Constitutional Period

1. Constitutional Period Period 2 – Lecture 2 1754-1800 AP U.S. History

2. Think About It • To what extent was the American Revolution considered a turning point in American politics and society? • To what extent did the ratification of the U.S. Constitution maintain continuity and foster change in American politics and society?

3. A New Form of Government? • States drafted new constitutions • Defined citizens’ rights • Conservative state constitutions • Bicameral legislatures and strong governors • Property requirements for voting • i.e. Massachusetts, New York, Virginia • Liberal state constitutions • Unicameral legislatures and weak governors • Universal manhood suffrage • i.e. New Jersey, New Hampshire • Republicanism vs. democracy • Republicanism preferred landed elites, power in the hands of a few; common good • Democracy synonymous with “mob rule” and development of corrupt factions; individual liberties • Debate on who may vote • Whites? • Property owners? • All males? • Women? • Christians?

4. Each state retains its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence” Unicameral legislature and weak national government No executive or judicial system Could not regulate interstate commerce Limited taxation Voting and Ratification Each state received one vote No new tax or amendments without unanimous consent Articles of Confederation

5. Northwest Territory – Good Stuff • Land Ordinance of 1785 • 36-square-mile township • Each township divided into 36 sections of 640 acres each • $1 each acre • Sections set aside for school and church • Some land set aside as source of federal revenue • Northwest Ordinance of 1787 • Forbade slavery north of Ohio River • Admitting states • Appoint territorial officials • Once 5,000 adult males settled then vote on temporary constitution and legislature • When population at 60,000, residents approve state constitution • Angered Natives • Hoped for British support • Deals with the Spanish

6. Problems with the Articles – Bad Stuff • Each state gets one vote • Congress has limited power • Can’t tax • Can’t negotiate treaties • Only legislative branch • No president • No court System • Difficult to make changes • New amendments only with support of all the states • 9/13 majority to pass laws • Viewed mostly as a “firm League of Friendship”

7. Shays’s Rebellion (1786-1787) • Tensions rise • Jay-Gardoqui Treaty • Spain’s rights to Mississippi River • New England’s depression • Mercantilist policies • Foreign manufacturing competition • States refusing/unable to pay debts • Weak defenses • Massachusetts farmers in serious debt • Held meetings protesting “tyrannical Mass. government” • Daniel Shays led 2,000 men to shut down western courts to avoid foreclosures • Virtual civil war in Massachusetts led to Annapolis Convention

8. Toward a Constitution • The Delegates • 55 total delegates; all white males • Mostly wealthy, middle-aged, professional (especially lawyers or politicians) • 19 delegates owned slaves • George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin • Annapolis Convention (1786) • After a meeting run by Washington, delegates from five states meet in Maryland to discuss interstate commerce • Decide to reform Articles with other delegates • Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia • All states but Rhode Island • Held in secrecy • Common nationalist viewpoint • Reform Articles or devise new government altogether?

9. Representation? Virginia Plan New Jersey Plan • Strong central government • Virtually total legislative control over the states • Bicameral legislature • Proportional representation to each states population in both houses • Lower house directly elected • Lower house elected upper house with input from state legislatures • Both houses chose executive and judicial • Unicameral legislature • Each state with an equal vote • Proposes executive and judicial branches

10. Great Compromise • Bicameral legislature • Lower house (House of Representatives) • Proportional representation • Directly elected • Upper house (Senate) • Equal representation of 2 senators each • Elected by state legislatures • Virginia and New Jersey Plans allowed for Congress to: • pass revenue bills • regulate commerce • supremacy over states Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman

11. Structure of National Government • Separation of Powers • Article I - Congress (Legislative Branch) • House of Representatives • Senate • Article II – President/Agencies (Executive Branch) • Article III - Supreme Court (Judicial Branch) • Checks and Balances • Federalism • Division of powers between national government and states

