Unit 3 APUSH Study Guide
Topic 3.1 Contextualizing
The attempt by Great Britain to restructure its North American empire following the French and Indian War and to assert greater control over its colonies led to intense colonial resistance and finally to revolution.
The American Revolution produced a new American republic.
The first decades of the United States were marked by a struggle over the new nation's social, political, and economic identity.
The American Revolution was a monumental event in the history of the United States and world history. The American Revolution brought to the surface tensions that existed between the thirteen American colonies and the government of Great Britain. It also brought into existence a democratic republic.
The democratic spirit that imbued the founding of the United States inspired movements for change within the United States and abroad. The American Revolution didn’t give birth to a perfect democracy.
Americans have struggled with the meaning and extent of democracy for the more than 235 years since winning independence.
The decade of the 1780s was a trying one for the new American nation. The newborn United States fought and won the final stages of the American Revolution and then was faced with a series of threats from within and from abroad that threatened its very existence.
By the end of the"critical period," the nation had shifted directions regarding governance on the national level-rejecting the Articles of Confederation and adopting the Constitution.
The first 12 years after the ratification of the Constitution were key in the shaping of the United States' political system. The government was restructured in conformity with the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights established important civil liberties. It was in this period that many of the American political system's traditions and precedents —collectively known as the "unwritten Constitution" —was established.
We see the development of political parties and the two-party system during these years. Further, we see continuing struggles over the new nation's identity.
Topic 3.2 The Seven Years' War (The French and Indian War)
Competiton among the British, French, and American Indian nations culminated in the French and Indian War (1754-1763). American Indians were forced to adjust alliances in the wake of the victory of Great Britain over France. The war proved to be a turning point in relations between Great Britain and the thirteen colonies.
Before the war, the British unofficial policy of "salutary neglect" allowed both Great Britain and the colonies to benefit under loosely enforced mercantilist rules. After the war, the British government enacted a series of measures designed to assert greater control over its North American colonies.
Both Great Britain and France had extensive land claims in North America. France claimed more land in the New World, but Great Britain had many more colonists.
Expansion and overlapping land claims led to the French and Indian War.
Britain's victory in the war eliminated France's presence in North America and precipitated changes in British imperial policy in North America.
The French and Indian War had complex origins. In the 1740s and 1750s, British colonists began to venture from Virginia to settle beyond the Appalachian Mountains in the Ohio River Valley-land claimed by France. France's land claims stretched from Quebec, Montreal, and Detroit in the north to New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the south, and from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west.
France was increasing its presence in the Ohio River area to build up the fur trade. France began building fortifications in the region, Fort Duquesne at present-day Pittsburgh. The British colonists built a makeshift fort of their own nearby, Fort Necessity.
In 1754, skirmishes between the two groups led to the beginning of the French and Indian War, which brought on a shift in American-Indian alliances.
There are three distinct phases of the French and Indian War. At first (1754-1756), the war was a local affair—a continuation of the skirmishes between British colonists and French forces.
Most of the American Indian tribes sided with the French, who tended to be more cooperative to native peoples than the British were.
The scattered British colonists attempted, unsuccessfully, to work with one another during this period. Colonial leaders met in Albany, New York (1754), in an attempt to organize an intercolonial government.
Benjamin Franklin's proposed Albany Plan was rejected by the delegates. On the battlefield, the British colonists were in retreat.
In the second phase (1756-1758), the British government, under Prime Minister William Pitt, took full charge of the war.
Pitt alienated many colonists with his heavy-handed tactics, including forcing colonists into the army and seizing supplies from them.
The colonists resisted these moves, putting the entire British effort at risk.
In the final phase (1758-1761), Pitt tried to work with colonial assemblies and also reinforced the war effort with more British troops. hi
These moves proved successful.
In 1761, French forces surrendered at Montreal. Two years later, a formal peace treaty was signed.
In the Treaty of Paris (1763), France surrendered virtually its entire North American empire. It ceded to Great Britain all French territory in Canada and east of the Mississippi River. France ceded to Spain all of its territory west of the Mississippi River.
British North American colonists were pleased that the land beyond the Appalachians seemed ready for additional settlement.
American Indians living in these lands were in an increasingly vulnerable position.
If British colonists celebrated the removal of the French from North America, their celebration was short-lived. The British government attempted to confront an ongoing problem of large debt that had accumulated during almost half a century of constant warfare.
The British government believed its victory in the French and Indian War had been especially beneficial to the colonists. In return, the British reasoned it was fair for the colonists to assume some of the costs of the war and continued protection through increased taxation.
The first significant post-war tax was enacted with the Sugar Act of 1765. The act lowered the existing tax on molasses imported into North America from French colonies in the West Indies
However, along with lowering the tax, the act also wanted to crack down on widespread smuggling.
The act strengthened the admiralty courts system, shifting prosecutions of smuggling cases from local jury trials to British maritime courts.
The British hoped to generate additional income through these measures
The Stamp Act of 1765 addressed the housing of Britihs soldiers who were stationed in the colonies following the French and Indian War.
It represented a departure from previous British colonial policy.
It was a direct tax on the colonists rather than an indirect trade duty.
The act imposed a tax on all sorts of printed matter into the colonies like court documents, books, almanacas, and deeds.
The Quartering Act of 1765 addressed the housing of British soldiers who were stationed in the colonies following the French and Indian War.
The act laid that Great Britain would house shoulders in barracks, but if the number of soldiers exceeded facilities, they can be used by British authorities to house them
Colonial assemblies were expected to shoulder the costs of housing and feeding these soldiers; they were given part time wages and largest troops were in Boston.
The aftermath of the French and Indian War, American Indians in areas that Great Britain won, found themselves in an precarious position.
They wanted to maintain the lucrative fur trade with Europeans.
While they hoped to resist encroachment by British colonists.
Colonists settled in the interior of the continent, creating tensions between backwoods settlers and governing elites.
As British made their presence in lands formerly held by the French, the differences between them toward their approach to American Indians differ.
The French, practical and cultural reasons, worked at developing harmonious relations with American Indian tribes.
They negotiated with Indian leaders and participated in ceremonial exchanges of gifts.
The British had little patience for gift exchanges
General Jeffery Amherst, commander in chief of British forces in America, saw gift exchanging as shameful.
Americans Indians saw gift exchanging as an expression of dominance and protection.
Some Natives attempted to foster a greater sense of unity and cultural resistance among the fractious tribes of the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions.
In 1760-71, a Delaware leader named Neolin told American Indians if they didn’t change their ways, something bad would happen to them.
He encouraged them to curb their contact with European fur traders, reduce the presence of guns, alcohol, and other European goods and lessen fighting.
This led to unified violent resistance.
With the defeat of the French from the French and Indian War, native groups that had allied with the French found themselves in an unstable situation.
The Ottawa Tribe, in the northern Ohio region had no allies as British colonists came to the region. The chief, Potiac, and other Indian leaders organized resistance to them around the Great Lakes and southward on rivers.
In the months after the 1763 signing of the Treaty of Paris, Indian warriors attacked British-held Fort Detroit. This attack was followed by strikes on six other forts and on colonial settlements along a swath of land from upstate New York to the area south of Lake Michigan, and along the Appalachian frontier, where settlers were entering Indian country.
The attacks were initially successful; Pontiac and his allies captured several forts west of Detroit, with more than 400 British soldiers and 2,000 colonists killed or captured.
Amherst was replaced by Thomas Gage in August 1763.
Bloodshed continued into 1764.
Pontiac's Rebellion was finally broken by Gage.
Smaller skirmishes continued until the American Revolution, when many American Indian groups sided with the British.
In response to the outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion, Great Britain issued the Proclamation of 1763, which drew a line through the Appalachian Mountains. Great Britain ordered the colonists not to settle beyond the line.
Colonists were dissatisfied; they felt that they had made sacrifices during the French and Indian War, and they were now eager to settle in these newly claimed lands. Many had already migrated toward the foothills of the Appalachians and had begun making their way further west through mountain passes.
The British government didn’t want to provoke additional warfare with native peoples in the region and suffer the costs of more campaigns in the West. Further, the British wanted to continue garnering profits from the valuable fur trade with Indians.
Access to western lands was one of the first major disputes between Great Britain and the colonists.
Settlement of the interior of colonial America in the decades after the French and Indian War set the stage for ongoing tensions between the policies of ruling authorities-generally based in the cities along the Atlantic seaboard-and the poorer folk inland, remote from the commercial activity of the cosmopolitan centers.
After the American Revolution, the flow of pioneers beyond the Appalachians increased dramatically. This movement frequently displaced Indians, setting the stage for a new series of battles over the vast interior of the United States.
The movement was challenged by the continued presence of Spain and Great Britain along the borderlands of the newly formed United States.
The middle colonies—Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware-experienced remarkable growth in the 18th century. German, Scots-Irish, and other immigrants contributed to the growth of the colonies. The largest immigrant group in the 18th century was the Scots-Irish, Presbyterians originally from Scotland, who generations earlier had settled in Ireland, where they got their name.
Difficult economic conditions impelled thousands to migrate to America.
Immigrants from the southwestern German states were the second biggest group.
These immigrants tended to be good farmers and artisans, as well as laborers.
The initial destination of the Scots-Irish was Pennsylvania, where the availability of land and the need for workers attracted immigrants, especially to Philadelphia. Many soon moved westward into the mountainous interior. Other regions of colonial North America were less hospitable.
Farther south, slavery was the dominant form of labor; farther north, the legacy of Puritanism still enforced a cultural homogeneity. New York City attracted immigrants, but farmers found that the best land along the Hudson River was taken up by large estates.
As early as the 1720s, some farmers were settling beyond the crest of the Appalachian Mountains, in the backcountry of Pennsylvania, Virginia (the area that would later become West Virginia), and North Carolina.
Small-scale farmers in Pennsylvania specialized in growing wheat and experienced a higher standard of living than their counterparts in Europe.
