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American Colonies: Nation Building

American Colonies: Nation Building. Between 1607 and 1763, Americans gained control of their political and economic institutions. To what extent and in what ways do you agree or disagree with this statement? (71)

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American Colonies: Nation Building

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  1. American Colonies: Nation Building

  2. Between 1607 and 1763, Americans gained control of their political and economic institutions. To what extent and in what ways do you agree or disagree with this statement? (71) • Evaluate the relative importance of the following as factors prompting Americans to rebel in 1776: • Parliamentary taxation; British military measures; Restriction of civil liberties; The legacy of colonial religious and political ideas (92) • What evidence is there for the assertion that the basic principles of the Constitution were firmly grounded in the political and religious experience of America’s colonial and revolutionary periods. (84)

  3. I. Types of Colonies • Royal • VA: Boomtown • Proprietary • Penn: Best Poor Man’s Country; “Charter of Privileges”: religious tolerance, criminal rights (trial + due process) • Charter • Mass: City on a Hill • All: “freeborn Englishmen”

  4. II. Patterns of Distrust A. Tradition of Non-Participation • “The People”: 50-80% free adult males • Common turnout colony-wide elections • Mass.: 20-30% (100% town meetings) • Middle: 20-45% • VA: 40-50%

  5. B. Massachusetts • 1) Affective: small, close-knit communities • 2) Intermediary: strong, respected leader • 3) Humanistic: shared beliefs • Brutal (social covenant tar + feather, burn) but open: American = accept beliefs

  6. John Winthrop: Little Speech on Liberty (1645) Liberty: Natural:“a liberty to evil as well as to good”; This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts…” vs. Civil/federal/moral: “This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. ”

  7. Source of power: choice of people authority of God and must follow God’s laws (divine right social contract) Failures of leadership • Skill: “when you call one to be a magistrate, he doth not profess nor undertake to have sufficient skill for that office, nor can you furnish him with gifts, etc., therefore you must run the hazard of his skill and ability.” • Faith: “But if he fail in faithfulness, which by his oath he is bound unto, that he must answer for.”

  8. C. Virginia: Herrenvolk Democracy • Master race/blood based membership • Edmund Morgan: "the rise of liberty and equality in America had been accompanied by the rise of slavery. That two such seemingly contradictory developments were taking place simultaneously ... is the central paradox of American history.“

  9. Bacon’s Rebellion (1676) • Nathaniel Bacon, black + white frontiersmen • Gov. Berkeley has: • 1) “unjust taxes…for the advancement of private favorites and other sinister ends” • 2) Separation of powers (friends as judges) • 3) Protect Indians vs. subjects • 4) Outlawed army for protecting selves

  10. "screen of racial contempt“ general raising status of lower-class whites • Morgan: "Partly because of slavery, they [small landowning whites] were allowed not only to prosper but also to acquire social, psychological and political advantages that turned the thrust of exploitation away from them and aligned them with their exploiters." • Race trumps class: populist politics to undermine class unity • Unthinking decision expansion of slavery + extension of rights/power to all whites

  11. D. Pennsylvanian Constitutionalism • William Penn’s Charter of Privileges (1701) • Guaranteed limited government, private property protection, religious tolerance (of monotheists) “best poor man’s country”

  12. III. Fusion • Am. Rev.: • N: all men equal before God; social covenant • + S: aristocratic ideal (inherited, individual rights) and Enlightenment natural rights • = “All men are created equal” 1787-91: guarantees codified in Constitution and Bill of Rights

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