Transcript Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight
The New Nation,
1786–1800
Chapter Focus Questions
1. What tensions and conflicts existed between local
and national authorities in the decades after the
American Revolution?
2. What struggles were experienced in the drafting
of the Constitution and to achieving its
ratification?
3. How was the first national government
established under the Constitution?
4. How did American political parties begin?
5. What were the first stirrings of an authentic
American national culture?
American Communities:
A Rural Massachusetts
Community Rises in Defense
Shays’ Rebellion
1. Several hundred farmers from Pelham and scores of other
rural communities of western Massachusetts converged
on courthouse in Northampton
2. This occurred at a time of great economic depression
which hit farmers hardest
3. The state raised property tax to pay off state debt- tax was
considerably more oppressive than those levied by British
4. Two thirds of those who marched had been sued for debt
or spent time in debtor’s prison- the people were looking
for state relief
5. The people rose up in defense of their property and state
and federal governments were forced to reevaluate the
distribution of power
A mocking pamphlet of 1787 pictured Daniel Shays and Job Shattuck, two leaders of
Shays’ Rebellion. The artist gives them uniforms, a flag, and artillery, but the rebels
were actually an unorganized group of farmers armed only with clubs and simple
muskets. When the rebellion was crushed, Shattuck was wounded and jailed, and
Shays, along with many others, left Massachusetts. He fled to a remote region of
Vermont and then settled in New York.
SOURCE:National Portrait Gallery,Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource,NY.
8.1:
The Crisis Of The 1780s
A. Economic Crisis
1. Economic problems like wartime inflation
plagued the nation.
2. After the war the key problem was depression.
3. Britain dumped its surplus goods in American
markets, creating a trade imbalance that drew
hard currency out of the United States.
4. Repayment of debt became both a political and
economic problem.
FIGURE 8.1 Postwar Inflation, 1777–80: The Depreciation of Continental
Currency The flood of Continental currency issued by Congress, and the shortage of
goods resulting from the British blockade, combined to create the worst inflation
Americans have ever experienced. Things of no value were said to be “not worth a
Continental.”
SOURCE:John McCusker,“How Much Is That in Real Money?” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society , N.S.102 (1992):297 –359.
FIGURE 8.2 The Trade Deficit with Great Britain The American trade deficit with
Great Britain rose dramatically with the conclusion of the Revolution.
SOURCE:Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington,DC: Government Printing Office,1976),1176.
B. State Remedies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
States erected high tariffs to curb imports and protect infant
industries but these were easily evaded by shippers.
The most controversial economic remedies were designed
to relieve debt burden.
Farmers called for laws to require creditors to accept goods
and commodities and had laws passed requiring them to
accept nearly worthless state paper currency.
In 1786, Shays' Rebellion broke out in western
Massachusetts when farmers closed down courts to prevent
debt executions.
A militia from eastern Massachusetts crushed the rebellion.
Conservatives concluded it was time “to clip the wings of a
mad democracy.”
C. Movement Toward a New
National Government
1. Nationalists, generally drawn from the economic
elite, argued for a stronger central government to
deal with the economic crisis of the 1780s.
2. Invited by the Virginia legislature,
representatives from five states met in Annapolis,
calling for a convention to propose changes in
the Articles of Confederation. Congress endorsed
a convention for revising the Articles of
Confederation.
8.2:
The New Constitution
A. The Constitutional Convention
1. Fifty-five delegates from twelve states assembled in
Philadelphia in May 1787.
2. Conflicts arose between large and small states, and free
and slave states.
3. The Great Compromise provided a middle ground for
agreement by:
a. a bicameral legislature that had one house based on
population and one representing all states equally; and
b. a compromise on free-state and slave-state interests by
agreeing to count five slaves as three freemen.
4. To insulate the election of the president from the popular
vote, a electoral college was created to select a president.
George Washington presides
over a session of the
Constitutional Convention
meeting in Philadelphia’s
State House (now known as
Independence Hall) in an
engraving of 1799.
SOURCE:Free Library of Philadelphia.
B. Ratifying the Constitution
1. Supporters of the Constitution called themselves
Federalists.
2. Anti-Federalist opponents feared the Constitution
gave too much power to the central government
and that a republic could not work well in a large
nation.
3. James Madison, Alexander, Hamilton, and John
Jay published the influential The Federalist that
helped secure passage.
C. Ratifying the New Constitution
MAP 8.1 The Ratification of the
Constitution, 1787–90 The
distribution of the vote for the
ratification of the Constitution
demonstrated its wide support in
sections of the country linked to
the commercial economy, and its
disapproval in more remote and
backcountry sections. (Note that
Maine remained a part of
Massachusetts until admitted as a
separate state in 1820.)
A cartoon published in July 1788, when New York became the eleventh state to ratify
the Constitution. After initially voting to reject, North Carolina soon reconsidered, but
radical and still reluctant Rhode Island did not join the Union until 1790. SOURCE:Collection of The New
York Historical Society.
D. The Bill of Rights
1. Several states including Virginia, agreed
to ratification only if a bill of rights would
be added.
2. The first ten amendments, better known as
the Bill of Rights to the Constitution
served to restrain the growth of
governmental power over citizens.
8.3:
The First Administration
A. The Washington Presidency
1. George Washington preferred that his title
be a simple “Mr. President” and dressed in
plain republican broadcloth.
2. Congress established the Departments of
States, Treasury, War, and Justice, the
heads of which coalesced into the Cabinet.
B. An Active Federal Judiciary
1. The Judiciary Act of 1789 created the federal
court system.
2. States maintained their individual bodies of law.
3. Federal courts became the appeals bodies,
establishing the federal system of judicial review
of state legislation.
