unit 3 the birth of the republic

Baron von Steuben

A Prussian born aristocrat and military leader that assisted the American cause during the Revolutionary War. The ill-equipped and poorly trained soldiers of the Continental Army received badly needed training from von Steuben in the winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge. He helped improve troops’ general organization, camp sanitation and arrangement of tents, firing and volley exchange methods, and command structure. He was critical in getting the American military cause on track in the early years of the war.

Battle of Saratoga

a turning point of the Revolution in October 1777, when an army of 6,000 British soldiers surrendered in New York; the battle resulted from a British attempt to divide the colonies through the Hudson River Valley. The American victory convinced the French to ally with the colonies and assured the ultimate success of independence.

Battle of Yorktown

a siege that ended in October 1781 when Washington trapped 8,000 British soldiers on a peninsula in Virginia after a British campaign in the southern colonies; this defeat caused the British to cease large-scale fighting in America and to start negotiations, which eventually led to the colonies’ independence.

Ben Franklin

America’s leading diplomat of the time who served as a statesman and advisor throughout the Revolutionary era. He was active in all the prerevolutionary congresses and helped to secure the French alliance of 1778 and the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the Revolution in 1783.

Boston Massacre

confrontation between British soldiers and Boston citizens in March 1770. The troops shot and killed five colonials. American radicals used the event to roil relations between England and the colonies over the next five years.

Coercive Acts (1774)

British actions to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party; they included closing the port of Boston, revoking Massachusetts’s charter, trying all British colonial officials accused of misdeeds outside the colony, and housing British troops in private dwellings. In the colonies, these laws were known as the Intolerable Acts, and they brought on the First Continental Congress in 1774.

Declaratory Act (1766)

passed as the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act; a face-saving action, it asserted Parliament's sovereignty over colonial taxation and legislative policies.

George III

king of England during the American Revolution. Until 1776, the colonists believed he supported their attempt to keep their rights. In reality, he was a strong advocate for harsh policies toward them.

George Washington

commander of the colonial army; while not a military genius, his integrity and judgment kept the army together. Ultimately, he was indispensable to the colonial cause.

John Dickinson

conservative leader who wrote Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; he advocated for colonial rights but urged conciliation with England and opposed the Declaration of Independence. Later, he helped write the Articles of Confederation.

John Jay

lead diplomat in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783); he secretly dealt with the British representatives at Paris and gained all of America’s goals for independence despite the deviousness and meddling of France and Spain.

John Locke

English philosopher who wrote that governments have a duty to protect people’s life, liberty, and property; many colonial leaders read his ideas and incorporated them into their political rhetoric and thinking.

Loyalists (Tories)

colonists who remained loyal to England; they often were older, better educated people who were members of the Anglican Church. The British hoped to use them as a pacification force but failed to organize them properly.

Marquis de Lafayette

a French aristocrat and military leader that assisted the Americans in the Revolutionary War. He was given command of troops and was of great assistance to the American cause, particularly at the Battle of Yorktown. His status as a French aristocrat and connection to France helped in securing French aid to the American cause.

Patrick Henry

an early advocate of independence who was a strong opponent of the Stamp Act and a great defender of individual rights; in 1775, he declared: “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

Pontiac's Rebellion (1763)

Indian uprising in the Ohio Valley region that killed 2,000 settlers; as a result, the British sought peace with the Indians by prohibiting colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains (the Proclamation of 1763). The Americans saw this ban as an unlawful restriction of their rights and generally ignored it.

Salutary neglect

British policy before 1763 of generally leaving the colonies alone to conduct their own internal affairs; the abandonment of this policy after 1763 was a major factor leading to revolution and independence.

Samuel Adams

agitator and leader of the Sons of Liberty, who supported independence as soon as the British veered from salutary neglect; he was the primary leader of the Boston Tea Party and later a delegate to the Continental Congress.

