Revolution to New Nation

Transcript Revolution to New Nation

UNIT 2: REVOLUTION TO A NEW NATION 1754-1789

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION  For much of the 18 th century, the western frontier of British No. America was the flashpoint of imperial rivalries.

 The Ohio Valley was caught in a complex struggle for power involving the French, British, and rival Indian communities, and settlers and land companies pursuing their own interests.

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION  Here by mid-century resided numerous Indians – Shawnee and Delaware who had been pushed out of PA., by white settlement; Cherokee and Chickasaw from the southern colonies who looked to the region for new hunting grounds; Iroquois seeking to exert control over the region’s fur trade.

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION  The Iroquois were masters of balance of-power diplomacy.

 Their sovereignty in the Ohio Valley was accepted by the British, but it was challenged by the French and their Indian allies.

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION    On this “middle ground” between European empires and Indian sovereignty, villages sprang up where members of numerous tribes lived together side by side, along with European traders and the occasional missionary.

The Indians recognized that the imperial rivalry of Britain and France posed both threat and opportunity.

They sought (with some success) to play the European powers off one another and to control the lucrative commerce with whites.

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION  1750: Few white settlers inhabited the Ohio Valley.

 But settlers were moving into the region.

 1749: The govt., of VA., awarded an immense land grant – half a million acres – to the Ohio Company whose members included the colony’s royal governor Roger Dinwiddie, and the cream of VA., society – including George Washington.

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION  The land grant threatened the region’s Indians as well as PA’s, land speculators, who had claims in the area.

 It sparked the French to bolster their presence in the region.

 It was the Ohio Company’s demand for recognition of its land claims that inaugurated the French and Indian War (Seven Years War),

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  The French and Indian War was the first of a century’s wars to begin in the colonies and the first to result in a decisive victory for one combatant.

 It permanently altered the balance of power.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  What became a worldwide struggle for imperial domination, which eventually spread to Europe, West Africa and Asia, began in 1754 with British efforts to dislodge the French from forts they had constructed in western PA.

THE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  1753: VA., Gov. Roger Dinwiddie dispatched 21 year old George Washington on an unsuccessful mission to persuade the French to abandon a fort they were building on lands claimed by the Ohio Company.

 1754: GW returned to the area with 2 companies of soldiers. He hastily constructed Fort Necessity.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR    After an ill-considered attempt to defend the fort against a larger French and Indian force, resulting in the loss of 1/3 of his men. GW was forced to surrender.

Soon afterwards, an expedition led by Gen. Edward Braddock against Fort Duquesne was ambushed leaving Braddock and 2/3 of his 3,000 soldiers dead or wounded.

For two years, the war went badly for the British.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  1757: The turning point for the British when William Pitt was appointed Prime Minister. He took over the management of the war effort.

 He raised large sums of money and poured men and naval forces into the war.

 He instituted a colonial requisition system.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  1759: Britain, with colonial and Indian forces, captured pivotal French outposts – Fort Duquesne, Ticonderoga, and Louisbourg.

 1760: Montreal, the last outpost of New France, surrendered – Game, set, and match.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  1763: The Treaty of Paris was signed.

 FR., ceded Canada to GB., receiving in return the sugar islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique.

 Spain ceded FL. To GB., in exchange for Cuba, and acquired from FR., the vast Louisiana colony.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  France’s 200-year old No. American empire had come to an end.

 With the exception of two tiny islands retained by FR., off the coast of Newfoundland, the entire continent, east of the Mississippi River, was now in British hands.

PONTIAC’S REBELLION

 The departure of the French in the aftermath of the French and Indian War eliminated the balance-of-power diplomacy that had enabled nations like the Iroquois to maintain a significant degree of autonomy.

 The Treaty of Paris (1763) left the Indians more dependent than ever on the British.

PONTIAC’S REBELLION

 The end of the French and Indian War ushered in a period of confusion over land claims, control of the fur trade, and tribal relations in general.

 To Indians, it was clear that continued expansion of the British colonies posed a dire threat.

  1763: In wake of the French defeat, Indians of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes launched a revolt against the British.

Although known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, an Ottawa leader, the rebellion owes at least as much to teachings of Neolin, a Delaware religious prophet.

PONTIAC’S REBELLION

 During a religious vision, the Master of Life, instructed Neolin that his people must reject European technology, free themselves from commercial ties with whites and dependence on alcohol, clothe themselves in the garb of their ancestors, and drive the British from the territory.

 All Indians, he preached, were a single people and only through cooperation could they regain their independence.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

1763: Ottawas, Hurons, and other Indians besieged Detroit, then a major British military outpost.

PONTIAC’S REBELLION

 They seized nine other forts, and killed hundreds of white settlers who had intruded onto Indian lands.

 British forces soon launched a counterattack and over the next few years the Indian nations one by one made peace.

PONTIAC’S REBELLION

 The uprising inspired the British govt., to issue the Proclamation of 1763.

 This prohibited further colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mts.

 These lands were reserved exclusively for Indians.

PONTIAC’S REBELLION

 The British aim was less to protect the Indians than to stabilize the situation on the colonial frontier.

 But the Proclamation enraged both settlers and speculators hoping to take advantage of the French to consolidate their own claims to western lands.

THE COLONIES AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

THE COLONIES AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  The colonies emerged from the war with a heightened sense of collective identity.

 Before the war, the colonies had been largely isolated from each other.

 Outside of N.E., more Americans probably traveled to England than from one colony to another.

 While possessing a collective identity, the colonies were by no means united.

THE COLONIES AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  1751: Gov. George Clinton of NY called for a general conference on Indian relations.

 Only three colonies bothered to send delegates.

 1754: The Albany Congress convened.

THE COLONIES AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  The Albany Congress adopted the Albany Plan of Union written by Benjamin Franklin.

 The Plan envisioned the creation of a Grand Council composed of delegates from each colony, with the power to levy taxes and deal with Indian relations and the common defense.

THE COLONIES AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR  Rejected by the colonial assemblies, whose powers under the Plan would be curtailed.

 The Plan was never sent to London for approval.

THE COLONIES AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR   The war created greater bonds between the colonies.

 But it also strengthened colonists’ pride in being members of the British Empire.

But soon, the colonists would come to believe that membership in the empire jeopardized their liberty.

 When they did, they set out on a road that led to independence.

THE MERCANTILIST SYSTEM

 1. An economic system whose central tenant is that the colonies existed for the benefit of the Mother Country.

 2. Colonies should add to the Empire’s wealth, prosperity, and self-sufficiency.

 3. Colonies ensure British naval supremacy by providing ships, ships’ stores, sailors and trade.

THE MERCANTILIST SYSTEM

 4. Colonies provide raw materials – tobacco, indigo, lumber, fish, etc.

 5. Colonies provide a large consumer market for British goods.

 To enforce this system, Parliament passed a series of NAVIGATION ACTS.

THE NAVIGATION LAWS

  Basic provisions: Restricted commerce to and from the colonies to English or American ships.

Certain “enumerated articles” like tobacco could not be shipped to any other foreign market except England, despite higher prices in other markets.

  All European goods going to America had to go through England first.

The Molasses Act of 1733: most important Act – sought to curtail trade between N.E., and the French Caribbean by imposing a tax on French produced molasses used to make rum in colonial distilleries.

