Unit 3 Notes on Prep Book

Conflict and American Independence (1754-1800)

Albany Plan of Union

• Representatives met in 1754 in Albany to consider a unification

• Benjamin Franklin

• Proivded for:

  • intercolonial government

  • tax collection system for colonial defense

• Failed to be approved by all colonies

• Rejected

  • Coloneis didn’t want to lose tax control, weren’t prepared to unite either

Seven Years’ War (1754-1763)

• Actually lasted nine years

• French and Native Americans were allies

• Result of colonial expansion

• French tried to prevent English settlers from moving into Ohio valley

  • Wanted to ptorecte fur trade and control of regoin

• George Washington led an attack on a French outpost and lost

  • Surrendered, allowed to return to Virginia

• England declared war on France in 1756

• Engalnd won

• Treaty:

  • Gave England canada and east of Mississippi Valley

  • French kept a few small islands

• Native Americans had been able to use the disputes to thier advantage

  • Negotiated their allegiances for land, goods, and being left alone

• Dislike English becuase of their expansionism

• ENglish raised prices of goods sold to Native Americans after war

  • Caused Pontiac to attack (Rebellion)

  • Paxton Boys murdered Native Americans in response

• Proclamation of 1763

  • Forbade settling west of the Appalachian rivers

  • Settlers had already moved

  • Agitated colonists

The Sugar Act, the Currency Act, and the Stamp Act

• George III and PM George Grenville passed these acts because the Seven Years’ War had acrued lots of debt

• Thought colonists shoudl help pay taht debt with TAXES

• Parliament imposed new regulations

Sugar Act

• 1764

• First of many bad Acts

• Estbalihed new duties and provisions to pregvent molasses smuggling

• Striclty enforced unlike before

• More difficlut to avoid committing minor violations

• First suggested england overstepping

Currency Act

• Forbade colonies to issue paper money

• Disconent in colonies

Stamp Act

• 1765

• Aimed at raising revenue

  • Colonists realized more taxes could follow

• Demonstrated that colonial tradition of self-taxtaion was being abruptly taken over by Parliament with ahrsher regulations

• Broad tax that covered all legal docs and liscences

• Affected everyone

• Tax on goods produced within colonies

• Highyl reacted to because of pileup of all these acts

• No taxation without representation

  • Colonists didn’t elect parliament members but still were taxed by whem

• England said they were represented with virtual representation

  • Members of Parliament represented all British subjects

  • Colonists knew it didn’t matter or help them

• Caused unity in protest in many colonies

• Sons of Liberty

• Repealed in 1766

Townshend Acts

• Charles Townshend drafted these acts

• Very antagonistic

• Taxed goods imported directly from Britain

• Mercantilism

• Some of the tax collected would be set aside for the payment of tax collectors

  • Colonial assemblies coudno’t withhold govnerment officials’ wages to protest anymore

• More vice-admiralty courts and government offices to enforce these laws

• NY Legislature was suspended befcause it refused to comply with a law requrign that colonists supply British troops

• Writs of assistance

  • British could search any place suspected of hiding smuggled goods

• Colonists protested with organization

• Massachusetts Circular Letter was sent to toher assembleis to organize a united protest

• Boycotts were successful

• Repealed after 2 years

• Quartering Act of 1765 stationed many troops and made colonists house and feed them

• Boston Massacre

Tensions Boil Over

• 1772: Biriths implemented a part of the Townshend Acts that proivded for colonial administrations to be paid from customs revenues

• Coloneis repsonsed with Committees of Corresponsdence to trade ideas

• East India Tea Company was a monopoly on tea

  • Cheaper tea for colonitss

  • Parliemanet was imposing new taxes, though

  • Boston: colonitss refused to let the ships unload

  • Boston Tea Party!!

• Intolerable Acts (Coercive) introduced with Boston Tea Party

  • Closed BOston Habror

  • Tightned Englsih control over Mass govt.

  • Stricter Quartering Act

  • Quebec Act at same time that gave Catholics more religious freedom nad impeded westward expansion

Grievances

• First Continental Congress in 1774 to discuss grievances

• Patrick Henry was there (Anti-Federalist Later)

• Wnated to develop strategy to address grievances and formualte colonial position on the relations between England and the colonies

• Continental Assocation would be formed to enforce boycotts, a list was made of laws to be repealed

• American Revolution roots

The American Revolution

The Beginning

• April 1775

• Battles of Lexington and Concord

• COlonists rallied for independence cause, though some were loyalists to England

  • Loyalists were govt. officials, Anglicans, merchants, and religious minorites who feared persecrution

• Patriots were white Proestnat property holders, urban artisans, New Egnalnd puritans

• Quakers opposed the war in general

• Second Continental Congress met after Lexington and Concord

• Prepared to establish a COntinetal Army, print money, and create offices to supervise

  • George Washington chosen to lead army

The Declaration of Independence

• Common Sense by Thomas Paine was an important Revolutionary propaganda pamphlet

  • Advocated colonial independence

  • Argued for republicanism over monacrhy

• Thomas Jefferson wrote the DOI

• Enumerated grievances

• Articulated individaul liberty and the govt’s fundamental responsibility to serve the people

• July 4, 1776 signed

The War Presses On

• Saratoga

  • 1777

  • Upstate NY

  • Turning point, victory for Americans

  • French agreed to formal alliance with Continental Congress and sent military aid

