Transforming Revolution into Republicanism

Creating a Functioning Government

  • After the American Revolution, creating a functioning government began; the country's future was uncertain.
  • Even during the revolution, efforts to unite the 13 colonies were underway, though success was not guaranteed.

Transitioning to a New Nation

  • The transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was difficult and politically charged.
  • Divisions along class, racial, and gender lines existed from the start and persist to the present day.

Shaping a Functioning Nation

  • Declaring independence was easier than forming a new nation.
  • Creating a nation requires:
    • Shared rules and laws
    • Common sense of belonging
    • Common language and currency
    • Open borders
  • Creating a nation from 13 colonies with different cultures and laws was daunting.

Articles of Confederation

  • Drafted in 1777 during the war but ratified in 1781.
  • Established:
    • Free movement of people and commerce among states.
    • The new United States was one of the largest nations in the world.
    • States conceded powers to the confederation:
      • Regulation of interstate commerce.
      • Currency (single currency).
      • Just as the European Union had to give up a certain amount of financial and fiscal control in order to adopt a shared currency.
      • Negotiations with Indigenous nations.
      • Power to declare war and make peace.
  • Lacked a central executive (no president).
  • The executive branch was devolved to committees.
  • Unicameral legislature (one house).
  • Each state had one vote in Congress, balancing power between large and small states.
  • Passing a law required a seven-state majority; important issues (like war) needed a supermajority (nine states).

Weaknesses of the Articles

  • Modification required unanimous approval from all 13 states, a major handicap.
  • Congress represented states, not people.
  • Government mainly existed at the state level.
  • The national government could not levy taxes but had to request money from the states
  • No consequences for states that didn't provide funds.
  • The government became starved for money.
  • Continental Congress printed paper money, which quickly became worthless.
  • Expression: "not worth a continental."
  • Example: Currency depreciated rapidly between 1777 and 1780.
    • 100 continentals→4000 continentals100 \text{ continentals} \rightarrow 4000 \text{ continentals}
  • Result: weak confederacy.

American Foreign Policy

  • Barbary pirates harassed American merchants, but the U.S. couldn't fund protection.
  • Europeans exploited the weak Confederacy.
    • The British delayed surrendering forts in the West and ignored trade requests.
    • Spain closed the Mississippi River to American commerce.
  • The new republic lacked money, power, and political will.

Domestic Issues

  • Americans desired land, causing trouble for the Republic.
  • Migration into frontier regions (Upstate New York, Kentucky, Tennessee) after the war.
  • Settlers sought to overturn British restrictions on westward movement.
  • U.S. politicians worried about warfare with Indigenous peoples due to unregulated settlement.
  • Class issues: politicians viewed settlers as troublemakers.

Successes of the Articles

  • Congress regulated the West with moderate success.
  • Eastern states established Western boundaries.
  • States ceded control over the West.
  • Land Ordinance of 1785:
    • Established land surveying practices and ownership provisions.
    • Frontier land surveyed into townships (36 square miles), sections (1 square mile), and quarter sections (160 acres).
    • Created checkerboard pattern visible from the air.
  • Northwest Ordinance of 1787:
    • Set up rules for orderly settlement and law in the Northwest Territory (Great Lakes Region).
    • Called for the establishment of three to five states.
    • Prohibited slavery in these territories.
    • Three-stage process for creating new states:
      1. Congress creates a territory (e.g., Northwest Territory).
      2. Territorial legislature created when the population reached 5,000 free men.
      3. Statehood process: when the population reached 60,000, citizens could convene a constitutional convention, create a constitution, and send it to Congress for ratification.

Failures of the Articles & Shays' Rebellion

  • The Articles of Confederation was generally viewed as a failure.
  • Settlers felt Congress limited their rights and mobility.
  • Economic opportunities were limited.
  • Shays' Rebellion:
    • Farmers in western Massachusetts and New York fell into debt due to state taxes.
    • Farmers wanted laws limiting debt collection.
    • State governments favored creditors.
    • In late 1786 and early 1787, indebted farmers led by Daniel Shays closed courts to prevent land seizure.
    • Shays' Rebellion participants believed they acted in the spirit of the revolution.
    • The state of Massachusetts deployed troops to suppress the rebellion.
    • Elites felt the federal government needed to be strengthened to uphold laws, balancing order and liberty.

Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

  • Two positions emerged on balancing order and liberty:
    • Federalists:
      • Valued the republic and deference politics.
      • Believed the educated elite should govern.
      • Feared democracy would lead to depotism and anarchy.
      • Felt state governments were too responsive to the people.
      • Wanted a new constitution to save the American Revolution.
      • Wanted a strong federal government.
    • Anti-Federalists:
      • Feared a strong federal government would be worse than the current problems.
      • Wanted modest changes to the Articles of Confederation.
      • Sought to increase the power of international commerce.
      • Wanted federal power to tax.
      • Believed the revolution secured a decentralized government.
      • View any effort to create a powerful federal government as a betrayal of the goals of the revolution.
  • The struggle was over the meaning of the revolution.
  • Both wanted a republic, but one side wanted a strong federal government run by elites, while the other wanted a weak federal government that would allow for the people to thrive.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787