THE MERCANTILIST SYSTEM

    

POSITIVE RESULTS OF SYSTEM

: 1. Navigation Laws did not adversely impact the colonial economy.

 2. Colonials had rights of Englishmen and opportunities for self-government (salutary neglect).

3. Colonies had British military protection free of charge.

4. Colonies greatly profited from mfg. and trading.

5. The Colonies enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.

THE MERCANTILIST SYSTEM



NEGATIVE IMPACT OF SYSTEM:

 1. Colonial mfg. hindered by British policies.

 2. Southern colonies suffered as export prices dropped due to “enumeration.”  3. New England resented favorable British policies toward Southern colonies.

 4. Writs of Assistance crisis

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE CRISIS  First sign of trouble between England and the colonies.

 Writs were search warrants by British customs officers.

 Aim was to reduce colonial smuggling.

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE CRISIS  1761: James Otis, Jr., of MA., representing shippers, demanded Parliament repeal the writs.

 Parliament refused but Otis’ efforts gained press in the colonies.

 Later, Otis would write the words “no taxation without representation.”

THE IMPERIAL REORGANIZATION OF 1763-1764

THE IMPERIAL REORGANIZATION OF 1763-1764  Having treated the colonies as allies during the French and Indian War, GB reverted in the mid 1760s to seeing them as subordinates whose main role was to enrich the mother country.

 During this period the govt., in London concerned itself with the colonies in unprecedented ways, hoping to make British rule more efficient and systematic and to raise funds to help pay for the war and to finance the empire.

THE IMPERIAL REORGANIZATION OF 1763-1764    The British felt that the colonies should be grateful to the empire.

To fight the French and Indian War, GB., had borrowed from banks and individual investors over 150 million pounds trillions of dollars in today’s money.

– the equivalent of tens of The tax burden in GB had reached unprecedented heights.

THE IMPERIAL REORGANIZATION OF 1763-1764  The govt., in London was virtually banckrupt after the French and Indian War.

 It only seemed reasonable that the colonies should help pay down the national debt, foot the bill for continued British protection, and stop cheating the Treasury by violating the Navigation Acts.

 This thinking led to Parliament levying taxes on the colonies and the end of salutary neglect.

VIRTUAL REPRESENTATION v. DIRECT REPRESENTATION  Nearly all Britons believed that Parliament represented the entire empire and had a right to legislate it.

 Millions of Britons had no representation in Parliament.

VIRTUAL REPRESENTATION v. DIRECT REPRESENTATION  But according to the theory of virtual representation each member of Parliament represented the entire empire not just his district.

 The interests of all who lived under the British Crown were supposedly taken into account.

VIRTUAL REPRESENTATION v. DIRECT REPRESENTATION  When the colonies began to insist that because they were unrepresented in Parliament, the British govt., could not tax them, they won very little support from the mother country.

 The colonies insisted on direct representation in Parliament.

– representatives from the colonies holding seats  But the colonies would never have enough representatives in Parliament to stop the new direction in British policy.

THE IMPERIAL REORGANIZATION OF 1763-1764  1763: King George III ascended to the throne.

 He would be no friend to the colonies.  It took the colonies a very long time to realize this.

 1763: Proclamation of 1763.

THE IMPERIAL REORGANIZATION OF 1763-1764  The first attempt by Parliament to get the colonies to pay their fair share for the rights and privileges that came with being a member of the British Empire was the SUGAR ACT OF 1764

THE SUGAR ACT OF 1764

 The Act was introduced by Prime Minister George Grenville and passed by Parliament.

 It reduced the existing tax on molasses from 6 pence to 3 pence per gallon.

 It established a new machinery to end colonial smuggling.

   It strengthened the admiralty courts where accused smugglers could be judged with a the benefit of a jury trial.

The colonists saw the measure not as a welcome reduction in taxes but as an attempt to get them to pay a tax they would have otherwise evaded.

The colonies also saw the strengthening of the admiralty courts as an attempt by Parliament to restrict the rights they deserved as Englishmen.

THE REVENUE ACT AND CURRENCY ACT OF 1764  Parliament passed two more measures in an attempt to raise revenue from the colonies:  THE REVENUE ACT: Placed goods such as wool and hides, which had previously been traded freely with Holland and England, on the enumerated list, meaning they had to be shipped to England first.

 THE CURRENCY ACT: Reaffirmed the earlier ban on colonial assemblies issuing paper as “legal tender” that is money that individuals are required to accept in payment of debts,

COLONIAL REACTION

 While the Sugar Act was an effort to strengthened the long-evaded Navigation Acts, and the Revenue Act and Currency Act were efforts to have the colonies accept their responsibilities as members of the British Empire, the colonies viewed all these acts as attempts to restrict their rights as Englishmen.

 They were upset but Parliament would misread the resentment that the colonies had over the end of salutary neglect.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  The Stamp Act of 1765 represented a new departure in imperial policy.

 For the first time, Parliament attempted to raise money from the colonies through direct taxes rather than through the regulation of trade.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  The Act required that all sorts of printed materials produced in the colonies carry a stamp purchased from authorities (stamp act commissioners).

 Its purpose was to help finance the operations of the empire, including the cost of stationing British troops in No. America, without seeking revenue from colonial assemblies.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  The ACT managed to offend virtually every colonists.

 It was especially resented by members of the public sphere who wrote, published, and read books and newspapers and followed political affairs.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767    The prospect of having a British army permanently in the colonies also alarmed many colonists.

By imposing the tax without colonial consent, Parliament directly challenged the authority of local elites who through the assemblies they controlled had established their power over the raising and spending of money.

They were ready to defend this authority in the name of liberty.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767    Opposition to the Stamp Act was the first drama of the revolutionary era and the first major split between colonists and GB over the meaning of freedom.

Nearly all colonial political leaders opposed the Stamp Act.

In voicing their grievances, they invoked the rights of freeborn Englishmen, which, they insisted, colonists should enjoy.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  Opponents of the Stamp Act, referred to the natural rights of all mankind.

 They drew on time-honored British principles such as a community’s right not to be taxed except by its elected officials – hence “no taxation without representation.”  Liberty, they insisted, could not be secure where property was “taken away without consent.”

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  At stake were clashing ideas of the British Empire itself.

 Colonial leaders viewed the empire as an association of equals in which free settlers overseas enjoyed the same rights as Britons at home.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  The British govt., saw the empire as a system of unequal parts in which different principles governed different areas, and all were subject to the authority of Parliament.

 To surrender the right to tax the colonies would set a dangerous precedent for the empire as a whole.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  In their view, an empire extended and diversified like GB had to have a supreme legislature to which all other powers must be subordinate.

 Gov. Francis Bernard (MA) declared that Parliament was the “sanctuary of liberty,” a description with which many colonists were beginning to disagree.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  Some opponents of the Stamp Act distinguished between

“internal taxes” (direct taxes)

, such as the stamp tax, which they claimed Parliament had no right to impose, and revenue legitimately raised through the regulation of trade =

“external taxes” (indirect taxes)

such as the sugar tax.

 But more and more colonists insisted that Great Britain had no right to tax them at all, since the colonies were unrepresented in the House of Commons.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  VA’s House of Burgesses approved 4 resolutions written by Patrick Henry.

 The resolutions insisted that the colonies enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the citizens of Great Britain.

 The resolutions argued that the right to consent to taxation was a cornerstone of British freedom.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  Oct. 1765: Delegates from nine colonies met in the Stamp Act Congress in NY.  At the SAC, the delegates endorsed VA’s position.

