Difference between revisions of "American History Lecture Three"

Revision as of 20:04, August 30, 2008

As we move into our third week, here is another set of tips on multiple-choice history questions. Learn and use these skills! They will be valuable not only for this class, but for all multiple choice exams:

1. Disqualify answer choices that contain language that is too sweeping, such as "everyone" or "only". Here is an example. Question: "Why was George Washington elected president?" Possible answer choice: "Because everyone wanted him. Nope, not "everyone" liked George Washington. Here is another example. Question: "Why was slavery used?" Answer: "Solely because of greed." Nope. Not "solely" (or "purely" or "only”) because of greed. Some common "sweeping" words that signal an incorrect answer choice are: everyone, always, never, only, solely, purely, all and every.

2. Look for the answer choice that is the best fit to the question. The question is like a "lock" or "key hole", and you are looking for the answer (or the "key") that is the best fit. Matching the verb or concept behind the question with the best fitting verb or concept in the answer can help. For example, when a question asked about "exploration", the answer that said to "find the best route" was the best fit and the correct answer.

3. When a question completely baffles you, such as a question asking for a hidden political motive behind the "Wizard of Oz" movie, consider a possible economic (money-based) answer. Historical events and politics are motivated more by money than most students realize. When you're lost and can't explain why people did something, like have slaves, then think if there was a economic or financial motivation for owning slaves. There was: slaves were virtually free labor, and were more profitable to use than paying someone to do the job. Slave-owners became richer than many people who opposed slavery.

4. Finally, view multiple choice questions like a puzzle. Enjoy solving them. Don't let any test or question intimidate you. Multiple choice questions become much easier when you find a way to enjoy figuring out their puzzles.

Review

There has always been constant conflict between debtors (often farmers) and creditors (banks). Debtor’s prison: understand the financial motivation for it. <explain?> It’s wrong, but understand why it existed. See both sides of every dispute. <move this somewhere better>

To learn history well, you must put yourself back at that time. Think of what it might have been like. Imagine it. See both sides of the Boston Massacre, for example. What were British soldiers doing there? Maybe it was reasonable to object to their presence.

We discussed how England justified its direct taxation to pay for the French and Indian War. But how do we know the taxes were to pay for the war? Would that be all that the taxes would be paying for? Would the taxes cease when the war debt was paid? No, because that was a slippery slope. Those taxes would never end, even after the war was fully paid.

Learn to think in this way, and you will learn to understand history.

The American Revolution was a “conservative revolution.” <clarify?> We won the Revolution. What next?

State Constitutions

Soon after the end of the Revolution, all but two of the states adopted new constitutions. Rhode Island and Connecticut continued to use their charters, after removing all references to Britain.

Installing these new government when the war was hardly over was probably not a good idea. People were still stirred up over the revolt, and their fear and feelings came through in the states' constitutions.

Power was generally concentrated in the legislative branch. The concept of governors rankled with the states, after their bad experiences with governors appointed from England. These governors had absolute veto power. But the colonists took their experiences to harmful extremes. The new governors had no veto powers at all. A bill because law as soon as the legislature passed it. In many cases, the governor was elected by the legislature as well.

Term lengths were further evidence of the problems with the new constitutions, as many governors served terms of only one year!

The courts did not have much more power than the governor. In Pennsylvania, the general assembly could remove judges at any time for vaguely defined "misbehavior". The case was similar in Rhode Island. One judge decided that Rhode Island's attempts to force citizen to use paper money was unconstitutional. He and other judges who agreed with him were dismissed by the legislature.

The new state governments put in place after the war shied too violently away from the policies of the British, and the environment created was not conducive to liberty or justice. And it was not long before the federal government ran into problems of its own.

The Articles of Confederation

Before the war ended won, the Continental Congress met to organize war efforts and address issues common to all the colonies. It adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and proposed the Articles of Confederation in 1777.

The Articles of Confederation established America's earliest federal government. The Articles were ratified by the 13 colonies in 1781. Due to grave problems that arose, they lasted a very short time, and were replaced by the Consitution in 1789 after only eight years.

The Articles provided for a unicameral (one body) Congress to govern the states. There was no president, but rather a committee formed of one representative from each state which wielded executive authority. There were no federal courts.

9 out of 13 states’ approval were needed to pass anything. And unanimous approval was required to amend the Articles. Those percentages were simply too high for a collection of states that were very different from each other. Now that the focus was off gaining freedom and onto building a new nation, the states had much less common ground.

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was given the power to declare war, raise and army and navy, make commercial treaties, borrow money, control currency, and levy assessments against the states. But Congress lacked the power to could not impose taxes on the people or enforce its will against states that refused to cooperate. It could ask the states for money, but could not force them to pay. Thus, Congress under the Articles of Confederation was destined to be very weak from the beginning.

