Chapter 5 Notes: Shaping a New Nation

The Treaty of Paris (1783)

  • Recognized United States independence.

Treaty of Hopewell (1785)

  • Concerning Native American lands.

New York State (1785)

  • Outlawed slavery.

Spain (1785)

  • Closed the Mississippi River to American commerce.

Russia (1784)

  • Founded a colony in Alaska.

Articles of Confederation (1781)

  • Went into effect; John Dickinson helped write them.

Joseph II of Austria (1781)

  • Allowed religious toleration.

Rama I (1782)

  • Founded a new dynasty in Siam, with Bangkok as the capital.

Russia (1783)

  • Annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1783)

  • First works published.

Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries (1784)

  • Crossed the English Channel in a balloon.

Northwest Ordinance (1787)

  • Passed in 1787.

The Constitution (1788)

  • Ratified; James Madison helped write it at the Pennsylvania State House.

Sierra Leone in Africa (1787)

  • Became a haven for freed American slaves.

Charles Cornwallis (1786)

  • Became governor-general of India.

Austria (1788)

  • Declared war on Turkey.

War (1787)

  • Broke out between Turkey and Russia.

Bread Riots (1788)

  • Erupted in France.

Daniel Shays's Rebellion (1786)

  • Led by Daniel Shays, a rebellion of farmers in Massachusetts.

Virginia Legislature (1786)

  • Guaranteed religious freedom.

Annapolis Convention (1786)

  • Held in 1786.

Chapter 5 Main Ideas

  • Americans adopted the Articles of Confederation but found the new government too weak to solve the nation’s problems.
  • The reaction to the weak Articles of Confederation led to a stronger central government that has continued to expand its power.

John Dickinson

  • Returned to the Continental Congress as a delegate from Delaware in 1779.
  • Two rules:
    • Openly avow real sentiments as a trustee for countrymen.
    • Regard public resolutions as sacred and support them earnestly.

Americans Debate Republicanism

  • Creating a new government posed a great challenge.
  • The relationship between the new states and the national government was difficult to define.
  • The debate over the nature of the new government of the United States would consume the political energies of the new nation.

Colonies Become States

  • British settlers in North America had founded many colonies, each with its own governor, council, and colonial assembly.
  • This system encouraged people to think of the colony as the primary political unit.
  • Most people’s allegiance was to the colony in which they lived.
  • The Revolutionary War gave the colonies a common goal, but as these colonies became states, they remained reluctant to unite under a strong central government.
  • The challenge was to develop a system of government that balanced the interests of the several states with those of the nation.

Unity Through a Republic

  • Eighteenth-century Americans believed that a democracy placed too much power in the hands of the uneducated masses.
  • They favored a republic—a government in which citizens rule through their elected representatives.
  • Republicanism: the idea that governments should be based on the consent of the people.
  • Some believed that a republic required a virtuous people who placed the good of the nation above their personal interests (like John Dickinson).
  • Some believed that a republic would benefit from self-interest (influenced by Adam Smith).
  • Independent citizens pursuing their own economic and political interests would benefit the whole nation.

State Constitutions

  • As the states created their own constitutions, they wrestled with how to put republican ideals into practice.
  • Many state constitutions shared certain similarities:
    • They limited the powers of government leaders.
    • They guaranteed specific rights for citizens, including freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
  • In general, state constitutions emphasized liberty rather than equality and reflected a fear of centralized authority.
  • State constitutions differed widely in granting the right to vote.
  • New states were more democratic than any western nation at this time, but it was still a very limited democracy by modern standards.
  • African Americans were generally not allowed to vote.
  • Some states granted voting rights to all white males.
  • Other states, like Maryland, continued to make property ownership a requirement for voting.
  • Despite the more active political role that women had played during the Revolution, they were still denied the right to vote in most states.
    *New Jersey gave voting rights to all free property owners but neglected to specify males. Consequently, some New Jersey women gained the right to vote—at least until 1807, when this right was revoked.

Political Precedents

  • In a world where most nations were still governed by kings, there were few political systems that could serve as models for the new republic.
  • The nation’s founders searched history for political precedents.
  • The English Commonwealth: a short-lived republic after the execution of King Charles I.
  • Italian city-states: cities such as Florence, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice had become self-governing.
  • Swiss Confederation: Swiss communities also had resisted royal control, forming alliances.
  • Ancient Greece and Rome: republics and various democratic systems had existed.
  • However, none of these models could be adapted easily to the political situation of the new United States, with its need to balance the concerns of state and national governments.