 They also produced the

Stamp Act Resolves:

-affirmed colonial allegiance to King George III and their due “subordination” to Parliament.

-they insisted that the right to consent to taxation was “essential to the freedom of a people.”

THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS OF 1765 1767  Merchants throughout the colonies agreed to boycott British goods until the Parliament repealed the Stamp Act.

 This was the first major cooperative action by the colonies.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  In a sense, by seeking to impose uniformity on the colonies rather than dealing with them individually as in the past, Parliament had inadvertently united them.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  The word liberty was used repeatedly by colonial leaders.

 The words slave and slavery were used to describe the relationship between the colonies and British Empire.

 Stamp tax commissioners were attacked and tarred and feathered.

 Colonies began to hold mock funerals of the death of the commissioners and the stamp tax.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767     Colonial leaders resolved to prevent the new law’s implementation and by and large they succeeded. A Committee of Correspondence in Boston communicated with other colonies to encourage opposition to the Stamp Act.

Now such committees sprang up in other colonies, exchanging ideas and information about resistance.

The movement against the Stamp Act quickly drew in a far broader range of colonists.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  John Adams wrote that the Act had inspired “the people, even the to the lowest ranks” to become “more attentive to their liberties, more inquisitive about them, and more determined to defend them, than they were ever before known.”

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  Adams, also said, political debate pervaded the colonies:  “our presses have groaned, our pulpits have thundered, our legislatures have resolved, our towns have voted.”

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767      But opponents to the Act did not solely rely on words.

Late 1765: The Sons of Liberty were organized in NYC.

These were self-made men who had no standing among the colonial elite but enjoyed a broad following among craftsmen, laborers and sailors.

They took the lead in enforcing the boycott of British goods.

Their actions were viewed with increasing alarm by the elites.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  The Boston Sons of Liberty assaulted the home of Thomas Hutchinson, Lt. Gov. of MA.

 They took his home apart brick by brick.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  Stunned by the ferocity of American resistance and pressured by London merchants and manufacturers who did not wish to lose their American markets, the British government retreated.

 1766: Parliament repealed the Stamp Act before it was even implemented.

THE STAMP ACT CRISIS OF 1765-1767  At the same time, Parliament passed the

Declaratory Act

that only their elected assemblies could levy taxes.

– which rejected colonial claims  The Act declared Parliament the supreme legislative body in the empire.

 Since the debt-ridden British govt., continued to need money raised in the colonies, passage of the Declaratory Act promised further conflict.

THE TOWNSHEND CRISIS 1767

THE TOWNSHEND CRISIS OF 1767  1767: Parliament decided to impose a new set of taxes on the colonies.

 These new measures were devised by Charles Townshend , Chancellor of the Exchequer (Prime Minister).

TOWNSHEND CRISIS 1767

 In opposing the Stamp Act, some colonists, including Ben Franklin, had seemed to suggest that the colonies would not object if GB raised revenue by regulating trade (internal taxes v. external taxes)  So Townshend persuaded Parliament to impose new taxes on goods imported into the colonies and to create a new board of commissioners to collect them and suppress smuggling.

TOWNSHEND CRISIS 1767

  Opposition to the Townshend duties developed more slowly than in the case of the Stamp Act.

 Townshend intended to use the new revenues to pay the salaries of colonial governors and judges, thus freeing them from dependence on colonial assemblies.

Yet leaders in several colonies in 1768 decided to re impose the ban of importing goods.

 This would be a non-importation and non-consumption boycott.

 The boycott began in Boston but soon spread to the Southern colonies,.

THE TOWNSHEND CRISIS OF 1767   Reliance on colonial rather than British goods, on homespun clothing rather than imported finery, became a symbol of colonial resistance.

It also reflected, as the colonists saw it, a virtuous spirit of self sacrifice as compared to the self-indulgence and luxury many colonists were coming to associate with Britain.

THE TOWNSHEND CRISIS OF 1767  Women who spun and wove at home as to not purchase British goods were hailed as Daughters of Liberty.

 The idea of using homespun rather than imported goods appealed to Chesapeake planters, who found themselves owing increasing amounts of money to British merchants.

THE TOWNSHEND CRISIS OF 1767  As had happened during the Stamp Act Crisis, the streets of colonial cities were filled with popular protests against the new taxes.

 Boston once again would become the focal point of resistance.

THE BOSTON MASSACRE

 British troops had been stationed in Boston since 1768 after rioting that followed the British seizure of the ship

Liberty

, a ship owned by John Hancock, for violating trade regulations.

 The soldiers became more and more unpopular among the citizens of Boston.

 Boston was a powder keg ready to exploded.

THE BOSTON MASSACRE

 March 5, 1770: A fight between snowball throwing colonists and British troops escalated into an armed conflict that left 5 Bostonians killed:  Crispus Attucks (first martyr of Am. Rev.)  Samuel Maverick  Patrick Carr  James Caldwell  Samuel Grey

THE BOSTON MASSACRE

 The commanding officer (Capt. Thomas Preston) and 8 soldiers were put on trial in MA.

 John Adams defended Preston and the soldiers.

 7 were found not guilty while 2 were convicted of manslaughter.

THE BOSTON MASSACRE

 Sam Adams, a Boston radical, labeled the event the Boston Massacre.

 Paul Revere, a radical and engraver, designed an engraving of the Boston Massacre – a first-class example of propaganda.

THE BOSTON MASSACRE

THE TOWNSHEND CRISIS OF 1767  1770: As merchants’ profits shriveled and many members of the colonial elite found they could not do without British goods, the boycott movement began to collapse.

 The value of British goods to the colonies decline by about a third during 1769, but then rebounded to its former level.

 British merchants, again, pressed for repeal of the Townshend duties.

THE TOWNSHEND DUTIES

 When the British ministry agreed, leaving in place only the tax on tea, and agreed to remove troops from Boston, colonial merchants quickly abandoned the boycott.

 Once again, an immediate crisis had been resolved.

 But many colonists concluded that Britain was to the same pattern of political corruption and decline of liberty that had afflicted other countries.

THE TEA CRISIS 1773

THE TEA CRISIS OF 1773

 1773: Parliament passed the Tea Act.

 It was an effort to resolve the financial problems of the British East India Company.

 Tea had become a drink consumed by all social classes in England and the colonies.

THE TEA CRISIS 1773

 The money raised through the tax would be used to help defray the costs of colonial govt., thus threatening, once again, the colonial assemblies control over colonial finances.

 The tax on tea was not new. But many colonists insisted that to pay it would acknowledge GB’s right to tax the colonies.

THE TEA CRISIS 1773

 Gov. Thomas Hutchinson of MA vowed to enforce and collect the tea tax.



Dec. 16, 1773:

a group of colonists disguised as Native Americans boarded 3 British tea ships at anchor in Boston Harbor.

 They threw more than 300 chests of tea into the water.

 The loss to the British East India Company was around 10,000 pounds, equivalent to over $4 million today.

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

THE COERCIVE OR INTOLERABLE ACTS  The response from Parliament was swift and decisive.

 They passed a series of Coercive Acts – designed to punish Boston.

 Bostonians, and later the other colonies, called these acts the Intolerable Acts.

THE COERCIVE OR INTOLERABLE ACTS 

Boston Port Act:

Closed the port of Boston to all trade until the tea was paid for.



