Ch.6 A New Nation
I. Introduction
Philadelphia's gran federal procession is celebrated.
Thousands gather in New York to watch G. Washington take oath in office (1789)
Shay’s Rebellion
Many farmers in Massachusetts are struggling w/ debt due to the poor economy driven by the Articles of Confederation. They wanted the state to protect them, but no protection was granted.
Led by Daniel Shays, armed men ("Shaysites") decide to rebel and form things such as form blockades around courthouses.
Benjamin Lincoln leads a state militia arresting more than 1,000 Shaysites and reopening the courts.
Thomas Jefferson thought resistance once every while helped the country remain free. But James Madison from Virginia believed it was a prime example of why the U.S needed a strong central government
The Constitutional Convention
Delegates from 12/13 states meet at Pennsylvania to revise the Articles of Confederation. (Only Rhode Island declined to send a rep)
One of the things that needed to be considered was the government's ability to levy taxes.
James Madison proposed the "Virginia Plan" which proposed a new constitution be written with a stronger central government with three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislature, or congress, would have two houses, in which every state would be represented based on population size or tax base.
Even though many agreed that the AOC was unconventional, they disagreed with Madison's proposed government.
James Wilson of Pennsylvania, agreed.
William Patterson proposes the New Jersey Plan, which would keep things the way they were where each state had a single vote in the Continental Congress.
Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, agreed.
Roger Sherman proposed the Great Compromise, which a congress, a house of reps in which members were assigned according to population, and an upper senate which included 2 people from each state.
The delegates struggled to decide the form of the executive branch with concerns about corruption or undue control.
Ratifying the Constitution
The convention sent its Constitution to congress in New York with a cover letter from G. Washington. The approval would require state ratifications.
Antifederalists supported George Mason's Virginia state Declaration of rights, which would become a draft for the BOR.
Pro-ratification federalists on the other hand disagreed.
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison publish the Federalist Papers, which were published in various NY newspapers.
The first vote approving the ratification of the Constitution came from Massachusetts. They also approved some proposed amendments proposed to the first congress.
The most high-profile convention was held in Richmond, Virginia. Federalists like James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and John Marshall would debate with equally influential Anti-federalists like Patrick Henry and George Mason. After nearly a month of debate, Virginia voted 89-79 in favor of ratification.
Congress announces that the majority of states had ratified the constitution and it was now in effect.
North Carolina, New York, and Rhode island still hadn't completed their ratification conventions, and anti-federalists were still arguing against the constitution.
Rights and Compromises
The Bill of Rights (10 Amendments) is added to the constitution supported by James Madison. He had won election to the House of Reps by promising the Virginia Constituents these rights
There were many things the constitution didn't cover such as women's rights and slavery.
The constitution counted black people as 3/5 of a person.
Northerners were against slavery on moral grounds. They understood southerners would get more political power.
Some of the upper south welcomed a ban on the Atlantic trade. This ban would allow enslavers in Virginia and Maryland to get higher prices when they sold their slaves to states like South Carolina and Georgia that were dependent on a continued slave trade.
New England and the deep south agree to a "dirty compromise." New Englanders specifically agreed to include a constitutional provision that protected slavery for 20 years; in exchange, South Carolina and Georgia delegates agreed to support a constitutional clause that made it easier for Congress to pass commercial legislation.
The Atlantic Slave trade resumed until 1808
Britian gets into the process of outlawing the slave trade. The U.S didn't want to concede moral ground to Britain.
Haitian Revolution occurs against the French. Specifically, a slave revolt against the French in the West Indies. The idea of a slave revolt terrified the Americans.
The Louisiana Purchase occurs between the U.S and France doubling the size of the republic and raising the question about the expansion of slavery.
James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston are tasked by T. Jefferson to purchase New Orleans with French Treasury Minister François Barbé-Marbois. These two quickly agree to purchase the entire territory of Louisiana after it's offered.
THE THREE PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED EVENTS CREATED PRESSURE FOR THE US TO OUTLAW THE SLAVE TRADE.
