11 The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic ??? 1800?1812 Timid men . . . prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty. THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1796 In the critical presidential contest of 1800, the firstin which Federalists and Democratic-Republicans functioned as two national political parties, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson again squared off against each other. The choice seemed clear and dramatic: Adams?s Federalists waged a defensive struggle for strong central government and pub- lic order. Their Jeffersonian opponents presented themselves as the guardians of agrarian purity, lib- erty, and states? rights. The next dozen years, how- ever, would turn what seemed like a clear-cut choice in 1800 into a messier reality, as the Jeffersonians in