Republican Motherhood

  • An important issue in the early years of the nation was the role that women should play in the republic.
  • Many women became politically active during the Revolutionary War, organizing boycotts and helping raise money for the army.
  • After the Revolution, the new ideal of republican motherhood helped channel women’s newfound political awareness and activism back into the home.
  • Women were expected to raise the next generation of patriots by instilling democratic values in their children.

The Continental Congress Debates

  • While the states developed their individual constitutions, the Continental Congress tried to draft one for the states as a whole.

Representation by Population or by State

  • The states were unequal in size, wealth, and population.
  • Should delegates represent people or states?
  • The Continental Congress saw themselves as representing independent states.
  • Each state would have one vote regardless of population.

Supreme Power: Can It Be Divided?

  • Most people assumed that a government could not share supreme power with smaller administrative units, such as provinces or states.
  • The Congress proposed a new type of government in a set of laws called the Articles of Confederation—one in which two levels of government shared fundamental powers.
  • State governments were supreme in some matters, while the national government was supreme in other matters.
  • This new form of government was a confederation, or alliance.

Articles of Confederation

  • Gave the new national government power to declare war, make peace, and sign treaties.
  • It could borrow money, set standards for coins and for weights and measures, establish a postal service, and deal with Native American peoples.
  • Created no separate executive department to carry out and enforce the acts of Congress.
  • Created no national court system to interpret the meaning of laws.

Western Lands: Who Gets Them?

  • By 1779, 12 states had agreed to accept the new government, but conflict over western lands delayed final approval for two more years.
  • Some states had claims to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.
  • Maryland, which had no such claims, feared that states with land claims would expand and overpower smaller states.
  • It refused to approve the Articles until all states turned over their western lands to the United States.
  • The landed states gave up their western claims, and with Maryland’s approval, the Articles of Confederation went into effect in March 1781.

Governing the Western Lands

  • The Confederation Congress faced the question of how to govern the public lands west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River that offered rich land for settlers.
  • Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, which established a plan for surveying the land.
  • In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Congress provided a procedure for dividing the land into territories.
  • The Northwest Ordinance also set requirements for the admission of new states, which, however, seemed to overlook Native American land claims.
  • Three basic stages for becoming a state:
    • Congress would appoint a territorial governor and judges.
    • When a territory had 5,000 voting residents, the settlers could write a temporary constitution and elect their own government.
    • When the total population of a territory reached 60,000 free inhabitants, the settlers could write a state constitution, which had to be approved by Congress before it granted statehood.
  • The Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 became the Confederation’s greatest achievements.
    *These laws established a blueprint for future growth of the nation.

The Confederation Encounters Problems

  • The Confederation encountered overwhelming problems in dealing with more immediate issues.
    • Economic issues, such as taxation and the national debt.
    • Political issues, such as the nature of Congressional representation.
    • Foreign-relations problems that the Confederation was powerless to solve.

Political and Economic Problems

  • The most serious problem was that the country under the Confederation lacked national unity.
  • Each state functioned independently by pursuing its own interests rather than those of the nation as a whole.
  • The Confederation didn’t recognize the differences in population among the states.
  • Each state, regardless of its population, had only one vote in Congress.
  • The political power of Georgia, with a population of 23,375 in 1770, was equal to that of Massachusetts, with a population of 235,308.
  • The Articles could not be amended without the consent of every state; a single state could stall the amendment process.
  • The most serious economic problem was the huge debt that the Congress had amassed during the Revolutionary War (cost the nation 190 million).
  • The Continental Congress had borrowed from foreign countries and had printed its own paper money.
  • Continental currency became worthless.
  • Lacking the power to tax, the Congress requested the states’ approval to impose a tariff, or tax on imported goods.
  • One state, Rhode Island, rejected the proposed tax, so it was not adopted.
  • Unable to impose taxes, the Confederation Congress also had no control over interstate or foreign trade.

Borrowers versus Lenders

  • Another problem caused by the debt from the Revolution was the struggle between creditors (lenders of money) and debtors (borrowers of money).
  • Wealthy people who had lent money to the states favored high taxes so that the states would be able to pay them back.
  • High taxes sent many farmers into debt.
  • When a creditor sued a farmer in court for repayment and won the case, the government seized the farmer’s land and animals and sold them at auction.
  • Debtors wanted to increase the supply of money to lessen its value and enable them to pay off their debts with cheap currency.
  • Creditors wanted to keep the supply of money low so that it would keep its full value.

