Fisher Ames

Fisher Ames (born April 9, 1758, Dedham, Mass. [U.S.]—died July 4, 1808, Dedham) was an American essayist and Federalist politician of the 1790s who was an archopponent of Jeffersonian democracy.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1774, Ames taught school for five years before turning to law, and in 1781 he was admitted to the bar. Supporting the drive for a new, more powerful federal government, Ames became known for his uncompromising advocacy of the rights of property and his protective attitude toward commercial interests, which he argued for in trenchant writing and commanding speech. He argued for ratification of the U.S. Constitution at the Massachusetts convention, and in 1788 he defeated Samuel Adams for a seat in the first session of the U.S. House of Representatives. Ames was reelected in 1790, 1792, and 1794.

Certain that the country could survive only with a strong central government, Ames supported the financial measures of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. He argued against retaliation for British violations of American rights during 1793 and 1794 when American vessels were seized and American sailors impressed into British service. He gave the greatest speech of his life in favour of the Jay Treaty (1794), which preserved peace with Great Britain, when he swayed the House to pass an enabling appropriation.

Ames declined to run for reelection in 1796 and returned to Dedham the following year. Citing failing health, he refused the presidency of Harvard College. He wanted war with France (1797–98), to cleanse the United States of “Jacobinism,” and he approved the Sedition Act of 1798. Following Thomas Jefferson’s election as president in 1800, Ames was sure that the republic would sink into anarchy and mob rule. He urged Federalists to gain control of state governments, and—in the years just prior to his death—he became a leader in creating a New England sectional consciousness.