THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION

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THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION

• Chapter 9

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The Pursuit of Equality

• The exodus of some 80,000 Loyalists left a great
  lack of conservatives.
• This weakening of the aristocratic upper crust
  let Patriot elites emerge.
• Mister, all men are created equal
• The fight for separation of church and state
  resulted in notable gains.
• Anglican Church was humbled and reformed as the
  Protestant Episcopal Church.

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St Philip's Church ruins are the remains of a
colonial Anglican church building in Brunswick,
North Carolina
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The Pursuit of Equality

• Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom-
• Statement of natural right and deism
• The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only
  three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put
  in his epitaph
• It supported the Establishment Clause and Free
  Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and
  freedom of conscience.

p165
St Philip's Church ruins are the remains of a
colonial Anglican church building in Brunswick,
North Carolina
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The Pursuit of Equality

• The Continental Army officers formed an exclusive
  hereditary order called the Society of the
  Cincinnati.
• The Philadelphia Quakers in 1755 founded the
  first anti-slavery society.
• The 1st Continental Congress called for the
  complete abolition of the slave trade in 1774. 
• Several northern states went further and either
  abolished slavery altogether or provided the
  gradual emancipation of slaves. 
• No states south of Pennsylvania abolished slavery.

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Early Emancipation in the North
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Women

• Women they still were unequal to men
• Abigail Adams, remember the ladies
• New Jerseys 1776 constitution allowed women to
  vote (for a time).
• Mothers devoted to their families were developed
  as an idea of republican motherhood and
  elevated women to higher statuses as keepers of
  the nations conscience.

The artist and his family James Peale 1795
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Constitution Making in the States

• States developed their own constitutions during
  the Revolution Adams Massachusetts
• Popular sovereignty
• Social contract
• Loyalist land was seized
• Navigation acts enforced Brit West Indies
• Americans could now trade with foreign countries
• However, inflation was rampant, and taxes were
  hated the rich had become poor, and the new rich
  were viewed with suspicion
• Worthless money
• Brits keep forts, stir up Indian Savages
• Barbary Pirates
• Disrespect of private property became shocking
• Courts weak

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8
A Shaky Start Toward Union

• While the U.S. needed to resolve many problems,
  the people were far from united.
• In 1786, after the war, Britain flooded America
  with cheap goods, greatly hurting American
  industries.
• On the plus side
• the states all did share similar constitutions,
• political inheritance form Britain,
• exceptional leadership

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Creating a Confederation

• States had created their individual currencies
  and tax barriers.
• The Articles of the Confederation was finished in
  1777, but in was finally completely ratified
  March 1, 1781.
• A major dispute was that states like New York and
  Virginia
• As a compromise, these lands were ceded to the
  federal government, which pledged to dispense
  them for the common good of the union (states
  would be made).

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Articles of Confederation

• The Articles had no executive branch (hence, no
  single leader), a weak Congress in which each
  state had only one vote, required 2/3 majority on
  any subject of importance, and a fully unanimous
  vote for amendments.
• Also, Congress was pitifully weak, and could not
  regulate commerce or enforce tax collection.

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Western Land Cessions
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Land Ordinance of 1785

• The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided the acreage
  of the Old Northwest should be sold and that the
  proceeds be used to pay off the national debt.
• This vast area would be surveyed before
  settlement and then divided into townships six
  miles square, which would then be divided into 36
  square sections with one set aside for public
  schools.

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Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• Divided the land into five areas (Ohio, Illinois,
  Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana).
• Basic premise Could become states equal to
  original 13.
• Two evolutionary territorial stages
• When territory had 60,000 inhabitants, it could
  draft state Constitution and petition for
  admission as state by Congress
• Slavery prohibited

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The Worlds Ugly Duckling

• The British remained in the Americas where they
  maintained their fur trade with the Indians. 
• The American states did not honor the treaty of
  peace in regard to debts and Loyalists. 
• The British stayed primarily to keep the Indians
  on the side of the British so to defend against
  future attacks on Canada
• In 1784, Spain closed the Mississippi River to
  American commerce.

The Gálvez Monument
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Spain and France

• Both Spain and England, while encouraging Indian
  tribes to be restless, prevented the U.S. from
  controlling half of it territory.
• Even France demanded payment of U.S. debts to
  France.
• The pirates of the North African states,
  including the arrogant Dey of Algiers, ravaged
  U.S. ships in the area and enslaved Yankee
  sailors America was too weak to stop them.

