Early Republic Review

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall established judicial review, the power of courts to declare laws and government actions unconstitutional. The Court struck down part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 because it conflicted with Article III. That made the judiciary a working check on Congress and the president.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall's Court read the Commerce Clause broadly, holding that Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce includes navigation and overrides conflicting state laws. The ruling knocked out a New York steamboat monopoly as applied to a boat running under a federal license, shifting power toward the national government.

McCullough v. Maryland

Supreme Court case that established federal supremacy over state laws, ruling that states cannot tax the federal bank. It reinforced the Necessary and Proper Clause, affirming Congress's implied powers.

Dartmouth v. Woodward

Supreme Court case that established the principle that state governments cannot interfere with private contracts. The Court ruled that the New Hampshire legislature's attempt to alter the charter of Dartmouth College violated the Contract Clause in the Constitution.

Assumption

1790 financial policy where the federal government took over roughly $25 million in unpaid Revolutionary War debts owed by individual states. Proposed by Alexander Hamilton - Federalist

Bank of United States

Proposed by Alexander Hamilton as part of his financial plan to establish national credit, handle tax receipts, and issue paper currency. It triggered a major constitutional debate between Federalists (loose construction) and Anti-Federalists (strict construction)

Compact Theory

Asserts that because the States constructed the constitution and the federal government, they are above it.

Customs and Excise tax

Key revenue-generating measures enacted under Alexander Hamilton's financial program. Customs duties (tariffs) were taxes levied on imported foreign goods to generate revenue and protect growing American industries, while excise taxes were internal levies on specific domestic goods, most notably the 1791 tax on distilled spirits that prompted the Whiskey Rebellion.

Embargo

Government order banning or restricting trade with another country, used as economic pressure instead of war

Embargo Act of 1807

A law signed by President Thomas Jefferson that banned all American ships from sailing to foreign ports

Federalist Papers

Collection of 85 essays written in 1787-1788 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, all signing as "Publius." The essays urged ratification of the Constitution by arguing that a stronger central government, held in check by federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances, would protect liberty rather than endanger it.

Funding at Par

Core part of Alexander Hamilton’s economic plan, proposed that the US government pay of its Revolutionary War debts at full face value, including interest to those who held bonds.

Impressment

Before and during the war of 1812 Britain ships commandeered colonial vessels to take their supplies and claim that sailors where escaped englishmen so they could take them to use as labor.

Mobocracy

lawless political control or rule by a massed, angry crowd. It describes a state where the general public or a volatile mob overrides established laws, procedures, or constitutional rights through intimidation, force, or direct action

Natural Rights

Inalienable rights that all men had from birth. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness“.

Nullification

The process where states attempt to nullify federal action by passing their own legislation.

Revolution of 1800

The first peaceful transition of power in US history (Federalist —> Anti-Federalist). Proved that the constitution worked.

Right of Deposit

the privilege granted to American merchants by Spain in Pinckney's Treaty (1795), allowing them to transfer goods across ocean-going ships to riverboats at the port of New Orleans without paying export/import duties (taxes)

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton was a New York Founding Father, a coauthor of the Federalist Papers, and the first Secretary of the Treasury (1789-1795) under George Washington. His financial program (federal assumption of state debts, a national bank, tariffs, and an excise tax) and his broad reading of the Constitution made him the leader of the Federalists, the party that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized against in the 1790s.

James Madison

James Madison was a Virginia politician who did more than any other delegate to shape the U.S. Constitution in 1787, co-wrote the Federalist Papers to win its ratification, and drafted the amendments that became the Bill of Rights. In the 1790s he broke with Alexander Hamilton and joined Thomas Jefferson in leading the Democratic-Republican Party. He later served as Jefferson's secretary of state and then as the fourth president (1809-1817), leading the country through the War of 1812.

John Adams

John Adams was a Massachusetts lawyer who pushed the Continental Congress toward independence, served as the first vice president, and became the second U.S. president (1797-1801). As a Federalist president, he faced a crisis with revolutionary France (the XYZ Affair and the Quasi-War) and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. He then lost the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson and handed over power peacefully.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the Virginia planter and Enlightenment thinker who drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776, co-led the Democratic-Republican Party with James Madison against Alexander Hamilton's Federalists in the 1790s, and served as the third U.S. president (1801-1809). His presidency added the Louisiana Purchase (1803), which roughly doubled the size of the country, even though he had built his career arguing for a strictly limited federal government.

Henry Clay

Henry Clay was a Kentucky congressman, Speaker of the House, and senator who brokered the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Compromise of 1850, which earned him the nickname "the Great Compromiser." He also designed the American System, a plan to unify the national economy through a protective tariff, a national bank, and federally funded internal improvements. In the 1830s he led the Whig Party against Andrew Jackson's Democrats.

John Marshall

John Marshall was Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835. He was a Federalist appointed by John Adams, and he served as Chief Justice under six presidents, from John Adams to Andrew Jackson. His Court established judicial review in Marbury v. Madison (1803). It also ruled again and again that federal law outranks state law, in cases like McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824).

Louisiana Purchase Territory

1803 agreement in which the United States, under President Thomas Jefferson, bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon's France for $15 million. The deal added roughly 827,000 square miles between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, doubled the size of the country, and secured U.S. control of New Orleans and the Mississippi.

Erie Canal

Roughly 363-mile waterway across upstate New York, completed in 1825, that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie and so linked New York City to the Great Lakes interior. Built with New York State money, it cut shipping costs between Buffalo and Albany by roughly 90 percent. It is the standard example of how the transportation revolution expanded markets and bound the Northeast and Midwest together

Alien and Sedition Acts

The Alien & Sedition Acts were four laws Congress passed in 1798, under President John Adams and a Federalist majority, during a war scare with France. They lengthened the wait for immigrants to become citizens, let the president deport noncitizens he judged dangerous, and made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous and malicious" writing against the federal government.

Chesapeake Incident

A naval incident where the British warship HMS Leopard attacked and boarded the American frigate USS Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, to search for Royal Navy deserters

Era of Good Feelings

The Era of Good Feelings was the stretch from about 1817 to 1825, during James Monroe's presidency, when the Federalist Party had collapsed and the Democratic-Republicans governed without a real national rival. A Boston newspaper coined the name in 1817, and historians use it with some irony, since disputes over slavery, tariffs, and federal power kept growing under the surface of one-party unity.

Hartford Convention

The Hartford Convention was a meeting of New England Federalists in Hartford, Connecticut, from December 1814 to January 1815, called to protest the War of 1812 and the trade policies that had damaged New England's economy. Delegates proposed constitutional amendments to limit federal power and protect their region's influence. News of the Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans arrived right after, making the Federalists look disloyal and speeding the party's collapse.

Louisiana Purchase

1803 acquisition by the United States of 828,000 square miles of French territory west of the Mississippi River for $15 million

Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine was President James Monroe's 1823 declaration that the Americas were closed to new European colonization and that European interference in the newly independent Latin American republics would be seen as unfriendly to the United States. In return, the U.S. said it would stay out of European affairs and leave existing European colonies alone. It announced a U.S. sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere decades before the country had the power to enforce one.

Pinkney’s Treaty

Treaty of Ghent

VA & KY Resolutions

War of 1812

Washington’s Farewell Address

Whiskey Rebellion

Panic of 1819

Bill of Rights

Constitutional Compromises

Hamilton’s Economic Policies & Debt

1789

1800

1803

1812

1815