The Scots-Irish farmers carried with them from Europe resentments toward British rule.
In the aftermath of the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion, a new wave of Scots-Irish settlers encroached upon American Indian lands in violation of previously signed treaties.
As tensions between American Indians and settlers increased, a vigilante group of Scots-Irish immi-grants, called the Paxton Boys, organized raids against American Indians on the Pennsylvania frontier. In 1763, these raids included an attack on peaceful Conestoga Indians (many of them Christians) that resulted in 20 deaths. After the attacks on the Conestoga, in January 1764, about 250 Paxton Boys marched to Philadelphia to present their grievances to the Pennsylvania legislature.
Their "Apology" (or explanation), presented to the legislature, reflected bitterness at the American Indians on the frontier of Pennsylvania, as well as resentment of the Quaker elite of the colony for maintaining a more lenient policy toward American Indians.
Topic 3.3 Taxation Without Representation:
In the aftermath of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), new taxes enacted by the British and more rigorous enforcement of existing taxes generated intense resentment and resistance among many colonists.
This movement culminated in the independence movement and revolution against Great Britain.
After the French and Indian War, the relationship between the British colonists and Great Britain changed, as the colonists began to unite and organize around a series of threats posed by changing British policies.
This changing relationship fostered a resistance movement and finally an independence movement.
The first significant, coordinated protests against British policies occurred in response to the Stamp Act (1765). In October 1765, delegates from 9 colonies met in New York and drew up a document listing grievances, which went beyond the Stamp Act itself.
The Declarations of the Stamp Act Congress asserted that only representatives elected by colonists could enact taxes on the colonies.
"No taxation without representation" became a rallying cry of opponents of British policies. The declarations followed on the heels of a series of proposals, written by Patrick Henry, called the Virginia Resolves.
Not all of the resolves were passed by the Virginia assembly, but they were all written up and circulated throughout the colonies.
The resolves, debated in June 1765, called for a degree of colonial self-government that went beyond more moderate proposals.
The British responded to the cry of "No taxation without representation!" with the theory of "virtual representation." The theory held that members of Parliament represented the entire British Empire. The colonists therefore were "virtually represented" by the members of Parliament, even though the colonists did not vote for these members.
The Stamp Act crisis is often considered to be the beginning of the period of the American Revolution (1765-1783).
In communities throughout the colonies, opponents of British policies organized committees of correspondence starting 1764. These committees spread information and coordinated resistance actions.
By the 1770s, the committees had become virtual shadow governments in the different colonies, assuming powers and challenging the legitimacy of the legislative assemblies and royal governors.
The Stamp Act generated a variety of crowd actions in the colonies. In cities and towns throughout the colonies, "Sons of Liberty" groups harassed and attacked, Stamp Act agents.
There were several incidents of stores ransacked if the proprietor didn’t comply with boycotts of British goods.
In Boston, the home of the lieutenant governor, Thomas Hutchinson, was ransacked.
Finally, the Stamp Act itself was repealed in 1766, but a series of British moves and colonial responses in the coming years worsened the situation.
The Townshend Acts of 1767, passed in the wake of the Stamp Act crisis, imposed additional taxes on the colonists. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, made sure these new taxes-on paint, paper, lead, tea, and other goods—were "external" taxes, on imports, not "internal" sales taxes on items.
Although opposition to these import duties was slow to develop, by 1768 many colonial leaders renewed their calls for boycotts of British goods.
The boycott movement gained strength throughout the 13 colonies.
Patriotic women engaged in producing homespun clothing.
Artisans benefited from the boycott as Americans wanted locally produced goods.
These simple goods were seen as virtuous substitutes for extravagant British goods.
In 1768, Great Britain reallocated royal troops to Boston following rioting that year. The presence of these troops angered many Bostonians. Many colonists viewed "standing armies" as threats to liberty.
Colonists asserted that during times of war, it is appropriate for citizen regiments to be mobilized, but when peace came, these troops must be disbanded.
The British soldiers competed with colonists for waterfront jobs.
During the winter of 1770 a deadly incident between British soldiers and a group of Bostonians reverberated throughout the colonies. The Boston Massacre of 1770, as the incident came to be known, occurred in March as a disagreement between an on-duty British sentry and a young wigmaker's apprentice escalated into a scuffle.
Angry colonists heckled and threw stones at British sentries ordered out to restore calm.
The troops fired on the colonists, resulting in five deaths, including an African American named Crispus Attucks.
In years to come, the incident would be repeatedly used as colonial propaganda to illustrate the brutality of the British troops.
After the Boston Massacre, the early 1770s witnessed a lessening of public acts of resistance. Many colonists were growing increasingly resentful of British officials. The seeming calm broke in June 1772, when a British revenue schooner, the Gaspee, ran aground in shallow waters near Warwick, Rhode Island.
The schooner was searching for smugglers who thrived in those waters.
Local men boarded the ship, looted its contents, and torched it.
The Gaspee affair represented a shift toward more militant tactics by colonial protestors.
Relations between British authorities and American colonists took a dramatic turn for the worse in 1773 with the passage of the Tea Act. The British East India Company was in crisis; its stock value had virtually collapsed. To bolster the company, the British passed the Tea Act, which greatly reduced taxes on tea sold in the colonies by the British East India Company.
The act enabled the company to sell massive quantities of low-priced tea directly to colonial merchants on delivery, thus bypassing local middlemen and undercutting smugglers.
This act actually lowered tea prices in Boston, but it angered many colonists who accused the British of doing special favors for a large company.
The colonists responded by dumping cases of tea into Boston harbor.
The dumping of the tea was not just a symbolic act; its value in today's money would be nearly $2 million.
The British passed a series of acts in 1774, in the wake of the Boston Tea Party, called the Coercive Acts, or Intolerable Acts.
The Massachusetts Government Act brought the governance of Massachusetts under direct British control.
The act limited the powers of town meetings and provided the royal governor with the power to directly appoint officials who had previously been elected.
The Administration of Justice Act allowed British authorities to move trials from Massachusetts to Great Britain.
British policy after the French and Indian War consistently sought to move trials away from local communities.
This move struck colonists as an abstract of a basic right of Englishmen—the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers.
The Boston Port Act closed the port of Boston to trade until further notice.
The Quartering Act expanded the scope of the 1765 Quartering Act and required Boston residents to house British troops upon their command.
A fifth act, the Quebec Act, was passed around the same time but was unrelated to the Boston Tea Party.
This act enlarged the boundaries of the Province and let Catholics in Quebec freely practice their religion.
Protestant Bostonians assumed that this was an attack on their faith.
British authorities hoped that the Coercive Acts would make an example of Massachusetts and isolate it from the other British colonies. The opposite occurred.
Colonists throughout colonial America resented the British for these acts.
Colonial assemblies passed resolutions condemning the acts.
In town after town, local institutions, including the Committees of Correspondence organized resistance to British policies.
Power was shifting from the instruments of royal governance to these unauthorized colonial bodies.
After the Virginia legislative assembly was dissolved by the British government, members held a special meeting to call for an intercolonial assembly. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in September and October 1774, with representatives from each of the 13 colonies, except Georgia.
The Congress passed several resolutions including nonimportation, nonexportation, and non-consumption agreements in an attempt to cut off all trade with Britain.
The Congress also called for the creation of local Committees of Safety to enforce these agreements and recommended that the colonies begin to make military preparations in defense of a possible invasion by British troops.
The Congress agreed to continue its functions and to meet again the following spring. The Second Continental Congress began its deliberations in May 1775.
Traditional accounts of the movement to resist British policies tend to stress the guidance of important colonial leaders, such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Hancock. Their participation in the committees of correspondence and the Continental Congress, as well as their oratory and writing, played an important role in the resistance movement.
However, the activism of groups of artisans, laborers, and women also pushed the movement forward.
Many women participated in the efforts to resist British policies. Women made clothing, both to honor boycotts of British goods and also to help supply troops once the American Revolution began. Women were also prominent in crowd actions against merchants who were thought to be holding back goods in order to profit from wartime shortages.
A group of women who were active in the opposition movement formed the Daughters of Liberty in 1765 as protests were developing against the Stamp Act. The group continued to organize boycotts, "spinning bees" and public protests throughout the coming decade.
During the Tea Act crisis in 1773, Daughters of Liberty chapters organized the production and distribution of homemade substitutes of the Chinese and Indian teas sold by the British East India Company, created using local roots and leaves.
51 women in North Carolina signed a declaration vowing to give up tea and other British products-an action known as the Edenton Tea Party in 1774.
After war broke out, colonial women helped on the actual battlefield as nurses and water carriers.
At least one woman enlisted in the Continental Army.
Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man and participated courageously in several battles.
Urban artisans had long been active in resistance to British policies. Artisans encouraged boycotts of British goods, knowing that such boycotts would lead to a greater demand for American-made goods.
They were driven as much by ideology as self-interest.
Artisans became increasingly radicalized in the years leading up to the American Revolution.
Anti-British street actions in Boston and Philadelphia needed the mobilization of artisans and workers to be effective. Colonial elites realized that these commoners were reliable allies in the struggle against the British.
Boston shoemaker Ebenezer Macintosh was an important leader of crowd actions in the Stamp Act period.
When the American Revolution began, craftsmen and laborers made up the bulk of both local militias and Continental Army units.
In Philadelphia, radicalized artisans were instrumental in the revolutionary struggle in 1776. The prewar Philadelphia political leadership, primarily members of the merchant class, opposed declaring independence and cutting ties to British trade. Artisans and laborers, with Thomas Paine and Benjamin Rush participating in the leadership, formed extra legal committees and militia groups in support of revolution.
They ended up crafting the most democratic constitution among the new states.
Topic 3.4 Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution:
The American Revolution occurred in the midst of a fertile period in the history of ideas. A variety of schools of thought put forth contending new ideas about society, politics, religion, and governance.
