Intelligence history offers new insights on the formative moments and bitterest feuds in American political history. Historians have long since dispatched many myths surrounding the birth of the United States and the unity of the founding generation, however, they have missed the salience of intelligence in fueling the partisan rancor that pervaded the First Party System. In fact, intelligence fed divisions in the Continental Congress during the American Revolution that reproduced themselves in the very first decade of the constitutional system. As two political parties emerged based on fundamental disagreements over principles of governance, intelligence widened the schism between them.
It was no accident that when George Washington delivered his Farewell Address, he used the same breath to counsel his fellow citizens to “moderate the fury of party spirit” and to “warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue.” The political alignment of the Republican party with France and the Federalist party with Britain led to mutual recriminations of secret plots to subvert the young American republic. The hostility boiled over during the Quasi-War, with the Federalists exploiting intelligence to try to crush the Republicans. As proof that turnabout is always fair play in American politics, the Republicans turned intelligence against the Federalists ahead of the War of 1812. Even after the First Party System collapsed, the problem of exploiting intelligence for political gain remained a feature of U.S. history that continues to undermine national harmony to the present day.