AP US History Review - Road to Revolution and New Nation

From Colonies to a Nation (1754-1800)

Overview

• This video covers the transformation of British colonies in America into an independent nation and the development of a distinct national identity.
• Time period: 1754-1800.

French and Indian War (1754-1763)

• Part of the larger Seven Years' War.
• Conflict began due to territorial disputes in the Ohio River Valley between British colonists and the French.
• British colonists were concerned about French encroachment on their western borders.
• The French were concerned about British encroachment on their territory.
• The British initially struggled, losing battles to the French and their Indian allies.

Albany Plan of Union

• Proposed by Benjamin Franklin at a congress called by the British government to organize a more coordinated response to frontier defense, trade, and westward expansion.
• Called for a more centralized government for the colonies to better coordinate Western defense.
• Rejected because the taxation required to raise troops was unpopular among the colonies.
• Significance: Laid the groundwork for future revolutionary congresses.

Peace of Paris (1763)

• The British won the French and Indian War.
• Results:
  • The French were largely removed from North America, and the Louisiana territory was given to Spain.
  • The British more than doubled their land holdings in North America, gaining all land east of the Mississippi River.

Consequences of the French and Indian War

Westward Expansion and Conflict with American Indians

• Colonists began pushing westward into the Ohio River Valley, leading to increased conflicts with American Indians.
• Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, led raids on encroaching colonists.
• The British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, forbidding colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains to protect colonists' lives and maintain favorable trade relations with Indians.
• The colonists were frustrated because they felt entitled to the land after fighting in the war.

British Debt and Taxation

• British debt doubled, and the cost of running the colonies increased fivefold.
• The British government decided to tax the colonies to help shoulder the financial burden.

Taxation Without Representation

End of Salutary Neglect

• Britain had previously allowed the colonies to manage their own affairs due to the distance between them and the motherland, a policy known as salutary neglect.
• Salutary neglect gave the colonists a sense of self-governance.
• To pay for the war, the era of salutary neglect ended.

Acts Imposed by the British

• Stricter enforcement of the Navigation Acts.
• Quartering Act of 1765: Imperial troops remained in the colonies to enforce new rules, and colonists were responsible for feeding and housing them.
• Sugar Act: Taxes imposed on coffee, wine, and other luxury items, as well as stricter enforcement of the existing tax on molasses.
• Stamp Act of 1765: Tax on all paper items, such as newspapers, playing cards, and contracts.

Virtual Representation

• The British argued that colonists were represented in Parliament through virtual representation, where members of Parliament represented all British citizens, not just localities.
• Colonists found this argument unconvincing, as they were accustomed to localized representation.

Colonial Resistance

• Groups like the Sons of Liberty and the Daughters of Liberty formed to resist the Stamp Act.
• The Stamp Act Congress: 27 delegates from nine colonies assembled in New York and sent a formal petition to the British Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act.
• The colonists argued that taxation without representation was tyranny.
• The congress still considered themselves loyal subjects to the British crown.

Repeal and Declaratory Act

• Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act in response to colonial protests, destruction of property, and threats to tax collectors.
• The Declaratory Act was passed, which asserted Parliament's right to pass any law in the colonies.

Townshend Acts (1767)

• New taxes on items imported to the colonies, such as paper, glass, and tea.
• Colonists organized protests and boycotts of British goods.
• Women played a crucial role in the boycotts, spinning their own cloth and brewing herbal tea instead of buying imported goods.

Escalating Tensions

Boston Massacre (1770)

• British troops were stationed in the colonies to enforce British law.
• A group of colonists harassed British soldiers in Boston by hurling insults, snowballs, and stones.
• Shots were fired, resulting in 11 colonists wounded and four dead.
• Six of the eight soldiers put on trial were acquitted.
• The event was seen by colonists as a sign of increasing British tyranny.

Boston Tea Party (1773)

• Response to the Tea Act of 1773, which gave the British East India Company exclusive rights to buy and ship tea in the colonies.
• Colonists disguised as American Indians dumped about 45 tons of British tea into Boston Harbor.
• Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts), which closed Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for and approved a new Quartering Act.