4. Localists supported the Eleventh Amendment
that prevented states from being sued by noncitizens.
C. Hamilton’s Controversial Fiscal
Program
1. In 1790, Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton
submitted a series of financial proposals to address
America’s economic problems including:
a.
a controversial credit program that passed when a compromise
located the nation’s capital on the Potomac River
b. creating a Bank of the United States that opponents considered
an unconstitutional expansion of power
c. a protective tariff to develop an industrial economy
2. The debate of Hamilton’s loose construction and
Jefferson’s strict construction strained the Federalist
coalition.
D. The Beginnings of Foreign Policy
1. Foreign affairs further strained Federalist coalition.
2. Americans initially welcomed the French Revolution,
but when the Revolution turned violent and war broke
out with Britain, public opinion divided.
3. Though both sides advocated neutrality, Hamilton
favored closer ties with Britain while Jefferson feared
them.
4. The “Citizen Genet” incident led Washington to issue a
neutrality proclamation that outraged Jefferson’s
supporters.
E. The United States and the Indian
Peoples
1. A pressing “foreign” problem concerned
Indians who refused to accept United
States sovereignty over them.
2. The Indian Intercourse Act made treaties
the only legal way to obtain Indian lands.
MAP 8.2 Spread of Settlement: The
Backcountry Expands 1770–90 From
1770 to 1790, American settlement
moved across the Appalachians for the
first time. The Ohio Valley became the
focus of bitter warfare between Indians
and settlers.
F. Spanish Florida and British Canada
1. Spanish and British hostility threatened the status
of the United States in the West.
2. The Spanish closed the Mississippi River to
American shipping, promoted immigration, and
forged alliances with Indian tribes to resist
American expansion.
3. Britain granted greater autonomy to its North
American colonies, strengthened Indian allies,
and constructed a defensive buffer against
Americans.
G. Domestic and International
Crisis
1. By 1794, the government faced a crisis over
western policy.
2. Western farmers were refusing to pay the
whiskey tax.
3. An army sent into western Pennsylvania ended
the Whiskey Rebellion.
4. General Anthony Wayne defeated the Ohio
Indians, leading to the Treaty of Greenville in
1795 and the cession of huge amounts of land by
the Ohio Indians.
In this 1794 painting, President George Washington reviews some 13,000 troops at
Fort Cumberland on the Potomac before dispatching them to suppress the Whiskey
Rebellion. Washington’s mobilization of federal military power dramatically
demonstrated the federal commitment to the preservation of the Union and the
protection of the western boundary. SOURCE:Francis Kemmelmeyer,General George Washington Reviewing the Western Army at Fort Cumberland the
H. Jay's and Pinckney's Treaties
1. The Jay Treaty resolved several key
disputes between the United States and
Britain. Opponents held up the treaty in the
House until Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain
granted them sovereignty in the West.
2. The political battles over the Jay Treaty
brought President Washington off his
nonpartisan pedestal.
MAP 8.3 Spanish Claims to American Territory, 1783–95 Before 1795, the
Spanish claimed the American territory of the Old Southwest and barred Americans
from access to the port of New Orleans, effectively closing the Mississippi River. This
dispute was settled by Pinckney’s Treaty in 1795.
I. Washington’s Farewell Address
1. In his farewell address, Washington
summed up American foreign policy goals
as:
a.
b.
c.
d.
peace;
commercial relations;
friendship with all nations; and
no entangling alliances.
7.4:
Federalists and Jeffersonian
Republicans
A. The Rise of Political Parties
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
During the debate over Jay’s Treaty, shifting coalitions
began to polarize into political factions.
Hamilton’s supporters claimed the title “Federalist.”
Thomas Jefferson’s supporters called themselves
“Republicans.”
These coalitions shaped the election of 1796, which John
Adams narrowly won.
Jefferson, the opposition’s candidate, became vice
president.
B. The Adams Presidency
1. Relations with France deteriorated after
Jay’s Treaty.
2. When France began seizing American
shipping, the nation was on the brink of
war. The X, Y, Z Affair made Adams’s
popularity soar.
C. The Alien and Sedition Acts
1.
The Federalists pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts
that:
a. severely limited freedoms of speech and of the press; and
b. threatened the liberty of foreigners.
2. Republicans organized as an opposition party.
3. Federalists saw opposition to the administration as opposition
to the state and prosecuted leading Republican newspaper
editors.
4. Jefferson and Madison drafted the Virginia and Kentucky
Resolves that threatened to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
In this contemporary cartoon, Congressional Pugilists, Congress Hall in Philadelphia,
February 15, 1798, Roger Griswold, a Connecticut Federalist, uses his cane to
attack Matthew Lyon, a Vermont Democratic Republican, who retaliates with fire
tongs. During the first years of the American republic, there was little understanding
of the concept of a “loyal opposition,” and disagreement with the policy of the
Federalist administration
was misconstrued as disloyalty. SOURCE:Collection of The New York Historical Society.
D. The Revolution of 1800
1. Adams bid for re-election was weakened by:
1. Hamilton’s dispute with Adams; and
2. the Federalists becoming identified with oppressive
war-mongering.
2. In the election of 1800, the Federalists waged a
defensive struggle calling for strong central
government and good order.
3. By controlling the South and the West, Jefferson
won the election.
MAP 8.4 The Election of 1800 In the presidential election of 1800, Democratic
Republican victories in New York and the divided vote in Pennsylvania threw the
election to Jefferson. The combination of the South and these crucial Middle States
would keep the Democratic Republicans in control of the federal government for the
next generation.
E. Democratic Political Culture
1. The rise of partisan politics greatly
increased popular participation.
2. American politics became more
competitive and democratic.
3. Popular celebrations became common and
suffrage increased.