Mass. Government Act:

Revoked the Charter of 1691 by curtailing town meetings and authorizing the governor to appoint previously elected members of the council.

THE COERCIVE ACTS OR INTOLERABLE ACTS 

The Administration of Justice Act:

Allowed royal officials accused of crimes in the colonies to be tried in England instead of the colonies.



Quartering Act:

Empowered military commanders to lodge soldiers in private homes. This Act applied to all colonies.

THE QUEBEC ACT

 At the same time, Parliament passed the Quebec Act which extended the southern boundary of Quebec to the Ohio River and granted legal toleration to the Roman Catholic Church in Canada.

 The Act not only threw into question land claims in the Ohio country but persuaded many colonists that Parliament was conspiring to strengthen Catholicism – dreaded by most Protestants – in its colonial empire.

THE QUEBEC ACT

 Fears of religious and political tyranny mingled in the minds of many colonists.

 In N.E., the cause of liberty became the cause of God.

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE  The British actions had destroyed the legitimacy of the imperial government in the eyes of many colonists.

 Opposition to the Intolerable Acts now spread to small towns and rural areas that had not participated actively in previous resistance.

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES



Sept. 1774:

 A convention of delegates from MA towns met in Suffolk, MA.

 The delegates approved a series of resolutions entitled

The Suffolk Resolves.

 These resolutions urged the colonists to refuse obedience to the new laws, withhold taxes and prepare for war.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Delegates from 12 of the 13 colonies met in Philadelphia from Sept. 5-Oct. 26, 1774.

 The delegates included most of the prominent political leaders in the colonies such as Sam and John Adams, George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  The first step the FCC took was to endorse the Suffolk Resolves.

 The delegates then did the following:  Denounced the Intolerable Acts.

 Urged colonies to organize militias for defensive purposes.

 Called on the colonies to suspend trade with the rest of the British empire.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Urged citizens not to pay taxes.

 There was no talk of independence.

 MAIN PURPOSE: To petition Parliament for redress of their grievances.

 The FCC produced the :

Declaration and Resolves:

 Gave colonists the legal right to assemble in order to seek redress.

 Included a “Bill of Rights”: which established the structure for the Declaration of Independence.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Most significant action taken by the FCC:  The establishment of the

Continental Association

which called for non-importation, non-consumption and non-exportation of British goods. It encouraged domestic mfg and denounced “every species of extravagance and dissipation.”  It authorized

Committees of Safety

to oversee its mandates and to take action against “enemies of American liberty,” including businessmen who tried to profit from the sudden scarcity of goods.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  The Committees of Safety began the process of transferring effective political power from established governments whose authority derived from GB to extralegal grassroots bodies reflecting the will of the people.

 1775: 7,000 men were serving on local committees throughout the colonies.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  1775: Talk of liberty pervaded the colonies.

 Colonists did not want to be slaves of GB.

 As the crisis deepened, the colonists increasingly based their claims not simply on the historical rights of Englishmen but more on the abstract language of natural rights and universal freedom.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  The FCC justified its actions by appealing to the “principles of the English constitution,” the “liberties of free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England,” and the “immutable law of nature.”

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Delegates were influenced by the ideas of John Locke.

 His theory of natural rights that existed prior to the establishment of government offered a powerful justification of colonial resistance.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Thomas Jefferson in

A Summary View of the Rights of British America

declared that the colonists were “a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Jefferson claimed that the colonies still revered the King.

 But he demanded that the empire henceforth be as a collection of equal parts held together by loyalty to a constitutional monarch, not a system in which one part ruled over the others.

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF PAUL REVERE

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF PAUL REVERE  By the time the SCC met in May 1775, war had already broken out between British soldiers and armed citizens of MA.

 4/19/1775: British forces began a march from Boston toward Lexington and Concord seeking to seize arms being stockpiled there and looking for Sam Adams and John Hancock.

 Riders from Boston, including Paul Revere, warned local leaders of the British advance.

“THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD”

‘THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD”  Colonial militiamen took up arms and tried to resist the British advance.

 Skirmishes took place at Lexington and Concord.

 By the time the British retreated back to the safety of Boston, some 49 colonists and 73 members of the Royal Army were dead.

“THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD”  What poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would later call “the shot heard round the world,” began the War for Independence.

 It reverberated throughout the colonies.

THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  May 10, 1775: The SCC convened in Philadelphia. All 13 colonies sent delegates.

 However the delegates were still not interested in independence.

 They were seeking a redress of grievances – a very conservative position.

 The conservative delegates were in charge.

THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Most significant actions taken by the SCC:  Authorized the raising of an army.

 Appointed Washington to command the army.

 Issued the

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms.

 Issued the

Olive Branch Petition

: a last ditch effort by the moderates in the SCC to avoid war. It pledged loyalty to the king and sought to restore peace. Asked King George III to intercede to repeal the Intolerable Acts.

THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS  Parliament and King George III refused to recognize the Second Continental Congress.

 King George III never read the Olive Branch Petition.

 King George III was not a friend of the colonies.

BATTLE OF BREED’S HILL

THE BATTLE OF BREED’S HILL  June 17, 1775: Two months after Lexington and Concord, the British dislodged colonial militiamen from Breed’s Hill (although the battle came to be known as the Battle of Bunker Hill).

 But the arrival of American cannon and their entrenchment above the Boston the British position was untenable.

 3/1776: The British Army abandoned Boston – but they would return in a few months with a much larger army.

THE BATTLE OF BREED’S HILL  George III declared the colonies in a state of rebellion.

 Parliament dispatched thousands of troops and ordered the closing of all colonial ports.

  The war raged on.

There were still no calls for independence.

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE  By the end of 1775: The breach with GB seemed irreparable.

 Yet many colonists shied away from the idea of independence.

 Some still had pride in being part of the British empire.

 Many political leaders feared that a complete break might unleash further conflict – where?

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE  They feared anarchy from below.

 In their view, anarchy from below was as much a danger as tyranny from above.

 Such ideas affected how colonial leaders responded to the idea of independence.

 Elites of MA., and VA., who felt confident in their ability to retain authority at home, tended to support a break with GB.

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE  Southern leaders were outraged by Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation.

 Dunmore was the gov., of VA.

 The Proclamation offered freedom to any slave who escaped to British lines and bore arms for George III.

 Some slaves took up the offer.

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE  In NY., and PA., the diversity of population made it difficult to work out a consensus on how far to go in resisting British measures.

 NY., had a huge population of loyalists.

 As a result, many established leaders drew back from further resistance.

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE  Joseph Galloway, a PA., leader and moderate delegate to the SCC, warned that independence would be accompanied by constant disputes within America.

 He even predicted a war between northern and southern colonies.

 He argued that the colonies could only enjoy true freedom by remaining in the British Empire.

COMMON SENSE

 1776: Colonial America presented the unusual spectacle of colonists at war against the British Empire but still pleading for rights within it.

 Enter Thomas Paine.

COMMON SENSE

 Paine was a recent emigrate from England.

 He grasped the inner logic of the situation and offered a vision of broad significance of American independence.

COMMON SENSE

  Jan. 1776:

Common Sense

was published. Its author listed only as “an Englishman.” It began with an attack on the “so much boasted Constitution of England,” and the principles of hereditary rule and monarchial government.

 Paine argued that the English monarchy was headed by “the royal brute of England.”  Far preferable than a monarchy would be a democratic system based on frequent elections with citizens’ rights protected by a written constitution.