Continental Congress (1774)

• Colonies organized themselves into armed groups.
• Leaders from the colonies gathered to resist further violations of their liberties by Parliament.
• They still wanted to remain British subjects.

Enlightenment Thought

• The colonists were influenced by enlightenment ideas:
  • Natural rights: All human beings are endowed with certain rights by God, which governments cannot take away.
  • Social contract: The power to govern is in the hands of the people, who give some of that power to a government to protect their natural rights. If the government tramples upon these rights, it's the people's duty to overthrow it.
  • Republicanism: The superiority of a republican form of government and the separation of powers in a government.

Road to Independence

Second Continental Congress (1776)

• Debated independence while fighting began in Lexington and Concord.
• Concluded that independence was the only way for the nation to survive and thrive.

Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"

• Published in early 1776 and argued that the only rational way forward for America was independence from Britain.
• Used masterful allusions to the bible and enlightenment principles to convince the majority of colonists that independence was the only option.

Declaration of Independence

• Thomas Jefferson was tasked with writing it.
• Influenced by enlightenment thought:
  • Natural rights: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
  • Social contract: "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it."
• Adopted on July 2, 1776, and made public on July 4, 1776.

American Revolution

Loyalists

• Sizable opposition to independence.
• They wanted to remain loyal to Britain.

Continental Army

• Approved by the Continental Congress, led by George Washington.
• Ill equipped, ill trained, ill paid, and ill.
• The Americans suffered many defeats at the hands of the British.

French Alliance

• The Patriots' victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 convinced the French to ally with the Americans against the British, due to Benjamin Franklin's diplomatic work.
• The French sent guns, ships, and Marquis de Lafayette.

British Surrender

• After their defeat at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, the British army surrendered, making America an independent nation.
• The American Revolution inspired similar revolutions in France and Haiti.

Articles of Confederation

State Constitutions

• Before, during, and after the revolution, states assembled their own constitutions and governments.
• Power for governance was largely put in the legislative body.

Provisions of the Articles

• Ratified by the states by 1781, it became the constitution of the new United States.
• All power for the federal government was put into the legislative body.
• No executive office (president) or judicial branch.
• No provision for a national military force.
• The federal government had very limited power to tax.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• The federal government's greatest achievement under the Articles.
• Provided a plan for how unformed territories could be occupied and apply for statehood.
• Abolished slavery in the Northwest Territory.

Shay's Rebellion

• Economic problems: Many farmers fell into debt during the war and were unable to pay their debts due to inflation and new taxes.
• Daniel Shays led a militia of angry farmers to the town arsenal to arm themselves and wreak havoc.
• The local militia quickly squashed the rebellion.
• Significance: It displayed the weakness of the articles of confederation because there was no president to call and there was no national army to come help.

Constitutional Convention (1787)

Purpose

• Called to revise the articles and shore up its weaknesses.
• It became apparent that a new constitution was needed.

Factions

• Federalists: Urban folks with a commercial background who wanted a stronger central government.
• Anti-Federalists: Rural folks who liked the states having the power and opposed an increase in the federal government's power.

Representation Debate

• Virginia Plan: Representation by population. Favored by populous states.
• New Jersey Plan: States should be represented equally. Favored by small states.
• Great Compromise: The legislative branch would be split into two houses (bicameral congress).
  • House of Representatives: representation by population.
  • Senate: equal votes, two votes per state.

Three-Fifths Compromise

• Southerners wanted all their enslaved laborers to be counted to boost their power in the house.
• Northerners opposed this.
• Compromise: For purposes of representation, they would count up all the enslaved people in a particular state, take three fifths of that number, and then that's how many seats will be added to their house representation.

New Constitution

• Provided for a more robust central government.
• Split the government into three branches (legislative, executive, and judicial) to check and balance the power of that government.

Ratification

• Went to the states for ratification.
• Federalists (Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison) wrote the Federalist Papers to convince the American public of the merits of the constitution.
• Anti-Federalists argued against the ratification Constitution because it lacked a Bill of Rights.
• Federalists prevailed by agreeing to add a Bill of Rights after the Constitution was ratified.
• The Constitution of The United States went into effect in March of 1789.