Even though the ban on slave trade did occur, many states failed to enforce it. Instead of freeing illegally imported Africans, states sold them at auctions. The ban continued to maintain the logic of property ownership in human beings.
Hamilton’s Financial System
Pres. George Washington's cabinet choices reflected continuing political tensions over the size and power of the federal government.
G Washington's government included…
John Adams as Vice President
Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state
Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of Treasury
Alexander Hamilton believed self-interest was the "most powerful incentive of human actions."
Hamilton believed the state should protect private property from theft
He also believed the government should harness its citizens' desire for property so that both private individuals and the state can benefit.
Hamilton did not believe in a communist system. Instead he believed that if he tied the interests of the wealthy Americans, or "monied men" to the health of the government, they would be able to maintain a stable government.
Hamilton believed that the federal government must be "a Repository of the Rights of the Wealthy."
Hamilton wanted to involve federal "assumption" for state debts which were mostly left by the Revolutionary War. The federal government would assume responsibility for $25 million.
Hamilton also wanted to create the Bank of the United States
Under the assumed proposal, the states; creditors (people who owned bonds or promissory notes) would turn their old note in to the treasury and receive new notes that faced the same value.
This was controversial due to the fallen value of old notes and the already paid debt from the Southerners.
G Washington and congress agree w/ Hamilton and 98% of the country's domestic debt had been converted into new federal bonds.
Many were against the idea of a bank saying it was unconstitutional. But Hamilton argued that it was.
Hamilton argued for a bank system backed by a specie gold or silver) to prevent inflation from banks over printing money.
20% of the bank would be controlled by the government while the rest was controlled by private investors.
Congress approves a 20 yr charter for the Bank of the U.S.
This benefitted the market with >$70m dollars in new financial instruments.
For opponents, Hamilton's system enforced more class boundaries and gave the rich more power.
Hamilton proposes federal tax exercise on the production and sales of goods, including whiskey.
Whiskey’s Rebellion and Jay’s Treaty
Grain was the most valuable crop. Often being sold for alcohol production, made it profitable as it was shipped across the Appalachian mountains. But the whiskey taxed burdened farmers.
Sixteen men in western Pennsylvania, disguised as women, assault tax collector Robert Johnson. He was tarred and feathered.
Other deputy Marshals were treated similarly getting beat up, whipped, robbed, tied up, and left for dead.
Groups of armed farmers attack marshals and tax-collectors, burning down at least 2 tax-collectors' homes.
At the end of the month, about 7k, led by David Bradford, robbed U.S mail and gathered around 8 miles east of Pittsburg.
Washington would dispatch 3 Pennsylvanians to peacefully resolve the situation. Meanwhile, he gathered 3k militiamen in Carlisle Pennsylvania.
Washington becomes the only sitting president to lead troops in the field, where he turns over the army to the command of Henry Lee, Rev hero and governor of Virginia.
A. Hamilton oversaw the arrest and trial of many rebels. Many were released because of lack of evidence and two sentenced to death for treason were pardoned by the President.
Washington declares the U.S. as neutral with Britain. John Jay's political ally, who was serving as chief of justice of the Supreme court, sailed to Britain to discuss a treaty that would satisfy both the U.S. and Britain.
T. Jefferson and Madison opposed these negotiations. They believed it looked like as if U.S was favoring Britain over France. Republicans also thought the U.S. should've been grateful to be friends with a new revolutionary state. They also believed northern merchants and manufacturers would be favored over the agricultural south.
John Jay signs a "treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation."
This "British Jay's Treaty," required Britain to abandon military positions in Northwest territory (Ft. Detroit, Ft. Mackinac, Ft. Niagara) by 1796.
Britain would compensate American merchants for their losses.
In return, the U.S. would treat Britain as its most prized trade partner, meaning that they would have to support Britain in its current conflict with France.
For federalists, this was a significant feat. For Republicans, it was proof of Federalist treachery. For Republicans it was siding with a monarchy even though they wouldn't even end impressment (forcing people into the royal navy.)