Problems with the Articles of Confederation

Most power remained in each state under the Articles of Confederation. The national government could not raise money to pay its own obligations. It had no power or money in foreign relations. And its attempts to alter these problems lead to economic hardships.

Americans were very wary of centralized power after their bad experience with England, but they took this so far that the central government was essentially worthless, and each state did as it pleased. Newly free, the states were unstable and divided. The Confederation reflected this. The states were eager to control their own affairs, and they resisted giving up power to a central government. The Articles of Confederation reflected this independence. After all, just one state could stop an amendment to the articles.

The federal government did not have enough power to operate effectively in its foreign relations. After the war, the British continued certain trade restrictions involving America, and America was powerless to do anything about it. Americans continued to buy English imports at a furious rate, and this caused money to drain out of America.

In the Treaty of Paris, America had agreed to treat loyalists fairly and return their rights and belongings. Congress asked the states to do this, but several disobeyed with no consequences. Congress had no way to make the states obey the nation's commitment.

The British used this violation of the treaty to justify keeping forces stationed near the Great Lakes. America had claimed the territory where the British forts stood, but once again had no power to drive them out. So the British in America prospered by trading for furs with the Indians, although the territory they used belonged to the United States.

The new land that America had gained in the war was west of the Appalachian mountains. Thus, the most efficient way to transport goods out of that land was via the Mississippi River. But the Spanish claimed the territory west of the Mississippi and exclusive navigation of the river. Spain knew that it was temporarily secure in this assertion, as the United States was too weak to fight for its territory. Although John Jay attempted to negotiate, America had nothing to offer, and thus nothing changed.

Across the sea in the Mediterranean, American trade was interrupted by pirates. Previously, America had been protected from the pirates by England, but now was obliged to pay its own way. But the government had no money to bribe or fight the pirates.

The weakness of the government under the Articles of Confederation was overwhelming displayed in America's languishing foreign policy.

From the beginning, the Confederation had financial troubles, and its attempts to correct its deficiencies only made its problems worse. It attempts to gain money were uniformly unsound. Congress borrowed money from foreign countries, made paper currency, and sold undeveloped western lands. None of these tactics were effective.

After the war, America had more that 35 million dollars in debt, and that number only continued to grow. The money from the sale of western land was paltry. I could have paid only one fourth of the government's current expenses! Taxes and requests for money from the states were to no effect. The state governments were having financial difficulties of their own.

So Congress turned to paper money, and began to issue it in large amounts. Sudden inflation gave a brief image of prosperity, but as quickly as the money had inflated, it became worthless and was abandoned. People returned to gold and silver coins as currency. Since there was much less of this money than there had been of the printed money, rapid deflation occurred, causing a depression.

Some states tried similar tactics, and Rhode Island tried to force citizens to use its paper money.

None of the paper money worked in the long run, but initially, it seemed like a success. Massachusetts was the only state that did not follow the trend for printed money. This sparked Shays' rebellion.

The Land Ordinance and The Northwest Ordinance

Two of Congress's attempts to make money by selling land west of the Appalachians were the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest ordinance of 1787.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided land in to towns 6 miles square, and sold 640 acre chunks for $1 per acre. These chunks were often bought and divided by investors, and then sold to farmers.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was among the most important achievements of the Confederation period. It established the requirements and procedures a territory must fulfill in order to become a state. A territory was required to have at least 60,000 white men living in it before it could apply for statehood, and slavery was prohibited north of the Ohio River. The Northwest Ordinance was passed as the Constitutional Convention was going on. When the Articles of Confederation were replaced, the Ordinance was passed again under the new Constitution.

Shays' Rebellion

Shays' Rebellion in 1786-87 illustrated how inadequate the national government was under the Articles of Confederation. It was an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers burdened with high debt. This was the first of many future clashes between Americans who owed money (debtors) and those who lent money (creditors). The farmers were angry that they had to pay back their loans in “specie” (gold or silver) rather than cheaper paper money. Every other state had issued paper money, and the sudden inflation that occured appealed to the people of Massachusetts. Little did they know that the money would soon become worthless and lead to a depression.

The farmers lost their farms when they could not pay their loans, and because of that they lost their right to vote, because at the time only property owners could vote. They violently took over the town courthouse to prevent any additional court-ordered seizures of their farms. The Massachusetts governor sent in the militia but there were more farmers in the rebellion then there were in the militia. Daniel Shays then led 1200 men to Springfield to capture the federal arsenal, but by then there were enough state militiamen to win. Shays fled to the Vermont area. Everyone was panicked by this uprising, and a newly elected Massachusetts legislature subsequently enacted some debt relief.

This incident proved to many that a new government was necessary.

The Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention convened in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia to strengthen the national government by modifying the Articles of Confederation. The Convention was immensely important and successful.