Many colonists came to believe in the superiority of republican forms of government.
This was evident in key documents from the period of the American Revolution, including Thomas Paine's Common Sense in 1776 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The rise of Protestant evangelical movements shaped the worldviews of many British colonists, inspiring them to see themselves as a chosen people surrounded by the blessings of liberty.
In addition, the ideas of the Enlightenment shaped American thinking about the ideal political system.
Protestant evangelical thought made a significant imprint on the language and ideas of many of the supporters of American independence. One can trace the Protestant assertion of the uniqueness of America's mission in the world back to John Winthrop's call to build a "city set upon a hill" (1630) or, a generation later, to Reverend Samuel Danforth's "Errand in the Wilderness" sermon (1672).
Not until the 1700s that historians mark the beginning of Protestant evangelicalism a more intense and radical form of Protestantism, more focused on individual conversion and less centered on established churches.
From the time of the Great Awakening revival movement through the period leading up to independence, Protestant evangelical ministers used language that complemented and contributed to ideas of republicanism. Ministers spoke of "liberty" and "virtue" delivering their congregants from "bondage and servitude."
The French and Indian War came to be seen by many evangelicals as a battle against Roman Catholicism.
After the war, evangelicals and republicanism increasingly began to share a language of opposition and resistance likening British rule to the devil and urging colonists to resist corruption. The struggle against the British came to be seen by many as part of an ongoing struggle against godless tyranny.
The influence of Protestant evangelicalism on Patriot sentiment can be seen in a sermon by the Boston Baptist minister, Rev. John Allen, Oration Upon the Beauties of Liberty (1772).
The oration began with a condemnation of the British threat to prosecute those involved in the Gaspee affair.
He used the incident as a springboard for a broad and scathing attack on British governance of the colonies.
It became an extremely popular address during the period before independence; it was reprinted seven times in four cities.
The ideas of the Enlightenment shaped the thinking of many patriots and helped provide them with a lens through which to perceive, and resist, British rule. This is especially evident when one views the American Revolution within the context of what has become known as the "age of revolutions."
The American Revolution was the first of several revolutions (including ones in France, Haiti, and a host of Spanish colonies) that, in keeping with Enlightenment thinking, broke with the past and articulated a new set of ideas about governance, individual liberty, and reason.
The French Enlightenment philosopher, Montesquieu, argued in "The Spirit of the Laws" (1748) that liberty could best be sustained by dividing the powers of government and maintaining a balance of power.
His ideas influenced both criticism of the British monarchy and the formation of a new American government.
John Locke was perhaps the most influential Enlightenment thinker, read widely in America during the time of the Revolution. Locke had written Two Treatises on Government in the early 1690s to defend England's Glorious Revolution (1688).
He identified the basis of a legitimate government in his Second Treatise of Government (1689).
Locke argued that a ruler gains legitimacy through the consent of the governed.
The basic responsibility of government is to protect the natural rights of the people.
Locke identified the most basic of these rights as life, liberty, and property.
If a government should fail to protect these basic rights, it is the right of the citizens to overthrow that government.
Locke's theory of natural rights states that power to govern belongs to the people.
Locke was one of the main intellectual influences in the writing of the Declaration of Independence.
Locke's writings challenged Thomas Hobbes's defense of an absolutist monarchy and Sir Robert Filmer's assertion of the divine right of kings.
Theoretical debates about the proper form of government took on urgency in the North American colonies in the 1770s as the imperial crisis intensified. Enlightenment ideas informed the writings of Thomas Paine and shaped the content of the Declaration of Independence.
American thinkers and revolutionaries embraced the ideas of republican self-government based on natural rights theory.
By 1775 and 1776, even though fighting had begun between colonists and British forces, independence was not a foregone conclusion. Historians estimate that around 40 to 45% of colonists, known as "Patriots”, wanted independence; around 15 to 20% , known as "Loyalists" or "Tories," wanted to retain ties to Great Britain.
Both sides articulated reasons for their stance-whether those reasons were ideological, economic, or personal.
Some members of the Continental Congress still hoped for reconciliation. Congress sent the "Olive Branch Petition" to King George I in July 1775, affirming loyalty to the British King and blaming the current problems on Parliament.
The petition proposed a structure in which the colonies would exercise greater autonomy within the British empire, and the British would enact more equitable trade and tax regulations.
George rejected the Olive Branch Petition without reading it.
As the debate over independence ensued, Thomas Paine published a best-selling pamphlet called Common Sense. He advocated that the American colonies declare independence from Great Britain.
He wrote that he could not see a "single advantage" in "being connected with Great Britain.
“The revolution was well under way in January 1776 when Paine wrote Common Sense.
He argued against the conciliatory logic of the Olive Branch Petition, plainly and forcefully putting the blame for the crisis on King George III.
On July 4, 1776, the delegates to the Second Continental Congress formally ratified the Declaration of Independence. The first draft of the document was written by Thomas Jefferson in consultation with fellow members of a five-person committee appointed by Congress; the draft subsequently underwent edits by the entire Second Continental Congress.
The body of the Declaration of Independence is a list of grievances against the king of Great Britain, but the eloquent preamble contains key elements of Locke's natural rights theory.
It states that "all men are created equal" and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
The declaration goes on to assert that government gains its legitimacy from "the consent of the governed."
If a government violates people's natural rights, the people have the right "to alter or abolish it."
These ideas have shaped democratic practices in the United States and beyond.
When the United States declared and won, its independence from Great Britain, it was not immediately clear what type of government it would embrace. There was widespread agreement that America would become a republic—a country in which sovereignty, or power, ultimately rested with the people rather than a monarch.
This was a radical move for the time; there had been virtually no republics in the world since the Roman republic two thousand years earlier.
There was disagreement about what was expected of citizens in a republic. For many Americans, republicanism implied a particular moral stance in the world.
Republican citizens were independent people who embodied civic virtue, putting the interests of the community above their own self-interest.
Republican citizens led industrious, simple lives.
This vision of republicanism looked back to the ancient Roman republic as an ideal. The Roman model inspired many Americans, even if the actual workings of Rome were not what people in the 1770s thought it was.
Some elements of republicanism can also be traced back to the Puritan experiment, with its rejection of top-down ecclesiastical authority, its communitarian spirit, and its concern about the corrupting effects of power.
In this understanding of republicanism, virtuous citizens had to be on the watch for decadent and corrupt leaders who pursued luxury and power at the expense of the common good.
At the same time, other Americans were developing a different set of ideas about republicanism. They argued that individuals pursuing their own self-interest were the ideal republican citi zens. This understanding of republicanism drew inspiration from the economic ideas of Adam Smith.
In his two important works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith argued that rational self-interest and competition can lead to greater prosperity for all.
This understanding of republicanism put more of a focus on ambition and economic freedom, while the earlier understanding put more of an emphasis on public virtue and civic-mindedness.
These competing visions of republicanism shaped many of the debates during the first decades of the United States.
Topic 3.5 The American Revoltion:
The Patriot cause faced serious obstacles, including considerable Loyalist opposition and the overwhelming military might of Great Britain. Despite these factors, the rebellious colonists were successful. The military leadership of George Washington, the actions of colonial militias and the Continental Army, the ideological commitment of many colonists, and support from foreign powers all worked to the advantage of the Patriot cause.
The American crisis reached a boiling point by 1775. Fighting between the British Army and rebellious colonists began at Lexington and Concord in that year and intensified after the Second Continental Congress declared independence in July 1776.
In April 1775, fighting began between colonists and British troops in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. Americans often call the first shot of this clash "the shot heard round the world."
Symbolized a marked shift in the colonial situation from resistance to rebellion.
Both sides had important advantages and disadvantages in the American Revolution. The British had a highly trained, professional army; they had the strongest navy in the world; and they had substantial financial resources.
The British could also count on the support of about a third of the colonial population, which remained loyal.
Great Britain offered freedom to slaves who joined the British side.
The British also could count on a majority of American Indian tribes for support.
The British troops were fighting far from home.
It was difficult to maintain supply lines over the course of a long war and over a huge theater of war.
Great Britain had enemies, such as the French who wanted to see them defeated.
The eventual entry of France into the war on the American side tipped the scales decisively against the British.
The Patriots had excellent leadership in General George Washington, who counted on several key generals, especially Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox. In addition, Washington had support from talented European volunteer officers: the Marquis de Lafayette (French), Baron von Steuben (Prussian), and Thaddeus Kosciusko and Casimir Pulaski (Polish).
The Patriots had the advantage of defending their home territo-ry; they did not have to attack Great Britain to emerge victorious. Finally, many Patriot soldiers believed deeply in the cause of independence.
Colonial disadvantages included lack of financing and a lack of a strong central governing authority.
There are three distinct phases of the American Revolutionary War.
The first phase from 1775-1776 took place primarily in New England.
Great Britain didn’t grasp the depth of Patriot sentiment among many colonists. The British thought that the conflict was essentially brought on by an impetuous minority in New England.
After the British suffered heavy losses in their victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill in March 1776, they abandoned Boston and reevaluated their strategy.
The second phase from 1776-1778 occurred primarily in the middle colonies.
The British thought that if they could maintain control of New York, they could isolate rebellious New England.
A massive British force drove George Washington and his troops out of New York City in the summer of 1776.
British forces coming south from Canada suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777.
The battle made it evident that the British might be able to hold urban centers like New York City, but that it would be very difficult to control the vast stretches of eastern and southern North America.
Saratoga also showed France that the colonists could mount formidable forces for battle.
Early in 1778, France formally recognized the United States as an independent nation and agreed to supply military assistance.
France's motivation was its animosity toward Great Britain, not affinity with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
The third phase from 1778-1783 took place in the South.
Great Britain hoped to rally loyalist sentiment in the South, where it was strongest, and even tap into resentment among the slave population there.
The southern strategy didn’t bear fruit despite British victories at Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.
