Chapter 8 - The New Nation, 1786-1800

8.1: The Crisis of the 1780s

• It was in the Revolution that the economic crisis causing Shays' rebellion began.

  • The shortages of the British blockades, the military's and militia's demand for supplies, and the flow of paper currency issued by the Congress and the States combined to create American history's worst inflation

• Radicals in the states demanded economic regulation.

• The most controversial remedies were for relieving debtors and common taxpayers' burdens.

  • Farmers and debtors urged their governments to implement legal tender laws requiring creditors to accept a government paper currency at factor value for all private and public debt.

• The Annapolis Convention, convinced of the absolute need to strengthen the government of the country, passed a resolution calling on Confederation Congress to send delegates to a national convention render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union.

  

8.2: The New Constitution

• The Virginia plan was drafted by Madison and his fellow Virginians.

  • Presented to the Convention soon after it was convened, its plan laid down the convention's agenda.

• Following two weeks of discussion, New Jersey's William Paterson has an alternative the New Jersey Plan became known.

  • Also this plan proposed to increase central government powers
  • However, the Confederation Congress, which was equally represented by the States, retained its one-house position.

• After a lot of discussion, the delegates finally agreed to what the Great Compromise was called.

  • Represented by each of the Senate states, representation would be proportional to the population of the Chambers.

• The new Constitution's supporters immediately took the name federalists for description.

  • Their opponents had to be content with the anti-federalist negative label

• The Congress approved the Bill of Rights in 1791 and sent it to the States.

  • 10 remained in the ratification process.

  

8.3: The First Federal Administration

• Congress quickly moved to the establishment of State affairs departments and was soon elected by Washington as State Secretary Thomas Jefferson

• The first session of congress saw a major piece of legislation which was the Judiciary Act of 1789 implemented by Congress the Constitution's judicial clause

  • which authorized the Congress to establish the number of magistrates in the Supreme Court and establish a system of federal courts.

• The new government had important fiscal and economic affairs.

  • After all, in episodes such as Shays' rebellion it was the economic crisis and consequently the unrest which had provided the new Constitution with momentum.
  • The government took the power in a condition of virtual bankruptcy when it lacked income and faced massive national debt during the revolution.

• In relation to American foreign policy the conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson grew even more bitter.

  • In the 1790s, the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the main event of the Atlantic world.

• The fall of the French monarchy was welcomed enthusiastically by most Americans.

  • But the American conservators began to voice their opposition with the opening of the Kingdom of terror in 1793 which claimed the death of hundreds of aristocrat and politician guillotine.

• This inconsistent policy has been pursued by the new federal government.

  • The Congress adopted in 1790 the Intercourse Act, the fundamental law that "regulated trade and relations with the Indian tribes."
  • The act proclaimed public agreements between the United States and the Indian nations the only means of obtaining Indian land, in an attempt to clarify the disturbing problem of Indian sovereignty.

• Spain has introduced a liberal reform to revive the governmental bureaucracy of its American empire under the dynamic leadership of King Carlos III and his able ministers.

• Great Britain and Spain secret agents tried to persuade American settlers to abandon the Union and join Canada or Florida.

• The strengthened United States position in the West finally encouraged the British, in order to focus on the Republican France's defeat, to settle their dispute with the US.

• Hamilton's conception of American neutrality has been established by the Treaty of Jay.

  • On the other hand, Hamilton's adversaries were furious about what they thought was a lodging with the British at the expense of the French.

• At a time when Washington considered it a state of siege, it was the "Whiskey Rebellion."

  • He believed that the combination of Indian attacks, intrigue internationally, and domestic revolt posed the greatest threat to the nation since the revolution.

• Washington published a "Farewell Address" to the nation during the last months of its term.

  • He praised the federal government's benefits and praised Hamilton's policy on financial stability.

  

8.4: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans

• A series of shifting coalitions was obvious in the debates and votes of Congress from 1789 to 1795.

  • In 1795, when agrarians, westerners and southern supporters of France came together in opposition parties, these coalitions started to polarize into opposition political factions.

• The tensions between the US and France have increased for Adams.

  • Angry with the agreement of Jay, the French suspended diplomatic relations with the US at the end of 1796 and opened a hard new U.S. navigation policy

• After a British naval victory against the French in August 1798, at Aboukir Bay, Egypt, the fears of a French invasion declined, but what became known as "the quasi-war" between France and the US continued.

• The Alien Act and the Act concerning the Alien Enemies permitted the President to order that the suspected aliens be imprisoned or deported during war.

  • Finally, the Sedition Act provided the government or any official thereof with heavy punishments and prison terms of all those accused of having written, publish or spoken anything "false, scandalous and malicious"

• The Republicans were the party of traditional agricultural pureness, freedom and the rights of the States.

  

8.5: “The Rising Glory of America”

• Thirty-seven weekly or half-weekly news items existed in 13 colonies at the beginning of the Revolution in 1775.
  • By 1789 in the United States the number of papers had increased to 92.
• There was a huge outpouring of American publications in the post-revolutionary years.
  • As demand for reading materials increased, there were numerous libraries in the cities.
• The increased demand for novels appealing to women readers was one of the most interesting literary trends of the 1790s.
  • Charlotte Temple (1791) by Susanna Haswell Rowson and The Coquette by Hannah Webster (1797), stories of seduction and renunciation, were huge sales and were printed for most of the next siècle.