Anglophone Studies I, U.S.A.

1. Anglophone Studies I, U.S.A. Week 4 Notes

2. Anglophone Studies I USAWeek 4 Notes • Topics covered from “An Illustrated History of the U.S.A.) • Chapter 7: Fighting for Independence-p 28 • Chapter 8: Forming a New Nation-p 32

3. Fighting for Independence • -one of most influential voices calling for American independence was actually an Englishman, a Republican, named Thomas Paine, who had immigrated to America in 1774-two years later he had penned a pamphlet called Common Sense, and became one of the first to persuade Americans to make a complete break with Britain-‘tis time to part! It made him famous, and also had an enormous effect on American opinion and prepared people’s minds for independence-read on farms and in city streets-later, when Washington’s army was discouraged, Paine rallied them with new pamphlet called The Crisis, in which he wrote the famous line ‘these are the times that try men’s souls’ – inspired new supporters to join the American cause

4. Fighting for Independence, contd. • -April 18, 1775, 700 British soldiers marched silently out of Boston to seize weapons and ammo that colonist rebels had stored in nearby town of Concord • -Colonists had been warned in advance! Signal lights were hung from the tallest church, and two fast riders galloped off to let everyone else know (the so-called “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”) • -In the village of Lexington, 70 American militiamen, farmers and tradesmen barred entry to the British soldiers-these were the “Minutemen”-promised to take up arms in a minute whenever needed

5. Fighting for Independence, contd. • -Minutemen were ordered to return home-they refused-someone fired a shot-others followed suit-8 Minutemen died-these were the first shots in what became known as the American War of Independence, sometimes called the American Revolution • -Brit soldiers reached Concord some hours later, destroyed some weapons and gunpowder, but by the time they returned to Boston, hundreds more Minutemen had gathered-hid in the thick woods, shot down 273 British soldiers, who were still surrounded by the time they returned to Boston, a ring of armed Americans circled the city

6. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • -Second Continental Congress met the next month, May 1775, in Philadelphia, began to act as an American national govt. Set up army of 17,000 men under George Washington-he was a Virginian landowner and surveyor, had experience fighting in the French and Indian War. The 2nd CC sent representatives to seek aid from friendly Euro nations, especially France, historically Britain’s enemy • -Full-scale war by the following year • -July 2, 1776, the CC took the step that many Americans believed inevitable-cut all political ties with Britain, declared that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”

7. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • - July 4, 1776-issued the Declaration of Independence-most important document in American history-written by Thomas Jefferson-landowner, lawyer from Virginia-repeated that the colonies were ‘free and independent states,’ officially named them the United States of America • -history behind John Hancock’s unusually large signature-did it so that King George could read it without his spectacles • -Dec. of Ind.-set out the ideas behind the change that was being made. Claimed all men had a natural right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’-said that govts. can only justly claim the right to rule if they have the agreement of those they govern-the consent of the governed’

8. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • -these were a central part of the political traditions that the colonists’ ancestors had brought with them from England-the colonial leaders had studied the writings of John Locke, an English political thinker-Jefferson and similar combined Locke’s ideas with their own experience of life in America in order to produce a new definition of democratic govt. This said that govts. should consist of representatives elected by the people, and that their main reason for existence was to protect the rights of individual citizens.

9. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • -early American successes, but ultimately fared poorly against the British-Washington’s army was more of an armed mob than effective fighting force-few had any military training, many obeyed only orders that suited them-officers quarreled over their rank, authority. Washington did his best to train the men into disciplined soldiers-took a while, meanwhile suffered defeats. British captured NYC just 2 months after the Dec. of Ind., in Sept. 1776. • -Success started to come in October 1777-Americans captured a British army of nearly 6K men at Saratoga in northern NY. British commander cut off from supplies, men facing starvation, forced to surrender. Americans marched prisoners to Boston, who first swore to never again fight the Americans, were put on ships and sent back to England.

10. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • -Benjamin Franklin-American ambassador to France-heard the news about Saratoga while there-used it to persuade French govt. to join struggle against Britain-Feb. 1778, French King Louis XVI signed alliance with Americans-sent ships, soldiers, money • -one of the French who came to America to fight for a new and free society (and also avenge the death of his father, who had died fighting the British in the French and Indian War)-was 20 year old Marquis de Lafayette in 1777-he served without pay, became a major-general, fought in many battles over the next four years, became friends with Washington, played a part in the final defeat of the British at Yorktown in 1781, returned home to France after the war-continued to support American interests-when French Revolution occurred in 1789, he was imprisoned and his estates taken away-but the American Congress sent him his general’s pay from the war, and granted land in Louisiana later-an aging Lafayette returned in 1824 to visit the U.S., where he was greeted as a hero

11. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • -1778 onwards most fighting took place in southern colonies-Sept. 1781, Washington leading American and French armies surrounded 8k British troops under General Cornwallis at Yorktown-coast of Virginia-Cornwallis worried, but expected British ships to arrive to rescue, reinforce his army-but when they arrived, they were French-he was trapped-Oct. 17, 1781 he surrendered army to Washington-Lord North, the British PM when he heard the news declared, ‘it is all over!’ and he was correct

12. Fighting for Independence, Contd. • -British started to withdraw forces-representatives began to discuss peace terms-Treaty of Paris in September 1783, Britain officially recognized former colonies as an independent nation. Treaty granted the new U.S.of A. from Canada in the north to Florida in the south, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi river

13. Forming the New Nation • -Treaty of Paris had recognized the U.S. as an independent nation BUT-in 1783, most Americans still felt more loyalty to their own state than to the U.S.A.-namely, they felt themselves as more Virginians or New Yorkers than Americans-this meant that each American state had its own govt. and behaved much like an independent country – made its own laws, its own decisions about how to run their affairs-so the first issue that the U.S. had to tackle was how to join together these quarrelsome countries into one united nation • -during the War of Independence, States had agreed to work together in a national Congress in which each state sent representatives-to work together in the national Congress-the agreement was that the states cooperate with each other, and this was called the Articles of Confederation, which began to operate in 1781

14. Forming the New Nation, Contd. • -the Articles of Confederation demonstrated that the govt. of the U.S. was very weak-it was given certain rights, but had no power to make those rights effective-for example: could vote to set up a U.S. army and navy, but could only obtain soldiers and sailors by asking the states for them-also, they could vote to spend money but had no power to collect taxes to raise the money-this ended up problematic, when the Congress needed to pay off debts to France, some states refused to pay • -Individual states began to behave more and more like independent nations once the War of Independence was over-some set up tax barriers against one another-for example, New York placed import duties on firewood from Connecticut, and on chickens and eggs from New Jersey-some places even began fighting each other to decide ownership of frontier land

15. Forming the New Nation, Contd. • -this weakness of the govt. made it hard for the new U.S. to win the respect or gain help from other foreign nations-British felt the U.S. govt. so weak not even worth dealing with-George III was convinced Americans would beg to rejoin Brit. Empire • -even France refused to recognize the Congress as a real govt.-T. Jefferson who was now the American ambassador in France, wrote back that theirs was the least important and respected of all nations with embassies in Paris-many Americans became worried about the future-it was clear that changes would have to be made to the Articles of Confederation

16. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -Feb. 1787, Congress asked each state to send a delegate to a meeting or ‘convention,’ in order to talk things through, in Philadelphia. Rhode Island-the smallest state-refused, but other twelve agreed-this became the Constitutional Convention, started in May 1787, with 55 men (all rich)-Washington chosen to lead discussion-delegates disagreed about changes that were needed-some anxious to protect the rights of individual states-while simultaneously most wanted a stronger central govt.-believed a stronger central govt. would protect property and business interests.

17. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -original purpose of the Constitutional Convention was to simply revise the Articles of Confederation-but they did more than this-they started from scratch and worked out an entirely new system of govt. for the U.S.-set this out in a document called the Constitution of the United States • -the Constitution gave the U.S. a ‘federal’ system of govt.’-that is one in which the power to rule is shared-a central-or federal-authority has some of it, while the rest is in the hands of local authorities in separate regions making up the country • -the new Constitution left individual state govts. with a wide range of powers-but made federal govt. much stronger than before-it now had the power to collect taxes, organize armed forces, make treaties with foreign countries, control trade of all kinds

18. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -Constitution made arrangements for the election of a national leader-called President-to take charge of the federal govt.-he heads the ‘executive’ side of the govt.-his job to run everyday affairs of country, to see people obeyed laws • -‘legislative’ powers-the law-making side of the federal govt-given to Congress-made up of representatives elected by the people. Consisted of 2 parts: Senate and House of Representatives-in Senate, each state has 2 members, no matter what the size of its population-while the number of members of the House of Reps per state depended upon its population • -Supreme Court set up to control the ‘judicial’ part of the govt-to make decisions in any disagreements about the meaning of the laws and the Constitution.

19. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -so now we have 3 branches of govt.-the executive, legislative, and judicial-and the Constitution made sure there was a ‘balance of power’between these three main parts-each branch was given powers the other two did not have-to ensure no one person or group could become powerful enough to take complete control of the nation’s govt-Americans had rebelled about being ruled undemocratically, and did not want to replace one unrepresentative rule of king and parliament in London with tyrannical central govt. in the U.S. itself • -another big fear-that federal govt. might try to weaken the power of states to run their own individual affairs-this is why the Constitution said exactly what powers the federal govt. should have, and which powers should be reserved for the states-saying the states should be allowed to run their internal affairs as they wished, as long as they kept to the rules of the Constitution

20. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -before the new system of govt. set out in the Constitution could began, had to be approved by a majority of citizens in at least 9/13 states-speeches made, articles written both for and against-finally in June 1788, New Hampshire’s assembly voted to accept, or ‘ratify,’ the Constitution-was the 9th state to do so-went into effect in March 1789-but still not complete. 1791 saw the inclusion of ten amendments-or additions-to the Constitution-together called the Bill of Rights • -Why Bill of Rights? The original Constitution said nothing about the rights and freedoms of individual citizens-this promised all Americans freedom of religion, free press, free speech, right to carry arms, the right to a fair trial by jury, protection against ‘cruel and unusual punishments’

21. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -John Adams succeeded George Washington as president in 1797-in 1801, he appointed a new head of the Supreme Court-this was to be the new Chief Justice, named John Marshall-he led it for 35 years-but most important decision came only 2 years after appointment-it was the Marbury v. Madison case, in 1803-in which, Marshall stated that the Supreme Court has the right to decide whether particular American laws are according to the Constitution-it decides whether any law is ‘repugnant’ to the Constitution-does not agree with it, then the Court can declare the law as illegal, or void, therefore prevent it from being enforced-this became the ‘power of judicial review’-in it, firmly established the most important basic idea in American constitutional law-that the Supreme Court is the final authority in deciding the meaning of the Constitution-if the Justices decide any law is unconstitutional, that law cannot be enforced

22. Forming the New Nation, Contd. • -the first political parties-the first two were the Federalist Party-favoring strong president and federal govt.-appealed to richer people, who believed strong central govt would make their property safer-the other was the Democratic Republican Party-attracted less wealthy people-supported rights of individual states-like small farmers and craftsmen-believed it was easier for people like them to control govt. actions

23. Forming the New Nation, contd. • -George Washington (elected first president of the U.S. in 1788, took office on April 30, 1789) believed political parties were harmful-said it was ‘the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage’ them-even so, favored strong federal govt.-tended to govern in Federalist manner-example of how he dealt with the ‘Whiskey Rebellion’ of 1794-to paint the picture: Pennsylvania’s main crop was corn, some was made into whiskey, this was then sold. Federal govt. placed a tax on the whiskey-Pennsylvania farmers refused to pay it, burned down the houses of the federal tax collectors-revenue agents-who tried to make them pay-Washington sends 15,000 men to support the rights of the federal govt-the rebels go home quietly, rebellion collapses-some leaders arrested, president later pardons them-afterwards, no more organized resistance to paying whiskey tax-but frontier farmers continued to make illegal moonshine whiskey in hidden off places in the woods that revenue agents wouldn’t find-called so because often made at night-continues to be made to this day

24. Recommended Audiovisual Resources for Week 4 • The Patriot • John Adams (HBO series)