The French Revolution and the Limits of Liberty
The federalists turned to Britian because they feared the capabilities of democratic thought. After Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, and the French revolution, the federalists seemed to justify their concerns.
News arrives to the U.S. that the French had revolted against their king. Americans imagined that liberty was spreading from America to Europe.
On July 14, Americans commemorated the day the French revolt began. John Randolph, a Virginia planter, even named two of his favorite horses after French revolutionary factions.
French Ambassador, "Citizen" Edmond-Charles Genet arrives to the U.S. He encouraged Americans to act against Spain, a British ally, by attacking its colonies of Florida and Louisiana. Washington refused and Genet threatened to appeal to the American people directly. In response, Washington demanded that France recall its diplomat.
Genets faction had fallen from power in France from the meantime and knowing that returning home might cost him his head, Genet decided to stay in America.
Genet was correct, the French revolutionaries had turned violent. Many people after learning about the deaths in France, began doubting the French revolutionary, these people would turn into Federalists. Other who still had faith, such as Thomas Jefferson, would stick to their republican beliefs.
George Washington stepped down as president and John Adams takes over.
After the French authorized attacks on American Shipping, Adams sends envoys to France. Officials code-named XYZ, hinted that negotiations could only begin once the Americans offered a bribe. This infuriated Americans.
The Americans develop a fear towards the French, even watching he shores to prepare for the arrival of French navy.
New Englanders also found a new reason for francophobia with Jedidiah Morse's, a Massachusetts minister, conspiracy of the illuminati.
Alien and Sedition acts are passed to prevent French agents and sympathizers from compromising America's resistance, this however also suppressed the Americans who criticized the president and Federalist party.
The Alien Act allowed the Federal government to deport foreign people who seemed a threat to national security.
The Sedition act allowed anyone found to be speaking or publishing false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government.
James Wilson, one of the architects of the revolution argued :every author is responsible when he attacks the security or welfare of the government.
Many Republican printers were prosecuted and republic congressman who criticized John Adams. Many foreign nationals also started to leave the country.
Many people, including NY lawyer Tunis Wortman and Virginia Judge George Hay
Republicans James Madison and Thomas Jefferson helped organize opposition from state governments.
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions argued that the national government's authority was limited to the powers granted by the U.S constitution
Many Americans would fear the "contagion" of French style liberty.
Religious Freedom
One reason over the French Revolution become so heated was that Americans were unsure about their own religion.
The Illuminati scare of 1798 was just one manifestation of this fear.
In 1776, none of the American state governments observed the separation of church and state. All 13 states established, official, and tax-supported state churches, or at least required their officeholders to process a certain faith.
In order to protect the morality and social order.
In 1833, the final state, Massachusetts, stopped supporting an official religious denomination. Gradual process of disestablishment
The establishment process had started before the creation of the Constitution.
South Carolina had been Anglican before the revolution but it had dropped denominational restrictions in its 1778 constitution.
Any church containing at least 15 adult males to be recognized for tax purposes as a state-supported church
Churches needed only to agree to a set of basic Christian theological tenets, which were vague enough that most denominations could support them.
South Carolina tried to balance religious freedom with the religious practice that was supposed to be necessary for social order. Office holder still had to be Christians; their oaths witnessed by God.
Live according to the bible
As new Christian denominations proliferated between 1780 and 1840, however, more and more Christians feel outside this definitions.
South Carlina continued its general establishment law until 1790, when a constitutional revision removed the establishment clause and religious restrictions on officeholders.
Other states contained to support an established church well into the 19th century.
Federal constitution could not prevent this.
The religious freedom clause in the Bill of Rights, during these decades, limited the federal government but not state governments.
In 1833 a state supreme courts decision ended Massachusetts support for the Congregational Church.
Political leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, favored disestablishment because they saw the relationship between church and state as a tool of oppression.