Foreign-Relations Problems

  • The lack of support from states for national concerns led to foreign-relations problems for the Congress.
  • The United States could not repay its debts to British merchants and would not compensate Loyalists for property losses suffered during the Revolutionary War.
  • Britain refused to evacuate its military forts on the Great Lakes.
  • Spain’s presence on the borders of the United States posed another threat to westward expansion.
  • In 1784, Spain closed the Mississippi River to American navigation, depriving Western farmers of a means of shipping their crops to Eastern markets through New Orleans.
  • Congress was too weak to resolve challenges by Spain and Britain because Americans’ fear of giving the national government too much power had resulted in a government that lacked sufficient power to deal with the nation’s problems.

Land Ordinance of 1785

  • Made parcels small and affordable to fund public education.
  • Divided land into townships of 36 square miles.
  • Each township was divided into 36 sections of 1 square mile, or about 640 acres, each.
  • A typical farm of the period was equal to one-quarter section, or 160 acres.
  • The minimum price per acre was one dollar.
    *Reserved two or three sections of each township for sale at a later date for a tidy profit, later abandoned by Congress.
    *Set aside section 16 of every township for school buildings to encourage education.

Shays’s Rebellion (1786-1787)

  • Daniel Shays led an army of farmers to close the courts because of heavy debt and taxation.
  • Caused panic and dismay throughout the nation, as every state had debt-ridden farmers.
  • Resulted in the death of four rebels and unsettled some of the nation’s leaders.

Nationalists Strengthen the Government

*States had placed such severe limits on the government that the government was too weak; it was clearly time to talk about a stronger national government.

Call for Convention

  • Trade between the states led to quarrels over the taxes that states imposed on one another’s goods and disagreements over navigation rights.
  • In September 1786, leaders such as James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton called a meeting of state delegates to discuss issues of interstate trade.
  • Delegates decided to call for another meeting the following year in Philadelphia to deal with trade and other problems.
  • The incident convinced 12 states to send delegates to the Philadelphia convention.

Convention Highlights

  • In May 1787, delegates from all the states except Rhode Island gathered at the Pennsylvania State House.
  • Most of the 55 delegates were lawyers, merchants, or planters and rich, well-educated men in their thirties or forties.
  • George Washington was elected presiding officer by a unanimous vote.

Conflict Leads to Compromise

  • Most of the delegates recognized the need to strengthen the central government.
  • They gave up the idea of revising the Articles of Confederation and decided to form a new government.

Big States Versus Small States

  • Madison’s Virginia Plan proposed a bicameral, or two-house, legislature, with membership based on each state’s population.
    • The voters would elect members of the lower house, who would then elect members of the upper house.
  • Small states supported William Paterson’s New Jersey Plan, which proposed a single-house congress in which each state had an equal vote.
  • Roger Sherman suggested the Great Compromise, which offered a two-house Congress to satisfy both small and big states.
    • Each state would have equal representation in the Senate, or upper house.
    • The size of the population of each state would determine its representation in the House of Representatives, or lower house.
    • Voters of each state would choose members of the House.
    • The state legislatures would choose members of the Senate.

Slavery-Related Issues

  • Representation based on population raised the question of whether slaves should be counted as people.
  • Southern delegates wanted slaves included in the population count.
  • Northern delegates disagreed, but the delegates eventually agreed to the Three-Fifths Compromise, which called for three-fifths of a state’s slaves to be counted as population.
  • Slaveholders worried that if Congress were given power to regulate foreign trade, it might do away with the slave trade.
  • The convention gave Congress the power to regulate trade but prevented it from interfering with the slave trade for at least 20 years.

Creating a New Government

  • After reaching agreement on questions of slavery and representation, the delegates dealt with other issues.
  • They divided power between the states and the national government and separated the national government’s power into three branches.

Division of Powers

  • The new system of government was a form of federalism that divided power between the national government and the state governments.
  • The powers granted to the national government by the Constitution are known as delegated powers, or enumerated powers
    • Control of foreign affairs.
    • Providing national defense.
    • Regulating trade between the states.
    • Coining money.
  • Powers kept by the states are called reserved powers.
    • Providing and supervising education.
    • Establishing marriage laws.
    • Regulating trade within a state.
  • Both levels of government share such important powers as the right to tax, to borrow money, and to pay debts.
    *They also share the power to establish courts.

