Creating a Government

1. Creating a Government • 1776 Independence declared • Next 5 years no constitutional basis for congress. • The resulting plan • Articles of Confederation

2. Articles defined union as loose confederation of states • “a firm league of friendship“ • no national executive (that is, no president) • no national judiciary • two to seven delegates from each state • selected annually by the state legislatures • prohibited from serving more than three years out of any six. • number of delegates not critical, since each state delegation cast a single vote.

3. Plan • no individual state could be railroaded by the other twelve in fundamental constitutional matters. • what this requirement really did was • hamstring the government. • Any single state could—and did—hold the rest of the country hostage to its demands.

4. widespread agreement on key government powers: • pursuing war and peace, • conducting foreign relations, • regulating trade • running a postal service

5. On the delicate question of taxes • needed to finance the war • Articles provided ingenious but ultimately troublesome solution • Each state to contribute in proportion to the property value of state's land. • no mechanism to compel states to contribute their fair share.

6. Key dispute involved the problem of land claims west of the existing states • Who owned the land, who protected it, who governed it?

7. 1780s, over 100,000 Americans moved west of Appalachian Mountains • another 100,000 moving to newly opened land in • northern Vermont • western New York and Pennsylvania • as well as Kentucky, Georgia, and beyond.

8. 1781 James Madison and Thomas Jefferson ceded Virginia's huge land claim • Articles at last unanimously approved. • The western lands issue demonstrated that powerful interests divided the thirteen new states • Unity inspired by fighting the war against Britain • papered over sizable cracks in the new confederation.

9. In first decade of independence • states were sovereign and all-powerful. • May 1776, the congress recommended that all states draw up constitutions based on • “the authority of the people.” • By 1778, ten states had done so, and three more • Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island • had adopted and updated their original colonial charters.

10. No fanfare greeted inauguration of the new government. • Lack of a quorum often hampered day-to-day activities. • Articles required representation from seven states to conduct business • Minimum two men from each state's delegation. • But some days, fewer than fourteen men in total showed up.

11. Many devote their energies to state governments • especially when congress seemed deadlocked or, worse, irrelevant. • To address difficulties of inefficient congress • Executive departments of • War • Finance • Foreign affairs • created in 1781 to handle administrative functions.

12. Political writers 1770s embraced the concept of republicanism • As underpinning of the new governments. • For some, republicanism invoked a way of thinking about who leaders should be: • autonomous, virtuous citizens who placed civic values above private interests. • For others, it suggested • direct democracy, with nothing standing in the way of the will of the people.

13. Republics could succeed only in relatively small units. • Distant government could easily become tyrannical; that was the lesson of the 1760s. • If representative displeased his constituents • out of office in a matter of months.

14. James Madison's unsuccessful attempt to win reelection to the Virginia assembly in 1777 offers example • Sure he had lost because he had failed to campaign in the traditional style • abundant liquor and glad-handing • Shy and retiring, Madison was not capable of running for election in this manner. • His increasingly significant political posts from 1778 to 1787 • all came as a result of appointment

15. When the Continental Congress called for state constitutions based on • “the authority of the people” • when the Virginia bill of rights granted • “all men" certain rights • who was meant by “the people"? • One limit was defined by property. • “Every poor man has a life, a personal liberty, and a right to his earnings; and is in danger of being injured by government in a variety of ways.”

16. Another exclusion from voting—women—was so ingrained that few stopped to question it. Yet the logic of allowing propertied females to vote did occur to Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, in 1782, “Even in the freest countrys our property is subject to the controul and disposal of our partners, to whom the Laws have given a sovereign Authority. Deprived of a voice in Legislation, obliged to submit to those Laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the publick Welfare?"

17. Restrictions on political participation did not mean that property less people enjoyed no civil rights and liberties • various state bills of rights applied to all individuals who had, as the Virginia bill so carefully phrased it, • “enter[ed] into a state of society.” • No matter how poor, a free person was entitled to life, liberty, property, and freedom of conscience. • Unfreepeople, however, were another matter.