COMMON SENSE

 Paine, “There is something absurd in supposing a Continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”  He argued that within the Empire, America’s prospects were limited.

COMMON SENSE

 With independence the colonies could for the first time insulate themselves from involvement in the endless imperial wars of Europe.

 Liberated from the Navigation Acts and trading freely with the world, the colonies “material eminence” was certain.

 Membership in the Empire was a burden not a benefit.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF

COMMON SENSE

 Most of Paine’s ideas were not original.

 What made mode of expressing them and the audience he addressed

Common Sense

– all colonists.

unique was his  Paine pioneered a new style of political writing, one designed to expand dramatically the public sphere where political discussions took place.



Common Sense

became one of the most successful and influential pamphlets in the history of political writing.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF

COMMON SENSE

 It sold some 150,000 copies.

 Paine directed that his share of the profits be used to buy supplies for the Continental Army.



Common Sense

hit a receptive audience.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF

COMMON SENSE

 Spring 1776: Scores of American communities adopted resolutions calling for separation form GB.

 Only 6 months elapsed between the appearance of

Common Sense

and the decision by the SCC to sever the colonies ties with GB.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  June 7, 1776: Richard Henry Lee, a delegate to the SCC from VA., introduced the following resolution.

RICHARD HENRY LEE

 “Resolved That These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  Lee went on to say it was expedient to form foreign alliances and that a confederation be formed among the colonies.

 The SCC appointed a Committee of Five to draft the Declaration of Independence.

 The work of writing fell to Thomas Jefferson.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  July 2, 1776: The SCC formally declared the colonies an independent nation.

 July 4, 1776: The SCC approved of the D of I written by TJ and revised by the SCC.

 Most of the D of I consists of a lengthy list of grievances directed at George III.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  The D of I’s most enduring impact lies in the Preamble – especially the second paragraph.

 By “unalienable rights,” TJ meant rights so basic, so rooted in human nature itself that no govt., could take them away.

 TJ went on to justify the breach with GB.

 Key principle: Govt., derives its powers from the “consent of the governed.”

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  TJ asserted that whenever a govt., threatens its citizens’ natural rights, the people have the authority “to alter or abolish it.”  The D of I is ultimately an assertion of the right of revolution.

 Its purpose is not simply to put forward a theory of govt., but to justify revolution.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  The D of I changed forever the meaning of American freedom.

 To TJ the laws of nature and of nature’s God, not the English Constitution, justified independence.

 Liberty had become a universal entitlement.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE  When TJ substituted the “pursuit of happiness” for property in the familiar Lockean triad, he tied the new nation’s star to an open-ended, democratic process whereby individuals develop their own potential and seek to realize their own goals.

 Individual self-fulfillment, unimpeded by govt., would become a central element of American freedom.

 Americans could shape their society as they saw fit.

THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE DREAM OF EQUALITY

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE DREAM OF EQULAITY  Colonial America was a society with deep democratic potential.

 But it took a revolution to transform it into a nation that celebrated equality and opportunity.

 The Revolution unleashed public debates and social struggles that enlarged the scope of freedom and challenged inherited structures of power within America.

 This was not what the Founding Fathers envisioned would be the outcome of the Revolution.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE DREAM OF EQUALITY  In rejecting the British Crown and the principle of hereditary aristocracy, many Americans also rejected the society of privilege, patronage, and fixed status that these institutions embodied.

 This is the real revolution .

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE DREAM OF EQUALITY  The men who led the Revolution were by and large members of the elite class.  The lower classes did not rise to power as a result of independence.

 But the idea of liberty became a revolutionary rallying cry for all – even slaves and free blacks.

 TJ’s assertion in the D of I that all “men are created equal” announced a radical principle whose full implications no one could anticipate.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE DREAM OF EQUALITY  In both Britain and the colonies, a well ordered society was widely thought to depend on obedience to authority.

 Inequality had been fundamental to the colonial social order.

 The Revolution challenged this in many ways.

 Henceforth, American freedom would be forever linked with the idea of equality.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY  With liberty and equality as their rallying cries, marginalized groups advanced their demands.

 In political, social, and religious life, American challenged the previous domination by a privileged few.

 The Revolution did not undo the obedience to which male heads of household were entitled from their wives and children, and, at least in southern states, their slaves.

 For free men, however, the democratization of freedom was dramatic.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY  Nowhere was this more evident than in challenges to the traditional limitation of political participation to property owners.

 Throughout the colonies, election campaigns became freewheeling debates on the fundamentals of government.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY  Universal suffrage, religious toleration, and even the abolition of slavery were discussed not only by the educated elite but by artisans, small farmers, and laborers, now emerging as a self conscious element in politics.

 The radicalism of the Revolution was more evident in PA., than in any other state.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY    In PA., nearly the entire prewar elite opposed independence.

The vacuum of leadership opened the door for the rise of a new pro independence grouping, based on artisan and lower-class communities, and organized in extralegal committees and local militia.

Equality became the radicals rallying cry.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY  They quickly attacked property qualifications for voting.

 3 months after independence, PA., adopted a new state constitution that sought to institutionalize democracy by concentrating power in a one-house legislature (unicameral) elected annually by all men over 21 who paid taxes.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: POLITICAL EQUALITY  PA’s, new constitution also:  Abolished the office of governor  Dispensed with the property qualification for office holding.

 Provided that schools with low fees be established in every county.

 Included clauses guaranteeing “freedom of speech, and of writing,” and religious liberty.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: NEW STATE CONSTITUTIONS

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: NEW STATE CONSTITUTIONS  Every state adopted a new constitution in the aftermath of independence.

 Nearly all Americans now agreed that their govts., must be republics – meaning that their authority rested on the consent of the governed, and that there would be no king or hereditary aristocracy.

 Paine – The essence of a republic was not the “particular form” of govt., but its object – the “public good.”

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: NEW STATE CONSTITUTIONS  However there was much debate about the structure of this new republic.

 John Adams, in 1776, published

Thoughts on Government

, in response to what he saw as PA,s excessive radicalism.

DEMOCRATIZINBG FREEDOM: NEW STATE CONSTITUTIONS  Adams insisted that new state constitutions should create “balanced governments,” whose structure would reflect the division of society between the wealth (represented in the upper house) and ordinary men (who would control the lower house).

 A powerful governor and judiciary would ensure that neither class infringed on the liberty of the other.

 Every state but PA., GA., and VT., followed his call for a two-house legislature (bicameral).

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE RIGHT TO VOTE

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE RIGHT TO VOTE  The issues of voting rights and office holding were far more contentious.

 Conservative patriots struggled to restore the rationale for the old voting restrictions.

 To JA, freedom and equality were opposites.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE RIGHT TO VOTE  JA: Men without property had no “judgment of their own,” and the removal of property qualifications, therefore, would “confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level.”  But eliminating traditional ranks was precisely the aim of the era’s radical democrats, including Thomas Paine.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE RIGHT TO VOTE  The provisions of the new state constitutions reflected the balance of power between advocates of internal change and those who feared excessive democracy.

 The least democratization occurred in the South.

 VA., and SC.,retained property qualifications for voting and authorized the gentry dominated legislature to choose the governor.

 MD., combined a low property qualification for voting with high requirements for office holding.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: THE RIGHT TO VOTE  The most democratic constitutions moved much of the way toward the idea of voting as an entitlement rather than a privilege, but they generally stopped short of universal suffrage, even for men.