In the North, fighting had reached a stalemate, despite the aid that "turncoat" Benedict Arnold supplied to the British in 1780.
By October 1781, a joint American-French campaign caught British General Cornwallis off guard, and he surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia.
Skirmishes continued between the two sides until the 1783 Treaty of Paris formally ended the American Revolution.
Throughout the American Revolution, civilians attempted to provide financial and material support to the Patriot cause. These efforts were insufficient. The Continental Army faced economic shortages throughout the war.
The Continental Army was underfunded and short on basic supplies. Congress lacked the power to levy taxes on the people; it had to request funds from the various states.
The war was a massive undertaking in terms of organization and financing.
The newly formed and disorganized Congress was not prepared for the task.
Congress attempted to solve the financial problems of the war by printing money, but this currency soon lost its value amid runaway inflation.
Merchants frequently sold goods to the British, who could pay in gold and silver rather than have to accept the worthless currency of the Continental Congress.
This was starkly evident in the winter of 1777-1778, when Washington's troops at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, suffered from food shortages.
One cause of the shortages was that merchants simply would not sell to the army.
Congress turned to other measures to pay the soldiers. It began issuing certificates for frontier land in lieu of payment. These certificates were often used as currency, as soldiers had more immediate needs than procuring frontier land and used the certificates to purchase goods.
Topic 3.6 The Influence of Revolutionary Ideas:
An ongoing tension emerged between those who wanted to expand democratic participation and those who wanted to maintain traditional forms of inequality. In addition, the ideas of the American Revolution were invoked by movements for change in other countries.
Although the primary goal of the American Revolution was independence from Great Britain for the 13 colonies, the rhetoric that was employed to justify the revolution inspired others to demand fundamental changes in society.
Many called for the abolition of slavery and for greater political democracy in the new governing structures.
Despite the language of equality in the Declaration of Independence and in many state constitutions, political leaders were reluctant to apply such language to enslaved African Americans. In several northern states, slaves petitioned state legislatures to grant them their "natural rights," namely freedom.
In 1779, petitions for emancipation in New Hampshire and Connecticut were rejected. In Massachusetts, 7 free African Americans, including the brothers Paul and John Cuffe, refused to pay taxes on grounds that they didn’t vote and not represented.
Their actions led to the extension of voting rights to tax-paying African Americans in Massachusetts.
Slaves in Massachusetts sued for their freedom, initiating several legal cases that cited the language of the Massachusetts constitution, "all men are born free and equal”.
Several such cases were decided in favor of the slaves, effectively ending slavery in
Massachusetts through judicial decisions.
Several other states slowly began to take action against slavery.
Vermont, which was a sovereign entity from 1777 to 1791 (when it was admitted as the 14th state), outlawed slavery in its 1777 Constitution, citing the language of the Declaration of Independence. In 1780, political leaders in Pennsylvania voted to end slavery by gradual emancipation.
The law was not immediately beneficial to enslaved people in Pennsylvania.
It stated that infants born on or after March 1, 1780, would be free, but only after they reached the age of 28.
However, many slaves in Pennsylvania simply ran away, sometimes aided by sympathetic whites.
The importance of women in the revolutionary struggle and the spread of Enlightenment ideas around equality set the stage for the evolution of ideas around gender. The ideal of "republican motherhood" emerged in the decades after the American Revolution.
The experience of women participating in the struggle for independence, from organizing boycotts to aiding men on the battlefield, gave rise to a sense of egalitarianism among many women and men.
This rethinking of traditional gender roles was evident in a private letter that Abigail Adams sent to her husband John Adams in March 1776, as he and other leaders of the Patriot cause debated independence and a new legal framework. It is clear that gender equality was an issue.
The letter is especially significant in the context of the American Revolution.
The rhetoric of the revolutionary era railed against tyrannical rule.
Many found analogies between the tyranny of king over subject and the tyranny of husband over wife.
The arguments deployed by the Patriot cause in the American Revolution inspired many male and female writers to challenge traditional notions of gender and to put forth new ideas about the proper role of men and women in the new nation. The concept of "republican motherhood," drawing together a number of elements, asserted that women did indeed have civic responsibilities in the evolving culture of the new nation.
The concept drew on Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke, in his Two Treatises on Government, that marriage should involve a greater degree of consent, challenging traditional notions of female subordination.
The experience of women participating in the struggle for independence, from organizing boycotts to aiding men on the battlefield, engendered a sense of egalitarianism among many women and men.
The concept of "republican motherhood" didn’t put forth an agenda of political equality between men and women. It went only so far as to assert that women did have a role to play in civic life. The main feature of this role was to raise civic-minded republican sons and to reform the morals and manners of men.
It asserted that women were active agents in maintaining public virtue—a realm traditionally associated with men.
The ideas of "republican motherhood" still confined women to a largely domestic role, but these ideas did expand the possibilities for women to gain an education; after all, it was important for women to gain the literacy and knowledge needed to raise the next generation of republican leaders.
In 1789, a little over a decade after the 13 colonies declared independence, and a mere 6 years after the Treaty of Paris was signed, a revolution began in France. The French revolutionaries were inspired by some of the same Enlightenment ideas that had inspired revolutionaries in America and were inspired by the American model itself. This first phase of the French Revolution was begun by the national legislature against the absolutist power of the monarch.
The first phase had widespread support in the United States. Soon, the revolution entered a more radical phrase.
In 1793, the monarchy was completely abolished, the power of the church was limited, and, during a fever of revolutionary zeal, more than 40,000 suspected enemies of the revolution were publicly executed, among them the king and queen of France.
This "reign of terror," carried out by the Jacobins' political club, peaked in 1793-1794.
The leader of the Jacobins, Maximilien Robespierre, was himself executed in 1794.
The Directory, a body of 5 men, took power in 1795 and held that power until 1799, when the French Revolution came to an end.
After that, Napoleon Bonaparte assumed power in a coup d'état.
As the revolution took its turn into a more radical and violent direction in 1793, Americans became increasingly divided about the events in France.
In 1791, a revolution broke out in the western part of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The revolution occurred in the French part of the island, called Saint Domingue. This French colony was primarily a sugar-producing slave society, made up of half a million African slaves and 60,000 free people.
Of the free people, about half were white and half were mixed-race (gens de couleur).
The mixed-race population of Saint Domingue owned about a third of the slaves on the island, but were barred from participation in the political system.
The revolution had three phases.
First, the white colonists resisted French rule, inspired in part by the model of the American Revolution and in part by the recent French Revolution.
Second, the mixed-race planters rebelled, challenging their second-class status. Finally, the slaves themselves rebelled.
The slave rebellion, led by Toussaint L'Overture and aided by Spanish troops, occupied much of the country.
The rebellion of slaves on Saint Domingue sent waves of fear among southern planters in the United States, especially after fleeing whites and mixed-race people brought stories of the rebellion to communities in the southern United States.
Soon after L'Overture's death, Haiti established its independence (1804) as the first Black republic in the Americas.
In both the British North American colonies and the Spanish American colonies, colonists decided to break long-held ties with European powers. Both the North American and the South American struggles for independence involved deep divisions within the respective colonial societies; rebels and loyalists clashed on both continents.
Both revolutionary struggles occurred in societies that included slavery.
Starting in 1808, several nations in Spain's vast New World empire-which extended from Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, Peru in the west to Venezuela in the east-rebelled against Spanish rule.
The revolutionaries were inspired by a combination of ideology, geopolitics, and material interests-just as their North American predecessors were.
Topic 3.7 The Articles of Confederation
After declaring independence, Americans experimented with different forms of government, both on the state level and the national level.
The Articles of Confederation established a weak central government, with the states retaining a great deal of their powers.
The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation soon became apparent as the United States faced a series of domestic and international challenges.
After the Second Continental Congress declared independence, the newly established states created constitutions that placed power in the legislative branch.
In May 1776, before independence was declared, the Second Continental Congress urged the colonists to draft constitutions. By 1778, 10 states made them and CT, MA, RI updated their colonial charters. All the state constitutions declared that the republican idea that government ultimately rests on the consent of the governed.
Most of these constitutions reflected the older view of republicanism.
These constitutions tended to be based on the idea that governing units should be small and that distant power could become tyrannical.
Some states created some form of direct democracy and many strengthened the lower legislative house.
The lower house would be more responsive to the will of the people through more frequent elections.
Some states established annual elections in the lower house. PA and GA abolished the upper house.
Pennsylvania created the most radical of the state constitutions. The older, elite leadership of the colony was praised after it came out against independence in the summer of 1776. The power vacuum that resulted was filled by a pro-independence, democratic-minded group of activists, including Thomas Paine and Benjamin Rush.
These activists gave voice to artisans and lower-class communities of Philadelphia rather than the merchant elite class.
The constitution that was drafted abolished property qualifications for voting and abolished the office of governor.
This constituton was in effect until the 1790s.
Even though PA created the most democratic constitution, many states included lists of individual liberties that the government wasn’t to cut. Virginia’s Declaration of Rights in 1776 inspired others to follow.
The Articles of Confederation in 1776 was being written like the Declaration of Independence was being written and debated. The Articles of Confederation lacked the philosophical glory of Thomas Jefferson's document.
The Articles put down on paper what had come to exist organically over the previous year, as the First and Second Continental Congresses began to assume more powers and responsibilities.
The main concern at the time was carrying out the war against Great Britain.
The document was edited and sent to the states for ratification in 1777.
It took 4 years for all the states to ratify it.
The issue of western land claims caused several states to reject the document initially.
The Articles called for a one-house, or unicameral, legislature, continuing the practice of the Second Continental Congress. This Congress would have delegations from each state. States could send anywhere from two to seven delegates, but each state delegation would get one vote.
