The Critical Period in American History 1781-178 The Constitution

• Towards a Stronger Government
  • Meetings leading up to the Constitutional Convention
    • Mt. Vernon Conference 1785: met at Washington's house. Two states were Virginia and Maryland. The purpose was to address commerce issues concerning the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. It proved to be a pretty successful meeting, so they agreed to meet in Annapolis the next year, and invited any states who wanted to come.
    • Annapolis Conference 1786: 12 reps from 6 states: NY, NJ, PA, DE, VA, MD. Still not enough states to do much good, but they decided to have another meeting and invited all the states. Alexander Hamilton from NY was the one that suggested to send out a message through the national government to make an official convention. Did he really want to revise the Articles of Confederation, or was it in his mind already to make a new constitution?
    • The Philadelphia Convention of 1787
  • Introduction to the Convention
    • May through September 1787
    • The People were called Founding Fathers, Jefferson called them demigods
    • All 55 delegates were all rich, men of property, who were all professionals (lawyers, doctors, but the majority were lawyers), they were mostly young guys, Ben Franklin was the oldest one (probably about 80 years old).
    • Who was there? Alexander Hamilton for strong central government, George Mason was the opposite of Hamilton strong state rights, and James Madison was the happy medium, also called the Father of the Constitution. Gouverneur Morris was the guy who physically wrote the constitution because he had such good penmanship. Morris also condensed the 23 Articles of Confederation down to 7.
    • Who was not there? Thomas Jefferson was minister to France, John Adams was minister to GBR, and Patrick Henry did not go because he, "smelt a rat." Samuel Adams was not elected, nor was John Hancock.
  • Virginia Plan- proposed by Madison and Governor Edward Randolph. A tripartite government: executive, legislative, judicial. All based on population. The lower house would be chosen by the people, but the big debate was how you choose the upper house.
  • This idea is credited to John Dickinson 1788-1913 the Senate was elected by the state legislature. He compared the link between central and government and state government to the sun and the plantes
  • The electoral college is how we elect the president
    • 1876, 1888, 2000 were years where the president was elected by the electoral college and no the popular vote.
  • New Jersey Plan- proposed by William Paterson. Basically was a return to the Articles of Confederation with two exceptions: 1. There would be an executive branch with 3 Presidents called the consul 2. Congress could tax and regulate trade
  • The Great Compromise- proposed by Roger Sherman from Connecticut. The lower house was elected based on population, and the upper house was 2 delegates like in the Articles of Confederation
  • Other Compromises:
    • 3/5 compromise: slaves in the south would count as 3/5 of a person for taxation and representation purposes.
    • The slave trade compromise: Moratorium was a 20 year dead period 1788-1808 for slavery, and after that the trans-atlantic slave trade was made illegal.
    • Commerce Compromise: South wanted no taxes, North wanted import and export taxes. The compromise was a tax only on imports.
    • Mason-Dixon Line: originally the line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, but became the line between free and slave states. This led to the Fugitive Slave Law. This law said that you had to turn in blacks who people thought were slaves. Once people saw it as a moral problem, it was hard to compromise.
• Basic Ideas of the Constitution
  • 7 Articles: 1- legislative 2- executive 3- judicial 4 and 5- Supremacy Clause 6- separation of church and state 7- Ratification
  • 27 Amendments: 1-10 are called the Bill of Rights
    • 1: freedom of press, religion, speech, petition, and assembly. Religion is the "first freedom."
    • 2: the right to bear arms
    • 3: right to quarter
    • 4: search and seazure
    • 5: double jeopardy, due process (a jury trail)
    • 6: right to a speedy, public trial, Miranda Warning
    • 7: civil courts and suits "We are gonna skip this one its stupid."
    • 8: cruel and unusual punishment
    • 9: rights to the people
    • 10: States rights amendment
    • 13: abolished slavery
    • 14: citizenship (back then this amendment was to appeal to the slaves and their children, but now is very controversial because of immigration. anchor babies)
    • 15: sufferage of Black males
    • 16: Income tax
    • 17: direct senators
    • 18: no booze
    • 19: women sufferage
    • 21: ALCHOHOL
    • 26: voting age from 21-18
    • 27: congress cant get a raise until re-electoin
  • Separation of Powers between the three branches through checks and balances: Know one example of each for the major quiz
    • Judicial checks the Executive: judges the actions of the president
    • Executive checks the legislative: vetoes
    • Legislative checks the Executive: can impeach the president
    • Executive checks the judicial: appoints the judges
    • Judicial checks the legislative: judges and interprets the laws
    • Legislative checks the judicial: approves the presidents' appointments
  • The Hierarchy
    • National government: print money, declare war. these are enumerated or delegated powers, found in article 1 section 8. clause 18 is the Necessary and proper clause)
    • State: education. these are called reserved powers. basically anything that is not prohibited in the constitution
    • County/City
    • Powers shared by all are concurrent powers. the power to tax is concurrent.
  • Democratic Features:
    • "We the People" elect the representatives.
    • We don't allow Ex post facto laws: you can't be punished for something that wasn't against the law at the time.
    • No Bills of Attainder: you cant deny the rights of life libery and property
    • Habeas Corpus: you must bring the body into court and try it
  • Non-Democratic Features:
    • Electoral College
    • Senators were elected by the state legislature until the 17th amendment
    • 9/13 states needed to ratify: Article 7
    • Federalists vs Anti Federalists
    • Constitutional Conventions were not democratic
      • The small states ratified the constitution first. Delaware was the first state.
      • Pennsylvania was the first big state to ratify.
      • New Hampshire was #9
      • Massachusetts wanted a Bill of Rights
      • Virginia and New York were still not ratifying the Constitution. In order to convince NY to ratify, Madison, Jay and Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers to convince NY to ratify.
      • North Carolina was number 12
      • Rhode Island was last