Every state sent representatives except Rhode Island. Some sources claim that Rhode Island's "separation of church and state" laid the foundation of the Constitution. But Rhode Island didn't even show up at the Constitutional Convention!

In total, 55 delegates from twelve states attended the Convention. The highest attendance and participation at the Constitutional Convention came from large states, particularly Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and South Carolina.

Key participants in the Constitutional Convention were James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were overseas in diplomatic missions, Adams in England and Jefferson in France. Remember those alliances: Adams (and all of New England) was allied with England, while Jefferson (and much of Virginia) was allied with France.

George Washington reluctantly agreed to attend the convention, and was elected to preside. In another display of his remarkable self-sacrifice, Washington did not speak on the issues, because he felt this would be unsuitable for the chairman.

Benjamin Franklin was the oldest attendee, at 82. He had to be carried to meetings in a chair and wrote out his remarks so that others could speak for him. Nevertheless, his influence on the Convention was invaluable.

James Madison worked tirelessly on the Constitution, and his tenacity earned him the nickname "Father of the Constitution".

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were bright, dedicated, and spiritual men. This was a very special event.

The deliberations were held in secret, without any news leaking to the reporters. This secrecy benefited the Convention because the delegates could proceed freely and try different ideas without fearing that their actions would be misunderstood by the public. Everyone was ordered to destroy their notes after the convention. James Madison, however, kept his and they were released when he died fifty years later. Those notes provide the knowledge we have about the debates that occurred during the Convention.

The Constitutional Convention was governed by strict rules. For example, "Every member rising to speak, shall address the President; and whilst he shall be speaking, none shall pass between them or hold discourse with another, or read a book, pamphlet or paper." Nothing was to be considered final until the entire Constitution had been written. Each state received one vote.

While most delegates agreed that stronger central government was necessary, they were uncertain how they could accomplish this without too much power. Their fear of the corruption power brings reflects the Christian beginnings of our nation. Christianity teaches that humans are sinful and prone to corruption. Very few religions teach that.

As the Constitutional Convention began, the delegates agreed that the Articles of Confederation had not created a functional government. Congress was in shambles, and so sporadically attended that between October 1785 and April 1786, it had the minimum attendance to business on only three days. The stated purpose of the Constitutional Convention was to "render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union."

Those words left the Convention somewhat open in terms of purpose. Delegates had a choice. First, they could amend the articles, this would be difficult however because unanimous approval from the states was required. Instead, they could draft a new constitution. Some questioned whether the Convention had authority to do this, but consensus was that a new constitution was the only choice.

Thus, the attendees did not limit their actions to fixing the Articles of Confederation. This same debate rages today by calls for a constitutional convention to balance the budget (1980s) or, more recently, to protect traditional marriage. There is no way to limit what a constitutional convention does. The only protection for the people is that the document still must be ratified by the states. This debate over whether a constitutional convention can be called for limited issue continues today, with many saying that there is never a way to limit a constitutional convention.

Dangers aside, the delegates knew that it was their task to write a new constitution. But what form of government would be sufficiently effective without being corrupted by power? Two plans attempted to answer this question.

The first was submitted by Edmund Randolph and was called the Virginia Plan, or the Large States Plan because it was favored by the larger states. Our three branches of government originated in the Virginia Plan. Unlike the Articles of Confederation, this plan gave government the power to directly enforce laws. The Virginia land assigned delegates to both houses of Congress based on a state's population. The Virginia plan contributed much to the finished Constitution, although Edmund Randolph refused to sign it in the end.

The New Jersey Plan departed much less from the Articles of Confederation. This plan was favored by small states because each state was represented equally in Congress. This allowed small states to have an equal amount of power. The Virginia plan, in contrast would have allowed large states much more power that small ones because representation in Congress was based on population.

This issue may have been the greatest in the Convention, and for weeks, there was no progress. Then Benjamin Franklin proposed that each day be opened by prayer. He said, "In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. - Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.... And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probably that an empire can rise without His aid?" Benjamin Franklin's greatest contribution to the Convention was not his ideas, but his wise advice.

Franklin's word had an impact when after many weeks of argument, a compromise was reached. It was called the Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, and resolved that Congress would have one house with equal representation and one house with representation based on population. This compromise became part of the Constitution, and today we have both Senate and the House of Representatives.

This compromise reflected the spirit of the Constitutional Convention. Disagreements arose on a myriad of issues. Again and again, the delegates compromised, gradually formulating the Constitution that we still use today.

The government established by the Constitution is not easily classified, but rather a mixture of other forms of government. At the time, nearly every county in the world was a monarchy. Many elements make American government the first of its kind.

The Constitution breaks government into three separate branches that can check and balance each other. If one branch grabs too much power, then the other two can work together to stop it.