Decision-making in Congress wasn't easy—decisions required just a simple majority or seven votes. Major decisions required 9 votes, allowing 5 states to block major legislation. Changes and amendments to the document itself required a unanimous vote in Congress and ratification by all the state legislatures.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government's lack of broad powers was problematic regarding raising revenue. This was an acute problem during wartime. The central government didn’t have the power to tax the people directly.
The idea of being taxed only by local representatives carried over from the days of the Stamp Act crisis (1765).
The central government depended on voluntary contributions from the states.
Congress agreed that states would contribute revenue in proportion to their population, but the states were tardy or resistant.
The United States faced serious economic problems during the 1780s. The Confederation government and the states printed millions of dollars in paper money, driving up inflation. The government borrowed millions of dollars during the war.
After the war, the government had trouble paying off these debts.
Robert Morris, chosen by Congress to address these issues, proposed a 5% impost, or import tax, to raise revenues. Since this would require a change in the Articles themselves, all thirteen states had to be on board.
Rhode Island and New York, who had thriving ports, didn’t want to give up the revenue stream from state duties, so they rejected the proposed impost.
This rejection demonstrated the difficulties Congress faced in passing important reforms.
Several of the problems associated with the "critical period" were evident in a farmers' uprising in Massachusetts called Shays's Rebellion (1786-1787). In the western part of the state, struggling farmers, many veterans of the Revolution, were troubled by several government actions.
Taxes in Massachusetts were stiff, unlike in other states, and had to be paid in hard currency (backed by gold or silver), not cheap paper currency. Unable to pay these taxes, many farmers were losing their farms to banks.
The farmers petitioned the legislature to pass stay laws, which would have suspended creditors' right to foreclose on farms.
This, with petitions to lower taxes, was rejected by the Massachusetts legislature.
After being frustrated by the legislature, hundreds of Massachusetts farmers, led by veteran Daniel Shays, protested and finally took up arms.
They were responding to a perceived injustice as they had a decade earlier when under British rule.
They closed down several courts and freed farmers from debtors' prison.
Local militias did not try to stop the actions, which spread to more towns in MA.
After several weeks, the governor and legislature called 4000 armed men to suppress the rebellion.
The insurrection reflected the ongoing tensions between coastal elites and struggling farmers.
The concerns about the ability of the authorities to put down future uprisings were in the mind of delegates to the Philadelphia convention, 3 months after the Shay’s Rebellion.
By 1786, many Americans, especially elite property owners, began to raise concerns about the stature of the United States on the world stage and the competency of a weak central government. With these concerns in mind, in 1786 a group of reformers received approval from Congress to meet in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss possible changes in the Articles of Confederation.
A follow-up meeting was scheduled in Philadelphia for May 1787. In between these meetings, from August 1786 until February 1787, Shays's Rebellion erupted in Massachusetts.
It was put down, but it added fuel to the impetus to reform the governing structure.
By the time of the Philadelphia meeting, the delegates were ready to scrap the entire Articles of Confederation and write something new.
After the United States declared independence from Great Britain, there was debate about the status of the vast swath of land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.
Some states insisted that Western land claims from the colonial period should be honored.
Virginia claimed all of the land north of the Ohio River. New York claimed a huge portion of the West, including land that overlapped with Virginia's claim. Some states, such as New Jersey and Maryland, had no claims.
Maryland insisted that it would not ratify the Articles of Confederation until all states gave up their land claims and the western lands became part of a national domain.
Congress persuaded the states with claims to do just that in 1781.
Once the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains came under the control of the national government, Congress set about passing a series of acts to clarify the status of these lands and to encourage their settlement.
The Land Ordinance of 1784 divided the Northwest Territory into 10 potential new states, each with the guarantee of self-government.
The following year, Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, reducing the number of states from 10 to 5.
The ordinance also called for the creation of townships, each six by six miles; these townships were then divided into thirty-six lots, each one square mile.
A lot in every town was set aside for education; four additional lots were set aside for other public and governmental uses. The remaining lots were to be sold.
In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, setting up a process by which areas could become territories, and then states. Once the population of a territory reached 60,000, it could write a constitution and apply for statehood.
These states would be on equal footing with the original thirteen states; they would not have a second-class, colonial status.
Also, the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the territory north of the Ohio River. These acts encouraged the steady and orderly flow of settlers into the West.
These policies proved disastrous for American Indians.
Congress's handling of the Northwest Territory is seen as one of the few major successes of the government under the Articles of Confederation.
In the 1790s, a steady stream of migrants made their way into the southern portion of the Northwest Territory, settling along the Ohio and its tributary rivers. The process was made easier by further congressional action. Future president William Henry Harrison, who from 1799 to 1800 was a nonvoting congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, successfully promoted the passage of legislation that made it easier for ordinary settlers to buy land there.
The Harrison Land Law, which allowed for sales of smaller plots, facilitated the rapid population growth of the Northwest Territory.
In 1803, the southeastern portion of the territory was incorporated as the State of Ohio.
The remainder of the region was designated as the Indiana Territory in 1800.
This territory later became the states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and part of Wisconsin.
Topic 3.8 The Constitutional Convention and Debates Over Ratification
As the limitations of the Articles of Confederation became more apparent, American political leaders drafted the Constitution, which was designed to strengthen the central government.
Debates over the Constitution led to the adoption of a Bill of Rights as Americans continued to debate the proper balance between liberty and order.
The delegates chosen to work on changes to the Articles of Confederation quickly agreed at the 1787 Philadelphia meeting to get rid of the Articles altogether and to create a new framework for government.
For four months, delegates met, argued, and wrote. These resulted in a series of compromises that formed the basis of the new Constitution.
The delegates at the Constitutional Convention agreed that a central government with far greater powers was needed, but several issues occupied much of their attention. A major source of disagreement was how the various states should be represented in the new government.
Bigger states expressed dissatisfaction with the one-vote-per-state system that existed under the Articles; they argued that larger states should have a larger voice in governance.
The delegates from these states rallied around the Virginia Plan, which would have created a bicameral legislature that pegged the number of representatives from each state to the population of the state.
The small states feared their voices would be drowned out in such a legislature.
They countered with the New Jersey Plan, which called for a one-house legislature with each state getting one vote (similar to the Articles of Confederation).
After much wrangling, the delegates agreed on the Great Compromise, which created the basic structure of Congress as it now exists.
The plan called for a House of Representatives, in which representation would be determined by the population of each state, and a Senate, in which each state would get two members.
Though many voices noted the inconsistency of slavery and the ideals put forth in the nation's founding documents, slavery continued in the United States. The framers of the Constitution were uneasy with the "peculiar institution," as it would later be termed.
This uneasiness is reflected in the fact that the word "slavery" is not used once in the entire document.
Slaves are often referred to as "other persons".
Although the framers of the Constitution did not mention the word slavery, they were willing to compromise on the issue and postpone any final decision about it to the future.
This postponement led to decades of debate and conflict over the issue.
A major issue when one considered that for states such as South Carolina and Mississippi, slaves comprised more than 50% of the population. To count them in the census would more than double the size of their delegations in the House. Northern states objected because slaves could not vote; in fact, they were considered property, not human beings. After much debate, a compromise was reached in which southern states could count three-fifths of their slave populations in the census.
This "Three-Fifths Compromise" defied common sense to delegates.
Other sections of the Constitution seem to give tacit approval of the institution of slavery.
The delegates voted to protect the international slave trade for 20 years, guaranteeing the flow of slaves into the country from Africa and the Caribbean for another generation.
The international slave trade was ended by Congress in 1808, the earliest date that the Constitution allowed.
In addition, the Constitution provided for the return of fugitive slaves.
(A mechanism for their return was contained in the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793; the process was strengthened with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.)
Though slavery was not mentioned by name, the inclusion of regulations around slavery made clear that the Constitution recognized and condoned its existence.
Once the Constitution was completed, it went to the states for ratification. Each state was to call a convention to vote for ratification, and only 9 states were needed for approval. This was still not an easy process. Large numbers of Americans opposed the creation of a powerful central government.
Public opinion in Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York was clearly against ratification.
North Carolina and Rhode Island did not even hold conventions.
All the states voted to ratify the Constitution.
Many opponents of the new Constitution came around to voting in the affirmative only after prominent supporters of the document promised to add a bill of rights to the Constitution.
The supporters of the Constitution labeled themselves Federalists. Three important Federalist theorists were Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. As the New York convention was debating ratification in late 1787 and 1788, the three wrote a series of articles that were later published in book form— The Federalist.
This highly influential political tract outlined the failures of the Articles of Confederation and the benefits of a powerful government with checks and balances.
In Federalist Number 10, Madison argued that, for a large and diverse population, a complex government was the best guarantee of liberty.
With such a complex government, no one group could gain control and dominate others.
This argument challenged the traditional republican notion that republics must be small in order to be democratic.
In Federalist Number 51, he argued for a separation of powers within the government and a system of checks and balances.
Opponents of the new Constitution, Anti-Federalists, as they were called by the Federalist, worried that the new government would be controlled by members of the elite. They saw the document as favoring the creation of a powerful, aristocratic ruling class. Leading Anti-Federalists were Patrick Henry and George Mason.
They argued that officials in the national government would be, almost by definition, removed from the concerns, and the control, of ordinary people.
They were distrustful of distant authority.
The 13 colonies had just emerged from under the thumb of the British Empire, so many colonists were eager to see that power was exercised locally.
One of the Anti-Federalists' primary concerns was that individual rights were not adequately protected by the Constitution. They noted that the document didn’t contain a bill of rights.
Delaware ratified the Constitution almost immediately, in December 1787. By January 1788, four more states-Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut-voted for ratification.
In January, supporters of the Constitution faced their first real test in Massachusetts. Prominent Massachusetts political leaders, including Samuel Adams and Governor John Hancock, opposed ratification. Also, many followers of Daniel Shays were active in the process and strongly opposed to the Constitution.
Federalist leaders assured the ratifying convention that they would recommend the creation of a national bill of rights in order to address Anti-Federalist concerns. In February, Massachusetts voted to approve the Constitution.