18. In 1780, seven Massachusetts freemen • Including mariner brothers Paul and John Cuffe • Refused to pay taxes for three years • on the grounds that they could not vote and so were not represented. • Cuffebrothers went to jail for tax evasion • Petition to statelegislature extended suffrage to taxpaying free blacks in 1783

19. “Slaves, not being constituent members of our society, could never pretend to any benefit from such a maxim.” • VA legislator

20. 3,000 - 4,000 African-Americans shipped out of Savannah and Charleston, destined for freedom. • Adding northern blacks evacuated from New York City in 1783 • probable total of emancipated blacks who left the United States was between 8,000 and 10,000. • Some went to Canada, some to England, and some to Sierra Leon • Many hundreds took refuge with the Seminole and Creek Indians • becoming permanent members of their communities in Spanish Florida and western Georgia.

21. Independence - Treaty of Paris (1783) British recognize United States independence Mississippi as Western boundary of United States Access to Grand Banks Prewar debts still valid Congress must urge states to restore confiscated loyalist property

22. After the Revolution concluded in 1783 • With treaty of Paris • Remember treaty of Paris also ended 7 years war • Confederation government turned to its three main and interrelated areas of concern • paying down the large war debt • making formal peace with the Indians • dealing with western settlement.

23. Seven years of war produced a chaotic economy Confederation and the individual states had run up huge war debts financed by printing paper money and borrowing from private sources. $400 to $500 million in paper currency had been injected into the economy

24. chart shows the declining monthly value of two emissions of paper dollars from January 1777 to October 1781 as stipulated by the government of Massachusetts. • From early in 1777 to April 1780, the paper dollar dropped to a fortieth of its value, requiring $4,000 paper dollars to equal the buying power of $100 in gold or silver.

25. Robert Morris • To augment the government's revenue • Morris first proposed a 5 percent impost • an import tax • Since the Articles of Confederation did not authorize taxation • amendment needed

26. Unanimous agreement proved impossible. • Rhode Island and New York • whose bustling ports provided ample state revenue • preferred to keep their money and simply refused to agree to a national impost • next idea creation of the Bank of North America • Private bank - special relationship with confederation • holding the government's hard money (gold and silver coins) as well as private deposits • providing it with short-term loans.

27. Bank's contribution to economic stability came in the form of banknotes, pieces of paper inscribed with a dollar value • backed by hard money in the bank's vaults and thus would not depreciate. • Congress voted to approve the bank in 1781. Bank had limited success curing economic woes • issued very little currency • Charter allowed to expire in 1786.

28. Native Americans Since Indians had not been party to the Treaty of Paris of 1783 confederation government needed to formalize a treaty with them to conclude hostilities and secure land cessions October 1784 at Fort Stanwix, on the upper reaches of the Mohawk River

29. U.S. commissioners opened proceedings at Fort Stanwix with the Seneca chief Cornplanter and Captain Aaron Hill, a Mohawk leader. • Six hundred Indians from the six tribes attended the meeting. • U.S. commissioners came with a security detail of one hundred New Jersey militiamen.

30. When the tribal leaders balked • one of the commissioners sternly replied, • “You are mistaken in supposing that, having been excluded from the treaty between the United States and the King of England, you are become a free and independent nation and may make what terms you please. • It is not so. You are a subdued people.”

31. Congress turned to the Ohio Valley to make good on the promise of western expansion. • Delegate Thomas Jefferson, charged with drafting policy • The congress adopted parts of Jefferson's plan in the Ordinance of 1784

32. Ordinance of 1784 • the rectangular grid, the ten states, and the guarantee of self-government and eventual statehood. • What the congress found too radical was the proposal to give away the land • the national domain was the confederation's only source of independent wealth. • The slavery prohibition also failed, by a vote of seven to six states.

33. 1787 - third land act • Northwest Ordinance • set forth a three-stage process by which settled territories would advance to statehood • First, the congress would appoint officials for a sparsely populated territory who would adopt a legal code and appoint local magistrates to administer justice.