 VT., was the only state not to sever voting from financial considerations, eliminating not only property qualifications but also the requirement that voters pay taxes.

 Overall the Revolution led to a great expansion of the right to vote.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY  As revolutionary as the expansion of political freedom was the Revolution’s impact on religion.

 Religious toleration, declared one VA., patriot, was part of “the common cause of freedom.”  The end of British rule immediately threw into question the privileged position enjoyed by the Anglican Church in many colonies.

 In VA., backcountry Scotch-Irish Presbyterian farmers demanded relief from taxes supporting the official Anglican Church.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY  The drive to separate church and state united Deist, like TJ, who hoped to erect a “wall of separation,” that would free politics and the exercise of the intellect from religious control, with members of evangelical sects, who sought to protect religion from the corrupting embrace of govt.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY  Religious leaders continued to adhere to the traditional definition of Christian liberty – submitting to God’s will and leading a moral life – but increasingly felt this could be achieved without the support of the govt.

 Throughout the new nation, states disestablished churches.

 The seven new state constitutions that began with a declaration of rights all declared a commitment to the free exercise of religion.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY  Yet every state but NY kept intact colonial provisions barring Jews from voting and holding office.

 7 states limited office holding to Protestants.

 MA., retained its Congregationalist establishment well into the 19 th century.

 MA’s new constitution declared church attendance compulsory while guaranteeing freedom of individual worship.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY  Throughout the colonies, Catholics gained the right to worship without persecution.

 TJ viewed established churches as a major example of “tyranny over the mind of man.”  MD’s constitution restored the large Catholic population the civil and political rights that had been denied them for nearly a century.

 In his bill, he declared that God “hath created the mind free.”  VA., TJ drew up a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1779 and adopted in 1786.

 The Bill eliminated religious requirements for voting and office-holding, govt., financial support for churches and barred the govt., from “forcing” individuals to adopt one or another religious outlook.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY  Religious liberty became the model for the revolutionary generation’s definition of “rights” as private matters that must be protected form govt., interference.

 It also offered a new justification for the idea of the US as a beacon of liberty.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM  James Madison declared that the new nation offered “asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and religion.”

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: A VIRTUOUS CITIZENRY

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: A VIRTUOUS CITIZENRY  Patriot leaders worried about the character of future citizens, especially how to encourage the quality of “virtue,” the ability to sacrifice self-interest for the public good.

 TJ and JA put forward plans for the establishment of free, state-supported schools.

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM: A VIRTUOUS CITIZENRY  These schools would instruct future citizens in what JA called “the principles of freedom,” equipping them for participation in the now expanded public sphere and for the wise election of representatives.

 A broad diffusion of knowledge was essential for a govt., based on the will of the people to survive and for America to avoid the fixed class structure of Europe.

 TJ: No nation could “expect to be ignorant and free.”

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM

 Not all groups in Revolutionary America enjoyed the benefits and privileges that came with the new definition of freedom.

 Native-Americans, women and African Americas were left out.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  Despite the Proclamation of 1763, colonists continued to move westward in the 1760s and 1770sleading Indian tribes to complain of intrusions on their land.

 KY: The principal hunting ground of southern Cherokees and other tribes became the flash point of conflict between land speculators, settlers, and Indians with the British govt., trying to restore order.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS   TJ listed, as one of the grievances in the D of I, Britain’s enlisting “savages” to fight on their side.  Some fought for the British, some against the British.

To many patriots access to Indian land was one of the fruits of American victory.,  Many Patriot leaders were deeply involved in western land speculation.

 British efforts to restrain land speculation west of the line of 1763 had been one of the many grievances of VA’s revolutionary generation.

 Indians divided allegiance during the War for Independence.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  TJ declared that driving the Indians from the Ohio Valley would “add to the Empire of Liberty an extensive and fertile country.”  Liberty for white meant loss of liberty for Indians.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  William Apess, a Pequot, wrote “The whites no sooner free themselves than they turn on the poor Indians.”  Independence offered the opportunity to complete the process of dispossessing Indians of their rich lands in upstate NY, the Ohio Valley, and the southern backcountry.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  TJ declared that the only hope for Indians lay in their “removal beyond the Mississippi River.”  Even as the war raged Americans forced defeated tribes to cede most of their land.

 By the time peace arrived, the Shawnee had been driven from Ohio to Missouri, and many N.E., Indians had been forced to take refuge in NY.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  The Treaty of Paris of 1783 marked the end of a century in which the balance of power in eastern No. America shifted away from the Indians and toward white Americans.

 The removal of the British left the Indians without white support.

 The British abandoned their Indian allies.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  To Indians, freedom meant defending their own independence and retaining possession of their land.

 The Iroquois declared themselves “a free people subject to no power on earth.

 They appropriated the language of the Revolution and interpreted it according to their own experiences and purposes.

 The Creeks and Choctaws denied having done anything to forfeit their “independence and natural rights.”

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: NATIVE AMERICANS  When MA., established a system of state “guardianship” over previously self-governing tribes, a group of Mashpees petitioned the legislature claiming for themselves “the rights of man” and complaining of this “infringement of freedom.”  Freedom had not played a major part in the Indian vocabulary before the Revolution.

 By the end of the 19 th century, dictionaries of Indian languages for the first time began to include the word.

 But there was no room for Indians in the new nation.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: WOMEN

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: WOMEN     The Revolutionary generation included numerous women who contributed to the struggle for freedom.

Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a soldier and served in the Continental Army.

She participated in several battles.

Years later, she was awarded a soldier’s pension by Congress.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: WOMEN  Mary Hays McCauley accompanied her husband to the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.

 She carried water to the troops earning her the nickname Molly Pitcher.

 When her husband was wounded she took his place loading ammunition into a common.

THE LIMITS OF POWER: WOMEN    Patriotic women participated in crowd actions, contributed homespun goods to the army, and passed along information about British troop movements.

Ester Reed and Sarah Franklin Bache organized a Ladies’ Association to raise funds to assist American troops.

This association illustrated how the revolution was propelling women into new forms of public activism.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: WOMEN  Women participated in the political discussions unleashed by independence.

 Mercy Otis warren promoted the revolutionary cause in poems and dramas.

 Later she published a history of the struggle for independence.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: GENDER AND POLITICS  Gender, nonetheless, formed a boundary limiting those entitled to the full blessing of American freedom.

 Lucy Knox, wife of Gen. Henry Knox, wrote her husband during the war that when he returned home he should not consider himself “commander in chief of your house, but be convinced that there is such a thing as equal command.”

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: GENDER AND POLITICS  But winning independence did not alter the family law inherited from GB.

 The principle of “coverture” – the husband held legal authority over the person, property , and choices of his wife – remained intact.

  Despite the expansion of democracy, politics remained a male realm.

A woman’s relationship to the larger society was mediated through her relationship with her husband.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: GENDER AND POLITICS  In both law and social reality, women lacked the essential qualification of political participation – the opportunity for autonomy based on ownership of property or control of one’s person.

 Since common law included women within the legal status of their husbands, women could not be said to have property in themselves in the same sense as men.

 Men considered women to be naturally submissive and irrational therefore unfit for citizenship.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: WOMEN  While the public debate in the Revolution viewed men’s rights as natural entitlements, discussions of women’s rights emphasized duty and obligations, not individual liberty.

