The Critical Period in American History 1781-178 Background Info

This name came from a book written by John Fiske written in 1888, which was the hundredth year anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution

• Background Info
  • Boundaries at this time are Canada, the Atlantic, the Mississippi, and Florida (but not including Florida).
  • Slavery Post-Revolutionary War
    • After fighting for liberty, it didn't make sense to keep slaves.
      • Starting with Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, the state legislature just freed the slaves!
      • New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut used gradual emancipation, which was when your children would be free at the age of 21. This was a compromise between the owner and the slave because the owner did not loose his money, but he could not claim the slaves' children.
      • Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia had individual cases of emancipation. The word for releasing a slave is manumission. This word comes from the Spanish word, mano (hand).
    • The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney was the worst thing anyone could have done for the slave institution. The cotton gin made slavery a lot more profitable.
    • The Mason Dixon Line: started by creating a boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, later included the Ohio River.
  • By 1830, you didn't usually have to own land in order to vote
  • Women's rights Post-Revolutionary War
    • Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, "Remember the Ladies." Sadly they did not remember the ladies when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.
    • Republican Motherhood: the concept that a women's role was to stay at home and raise the next generation of Patriots. This was role to be proud of because a woman's responsibility was to teach a raise their children in republicanism. Same time period as the Cult of Domesticity (in France), but the Cult was more of a focus on being a good housewife.
  • Social Change
    • Demolished aristocratic titles, which led to more social mobility
    • The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom: written in 1785 by Thomas Jefferson. Had to do with Separation of Church and State.
    • Most states now had a Representative Democracy, also referred to as a republic.
      • The 13 colonies had a tradition of governing themselves, which goes way back to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
      • Common Aspects of the state governments:
        • listed the basic rights and freedoms that belonged to all citizens
        • separation of powers, but the legislative branch had more power than the executive because the colonists were wary of the king and the way he abused the executive power
        • mostly white males with property could vote