America's opinion on Napoleon was rather divided.

Feelings about Napoleon, and France in general, tended to break sharply by political affiliation. Democrat-Republicans like Madison and Jefferson tended to be much more sympathetic to France and Federalists like Hamilton tended to be more sympathetic to England. Not surprisingly there was a north-south state split in sympathies for either power.

The US merchant interests in New England had the most to lose from a bad relationship with England (and the Royal Navy) and tended to be most vociferous in their condemnation of the resurgent French Empire. Most of them saw Napoleon as a duplicitous, power-crazed dictator.

Southern politicians liked to Romanticize Napoleon as a heroic peasant actively fighting the ossified, aristocratic regimes of Europe.

Napoleon of course straddled both extremes. US attempts to remain neutral and assert its rights to trade with both parties were repeatedly tested as both British and French naval forces would seize and board US shipping.

Napoleon himself was an admirer of the American "experiment" and went so far as declare a national day of mourning on hearing the news of George Washington's death. The US profited handsomely trading with him, and he enabled the country to double in size without war through the Louisiana Purchase.