested demagoguery.

The Republicans for their part saw the Federalists as Anglophile elitists out to impose “monarchical” tyranny upon America, and could point to the Federalists’ own glaring hypocrisies. Though they had borne the brunt of Britain’s seizure and impressment policies, New England’s merchants also had the most to lose from war with Britain and the total loss of trade that would result, and so were constantly making excuses for Britain’s actions. Federalist writers even tried to claim that only a handful of American sailors had ever been impressed, or that it was the nefarious doing of a few American merchant captains who connived to have their sailors pressed toward the end of a voyage to avoid paying them.

Still, between the Federalists who wanted a navy but not to oppose Britain with and the Republicans who wanted to oppose Britain but not with a navy, enough votes emerged between the two parties to override Gallatin’s furious objections and approve a modest naval expansion. In January 1809 Congress passed “an act authorizing the employment of an additional naval force” that tripled the number of seamen to 3,600 and the number of midshipmen to 450, and ordered four of the frigates that had been in ordinary for years immediately fitted out and made ready for sea to join the frigates Constitution and Chesapeake in active service. Sixteen Republican senators and some forty House Republicans, largely from New England, joined the Federalists in passing the measure. Gallatin fumed about “the navy coalition of 1809, by whom were sacrificed … the Republican cause itself, and the people of the United States, to a system of favoritism, extravagance, parade, and folly.”