 Their rights were nonpolitical, deriving from their roles as wives and mothers.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: GENDER AND POLITICS  Of the era’s new state constitutions, only NJ’s of 1776, which granted suffrage to all “inhabitants” who met a property qualification, made no distinction as to gender.

 Until NY., added the words “white male” in 1807, some of the state’s women did cast ballots.

 Overall, the republican citizen, was by definition male.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD  The American Revolution, nonetheless, did produce an improvement in status for many women.

 According to the ideology of “republican motherhood” women played an indispensable role by training future citizens.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD  Even though republican motherhood ruled out direct female involvement in politics, it encouraged the expansion of educational opportunities for women, so they could impart political wisdom to their children.

 Benjamin Rush: Women need to have a “suitable education” to enable them to “instruct their sons in the principles of liberty and government.

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM: REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD  Women were responsible to educate their children, especially their sons, to be republican virtuous citizens.

 Women were subordinate. This did not become a major source of debate until long after American independence.

FOUNDING A NATION 1783-1789

AMERICA UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION  The A of C were the first written constitution of the United States.

 It was drafted by the SCC and ratified by the states in 1781.

AMERICA UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION  The Articles sought to balance the need for national coordination of the War for Independence with widespread fear that centralized political power posed a danger to liberty.

 It resembled less a blueprint for a common govt., than a treaty for mutual defense.

 In its own words, it established a “firm league of friendship” among the states.

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION  Structure of the government:  “a firm league of friendship”  13 states retained their sovereignty  Unicameral Legislature  Each state had one vote.

 No President or Judiciary  9 votes needed for major decisions  13 votes needed for changes

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION  Powers of the National Government:  Powers granted were those essential to the struggle for independence:  Declaring war  Conducting foreign affairs  Making treaties  Could coin money but could not levy taxes or regulate commerce

AMERICA UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION     The Articles made energetic national govt., impossible.

But Congress in the 1780s did not lack for accomplishments.

The most important was establishing national control over land to the west of the 13 states and devising rules for its settlement.

These disputes nearly derailed the A of C.

THE LAND ORDINANCES

 Congress addressed the western land disputes with 3 land ordinances.



The Land Ordinance of 1784:

Drafted by TJ. It established stages of self-govt., of the West.

 The region was divided into districts initially governed by Congress, and eventually admitted to the Union as member states.

 By a single vote, Congress rejected a clause that would have prohibited slavery throughout the West.

LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785

 Regulated land sales in the region north of the Ohio River, which came to be known as the Old Northwest.

 Land would be surveyed by the govt., and then sold in “sections” of a square mile at $1 an acre.

LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785

 In each township, one section would be set aside to provide funds for public education.

 The system promised to control and concentrate settlement and raise money for Congress.

LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785

 But settlers violated the rules by pressing westward before the surveys were completed.

 American officials found it difficult to regulate the thirst for land.

 The minimum price of $640 put public land out of reach of most settlers.

 They generally ended up buying smaller parcels from speculators and land companies.

NORTHWEST ORDINANCE

 Called for the eventual establishment of from 3-5 states north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River.

 The US govt., would admit the area’s population as equal members of the political system.

THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE  The Ordinance pledged that “the utmost good faith” would be observed toward local Indians and that their land would not be taken without consent.

 Yet national land policy assumed that whether through purchase, treaties, or voluntary removal, the Indian presence would soon disappear.

THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE  The Ordinance prohibited slavery in the Old NW, a provision that would have far-reaching consequences when the sectional conflict between North and South developed.

 But for years, owners brought slaves in the Old NW, claiming that they had voluntarily signed long-term labor contracts.

THE WEAKNESSES OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION  Whatever the achievements of the Articles, its shortcomings far outweighed them.

 Lacking a secure source of revenue, Congress found itself unable to pay either interest or the debts themselves.

 To finance the W of I, Congress had borrowed large sums of money  With the US now outside of the British Empire, American ships were barred from trading with the West Indies.

THE WEAKNESSES OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION    Imported goods, however, flooded the market, undercutting the business of many craftsmen, driving prices down, and draining money out of the country.

With Congress unable to act, states adopted their own economic policies.

Several imposed tariff duties on goods imported from abroad.

   Indebted farmers, threatened with the loss of land because of failure to meet tax or mortgage payments, pressed state govts., for relief, as did urban craftsmen who owed money to local merchants.

To ease the worsening crisis, some states began to print large sums of money while others enacted laws postponing debt collection.

Creditors considered such measures attacks on their property rights.

SHAYS’S REBELLION

 The final nail in the coffin for A of C.

 Late 1786-early 1787: Crowds of debt-ridden farmers led by Daniel Shays closed the courts in western MA., to prevent seizure of their land for failure to pay debts and taxes.

SHAYS’S REBELLION

 MA., had firmly resisted pressure to issue paper money or in other ways assist the needy debtors.

 The participants in Shays’s Rebellion believed they were acting in the spirit of the Revolution.

 They modeled their tactics on the crowd activities of the 1760s and 1770s.

SHAYS’S REBELLION

   They received no sympathy from Gov. James Bowdoin, who dispatched an army to quash the rebellion.

The rebels were dispersed in Jan. 1787, and over 1,000 were arrested.

Without adherence to the law, Bowdoin declared, Americans were descend into “a state of anarchy, confusion, and slavery.”

SHAYS’S REBELLION

 Observing the rebellion from Paris, TJ refused to be alarmed.

 “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

SHAYS’S REBELLION

 But the uprising was the culmination of a series of events in the 1780s that persuaded an influential group of Americans that the national government must be strengthened so that it could develop uniform economic policies and protect property owners from infringements on their rights by local majorities.

 Many feared that the American Revolution’s democratic impulse had gotten out of hand.

THE NATIONALISTS OF THE 1780s  1785: Sam Adams wrote: “Our Government at present had liberty for its object.”  But among the proponents of stronger national authority, liberty had lost some of its luster.

THE NATIONALISTS OF THE 1780s  The danger to individual rights, they came to believe, now arose not from tyrannical govt., but from the people themselves.

 James Madison declared “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.”

THE NATIONALISTS OF THE 1780S

 To put it another way, private liberty, especially the secure enjoyment of property rights, could be endangered by public liberty – unchecked power in the hands of the people.  James Madison thought deeply and creatively about the nature of political freedom.

 He was among a group of talented and well organized men who spearheaded the movement for a stronger national government.

THE NATIONALISTS OF THE 1780s

 Alexander Hamilton was part of this group.

 He was perhaps the most vigorous proponent of an “energetic” govt., that would enable the new nation to become a powerful commercial and diplomatic presence in world affairs.

 He and Madison were nation-builders.

THE END OF THE ARTICLES OF CONVENTION  Concern over the A of C led to the Annapolis Convention.

 9/1786: Delegates from 6 states met in Annapolis, MD., to consider ways for better regulating interstate and international commerce.

 The delegates agreed to hold another gathering, in PA., to amend the A of C.

THE END OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION   Shays’s Rebellion strengthened the nationalist cause.

James Madison: “The late turbulent scenes in Massachusetts”, underscored the need for a new constitution. “No respect is paid to the federal authority.”  The belief was that without a change in the structure of govt., either anarchy or monarchy was the likely outcome, bringing an end to the experiment in republican govt.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION  5/1787: Convention convened in PA.