Distinct American Culture

Public Education

• State national leaders proposed ambitious plans for public education.
• Artists devoted attention to painting historical themes.
• Notable among them were Charles Wilson Peel and Samuel Jennings.

Republican Motherhood

• According to this idea, women could best influence political realities not by voting, but by raising virtuous sons instructed in the principles of liberty.

First Government Under the Constitution

Washington's Administration

• George Washington was elected president, and John Adams was vice president.
• Washington established the department of the treasury and state and war and justice.
• Alexander Hamilton was appointed as the first secretary of the treasury, and he introduced sweeping policies.

Hamilton's Policies

• Plan for the federal government to assume the state's revolutionary war debts to bind the nation together and improve the credit of the nation.
• The creation of a national bank (the Bank of the United States) was proposed.
  • Critics argued that the Constitution made no provision for a bank.
  • Hamilton invoked the elastic clause of the constitution, which says that congress has the right to make any law that is necessary and proper in order to carry out its other responsibilities.
  • Hamilton argued that since congress responsible for taxation and the regulation of interstate commerce, a bank was necessary and proper.

Opposition to Federalists

• Federalist policies strengthened the central government.
• Federalists wanted to remain neutral during the French Revolution of seventeen eighty nine.
• Federalists responded to the Whiskey Rebellion of seventeen ninety four.

Whiskey Rebellion

• One of Hamilton's policies included a tax on whiskey, which was made and consumed mainly by poor frontier farmers.
• Farmers attacked tax collectors.
• Washington federalized four state militias and sent them in to crush this rebellion.

Democratic-Republicans

• Enraged by the policies of the Federalists.
• Represented by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
• They thought that the debt plan in the National Bank and the response to the Whiskey Rebellion was clear evidence of federal overreach.

Washington's Farewell Address

• He cautioned the nation against the formation of political parties and their divisive effects.
• He cautioned America against getting entangled in foreign, especially European alliances.

Adams' Presidency

• John Adams became the second president.
• War broke out between Britain and France.
• Adams insisted that America would remain neutral in the conflict, however, the French seized American trade ships that were going to Britain.

XYZ Affair

• Adams sent a delegation to France to negotiate some kind of settlement, but the three Frenchmen demanded a bribe before they would even sit down at the table.
• Outrage was shared among the federalist and the democratic republicans.

Alien and Sedition Acts

• Adams feared dissent both at home and abroad, and so the Federalist dominated Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts.
• The Alien Acts made it legal and easy to deport any noncitizen of The United States, and it was chiefly aimed at the growing Irish and Scottish immigrants who opposed the federalist sympathies for Britain.
• The sedition acts made it illegal to criticize the government publicly.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

• The Democratic Republicans were incensed at this clear example of federal overreach.
• They argued that any law passed by the federal government that is blatantly unconstitutional can, with good conscience, be nullified by the states.
• Thomas Jefferson wasn't elected to a second term in 1800 and that passed to Thomas Jefferson.

Relationship with Foreign Entities

US, Britain, Spain, and American Indians

• There was a common concern among political elites stretching all the way back to the Washington administration about these three entities and their threat to US political sovereignty.

Indian Trade and Intercourse Act

• Congress passed it to deal with the increasing conflict with Indians and Americans who were migrating west.
• This law regulated the relationships among settlers and Indians and made provisions for fair dealings.

Pinckney Treaty

• Also due to westward migration, there was tension with Spain on the southern frontier border of The United States.
• This decided once and for all where the border was between The US and Spain.
• The border was established at the thirty first parallel.

Legacy of Slavery

Regional Attitudes

• As we settled in independence, distinct regional attitudes towards slavery began to emerge.

Northern States

• There was a rapid population growth of free blacks.
• Some states like New Jersey actually granted free blacks who owned property the right to vote.
• In Philadelphia, Blacks formed the first African American church denomination in The United States, which was known as the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Southern States

• There, the black population was mostly enslaved, and an enslaved population was growing rapidly.
• New legislation made it almost impossible to free slaves.
• As slaveholders began to migrate into the Western territory, they brought their enslaved people with them and established the institution in places where it had never existed.