• Battle of Yorktown

  • 1781

  • End to Revolution

  • Cornwallis (B) was surrounded by French Navy and Washington army

• British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781

• Contitnental Army had trouble recruting soldiers

• Franco-American Alliance was negotiated by Franklin

• Treaty of Paris ended the war in 1783

  • Gave US independence and terrotiral rights

• Women followed teh army and spied

Governing the New Nation

The Articles of Confederation (The Worst Founding Document Ever)

• 1777, continental Congress sent the AOC as first national constitution for ratification

• Intentionally had little central govenrment bc of trauma with Britain

• Major limitations

• Limitations included…:

  • No enforcement of state or individual taxation or a draft

  • No ability to raise an army

  • No power to regulate trade among states or internationally

  • No judicial or executive branch

  • The legislative branch gave each state one vote regardless of population

  • 9/13 states had to agree to pass a law

  • Amendments required 13/13 states to approve them

• Problems were revealed early on

• Wild inflation took place because they couldn’t levy taxes and had tried to finance the war by printing mroe money

• British were mean with trade, hurting America

• Protective tarrifs weren’t a thign until the 1800s, so they were helpless

• State govenrments dragged in compensating loyalists for lost preorty, Britihs refused to abandon military posts in repsonse

  • America had to power to evict them

• SHays’s rebellion happened

  • Daniel Shays didn’t get paid for his was effort and faced foreclosure

  • He and men seized an armory nad attacked a Mass. courthouse

  • Mass. coudln’t moblize forces because of limitations in AOC

• Actual GOOD THINGS IT DID

  • The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

    • Bill of Rights guaranteeing trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from excessive punishment

    • Abolished slavery in Northwest territories

    • Regulated the conditions under which territories could become states

A New (And Better) Constitution

• Alexander Hamilton was worried about America’s survival

• Convened at the Annapolis Convention

  • Only 5/13 delegates came!

• Would meet in Philadelphia instead to revise the AOC

• COnstiutiaon Convention

• 55 delegates

• New Jersey Plan

  • modifications to government

  • equal representation for each state

• Virginia Plan (Madison)

  • Madison

  • New government

  • checks and balances

  • population-based represntation

  • 3 branches of government

    • Executive branch for POTUS, bicameral legislature, judicial SCOTUS

  • Electoral college for POTUS

• Convention was four months

• Compromises included:

  • Great Compromise (Connecticut Comrpomosie)

    • Blended Virginia and Jersey Plans to bicameral legislature

  • Three-Fifths Compromise

    • Enslaved people were 3/5ths of a person when counting the population

  • Three branches of government with checks and balances on each other

• Ratification was difficult to achieve

• Anti-Federalists opposed it because of a lack of a bill of rights

  • Promised if ratified

• Federalists wanted its ratification and were forceful about it with papers

  • Federalist papers by Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

• Constitution ratified in 1789 and Bill of Rights added in 1791

The Bill of Rights

1. Freedoms of: religion, assembly, press, petition, and speech

2. Right to bear arms

3. No quartering of soldiers

4. No unreasonable search and seizure

5. Right to due process of law and double jeopardy

6. Right to a speedy and public trial

7. Trial by jury

8. No cruel or unusual punishment

9. Rights of the people

10. Powers of the states

The First President: Washington

• Unanimously chosen as the first President: George Washington

• Only vetoed if he thoguht a bill was unconstitutional

• Delegated responsibility

• Cabinet included Jefferson as secretary of state and Hamilton as secretary of the Treasury

  • Hamilton wanted a strong federal govnerment and Jefferson lesser, so they clashed

• Natoinal Bank proposed by Hamilton to regulate and strenghten economy

  • Washingotn wasn’t sure if it was constitutional, large debate

• Maidson adn Jefferson were strict constructionsists

  • Said Constituion allowed powers that were necessary adn proper, and the bank wasn’t necessary

• Hamilton was a loose constructionist and saw the bank as constitutional becuase it was an implied power

• Washington signed it and created the National Bank

• Hamilton handled national debt with his financial plan

• Washington set precedent of isolationism and neutrality during the French Revolution

Our First Political Parties (Aww, cute!)

A bit more of Washington’s Term

• Whiskey Rebellion of 1791

  • Western Pennsylvania when farmers resisted a whiskey tax that Hamilton had imposed to ease national debt

  • Demonstrated lasting class tensions

  • Government used its power to dispel it, a welcome change

• Jay’s Treaty prevented war with Britain when they needed to evacuate British soldiers refusing to leave and free trade violations

• Executive privilege was used when Washington refused to submit documents pertinent to the treaty

  • Congress had tried to withhold funding

• PIckney’s Treaty was ratified in 1776 to prevent Spain from attacking Western settlers

• His farewell address warned against alliances and foreign affairs, as well as political parties

Republican Motherhood

• Women were excluded from politics but had an important role in raising their kids

• Teachers and raised virtuous men

• Women should entertain moral suitors and make men ethical

Adams’s Turn! (His Presidency)

• Federalist

• 2nd POTUS

• Allowed Hamilton to lead through him

• Jefferson’s rival

• Avoided a war with France

• XYZ Affair

  • American diplomats were held hostage by France and sent home later, with a report naming them as X, Y, and Z

• Alien and Sedition Acts were a low point

  • Government could expel foreigners and jail news editors for scandalous and malicious writing

  • Aimed at destroying immigrant support to Democratic-Republicans

  • Violated first Amendment

  • Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were drafted opposing them and arguing its unconstitutionality

  • Nullification of those laws was exercised