By May, Maryland and South Carolina came on board. New Hampshire provided the ninth, and deciding, vote in June 1788.
By May 1790, the final four states-Virginia (1788), New York (1788), North Carolina (1789), and Rhode Island (1790)-voted for ratification and joined the new union.
During the debate over ratification of the Constitution, 7 of the states voted to ratify only on the condition that Congress would pass a list of rights of the people. Anti-Federalists in these states feared that a sprawling, powerful government would step on individual liberties.
One of the first acts of Congress was passage of the Bill of Rights —the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Much of the language in the Bill of Rights, written by James Madison, comes from the various states' constitutions.
The First Amendment contains the "establishment clause" prohibiting the establishment of an official religion in the United States.
The remainder of the First Amendment deals with various forms of freedom of expression.
The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms.
Some have argued that the language of the Second Amendment seems to link the right to bear arms to participation in militias; others have argued that it is an absolute individual right.
The Third Amendment addresses a much-hated British practice-forcing colonial residents to house soldiers.
Americans would not be compelled to house soldiers.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees a modicum of privacy from searches by government officials.
People are protected in their "persons, houses, papers and effects" from "unreasonable searches and seizures."
Authorities must first obtain a warrant issued by a judge upon evidence of "probable cause."
Severa amendments in the Bill of Rights address protections people have when they are brought into the legal system. The logic of these amendments is that the legal system is powerful and well-funded, and should therefore have checks placed upon it to protect the individual.
The Fifth Amendment calls for grand jury indictments, prohibits authorities from trying a suspect twice for the same crime ("double jeopardy") and from forcing a suspect to testify against himself or herself.
The Fifth Amendment also prohibits the govermment from seizing someone's property, unless it is for a "public use" and the owner receives "just compensation."
The power of the government to seize private property under these stipulations is known as "eminent domain."
The Sixth Amendment guarantees suspects the right to a "speedy and public" trial, with a jury, conducted in the district where the crime was committed.
Also, the suspect has a right to be informed of the charges and has the right to question witnesses giving testimony.
Finally, suspects have the right to call friendly witnesses to the stand and have a lawyer.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees the accused the right to a trial by jury, even in civil cases (involving conflicts between two parties over monetary damages).
The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from inflicting "cruel and unusual" punishments and prevents the setting of "excessive bail."
The last two amendments of the Bill of Rights deal with limits and parameters of rights and powers inherent in the government.
The Ninth Amendment guarantees that additional rights, not mentioned in the Bill of Rights, shall be protected from government infringement.
The Tenth Amendment deals with governmental powers and the relationship between the federal government and the states.
It asserts that powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited by the Constitution, shall be retained by the states andthe people.
The right to vote is absent from the Bill of Rights. The federal government left it to the states to formulate rules for voting. It was only later that voting would be seen as a fundamental right that needed the protection of constitutional amendments.
The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited voting restrictions based on race, the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) prohibited restrictions based on gender, and the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) lowered the voting age to 18.
Topic 3.9 The Constitution:
The delegates at the Constitutional Convention created a national government that was more powerful than the one that had existed under the Articles of Confederation. The structure of the Constitution contained safeguards against the government assuming excessive powers.
Three branches were created, each with the power to check the power of other two. A system of federalism was also created, allowing state governments to retain certain powers.
The framers of the Constitution created three separate and coequal branches of government.
The legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch carries out laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws.
The Constitution spells out the specific powers of each of the three branches of government.
The powers of the legislative branch, Congress, are listed in Article I.
These include rhe power to levy taxes, to regulate trade, to coin money, to establish post offices, to declare war, and to approve treaties.
The framers of the Constitution wanted it to have the flexibility to deal with the needs of a changing society.
They included the elastic clause, which stretched the powers of Congress by allowing it to create laws it deemed "necessary and proper" to carry out its listed powers.
The definition of "necessary and proper" soon became a matter of much debate.
The powers of the executive branch, the president, are included in Article II.
These include the power to suggest legislation, to command the armed forces, and to nominate judges.
The president is charged with carrying out the laws of the land.
The powers of the judiciary, headed by the Supreme Court, are outlined in Article III.
The federal judiciary has the power to hear cases involving people or entities from different states and to hear cases involving federal law.
In the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Court assumed its most significant power-judicial review, the power to nullify laws that it deems inconsistent with the Constitution.
The framers were very conscious of the problems of a government with limitless powers. After living under the British monarchy, they came to believe that a powerful government without checks was dangerous to liberty. They created a governmental system with three separate branches, each with the ability to check the powers of the other two.
The goal was to keep the three branches in balance.
An example of this concept of checks and balances is the president's ability to veto bills passed by Congress, or the Supreme Court's ability to strike down laws that it deems unconstitutional.
Federalism refers to the evolving relationship between the national government and the states.
The Constitution gave the national government considerably more power than had the Articles of Confederation. Under the Constitution, states still hold on to certain powers (reserved powers), but an expanded national government is given many new powers (delegated powers).
These expanded national powers include the power to tax, borrow money, regulate commerce, and promote the "general welfare." Madison proposed granting Congress the power to strike down state laws, but this measure was rejected.
The Constitution does make it clear that the national government is the "spreme law of the land."
Topic 3.10 Shaping the New Republic
The United States faced a host of challenges in its first years of independence. The continued presence of European powers in North America challenged the government to find ways to safeguard the borders. War and conflict in Europe made it difficult for the United States to pursue both free trade and neutrality.
In addition, neither the Constitution nor political leaders in the early national period clarified the status of American Indians in the United States, setting the stage for future conflicts.
Finally, the nation experienced heated debates over a national bank, the future economic direction of the United States, and the proper balance between security and civil liberties.
The United States continued to have difficulties with the presence of European powers in North America. The British were reluctant to abandon their holdings, including several forts in the Northwest Territory, and Spain persisted in challenging American use of the Mississippi River.
Americans became increasingly frustrated that the British seemed intent on the westward movement of Americans from the towns of the eastern seaboard. British forces had not evacuated forts in the western territories following the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783). The British maintained a thriving fur trade with American Indian groups in the area above the Ohio River.
Further, the British provided the Shawnee, the Miami, and the Delaware with weapons that could be used in resisting American migration. The British insisted that they would not abandon their western presence until the United States repaid its war debts and allowed loyalists to recover property that had been confiscated during the war.
In 1785, the United States minister to Great Britain pressed for a resolution of these issues, but to no avail.
The United States had ongoing conflicts with Spain following the Treaty of Paris (1783). First, the borders between the United States and Spanish territory were in dispute. The Treaty of Paris, between the United States and Great Britain, stipulated that American territory extended south to the northern boundary of Spanish Florida.
In a separate treaty between Great Britain and Spain, the extent of Spanish territory was not spelled out. An earlier treaty between the two countries gave Spain control of territory north of that boundary, in present-day Alabama and Mississippi.
Second, although American territory abutted the Mississippi River, Spain repeatedly attempted to limit American shipping on the river.
The United States was able to resolve these issues with Spain. Negotiations between the diplomats Thomas Pinckney of the United States and Don Manuel de Godoy of Spain resulted in Pinckney's Treaty (1795; ratified in 1796).
Spain agreed to allow for American shipping on the Mississippi River.
The treaty also defined the border between the United States and Spanish-held territory in western Florida.
Spain's willingness to negotiate with the United States was motivated, in part, by the apparent friendship between the United States and Great Britain following Jay's Treaty.
There were several contentious issues between the United States and Great Britain in the 1790s.
Once war broke out between France and Great Britain in 1793, U.S. ships maintained a brisk trade with both the French West Indies and with France itself. Great Britain was none too pleased with this development and began intercepting American ships in or near the West Indies.
Southern planters wanted reimbursement from the British for slaves that had fled to British lines during the American Revolution and were never returned. Also, western settlers were resentful of the continued presence of British forces in forts in the Northwest.
This last issue became significant in light of the increasingly bloody clashes between U.S. forces and American Indians.
Americans accused the British of aiding the Indians in order to maintain their profitable fur trade.
Washington sent John Jay, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, to Great Britain to seek redress of these grievances. Jay returned in 1795 with a treaty that was perceived as especially favorable to the British, who did agree to withdraw from the West, but only after 18 months.
The British would not compensate American shippers for lost cargoes, nor compensate American planters for lost slaves.
In addition, American planters would be forced to repay debts to the British that dated from the colonial era.
The one concession that lay managed to wrest from the British was limited trading rights in the West Indies.
Other issues would be addressed in the future by arbitration commissions.
Reactions to Jay's Treaty were mixed. Alexander Hamilton and his supporters sam the treaty as the best they could get at the moment. Supporters of Thomas Jefferson, especially from the South and the West, argued that their interests had been sold out to the mercantile interests in New England.
They saw the treaty as evidence of the pro-British sympathies of the Hamiltonians.
Despite America's intention to be independent of European affairs, events in Europe greatly impacted the newly formed United States. Just as Americans were ratifying the Constitution in 1789, the French Revolution was beginning.
Americans were divided, and their debates about the French Revolution foreshadowed ongoing debates about the role of the United States in the world.
The debates over the role of the United States in the world took on greater significance after France and Great Britain went to war in 1793. Many Americans felt the United States had an obligation to help France, in return for helping the United States in the American Revolution, and because a 1778 treaty committed the United States to help if France were under attack.
Others argued that the United States should stay out of the war. After all, the treaty was made with a French government that no longer existed, and the French Revolution had devolved from a democratic movement into a bloodbath.
King Louis XVI and thousands of his countrymen had been guillotined.
Many of these neutrality-minded Americans also harbored warm feelings for the British system, despite the fact that the war with Great Britain had concluded a mere decade earlier.
Already, the two nations had resumed commercial ties.