12. A Stronger National Government Articles Problems Constitution Solution • No power to tax • No power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce • No executive branch • No judicial branch • Amendments need unanimous consent • Supermajority to pass laws • Pass and collect taxes • Interstate and foreign commerce clause • No export taxes • President • Electoral College • 4 year terms • U.S. Supreme Court • Article V – Amendments • 2/3 of both houses of Congress • ¾ of state legislatures • Presentment Clause (Bills to Laws) • Simple majority by both houses • President’s signature

13. Slavery and the Constitution • Southern states requested slave populations counted for more representation • Majority of U.S. population lived in the North • Northern states noted hypocrisy • Three-Fifths Compromise • Each slave counted as 3/5ths a person • Fugitive Slave Clause • Importation of slaves banned by 1808

14. Fight for RatificationFederalists vs Anti-Federalists • Strong central government • Common good • Well-funded and politically organized • Favored by merchants, urbanites • Alexander Hamilton, James Madison • The Federalist Papers • Federalist No. 10 • “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.” • “Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.” • Federalist No. 51 • “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” • States rights • Argued for a Bill of Rights • Favored by small farmers, western homesteaders • George Mason, Samuel Adams • “I had rather be a free citizen of the free small republic of Massachusetts, than an oppressed subject of the great American empire.” – Antifederalist No. 1 • “Antifederalists feared what Patrick Henry termed the "consolidated government" proposed by the new Constitution. They saw in Federalist hopes for commercial growth and international prestige only the lust of ambitious men for a "splendid empire" that, in the time-honored way of empires, would oppress the people with taxes, conscription, and military campaigns. Uncertain that any government over so vast a domain as the United States could be controlled by the people, Antifederalists saw in the enlarged powers of the general government only the familiar threats to the rights and liberties of the people.” – Ralph Ketchum

15. Ratification • Created: September 17, 1787 • Ratified: June 21, 1788 • “I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them…I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.“ – Benjamin Franklin, September 17, 1787 • "I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun.“ – Benjamin Franklin

16. First Ten Amendments • First Amendment • Establishment Clause • Free Exercise Clause • Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition • Fourth Amendment • Searches and Seizures • Fifth Amendment • Due Process • Sixth Amendment • Speedy and fair trial • Counsel • Tenth Amendment • Reserved powers of the states

17. tune in for more early republic hijinks

18. George Washington (1789-1797) • Washington unanimously elected • John Adams as VP • The Cabinet • Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson • Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton • Secretary of War Henry Knox • Attorney General Edmund Randolph • Judiciary Act of 1789 • Established lower federal courts • Federal district court in each state • Attorney General • Whiskey Rebellion (1794) • Foreign Policy • French Revolution • Jay Treaty and Pinckney Treaty • Farewell Address

19. Hamilton’s Economic Plans John Adams Debate • Reports on the Public Credit • Debt Problems • $75M debt between national government and states government • Worthless national currency • Little to no foreign credit • The Debt Plan • Federal government assumes national and state debts • Report on a National Bank • Manage revenues, currency, and debt • Private institution • “necessary and proper” • Sources of Revenue • Tariffs • Excise taxes • Report on Manufactures • Protective tariffs • Promotion of domestic industries • Opposition to Hamilton’s Debt and Bank Plans • Thomas Jefferson and James Madison • Unconstitutional • Mostly British financial investments • Undermine state governments and state banks • Favors bankers, merchants, speculators, business, northern commercial interests • Weakens farmers, western settlers, southern agrarian interests • Compromise of 1790 • “Dinner Table Bargain” • Approval of Assumption Plan and National Bank • National capital in the South • Washington, D.C.