The Critical Period in American History 1781-178 The Articles of Confederation

• Articles of Confederation and the Perpetual Union of the Colonies
  • Why did it take so long to get approved?
    • Benjamin Franklin proposed the AOC in 1775 and John Dickinson rewrote it in 1777.
    • The main thing that took the A of C so long to be approved was land claims The landed states were ones with claims on the land across the Appalachian, the landless were ones who did not. Landed states included Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina. The leader of landless states was Maryland. The reason states wanted land was to pay off all their debts without having to raise taxes.
    • The Articles were finally ratified in 1782.
  • Structure of The Articles
    • unicameral legislature
    • Confederation Congress
    • No executive branch or president
    • no judicial system
    • all states got one vote regardless of size
  • State Resonsibilitise
    • states had their own trade and taxes and monetary system
  • Positive Aspects
    • Sometimes you learn whats good through the bad
    • Land Ordinance of 1785: surveyed the land into little square blocks called townships.
      • The government would then sell these little squares to people for $1 an acre. The government reserved four blocks in every township. The square system helped with border disputes.
      • Land speculators would buy the land and then let the farmers buy it and pay it back slowly with interest in order to make a living.
      • Every town had to reserve block 16 for a school house
    • Northwest Ordinance of 1787: agreed that the land north of the Ohio river would be divided up into 5 territories: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
      • All the governors of the territories had to have previous experience in the army. William Henry Harrison started off as the territorial governor of Indiana. Andrew Jackson also started off as a territorial governor of Florida.
      • Needed a governor, 3 Judges, 5,000 men (voters), and now they can elect a territorial legislature. After all this then they could be a proper territory. After 60,000 people (women and children too this time) you can write a state constitution and apply for state ship. Slavery was also illegal under the NW Ordinance.
      • State constitutions had to have: a bill of rights, freedom of worship, no slavery, and a public school system.
      • All of the new states were given what is called "equal footing." All states had the exact same rights as the original 13.
  • Negative Aspects
    • Diplomacy
      • Anglo-American: The British continued to occupy forts in America in order to trade fur with the Indians.
        • The forts were especially to trade in New York with the Iroquois indians.
        • They said that they would leave when the Loyalists were given their land back when the war ended, which the Americans promised in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. It turns out that the Americans lied about that.
        • Another reason the British didn't leave because the Southerners owed a lot of money to British factors. The British people really ticked off the Southerners when they would burn cities and emancipate the slaves and called themselves the "great emancipators."
        • In short, neither side was honoring the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
        • Vermont was a separate country for a while. Ethan Allan was the leader of the Green Mountain Boys, and they negotiated between the US and Canada to see who wanted the land the most. Eventually joined the colonies (obviously). Fun fact the Green Mountain State is on the Vermont license plate today.
      • Spanish-Americans:
        • The Spaniards wouldn't let us use New Orleans docks as a Right of Deposit.
        • They also gave the Indians liquor and guns and told them to go kill the white people in Georgia
        • The land just above the 31º N was disputed between, and even though the Americans had better claims to it, the Spanish took it
        • refused to let the US use the Mississippi
        • Don Diego de Gardoqui: the Spanish foreign secretary. John Jay intentionally appeared weak in front of the Spanish, in order to make the Articles look like an embarrassment.
      • Franco-American:
        • The French were going through the French Revolution, and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette desperately needed money. They wanted the Americans to pay them back.
        • The Americans promised that the French could be a part of all the peace treaties after the war. John Jay heard that the French were going to ask for all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to stop our westward expansion, SO the Brits and Americans held the Treaty of Paris of 1783 IN PARIS but without the French. This made the French very very angry.
      • Barbary Pirates: the 4 barbary countries were: Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco. They pirated for a living. This was never a problem before because they were always under British predictions.
    • General Problems: items in bold are what the textbook says are the biggest problems
      • Functional problems with the Articles
        • General Inflation: prices freaking skyrocketed, because the paper money was absolutely worthless.
        • Unicameral Congress with one vote per state
        • 9/13 states had to agree for a law to be passed, and it took 13/13 states to alter the Articles of Confederation.
        • Representatives often didn't even show up
        • Central Government could not tax!! They would just have to beg for money from the states.
        • Could not raise troops
        • A major weakness was inability to regulate commerce.
        • No executive to sign or enforce the law
        • No judicial branch to settle fights between the states
      • Shay's Rebellion: in western Massachusetts in 1787, led by Daniel Shays, small farmers were angered by crushing debts and taxes. They started to attack courthouses to prevent the people from giving out foreclosures until the next election, where they hoped to elect someone who would help them.
        • The Farmers demanded:
          • Stay Laws: there was no grace period. if you missed one payment by one day they would kick you out of your farm
          • Tinder Laws: the farmers wanted paper money, or more of it
          • To end imprisonment for debt
        • The rebellion was put down by a private army paid for by wealthy Boston merchants. The soldiers just came from poor people who were willing to fight for money.
        • The significance of this event was that the central government couldn't protect the country.
        • "Mobocracy," somewhat similar to anarchy. The mobs would rule the streets and rule the country.
  • Summary of the Articles of Confederation: They could not protect the country effectively. Foreign Policy was a joke. Shay's Rebellion proved that we needed to act quickly.

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