34. When free male population of voting age • and landowning status (fifty acres) • reached 5,000, the territory could elect its own legislature and send a nonvoting delegate to the congress. • When the population of voting citizens reached 60,000 • they could write a state constitution and apply for full admission to the Union. • At all three territorial stages, the inhabitants were subject to taxation to support the Union, in the same manner as were the original states.

35. Northwest Ordinance of 1787 • perhaps the most important legislation passed by the confederation government. • Ensured that the new United States • recently released from colonial dependency, • would not itself become a colonial power-at least not with respect to white citizens. • Allowed for successful and orderly expansion of the United States across the continent in the next century

36. But that was still to come Without an impost amendment and with public land sales projected but not yet realized confederation turned to the states in the 1780s to contribute revenue voluntarily. Struggling with their own war debts, most state legislatures were reluctant to tax their constituents too heavily.

37. Several states issued debt “stays” • Delaying due date on debts • Massachusetts didn’t go that way • Massachusetts had a fiscally conservative legislature • dominated by the coastal commercial centers. • For 4 years, legislature passed tough tax laws that called for payment in hard money, not cheap paper • Farmers in the western two-thirds of the state found it increasingly difficult to comply • repeatedly petitioned against what they called oppressive taxation. • Led to Shays Rebellion 1786-7

39. 1785 A two state meeting between • Virginia and Maryland • To agree use of Potomac river • Was seen as a model • Susquehanna • Delaware • 1786 convention called by Virginia and Maryland in Annapolis • Pennsylvania • New York • New Jersey

40. Annapolis convention • Alexander Hamilton • Individual conventions not suitable • Needed a national convention • Sent request to cofederation congress • Philadelphia

41. confederation approved meeting Feb 20 1787 “to devise such further provisions as should appear necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union”

42. Henry Knox • Asked by confederation congress to investigate disturbances in Western Mass. • Wildly exaggerated • “amounts to a pretty formidable rebellion” • They threatened • “to overturn, not only the forms, but the principles of the present constitutions”

43. New York lawyer John Jay wrote to George Washington “Our affairs seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution—something I cannot foresee or conjecture. I am uneasy and apprehensive; more so than during the war.” Benjamin Franklin, in his eighties, shrewdly observed that in 1776, Americans had feared “an excess of power in the rulers" but now the problem was perhaps “a defect of obedience" in the subjects.

44. March 28, 1787 • Washington agrees to attend the Philadelphia constitution • Arrives in Philadelphia on May 13, 1787 • One day before convention was due to meet • Gave convention the weight it needed

45. James Madison arrived in Philadelphia on May 3 • Went to first day of convention on May 14th • No quorum • Madison frets but, • the days before the convention will finally open on May 25th become in many ways some of the most important days of the convention

46. Madison is part of a new guard Born 1751 his formative years were in the revolution Not in the problems before it Saw him self as a Virginian yes But also as an American

47. John Marshall • Born 1755 • Volunteer • Signed up 1775 • Survived Valley forge • I was confirmed in the habit of considering America as my country and congress as my government

48. Only 3 had attended stamp act congress Only 9 had signed declaration 22 had served in army 3 on Washington's staff Majority came from top 5% of wealth pyramid of America Most were unknown to most people Certainly many unknown to state politics

49. Fifty-five men who assembled at Philadelphia in May 1787 were generally those who had already concluded there were weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation Few attended who were opposed to revising the Articles Patrick Henry, author of the Virginia Resolves in 1765 and more recently state governor, refused to go, saying he “smelled a rat.” Rhode Island refused to send delegates

50. As noted Convention failed to start on May 14 Bigger news in Pennsylvania Herald “a young cox-comb who had made to free with the bottle” Staggered to a young “lady of delicate dress and shape” Took hold of her hand, and, peeping under the large hat covering her face exclaimed that he “Did not like her so well before as behind, but notwithstanding he would be glad of the favour of a kiss” Young woman replied “With all my heart, Sir, if you will do me the favour to kiss the part you like best!”