Events during the administration of President John Adams challenged America's commitment to neutrality. In 1797, in retaliation for America's favorable treaty with Great Britain, France rescinded the 1778 alliance with the United States and allowed French privateers to seize American ships.
After more than 300 ships were seized, President Adams sent a delegation of negotiators to Paris to attempt a peaceful solution.
The delegation was not initially allowed to discuss the matter with the French foreign affairs minister Charles Talleyrand.
Three agents approached the American delegation and informed them that they could begin negotiations if they paid $250,000 and promised a $12 million loan to France.
The three French agents were never named.
When word of this interchange made its way into American papers, the three agents were referred to simply as X, Y, and Z.
The XYZ affair incensed President Adams and many Americans. Congress allocated money for a military engagement against France. Warships were dispatched to the Caribbean and fought French ships in America's first undeclared war, the Quasi-War in 1798-1800.
This military encounter helped instill respect for the U.S. Navy, which had just been reestablished in 1797.
Spain encouraged migration into the northern reaches of New Spain-present-day California —by expanding mission settlements. These missions offered opportunities to Spanish soldiers and settlers, while fostering a cultural blending of Spanish and Indian peoples.
In the last decades of the 18th century and into the 19th century, Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan order established a series of missions in California with the goal of spreading their faith among local Indians. A Catholic priest, Junipero Serra, was instrumental in establishing the first missions in California; 21 missions were founded.
These settlements were both religious missions and military outposts, and they represented an attempt by Spain to maintain a presence along the northern borderlands.
The goal of the missions was not only spiritual.
The Spaniards extracted labor from the native peoples.
The missions had disastrous results for the native tribes of California.
Disease ravaged their populations; in 1806, a measles epidemic wiped out a quarter of the mission Indians in the San Francisco area. Missionaries and their employees often treated the local populations brutally, raping women and subjecting local populations to beatings and slavery-like working conditions.
An Indian revolt took place at the Mission San Diego de Alcala in 1775, but the mission system continued to exist into the early 1800s.
By the 1830s, the Mexican government abandoned the mission project, selling mission lands to private individuals.
The ratification of the Constitution didn’t help well for American Indians within the boundaries of the United States. The Constitution didn’t define the relationship between the government and the American Indians. This shortcoming set the stage for further bloody conflicts on the frontier.
The Constitution didn’t clarify the status of American Indian tribes and nations within its borders, though the document did recognize the tribes as legal entities. It gave Congress the power to regulate commerce-among the states, with foreign nations, and "with the Indian tribes."
In mentioning them separately from foreign nations, the Constitution made it clear that they did not have legal standing as foreign nations. Although the tribes were not foreign nations, most individual Indians were not fully citizens of the United States either. Members of the tribes were not entitled to representation in Congress.
Finally, the central issue of control of land was not settled by the Constitution. Over time, a series of treaties, agreements, and court decisions attempted to clarify the legal status of American Indian lands.
These measures proved to be provisional, leaving Indian lands vulnerable to attack by white settlers.
The Constitution, ratified in 1788, existed on paper. It took the first two presidential administrations, George Washington and John Adams, to put the principles of the Constitution into practice.
The Constitution called for a federal judiciary, including a supreme court, but left it up to Congress to flesh out such a system. The Judiciary Act of 1789 created 13 federal judicial districts. Bach district had a district court as well as a circuit court that could hear appeals from the district courts.
The Supreme Court could hear appeals from the circuit courts and would have the final say. Tthe act layed out that the Supreme Court could hear cases on appeal from state courts if the case involved federal law. The Court would also have original jurisdiction over civil actions between states, or between a state and the United States.
The act made it clear that the Supreme Court would have the last word on constitutional interpretation.
President George Washington established several traditions and customs that have come to be known as the "unwritten constitution." The establishment of a presidential cabinet is one of these customs. Washington wisely chose capable and experienced men to run the new government's three departments state, war, and the treasury. Washington chose Thomas Jefferson for the Department of State, General Henry Knox for the Department of War, and Alexander Hamilton for the Treasury.
He also chose Edmund Randolph as the nation's first attorney general and John Jay for chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Washington began meeting regularly with these men, seeking their input on important decisions.
This practice of meeting regularly with a presidential cabinet was subsequently followed by all American presidents.
Washington's decision to run for no more than two terms was also part of the "unwritten constitution," until Congress and the states ratified the Twenty-second Amendment (1951), following Franklin D. Roosevelt's four electoral victories, making the traditional two-term limitation part of the written Constitution.
A series of policy conflicts and disagreements emerged during the presidential administrations of George Washington and John Adams, reflecting a growing divide among the public. Around these divides between two political groups, Federalists and Republicans.
These policy conflicts centered around economic policy, foreign policy, and the relationship between the federal government and the states.
The first two political parties–the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans–put forth profoundly different views in regard to public policy. They facilitated a robust national debate on pressing issues.
Federalists tended to be more pro-British, more critical of the French Revolution, more friendly to urban, commercial interests, and more ready to use the power of the federal government to influence economic activity.
The leading theorist of the Federalists was Alexander Hamilton.
The Democratic-Republicans tended to be more critical of more critical of centralized authority, and more favorable to agricultural interests.
Thomas Jefferson was a leading theorist of the Republicans.
These two parties developed a strong dislike ofeach other, especially after the passage of the Allen and Sedition Acts in 1798, which seemed like thinly veiled attempts to silence and weaken the Democratic Republicans. The passage of the acts seemed to backfire; the Democratic- Republicans gained strength and won the presidential election of 1800.
President George Washington's secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, proposed a series of economic measures meant to put the United States on a sound economic footing.
Central to his plans was a national bank, which would hold the governments name footing. act as a stabilizing force on the economy.
Hamilton proposed a bank that would be 20% publicly controlled and 80% privately controlled.
Hamilton thought it was important to have wealthy Americans financially and psychologically invested in the new government.
The proposal to create a national bank became a source of disagreement between Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who argued that the Constitution didn’t permit Congress to create a national bank.
This was not among the powers listed in the Constitution.
Hamilton countered that the elastic clause, which lets Congress do what it considered "necessary and proper" in carrying out its duties, implicitly allowed for the creation of a national bank.
President Washington agreed and signed the bank into law in 1791.
Alexander Hamilton's economic program included two other significant parts. He proposed an elaborate and controversial plan to deal with the new nation's substantial debt.
He insisted that debts incurred by the national government and carried over from the war years be paid back, or funded, at full value.
He believed that this would create confidence in the fiscal solvency of the new central government and would enhance its legitimacy.
Many of the old debt certificates had been sold by their holders. The original holders had little faith that the government would ever make good on the actual loans. The certificates were changing hands at a fraction of their original value.
Full funding meant that these old certificates could be redeemed at their full value—a financial windfall for speculators who had bought them up.
Hamilton insisted that the government assume, or agree to pay back, state debts incurred during the war.
The proposal met with strenuous opposition from states that either did not have a large debt or had already paid back their debts. To accomplish the goals of "funding" (paying back national debts at full value) and "assumption" (taking on and paying back state debts), Hamilton pushed the government to take out new loans by selling government bonds.
The final piece of Alexander Hamilton's financial program was to encourage manufacturing by imposing tariffs on foreign-made goods and subsidizing American industry. (Congress adopted Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures, except for his recommendation to subsidize industry.)
He believed industrial development would be key to a balanced and self-reliant economy.
At the time of Hamilton's report, the nation faced no immediate need to develop its manufacturing sector; however, the War of 1812 provided such a motivation by bringing the importance of manufacturing to the fore.
A conflict between elites and western farmers occurred in rural Pennsylvania in 1794. To help raise revenues to pay for his ambitious plans, Hamilton proposed enacting new taxes. The most prominent of these taxes was an excise (or sales) tax on whiskey.
This tax hit grain farmers especially hard.
These hardscrabble farmers in remote rural areas were barely making ends meet.
Distilling grain into whiskey allowed them to increase their meager profit.
Transporting bushels of grain over primitive roads to population centers was prohibitively expensive; distilling grain into whiskey made the crop much more valuable and easier to transport.
The grain farmers of western Pennsylvania felt they could not shoulder this substantial tax. In 1794, farmers took action. Fifty men marched to the home of the local tax collector. From there the gathering swelled to 7,000 men and marched to Pittsburgh.
The federal government took action. Alexander Hamilton and George Washington had vivid memories of Shays's Rebellion (1786-1787), a violent rebellion of farmers in western Massachusetts that lasted several months.
Washington had nearly 13,000 militiamen into the army and marched them himself to Pennsylvania to suppress the rebellion and ensure that the laws of the land would be followed.
In an atmosphere of animosity and distrust between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by a Federalist-dominated Congress in order to limit criticism from the opposition Republican Party.
The Alien and Sedition Acts actu ally comprised 4 acts.
The main two acts were the Naturalization Act, which made it more difficult for foreigners to achieve American citizenship, and the Sedition Act, which made it a crime to defame the president or Congress.
The broad wording of the Sedition Act was consistent with contemporary British sedition laws but seemed to challenge the free-speech guarantees of the recently ratified First Amendment.
The other two acts, the Alien Friends Act and the Alien Enemies Act, allowed the president to imprison and deport noncitizens.
Jeffersonians were especially troubled by the expansion of federal power that the acts represented.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were so opposed to the Alien and Sedition Acts that they proposed the idea of nullification in their Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798-1799).
These resolutions put forth the idea that a state had the right to nullify a law it found to be inconsistent with the Constitution. The idea of state nullification of a federal edict did not slow down enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts, but it raised issues about the relationship between the federal government and the states.
Despite attempts by the United States to remain neutral in regard to European affairs in the 1790s, the country found itself drawn into foreign conflicts. President George Washington took the opportunity in his “Farewell Address" to caution against the formation of "permanent alliances”.
President Washington chose to remain neutral in the conflicts between Great Britain and France.