  • In September 1786, six states proposed amending the Articles of Confederation.
  • Shays' Rebellion suggested anarchy was a real threat.
  • State legislatures sent delegates to Philadelphia in 1787 to modify the Articles of Confederation.
  • Delegates decided to scrap the Articles and start anew in secret.
  • Their shared background made them sympathetic to ideas that national authority needed to be strengthened considerably.
  • Delegates discussed constitutional plans organized around the Virginia Plan (big state plan) and the New Jersey Plan (little state plan).
  • The Virginia Plan was the starting point and it was tweaked to eventually become the Constitution.
  • The New Constitution expanded democracy to a point.
  • Voters could elect politicians to a federal governing body, which was the House and they maintained.
  • Created a bicameral system with a lower house (House) and an upper house (Senate).
  • The upper house (Senate) would continue to represent the interests of the states.
  • Senators would be appointed by the states.
  • Each state would have two senators.
  • In the lower house (House), it would be appropriated by a portion rather by the population, by the number of people in each state.
  • It brought a greater level of direct democratic representation, at least in the federal government, something that was completely absent under the articles of confederation.
  • Appointed a president to embody an executive.
  • Removed property restrictions in the Constitution.
  • States would decide who could vote.
  • Created the Electoral College for electing the president.
  • The election of the president would then not be, would not in this new United States, in these new United States, would not be elected by popular vote, but would rather be elected by a system in which they had to win the votes of the states, and then the states would then vote the president, which is still a lasting aspect of the American political system.
  • Gave a list of things that the states could not do.
  • States could not make their own money or prohibit commerce across state lines.
  • Federal power would gain more control over the states over time.
  • Slavery remained unresolved.
  • Delegates compromised rather than face division.
  • The terms "slave" and "slavery'" do not appear in the Constitution.
  • The Constitution explicitly prohibited the abolition of the slave trade for twenty years.
  • The critical question brought up by this more democratic constitution, since representation in the lower house would be by population, was how do you count slaves toward the state's population when deciding how many house members they would get?
  • The slave-holding South wanted to count every slave as a person for representation purposes.
  • The Northern states wanted it to be zero.
  • Three-fifths clause:
    • Three-fifths of the slave population would be counted toward the representation of a state.
  • The three fifths clause incentivized increasing slavery.
  • Over the next 20 years, over 100,000 slaves were imported into The United States.
  • Shifted power to the South.
  • Each vote in those Southern states by a slave owner counted for more than a free person's vote in in an northern state.
  • Allowed the South to exercise greater power in national affairs than its free population would have warranted.
  • Between 1788 and 1848, twelve of the first sixteen U.S. Presidents were slaveholders.
  • Some anti-federalists walked out and refused to sign the Constitution.
  • Out of 45 delegates, 38 signed the Constitution.
  • Nine of 13 states needed to ratify it for the Constitution to become law.

Ratification and The Federalist Papers

  • Americans were shocked by the Constitution.
  • People feared it would transfer power from the many to the few.
  • Some saw it as a power grab and a rejection of the revolution.
  • Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay wrote 85 essays (The Federalist Papers) to generate support for ratification.
  • The essays explained that the Constitution protected American freedom.
  • Madison argued it would maintain a balance between order and liberty.
  • Opponents (including anti-federalists) said it sacrificed liberty for order.
  • Samuel Adams and John Hancock opposed it because of the three-fifths clause, gave slave states so much power.
  • Small farmers and abolitionists also opposed the Constitution.
  • In the end, the arguments of the Federalists prevailed.
  • The federalists advocated for the adoption of a Bill of Rights to alleviate concerns.
  • By mid-1788, the required nine states had ratified the Constitution.
  • By 1789, eleven of the 13 states had ratified it.
  • Rhode Island and North Carolina held out until the Bill of Rights was passed.

The Bill of Rights

  • The anti-federalists left a lasting legacy in the form of the Bill of Rights.
  • Their opposition led to the creation of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
  • Written by James Madison, who originally wrote 12 amendments, but only 10 of them were ultimately ratified.
  • Madison warned that these amendments were just harshment barriers, which would be ineffective when most needed.
  • These amendments radically protected rights:
    • First Amendment:
      • Assured the separation of church and state.
      • Protected free speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble.
      • Congress shall make no law respecting an established religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
      • Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people to peacefully assemble or to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
    • Second Amendment:
      • Allowed for local militias.
      • A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
    • Fourth Amendment:
      • Protected people from unlawful search and seizure.
      • The rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses and papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizure shall not be violated and no warrant shall be issued but upon probable cause supported by oaths or affirmations and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.
    • Fifth and Sixth Amendments:
      • Guaranteed a jury trial and prohibited abuses.
    • Eighth Amendment:
      • Protected people against cruel and unusual punishment.
    • Ninth Amendment:
      • Left open the door for new rights.
      • The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
    • Tenth Amendment:
      • Gave the unenumerated rights to the people.
      • The power is not delegated to The United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.
  • The Bill of Rights limited the power of government. The Bill of Rights limits rather than enumerating
  • With the ratification of the Bill of Rights, Rhode Island and North Carolina ratified the Constitution.

American Identity

  • The Constitution addressed the question of American identity.
  • The Revolution created a new collective identity.
  • The Constitution talks about citizens.
  • The Constitution mentioned Indigenous peoples, but it makes clear that they were not citizens. In the eyes of the founding fathers, there was no consideration that they were Americans.
  • The Constitution defined indigenous peoples as non-citizens.
  • The Constitution failed to define who Indigenous peoples are.
  • The Constitution speaks of Indians not taxed
  • Citizenship was left up to the states.
  • Congress passed a law opening a path to citizenship for white immigrants only.
  • Free Blacks were often considered ineligible for citizenship.
  • Most Americans believed that free blacks should return to Africa.
  • Women citizens of The United States?
  • White women were considered citizens, but because of the ideology of separate spheres, which argued that women had no role to play in the public realm, which was defined as the realm of men, and therefore they had no voting rights.
  • Mary Wollstonecraft published a pamphlet vindication of the rights of women, 1792.
  • The Constitution cemented the revolution but reinforced unequal access to privilege and opportunity.
  • It set the groundwork for the next hundred years of American history or more.