  Every state, but RI., which had gone the furthest in developing its own debtor and trade policies, decided to send delegates.

55 delegates in all – some of the most prominent Americans.

    TJ and JA did not attend: TJ was ambassador to France and JA ambassador to England.

GW was the presiding officer.

Delegates were very wealthy.

More than half had a college education – at a time when fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans went to college.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION  A majority had participated in interstate meetings of the 1760s and 1770s.

 22 served in the Continental Army.

 No radicals were among the delegates – Sam Adams, Patrick Henry were not delegates.

 The delegates shared social status and political experiences bolstered their common belief in the need to strengthen national authority and curbed what one delegate called “the excesses of democracy.”

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION  When they gathered in PA., they quickly decided to scrap the A of C and create a whole new govt.

 This was in violation of the instructions they received from Congress to solely “amend and revise” the A of C.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION  Madison, who believed that the outcome would have great consequences for “the cause of liberty throughout the world,” took careful notes.

 They were not published, until 1840, 4 years after he became the last delegate to die.

 All sessions were held behind closed doors with complete secrecy.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION  It quickly became apparent that the delegates agreed on many points:  The new constitution would create a legislature, executive and judiciary.

 Congress would have the power to raise money without relying on the states.

 States would be prohibited from infringing on the rights of property.

 The new govt., would be a republican form.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION   Hamilton’s proposal for a president and a senate serving life terms, like the king and House of Lords, received virtually no support.

AH; “The rich and well born,” must rule, for the masses, “seldom judge or determine rights.”

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION  Most delegates hoped to find a middle ground between the despotism of monarchy, and aristocracy and what they considered the excesses of popular self government.

 Differences quickly emerged over the proper balance between federal and state govts., and between large and small states.

REPRESENTATION



THE VIRGINIA PLAN

 James Madison (VA)   Bicameral legislature State’s population determining its representation in each House.

 Advantage to large states like VA and MA.



THE NEW JERSEY PLAN

 William Patterson (NJ)   Unicameral legislature Each state cast one vote as under the Articles of Confederation.

 Advantage to small states like RI.

THE CONNECTICUT COMPROMISE  The debate over representation was settled in the Connecticut Compromise.

THE GREAT COMPROMISE: Bi-cameral legislature: House of Representatives and Senate.

Senate: each state had two members appt., by state legislatures.

H of R: apportioned according to population. Members elected by popular vote.

CREATION OF THE EXECUTIVE

 4 year term.

 Power to appoint ambassadors, Cabinet, Supreme Court and judges of the lower federal courts.

 May recommend legislation.

 Sets the budget  Veto power  Commander-in-Chief  Calls Congress into special session.

 Treaty-making power  Issue pardons.

STRUCTURE OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT  3 Branches of government: • • • Legislature (Article I) Executive (Article II) Judiciary (Article III) -System of federalism – separation of powers and checks and balances.

-Much stronger government than under the Articles of Confederation.

-Delegates expected the Congress would be the most dominant branch.

THE RATIFICATION BATTLE

 The last session of the Constitutional Convention was held on September 17, 1787.

 39 delegates signed the document.

 It was sent to the states for ratification.

 The approval of 9 states was needed for the Constitution to go into effect.

 Ratification was by no means certain.

 A fierce public debate ensued.

THE RATIFICATION BATTLE

 The ratification battle set off the most intellectual and significant political debate in American history.

 It had it all – two groups going after each other, books and compromise.

THE FEDERALISTS

 Nationalists in favor of a strong central government.

 They were supporters of the Constitution as written at the convention.

 Key individuals: AH, Madison, JJ.

 To generate support, they composed a series of 85 essays that appeared in newspapers and were gathered in a book

The Federalist

in 1788.

 AH wrote 50, Madison 30 and JJ 5.

THE FEDERALISTS

 These essays are regarded as among the most important American contribution to political thought.

 AH and Madison repeatedly argued that rather than imposing a danger to American liberties, the Constitution in fact protected them.

THE FEDERALISTS

    AH’s essays sought to disabuse Americans fear of political power.

Govt., he insisted, was an expression of freedom, not its enemy.

Any govt., could be oppressive, but with its checks and balances and division of power, the Const., made political tyranny impossible.

The Const., in his view, had created the “perfect balance between liberty and power.”

THE FEDERALISTS

 Madison also emphasized how the Const., was structured to prevent the abuses of authority.

 But in several essays, especially in

Federalist

10 and 51, he moved beyond such assurances to develop a new vision of the relationship between the govt., and society in the US.

THE FEDERALISTS

 Madison identified the essential dilemma, as he saw it, the new republic – govt., must be based on the will of the people, yet the people had shown themselves susceptible to dangerous enthusiasms.

 Most worrisome, to Madison, was that the people had threatened property rights whose protection was the “first object of government.”  The problem of balancing democracy and respect for property would only grow in the years ahead since, he warned, economic development would inevitably increase the numbers of poor. What was to prevent them from using their political power to secure “a more equal distribution” of wealth.

 For Madison, the answer lie in the size and diversity of America.

THE FEDERALISTS

 Madison argued that a nation as large as the USA, with many distinct interests – economic, regional and political – that no single one would ever be able to take over the govt., and oppress the rest.

 Every majority would be a coalition of minorities, and thus “the rights of individuals” would be secure.

THE ANTI-FEDERLISTS

 Opponents of ratification.

 They insisted that the Const., shifted the balance between liberty and power too far in the direction of the latter.

 They lacked the coherent leadership of the Federalists.

THE ANTI-FEDERALISTS

 Some denounced the Const’s protections for slavery.

 Others warned that the powers of Congress were broad that it might enact a law for abolition.

 They predicted that the new govt., would fall under the influence of merchants, creditors, and others hostile to the interests of ordinary Ams.

 They insisted that “a very extensive territory cannot be governed on the principles of freedom.”  They believed that popular govt., flourished best in small communities where rulers and ruled interacted daily.

 Liberty was their watchword.

ANTI-FEDERALISTS

  Patrick Henry: The absence of a B of R was “the most absurd thing to mankind that ever the world saw.

 Anti-Federalists also pointed to the Constitution’s lack of a Bill of Rights.

State Constitutions had bills of rights, why not the federal Constitution?

THE RATIFICATION BATTLE

 In the end, the Federalists’ energy and organization, coupled with their domination of colonial newspapers, carried the day.

 92 newspapers and magazines existed in the US in 1787. Of these, only 12 published a significant number of Anti-Federalists pieces.

 JM also won support for the Const., by promising that the first Congress would enact a Bill of Rights.

 By mid-1788, the required 9 states (NH was the ninth) had ratified.

THE RATIFICATION BATTLE

 Although there was strong dissent in MA, NY, and VA, only RI and NC voted against ratification, but they had little choice but to join the new government.

 The anti-federalism cause died.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

 The most enduring legacy of the Anti Federalist cause.

 First 10 amendments to the Constitution.

 Ratified by the states in 1791.

 JM believed that the balances of the Const., would protect liberty that he was convinced the BofR was redundant and pointless.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

 JM: The amendments restraining federal power would have no effect on the danger to liberty posed by unchecked majorities in the states, and that no list of rights could ever anticipate the numerous ways that Congress might operate in the future.

 WAS MADISON CORRECT? – “Parchment barriers” to the abuse of authority, he observed, would prove least effective when most needed.