He issued the Neutrality Act of 1793 and he urged the United States to avoid permanent alliances with foreign powers. In his Farewell Address, he cautioned the newly independent nation against being drawn into the seemingly endless conflicts in Europe.
His calls for neutrality have been invoked by isolationists throughout American history, including during debates about U.S. entrance into both 20th-century world wars.
Topic 3.11 Developing an American Identity
The period from independence to the end of the 18th century witnessed the development of cultural forms that united the new country and helped it establish an identity separate from its European roots.
In the decades following independence, a variety of cultural products were created that expressed a sense of national identity.
For many Americans, political independence from Great Britain needed to be followed by cultural independence from European forms and traditions.
The development of this uniquely American culture continued and flourished in the first decades of the 19th century.
Noah Webster, a noted author, political thinker, and educator, asserted that American culture was separate from, and superior to, British culture. He saw the United States as a tolerant, rational, democratic nation distinct from the superstitions, ostentatious habits, and warring history of Europe.
He published a three-volume set of textbooks that were intended for American schoolchildren A Grammatical Institute of the English Language.
The work consisted of a speller (1783), a grammar (1784), and a reader (1785).
The speller, known as the American Spelling Book, put forth simplified Americanized spellings-theater instead of theatre, color instead of color.
After 1800, he expanded his spelling into a comprehensive dictionary: An American Dictionary of the English Language, completed in 1828.
American schoolchildren also used Geography Made Easy by Jedidiah Morse, who insisted that American schoolchildren should use American textbooks.
Within decades of independence, several writers set out to frame American history in a heroic light. Mercy Otis Warren, a long-time writer, political activist, and Anti-Federalist agitator, wrote a three-volume History of the Revolution (published in 1805).
Mason Weems wrote a bestselling glowing biography of the nation's first president, The Life of Washington, first in 1800.
A later edition of the book contained the imagined story of a young George Washington admitting to his father that he had damaged a cherry tree with his hatchet, prefacing the admission with the words, "I cannot tell a lie." These volumes were intended to instill a nationalist spirit in Americans.
During this period, the first true architects appeared on the American scene. Among them was Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844) who is credited with bringing the Federal style to the United States after his European tour. Federalist architects were highly influenced by Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728-1792).
Simplicity and balance characterize Federal architecture, a style indebted to ancient Greek and Roman elements, such as a triangular pediment atop large, marble columns.
Americans consciously wanted to draw connections between the United States and the democratic and republican models of the ancient world; this impulse is reflected in Federal architecture.
Topic 3.12 Movement in the Early Republic:
The closing decades of the 18th century witnessed increased migrations of white settlers into the interior of North America. These migrations led to conflicts between settlers and American Indians, tensions between backcountry farmers and coastal elites, and new forms of cultural blending.
As Americans moved deeper into the interior, attitudes about slavery became more entrenched.
As more white settlers moved into the interior of North America in the decades after the American Revolution, various American Indian groups were forced to evaluate and adjust their alliances—with other tribes, with European powers, and with the United States.
These groups wanted to both limit the movement of settlers into the interior of the continent and to safeguard tribal lands and natural resources.
After the Revolution, land struggles between white settlers and American Indian groups continued. The 1783 Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain ignored the status of Indians in the American West.
The land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River had been set aside as an Indian Reserve by the British royal Proclamation of 1763.
In the Treaty of Paris (1783), the British agreed to withdraw their garrisons from this area, but the agreement did not make any accommodations for the Indians living there.
(The British did not relinquish their last garrisons on American soil until 1795, following Jay's Treaty.)
As more Americans moved into this area after the Revolution, especially between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, the status of the native peoples became more precarious.
In 1784, under the Articles of Confederation, the government tried to solve the problem of native land claims north of the Ohio River by working out the Treaty of Fort Stanwix.
The negotiations occurred with the six-nation Iroquois Confederacy. The stated purpose of the negotiations was to formulate a peace treaty in the wake of the Revolution (in which two of the six Iroquois nations had sided with the British).
The negotiations included the Iroquois ceding control of land north of the Ohio River. The Iroquois didn’t occupy the land in question, and their claims to it-based on the outcome of the Beaver Wars of the previous century—were dubious.
The main occupants of the region, the Shawnee, Delaware, and Miami, were not part of these negotiations and protested bitterly that their land had been ceded without their consent.
Additional treaties were negotiated in the 1780s.
In the Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785), representatives of Wyandotte, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa ceded lands in the trans-Ohio River region, in what became known as the Northwest Territory.
Another agreement, the Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789), addressed the issue of control of other lands north of the Ohio.
None of these treaties provided a satisfactory solution to the issue of control of the region.
First, the powerful Shawnee were not part of the negotiations.
Also, the continued presence of the British, as well as disputes about the authority of negotiators, complicated the issue.
The situation between American Indians and white settlers grew increasingly tense after 1790. As settlers continued pushing into Indian territory, a series of military conflicts ensued in the 17905 in the region. American Indian forces, led by the Miami warrior Little Turtle, engaged in major battles against U.S. troops in present-day Ohio.
American troops led by General Arthur St. Clair suffered a massive defeat at the mouth of the Wabash River in 1791.
More than 600 troops were killed in this encounter, making it the United States' single most costly battle in the entire history of wars with American Indians.
In the aftermath of the defeat of U.S. troops at the Wabash River, President George Washington was determined to gain control of the region north of Ohio. He doubled the U.S. presence in Ohio and appointed General Anthony ("Mad Anthony") Wayne to lead American forces.
At the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794), the Indians were defeated by superior American firepower. The following year, 1795, native groups gave up claims to most of Ohio in the Treaty of Greenville.
The treaty brought only a temporary peace.
Within a generation, settlers would push farther into Ohio and Indiana; these incursions would become connected with the U.S. declaration of war against Britain in 1812.
The United States pursued policies to encourage migration beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
Many individuals needed no encouragement; land and economic opportunity beckoned many struggling farmers to move westward. As more people began leaving settled coastal towns and moving inland, tensions increased between coastal elites and backcountry farmers. These tensions evolved along cultural, political, and ethnic lines.
Since the 17th century, tensions had existed between backcountry settlers and elite policymakers in the more established urban centers of the East. This was evident in Bacon's Rebellion in 1676.
Backcountry Virginia settlers grew resentful of the policies of Governor William Berkeley and the House of Burgesses.
They argued that they paid a disproportionate share of taxes in the colony and were not represented in the House of Burgesses.
Also, they believed that the colonial government was not taking sufficient action to push native tribes farther west.
Similar tensions surfaced in the second half of the 18th century, during both the colonial period and the early national period. The Carolina Regulators movement, composed of backcountry farmers in North and South Carolina, challenged the policies and practices of merchants, bankers, local officials, and the colonial government.
The tensions came to the fore between 1765 and 1771 when the movement took up arms against colonial authorities in the War of the Regulation.
A catalyst for the uprising was the collection of debts in these backcountry areas.
After several years of drought and poor harvests, many farmers suffered income loss as well as shortages of basic supplies.
They were forced to rely on local merchants and bankers to extend them credit and loans.
The collection of debts was, the farmers contended, rife with corruption.
The system of local court officials and sheriffs, and the political infrastructure that supported it, was perceived as an oppressive outside force.
The uprising was an attempt to challenge this outside force.
The uprising did not change the power structure in the Carolinas, but it did establish patterns of thought and action that became evident in the coming years in the rebellion against British rule.
Tensions between elites and backcountry farmers can be seen in the actions of the Paxton Boys in western Pennsylvania (1763-1764), as bitterness toward local Indian groups and objections to the policies of Pennsylvania's colonial government resulted in violence.
Such tensions didn’t subside with independence.
During the "critical period" of the 1780s, farmers in western Massachusetts grew resentful of both banks and the Massachusetts legislature.
They found themselves burdened by crushing debt as well as steep taxes. In addition, state policies to restrict access to currency made their debt more difficult to pay off. They staged a months-long rebellion against local courts, banks, and the state government, known as Shays's Rebellion (1786-1787).
It is seen as an important catalyst for the convening of the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
Several years later, the Whiskey Rebellion, in 1794, staged by farmers in western Pennsylvania over the excise tax on whiskey, again demonstrated backcountry mistrust of the policies of elites.
After the American Revolution, attitudes around slavery became increasingly shaped by region, as slavery became more entrenched in the South and adjacent western lands, while it began to disappear in the North.
Many northerners came to see unfree labor as inconsistent with the republican ideas of the American Revolution. Even indentured servitude disappeared from most states by 1800. In many northern states, slavery became less important to the economy.
Vermont outlawed slavery altogether (in 1777, 14 years before it became a state), and Pennsylvania passed a gradual emancipation law (1780), and other northern states began to follow suit.
Gradual emancipation laws didn’t free existing slaves; they provided for the freedom of the future children of slave women (often after serving their masters for a certain number of years).
Such an approach respected contemporary understandings of property rights. In the years after the American Revolution, free Black communities developed in many northern states and in some states of the upper South, such as Virginia and Maryland.
In the decades after the American Revolution, slavery became increasingly important in the South. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793 set the stage for remarkable growth in the production of cotton, in the growth of the Southern economy, and in the reliance on slavery.
Despite gradual emancipation in the North, voluntary emancipation throughout the United States, and the escape of many slaves during the chaos of the American Revolution, the number of slaves in the United States grew from 200,000 in 14 years (1766-90).
With the ending of indentured servitude, the stark differences between the growing free-labor ideology of the North and the expanding slave-labor system of the South became more apparent.
These diverging attitudes on slavery would come to shape many of the debates leading up to the Civil War.
ANTEBELLUM REFORM
Moral reform that included temperance, pacifism, antislavery, abolishing capital punishment, insane asylums, labor laws, and public education. It let to the emergence of the prohibition.
1820-1840 though they could bring reform by convincing people one by one (Moral suasion) It didnt bring about much success so they dropped it. Reform was often nourished by Antibaptist routes. Moralizing protestantism.