Seven Years War

fought between England and France, 1756–1763; known as the French and Indian War in the colonies, it started in 1754, over control of the Ohio River Valley and resulted in France’s withdrawal from North America. It was the impetus for Parliament’s taxing policy that led to the American Revolution.

Sons of Liberty

street gangs that formed during the Stamp Act crisis to enforce the boycotts and prevent the distribution and sale of the tax stamps; they were the vanguard of the Revolution as they intimidated British officials with violence.

Stamp Act (1765)

a tax on more than fifty items such as pamphlets, newspapers, playing cards, and dice; it set off a strong protest among the colonists, who claimed it was an internal tax designed only to raise revenue and therefore unlawful for Parliament to levy.

Stamp Act Congress (1765)

met in New York City to protest the Stamp Act; nine of the thirteen colonies petitioned the king and organized a boycott that eventually helped to force the repeal of the tax. This meeting and action was a major step to colonial unity and resistance of British authority.

Sugar Act (1764)

designed to raise revenue by stiffening the Molasses Act (1733), establishing new customs regulations, and trying smugglers in British vice-admiralty courts; this was the first attempt to tax the colonies in order to raise revenue rather than regulate trade. It actually lowered the tax on imported sugar in hopes of discouraging smugglers and thereby increasing collection of the tax.

Thomas Jefferson

lead author of the Declaration of Independence; in it, he explained the colonists’ philosophy of government and the reasons for independence. He wrote that governments that did not protect unalienable rights should be changed.

Thomas Paine

writer of Common Sense, an electrifying pamphlet of January 1776 calling for a break with England; written with great passion and force, it swept the colonies and provided a clear rationale for colonial independence.

Townshend Acts (1767)

levied taxes on imported items such as paper, glass, and tea; these taxes were designed to address colonial resistance to “internal taxation” like the Stamp Act, which had no connection to trade and was intended only to raise revenue. However, the colonials viewed the it as revenue-raising measures and refused to pay these taxes as well.

Virtual representation

idea offered by Britain to colonists’ demands for representation in Parliament and to establish lawful authority to tax them; the explanation was that Parliament was a collective representation of all Englishmen regardless of where they lived. According to this argument, a group's interest was represented in London by virtue of it being English. Colonial leaders rejected this position.

Alexander Hamilton

strong nationalist, first secretary of the treasury; he supported a strong central government and was founder of the Federalist Party.

Alien and Sedition Acts

series of acts designed to suppress perceived French agents working against American neutrality; the acts gave the president power to deport “dangerous” aliens, lengthen the residency requirement for citizenship, and restrict freedoms of speech and press.

Annapolis Convention

meeting held at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786 to discuss interstate commerce; only five states sent delegates, but Alexander Hamilton used the forum to issue a call for the states to meet the next spring to revise the Articles of Confederation. The Annapolis Convention was a stepping-stone to creation of the Constitution.

Anti-Federalists

persons who opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the states; in general, they feared the concentration of power the Constitution would place in the national government.

Democratic Republican Party

political party led by Thomas Jefferson; it feared centralized political power, supported states’ rights, opposed Hamilton’s financial plan, and supported ties to France. It was heavily influenced by agrarian interests in the southern states.

Farewell Address

presidential message in which Washington warned the nation to avoid both entangling foreign alliances and domestic “factions” (political parties); the ideas of the address became the basis of isolationist arguments for the next 150 years.

Federalist Papers

eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay and published in newspapers to convince New York to ratify the Constitution; taken together, they are seen as a treatise on the foundations of the Constitution.

Federalist Party

political party led by Alexander Hamilton; it favored a strong central government, commercial interests, Hamilton’s financial plan, and close ties to England. Its membership was strongest among the merchant class and property owners.

Federalists

persons who favored ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the states; they are not to be confused with the later Federalist Party.

Great Compromise

broke the impasse at the Constitutional Convention over congressional representation. Congress would consist of two houses—seats in the lower assigned according to each state's population and states having equal representation in the upper chamber.