Separation of Powers

  • The delegates protected the rights of the states, but they also granted some powers exclusively to the national government.
  • They limited the authority of the government by creating three branches of government:
    • Legislative branch to make laws.
    • Executive branch to carry out laws.
    • Judicial branch to interpret the law.
  • The delegates established a system of checks and balances to prevent one branch from dominating the others.
  • The procedure for electing the president reflected two main concerns.
    • There was a fear that the popular vote would be divided among many regional candidates.
    • Many distrusted and feared the lower classes.
  • The delegates came up with a new system of electing the president.
  • Each state would choose a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives the state had in Congress.
  • The group of electors chosen by the states, known as the electoral college, would cast ballots for the candidates.

Creating the Constitution

  • The delegates provided a means of changing the Constitution through the amendment process.
  • The delegates succeeded in creating a constitution that was flexible enough to last through the centuries to come in nearly four months of debate and compromise.
  • George Washington adjourned the convention on September 17, 1787, with uncertainty about the future of the new plan of government, not expecting the Constitution to last for more than 20 years.

Ratifying the Constitution

  • John Jay warned how other nations would view the United States if it did not unify itself.

Federalists and Antifederalists

  • Supporters of the Constitution called themselves Federalists, because they favored the new Constitution’s balance of power between the states and the national government.
  • Their opponents became known as Antifederalists because they opposed having such a strong central government and thus were against the Constitution.
  • The Federalists insisted that the division of powers and the system of checks and balances would protect Americans from the tyranny of centralized authority.
    *Antifederalists countered with a long list of possible abuses of power by a strong central government.

The Opposing Forces

  • Leading Federalists included framers of the Constitution such as George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.
  • They received heavy support from urban centers, where merchants, skilled workers, and laborers saw the benefit of a national government that could regulate trade.
  • Leading Antifederalists included revolutionary heroes and leaders such as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Richard Henry Lee.
    *They received support from rural areas, where people feared a strong government that might add to their tax burden.

The Federalist

  • A series of 85 essays defending the Constitution, appeared in New York newspapers (1787-1788).
  • Published under the pseudonym Publius, but were written by Federalist leaders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
  • Letters from the Federal Farmer, most likely written by Richard Henry Lee, was the most widely read Antifederalist publication.

The Bill of Rights Leads to Ratification

  • The proposed U.S. Constitution contained no guarantee that the government would protect the rights of the people or of the states.
  • Some supporters of the Constitution, such as Thomas Jefferson, viewed the Constitution’s lack of a bill of rights as a serious drawback to ratification.
  • Antifederalists argued that since the Constitution weakened the states, the people needed a national bill of rights.
  • They wanted written guarantees that the people would have freedom of speech, of the press, and of religion.
  • They demanded assurance of the right to trial by jury and the right to bear arms.
  • Federalists insisted that the Constitution granted only limited powers to the national government so that it could not violate the rights of the states or of the people.
    *They promised to add a bill of rights if the states would ratify the Constitution.

Ratification of the Constitution

  • Delaware led the country in ratifying the Constitution in December 1787.
  • In June 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to approve the Constitution.
  • On July 26, 1788, New York ratified by a vote of 30 to 27.
  • Although Rhode Island did not accept the Constitution until 1790, the new government became a reality in 1789.

Adoption of a Bill of Rights

  • In several states, ratification had hinged on the Federalists’ pledge to add a bill of rights.
  • In September 1789, Congress submitted 12 amendments to the state legislatures for ratification.
  • By December 1791, ten of the amendments had been ratified, becoming known as the Bill of Rights.
    *The first eight amendments spell out the personal liberties the states had requested; the Ninth and Tenth Amendments impose general limits on the powers of the federal government.

The Bill of Rights

  • The First Amendment—guarantees citizens’ rights to freedom of religion, speech, the press, and political activity.
  • The Second and Third Amendments—grant citizens the right to bear arms and prevent the government from housing troops in private homes in peacetime.
  • The Fourth through Eighth Amendments—guarantee fair treatment for individuals suspected or accused of crimes.
  • The Ninth Amendment—makes it clear that people’s rights are not restricted to just those specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
  • The Tenth Amendment—clarifies that the people and the states have all the powers that the Constitution does not specifically give to the national government or deny to the states.
  • The protection of rights and freedoms did not apply to all Americans at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, excluding Native Americans, slaves and women, and offering no protection against whites’discrimination and hostility to free blacks.