20. Excise tax on domestic whiskey Western Pennsylvanian farmers attacked federal tax collectors Washington and Hamilton led federal troops and quashed the rebels Asserted federal authority over lawlessness Public could denounce and protest laws Thomas Jefferson and Opposition Overuse of federal military Jefferson caters to western farmers Whiskey Rebellion (1791-1794)

21. Europe French Revolution Citizen Genet (1793) Proclamation of Neutrality (1793) John Adams Neutrality Jay’s Treaty (1796) Most-favored trade status to Britain Removed British from Northwest forts Did not end British impressment of U.S. sailors Pinckney’s Treaty (1796) Established boundaries with Spain Unrestricted trade access on the Mississippi River Natives Treaty of Greenville (1795) Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794) Formal recognition/cession of Northwest Territory by Natives Washington’s Foreign Policy

22. Washington’s Precedents • Two terms • “Mr. President” • Cabinet • Neutrality • Special Relationship with Great Britain • Farewell Address

23. Washington’s Farewell • Washington’s Farewell Address • Retired after two terms • Preserve treaties and avoid alliances** • Condemned political parties and partisan conflicts* • Warned of sectionalism and to preserve unity • Religion and morality and diffusion of knowledge (education)

24. Alexander Hamilton First Political Party System (1789-1824) • Federalists • National policies • Strong central government • Loose constructionists • Commerce and manufacturing • Urban • The rich, the well-born, the able; merchants, bankers • Pro-British • Anti-French revolution • Northeast • Democratic-Republicans • States rights • Strong local/state governments • Strict constructionists • Agricultural • Rural • Small farmers, plantation owners, artisans • Anti-British • Pro-French Revolution • West and South Thomas Jefferson

25. Election of 1796 • John Adams Second President

26. French seizure of American ships American delegation to France John Marshall Elbridge Gerry Charles Pinckney Talleyrand Quasi War (1797-1798) Adams and the XYZ Affair “The Paris Monster”, 1797

27. Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts • Parameters • Deport or jail foreign citizens believed as threats • Expel foreign residents if considered dangerous • Increase residency requirement • Criticism of government prohibited • Ulterior motive • Democratic-Republican Reaction • Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions • Thomas Jefferson and James Madison • Theory of nullification Matthew Lyon (D-R) and Roger Griswold (F)

28. Revolution of 1800 • Adams (Pinckney) -v- Jefferson (Burr)

29. An American Society • In the past, most families produced for personal consumption • In the new nation, families attempted to meet new demands and focused on production with old and new markets • New class of entrepreneurs and investors • Split between manufacturers (Hamilton) and farmers (Jefferson) Charles Wilson Peale,The Artist's Mother, Mrs Charles Peale and Her Grandchildren: 1783

30. Limited political and property rights Increased marital rights “Republican motherhood” Raise virtuous citizens Increased educational opportunities Women in the New Republic

31. Blacks and Slaves in the New Republic Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (1776) Benjamin Banneker, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1791) • 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. • …Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.

32. Percentage of Free Blacks of Total Black Population (1800) Total U.S. Population: 5.3 million • Massachusetts - 100% • 7,378 Free Blacks • Vermont - 100% • 557 Free Blacks • New Hampshire - 99% • 855 Free Blacks • Rhode Island - 90% • 3,304 Free Blacks • Pennsylvania - 89% • 14,564 Free Blacks • Connecticut - 85% • 5,300 Free Blacks • Delaware - 57% • 8,268 Free Blacks • New York - 33% • 10,374 Free Blacks • New Jersey - 26% • 4,402 Free Blacks • Maryland - 16% • 19,587 Free Blacks • Virginia - 6% • 20,124 Free Blacks • North Carolina - 5% • 7,043 Free Blacks • South Carolina - 2% • 3,185 Free Blacks • Georgia - 2% • 1,019 Free Blacks • Kentucky - 2% • 741 Free Blacks • Tennessee - 2% • 309 Free Blacks Total Black Population: 1 million

33. Natives in New Republic • Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794) • Treaty of Greenville (1795) • Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1796) • Protect against illegal land seizures and abuses • “civilization” programs Treaty of Greenville (1795)