The three branches are these:

The Legislative Branch makes the laws. Congress is established in Article I of the Constitution. The Executive Branch carries out the laws. The President's powers are established in Article II. The Judicial Branch interprets the laws. The Supreme Court is established in Article III.

Article IV of the Constitution outlines the relationship between the federal (national) government and the states.

Article V outlines the procedures for amending the Constitution, contrary to the Articles of Confederation, unanimous consent of the states is not required for an amendment.

Article VI declares the Constitution the supreme Law of the Land.

Article VII provides for the procedure to ratify the Constitution.

Many small states ratified the Constitution quickly, because they liked the idea of having equal representation in the Senate. But bigger states, such as Virginia and New York, were more reluctant to give up their power to a national government.

A huge debate followed in some of the states, particularly Virginia and New York. To persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist papers, which were a series of editorials that ran in a prominent New York newspaper. Most famous of these is Madison’s Federalist No. 10: “Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.” Madison’s insight was that a new United States of America, with its large size and separation of powers, could protect freedom against the tyranny of a small group better than individual colonies could.

The debate over ratification pitted the Federalists (for example, Alexander Hamilton) against the Anti-Federalists (for example, Patrick Henry). Federalists supported the ratification of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalists opposed it, primarily because it lacked a bill of rights.

Once the ninth state (New Hampshire) ratified the new Constitution on June 21, 1788, the Constitution became law of the land. Shortly afterward, New York and Virginia followed.

North Carolina and Rhode Island, however were more difficult, and did not ratify the Constitution until 1789 and 1790, respectively.

George Washington was elected a few months afterwards as our first president.

Slavery

Also, be aware that there many slaves in Virginia and other colonies long before Bacon’s Rebellion. <include info about how early the first slaves were brought from Africa>

3/5s compromise.

George Washington's Presidency

George Washington was so popular and respected that he probably could have become king. He was in his fifties, about the age of our President Bush. Even if Washington did not become king, he could have ruled as president for the rest of his life. But his greatness was, like Jesus, in his declining power to rule. Washington was inaugurated as president in 1789.

An example of Washington’s greatness was his handling of “Citizen” Edmond Genet (pronounced zhe – nay), who was sent by France to the United States just after the French Revolution. France felt that the United States owed it assistance after all France did to help us win the Revolutionary War. But in 1793 Washington issued his Proclamation of Neutrality to keep us neutral in the enormous turmoil in Europe.<make clearer> But Genet went around our new country stirring up pro-French sentiment with impassioned speeches. He sent out private American citizens to attack British shipping (called “privateers,” but acting like pirates). Washington told Genet to stop this, but he refused. Washington told France to recall him. But the French Revolution got out of hand, with senseless violence and executions. “Citizen Genet,” as he was known, reasonably feared the guillotine if he returned to France. He begged Washington to grant him asylum in this country. Washington did. Genet later married the daughter of the governor of New York, and became a normal farmer.

Another example of George Washington’s greatness was his handling of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Farmers in western Pennsylvania protested a 7-cent per gallon tax on corn whiskey. These farmers refused to pay the tax, retaliated against farmers who did pay it, and attacked U.S. marshals and revenue agents. Washington told the Pennsylvania governor to end the rebellion, but he refused. Washington himself then raised an army from neighboring states and personally rode out as their leader to quell the rebellion. The farmers gave up without bloodshed. Several were caught, tried and convicted for their rebellion. What did Washington do? He pardoned them.

In 1796, Washington was up for reelection. He then did something that no leader of a revolution has ever done: he gave up his power for the good of others. He left by publishing one of the greatest documents in all of American history: Washington’s farewell address. Written by Alexander Hamilton, this Farewell Address urged Americans to stay out of conflicts in Europe. It also reminded Americans that morality is the foundation is our society. <an the problems with divisive parties>

Several other important things happened during the presidency (the Administration) of George Washington. The Bill of Rights passed in 1791 to limit the federal government. A rivalry developed between Alexander Hamilton, who favored a strong national government, and Thomas Jefferson, who favored states’ rights.

Alexander Hamilton: federal government has whatever powers are not denied to it (e.g., power to establish a national bank, by virtue of the “elastic” or “necessary and proper” clause of the Constitution). Jefferson: federal government only has the powers expressly given it.

The Presidency of John Adams

John Adams, born to a prosperous farmer in Massachusetts, became president after Washington, and served just one term (four years). His presidency was a failure. Symbolic of his failure was his signing of the Alien & Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to criticize him! Jefferson and Madison responded with strong state resolutions (Kentucky and Virginia) to “nullify” or declare the Acts unconstitutional, viewing the act primarily as an attack on their Democratic-Republican party by Adams' Federalists.

Debate: Can a State nullify an act of Congress? Can a State secede (withdraw) from the United States?