James Madison

strong nationalist who organized the Annapolis Convention, authored the Virginia Plan for the Constitution, and drafted the constitutional amendments that became the Bill of Rights; he was also a founding member of the Democratic Republican Party.

Jay’s Treaty (1794)

agreement that provided England would evacuate a series of forts in U.S. territory along the Great Lakes; in return, the United States agreed to pay pre-Revolutionary War debts owed to Britain. The British also partially opened the West Indies to American shipping. The treaty was barely ratified in the face of strong Republican opposition.

Loose constructionist

person who believes that the “elastic clause” of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 18) gives the central government wide latitude of action; hold that even powers not explicitly set forth in the Constitution may be exercised if it is “necessary and proper” to carry out powers that are specifically stated.

New Jersey Plan

offered by William Paterson to counter the Virginia Plan; it favored a one-house of Congress with equal representation for each state. It maintained much of the Articles of Confederation but strengthened the government’s power to tax and regulate commerce.

Northwest Ordinance (1787)

the major success of Congress under the Articles of Confederation that organized the Northwest Territory for future statehood; the law provided territorial status for a region when its population reached 5,000. At 60,000, the territory could petition for statehood with the same rights as existing states. It set into law the procedure for expanding the nation that eventually led to the admission of many other new states. Also, by outlawing slavery in the Northwest Territory, it represented the first action by the national government against that institution.

Pinckney's Treaty (1795)

agreement with Spain that opened the Mississippi River to American navigation and granted Americans the right of deposit in New Orleans; Spain agreed to the treaty because it feared that Jay's Treaty included an Anglo-American alliance.

Shays’s Rebellion

an uprising in western Massachusetts between August 1786 and February 1787 that closed the courts and threatened revolution in the state; the central government’s inability to suppress the revolt reinforced the belief that the Articles of Confederation needed to be strengthened or abandoned.

Strict constructionist

person who interprets the Constitution very narrowly; a strict constructionist believes that a power not explicitly stated in the Constitution could not be exercised by government. Historically, they have hoped to restrict authority of the central government and preserve states’ rights.

Thomas Jefferson

first secretary of state, who led opposition to the Hamilton/Washington plan to centralize power at the expense of the states; after founding the Democratic Republican Party to oppose these plans, Jefferson was elected vice president in 1796 and president in 1800.

Three-Fifths Compromise

agreement at the Constitutional Convention that broke the impasse over taxation and representation in the House of Representatives; the delegates agreed to count slaves as three-fifths of a person for both. This formula had been used in 1783 to make financial assessments among the states under the Articles.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

reaction against the Sedition Act; written by Madison for Virginia and Jefferson for Kentucky, they stated that when the national government exceeded its powers under the Constitution, the states had the right to nullify the law. Essentially, the resolutions held that the Constitution was a compact among the states and they were its final arbiter.

Virginia Plan

Edmund Randolph’s and James Madison’s proposal for a new government that would give Congress increased taxing and legislative power; it called for two houses of Congress—an elected lower house and an upper house appointed by the lower house. Because seats in Congress would be apportioned according to the states’ populations, this plan was favored by the large states.

Whiskey Rebellion

uprising in western Pennsylvania in 1794 over an excise tax levied on whiskey; farmers saw the tax as an unjust and illegal levy, like the Stamp Act. President Washington crushed the rebellion with overwhelming force and thereby demonstrated the power of the new government to maintain order and carry out the law.

XYZ Affair

diplomatic effort by President John Adams to soothe the French, who were upset over Jay's Treaty and American neutrality in their conflict with Britain; three American delegates to France were told they must offer a bribe before any negotiations could begin. They refused, and the humiliation heightened tensions between the two countries and set off war hysteria in the United States.

Amend

to alter or change significantly.

Condemnation

to criticize or disapprove of something, very strongly.

Ratification

the action of signing or giving formal consent to a treaty, contract, or agreement.