American History Lecture Three

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 the SAT, AP exams, CLEP, and every other multiple choice test you take.

1. Look for the best fit out of the answers given. The question is like a lock or key hole, and you are looking for the answer (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 the question asked about “exploration”, the answer that said to “find the best route” was the best fit and the correct answer.

2. Disqualify as incorrect answers which contain language that is too sweeping, such as “everyone” or “only”. Question: Why was George Washington elected president? Potential answer: Because everyone wanted him. Nope, not “everyone”. Question: Why was slavery used? Answer: Only because of greed. Nope. Not “only” because of greed. Some common "sweeping" words are: everyone, always, never, only, all, every.

3. When a question completely baffles you, such as a question asking for the political motive behind the “Wizard of Oz” movie, look for an economic or money answer. Historical events and politics are motivated more by money than most students realize.

4. View multiple choice questions like a puzzle. Enjoy solving it. This class has more talent than any other class in our state, and maybe in the country. Don’t let any test or question intimidate you. Multiple choice questions become much easier when you try your hardest and use common sense.

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.

Economic problems.

The Northwest Ordinance

But the Articles of Confederation did succeed in its plan for the systematic admission of new states based on population: the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

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, which was a common requirement of the time. They 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.

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. Every state sent representatives except Rhode Island. (Remember Rhode Island – some claim its “separation of church and state” laid the foundation for the Constitution. It didn’t even show up!). The deliberations were held in secret, without any news leaking to the newspapers. Everyone was ordered to destroy their notes afterwards, but James Madison kept his notes and they were released about fifty years later.

Did the attendees limit their actions to fixing the Articles of Confederation? No. This same debate rages today by calls for a constitutional convention to balance the budget (1980s) or 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.)

What the delegates to the Constitutional Convention did was create a written Constitution that has lasted as the oldest written national instrument of government in the world today. Their product is probably the greatest single written document of a collection men ever created in the history of the world.<?>

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

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

The resulting 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 which makes the laws is Congress. Congress is established in Article I. Executive branch carries out the laws President. Established in Article II. Judicial branch interprets the laws, 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 was a series of editorials that ran in a big 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). <explain what each stood for.>

Once the ninth state (New Hampshire) ratified on June 21, 1788, the Constitution became law of the land. 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>

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?