Jefferson proposed a Statue for Religious Freedom in the Virginia state assembly in 1779, but this bill failed in the overwhelmingly Anglican legislature.
Maddison in 1785 proposed this bull again and won, defeating a rival bill that would have given equal revenue to all Protestant churches.
Virginia did not used public money to support religion
At the federal level, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1887 easily agreed that national government should not have an official religion.
This principle was upheld in 1791 when the Constitution was ratified guaranteeing religious liberty.
The federal government, though, supported Native American missionaries and congressional chaplains.
Into the 19th century, debate raged over whether to postal service should operate on Sundays, and whether non-Christians could as witnesses in federal court.
Election of 1800
The Sedition Acts and Alien Acts expired in 1800, 1801.
Ineffective at suppressing dissent
These acts helped many American decide what they didn’t want from their national government.
By 1800, president Adams had lost the confidence of many Americans.
In 1798, President Admas had issued a national thanksgiving proclamation.
Adams and his family had been forced by rioters to flee the Captial city of Philadelphia until the day was over.
His prickly independence put him at odds with Alexander Hamilton, the leader of his own party, who offered him little support.
After 4 years in office, Adams found himself widely reviled
Reviled meaning to criticize in an abusive or angrily, insulting manner.
In the election of 1800, therefore, the Republicans defeated Adams in a bitter and complicated presidential race.
During the election, one Federalist newspaper article predicted that a Republican victory would fill AMerica with "murder, robbery, rape adultery and incest."
A Republican newspaper on the other hand, flung sexual slurs against President Adams.
Both sides predicted a war would start is the other should win
There was a tie between two Republicans, Thomas Jefferson of Virgina and Aaron Burr of New York each having 73 electoral votes.
Adams had 65
Thomas Jefferson emerged victorious.
Republicans believed they had saved the United States from grave danger, and an assembly of Republicans in New York City called the election a "bloodless revolution."
The Republicans thought they were fighting to rescue the country from an aristocratic takeover, not just taking part in a normal constitutional process.
In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson offered an olive tree to the Federalists. He pledged to follow the will of the American majority, whom he believed were Republicans, but to respect the rights of the Federalist minority.
Jefferson's election set an important precedent. Adams accepted his electoral defeat and left the White House peacefully.
Jefferson wrote 'The revolution of 1800" which tried to do for American principles what the Revolution of 1776 had done for its structure. This time the revolution was accomplished not "by the sword" but "by the rational... the suffrage of the people."
The Twelfth Amendment changed the rules for the presidential elections to prevent future deadlocks, it was designed to accommodate the way political parties worked.
Adam's and Jefferson's attempts to tame party politics, the tension between federal power and the liberties of states and individuals would exist long into the 19th century.
Jefferson attempted to decrease federal influence, while chief Justice John Marshall, an Adams appointee, worked to increase the authority of the Supreme Court.
These agendas clashed most famously in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison which Marshall used to establish a major precedent.
Chief Justice Marshall went further in his decision in Marbury v. Madison, ruling that the Supreme Court reserved the right to decide whether an act of Congress violated the Constitution
In early 1801, Adams appointed several men to serve as justices of the peace in Washington, D,C. These "midnight appointments" used by Admas were sought to put Federalists into vacant position at the last minute.
Jefferson and his secretary of state James Madison, refused to deliver the federal commissions to the men Adams appointed.
They sued the government
The case was argued before the Supreme Court
Marshall used William Marbury's case to make a clever ruling.
On the issues of the commissions, the supreme court ruled in favor of the Jefferson administration.
Chief Justice Marshall ruled that the Supreme Court reserved the right to decide whether an act of Congress violated the Constitution. The court assumed the power of judicial review.
Judicial review is the power of federal courts to review laws of Congress and acts of the executive branch in light of the Constitution, with the possibility that they will rule them to be unconstitutional.
This was a major and lasting blow to the Republican agenda, especially after 1810, when the Supreme Court extends judicial reviews to state laws.
Jefferson was particularly frustrated by the decision, arguing that the power of judicial review "would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."