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The Horrid Specter Of Anarchy

• States were refusing to pay taxes, and national
  debt was mounting as foreign credibility was
  slipping.
• Boundary disputes erupted into small battles
  while states taxed goods from other states.
• People were beginning to doubt republicanism and
  this Articles of the Confederation.
• However, many supporters believed that the
  Articles merely needed to be strengthened.

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Shays Rebellion

• Shays Rebellion- in western
• Massachusetts in 1786
• What are their concerns?
• Fear of Monocracy.
• Need stronger federal government.
• Perception that civic virtue not working
• Perception that civil authority not sufficient to
  control the people.
• Perception that government too closely controlled
  by the people is ineffective.
• Who is most frightened by Shays Rebellion and
  other outbreaks?

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Prelude to Constitution

• Annapolis Convention 1786
• Only 5 states showed up
• Alexander Hamilton saves with his report calling
  for a Constitutional Convention the next year to
  amend the Articles.

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Constitutional Convention

• Congress not eager to call a constitutional
  convention
• Finally called a convention for the sole and
  express purpose of revising the Articles of
  Confederation
• Every state but Rhode Island chose a
  representative
• 55 delegates from 12 states met in Philadelphia
  on May 25, 1787
• All selected by the state legislatures who
  themselves were chosen only by landowners
• Sessions held in complete secrecy. Why?

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Constitutional Convention

• Nature of the Delegates
• George Washington was unanimously elected
  chairman
• Ben Franklin was the elder statesman and the
  oldest at 81
• James Madison dubbed Father of Constitution
  because of his contributions to the constitution.
  

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Characteristics of Delegates

• The 55 delegates were conservative and well off
• Young (average age 42) but experienced statesmen
• Nationalists
• Wanted a strong government so that could have
  unified trade laws

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Hammering Out A Bundle Of Compromises

• Some people decided to totally scrap the Articles
  and create a new Constitution.
• Virginias large state plan called for
  Congressional representation based on state
  population, while New Jerseys small state plan
  called for equal representation from all states
  (in terms of numbers, each state got the same
  number of reps.)
• Afterwards, the Great Compromise was worked out
  so that Congress would have TWO houses, the House
  of Representatives, were reps were based on
  population, and the Senate, where each state got
  two reps.

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Hammering Out A Bundle Of Compromises

• Also, there would be a strong, independent
  executive branch with a president who would be
  military commander in chief and could veto
  legislation.
• Another compromise was the election of the
  president through the Electoral College, rather
  than by the people directly.
• Also, slaves would count as 3/5 of a person in
  census counts.
• Also, the Constitution enabled a state to shut
  off slave importation if it wanted after 1807.

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Safeguards For Conservatism

• Delegates agreed that unbridled democracy should
  be limited.
• Constitution was designed to be a bulwark against
  Mobocracy. Examples
• Federal judges were to be appointed for life
• President elected indirectly by Electoral College
  
• Senators to be chosen indirectly by state
  legislatures
• House the only part of federal government chosen
  directly by the people

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The Clash of Federalists and Anti-federalists

• Knowing that state legislatures were certainly
  veto the new Constitution, the Founding Fathers
  sent copies of it out to state conventions, where
  it could be debated and voted upon.
• The people could judge it themselves.
• The American people were shocked, because they
  had expected a patched up Articles of the
  Confederation and had received a whole new
  Constitution (the Convention had been VERY well
  concealed and kept secret).
• The federalists, who favored the proposed
  stronger government, were against the
  anti-federalists, who were opposed.

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Anti-federalists

• Characteristic of Anti-Federalists
• Advocates of states rights
• Believed that strong central government was a
  threat to individual liberty
• Back country people, less educated, and
  illiterate.
• Wanted a bill of rights to protect the few
  individual freedoms they had.
• believed that state sovereignty was being
  submergedIt was!!

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The Struggle over Ratification
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Great Debate In The States

• Elections were run to elect people into the state
  conventions.
• Four small states quickly ratified the
  Constitution, and Pennsylvania was the first
  large state to act.
• In Massachusetts, a hard fought race between the
  supporters and detractors (including Samuel
  Adams, the Engineer of Revolution who now
  resisted change), and Massachusetts finally
  ratified it after a promise of a bill of rights
  to be added later.
• Had this state not ratified, it would have
  brought the whole thing down.
• Three more states ratified, and on June 21, 1788,
  the Constitution was officially adopted after
  nine states (all but Virginia, New York, North
  Carolina, and Rhode Island) had ratified

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Four Laggard States

• Virginia, knowing that it could not be an
  independent state (the Constitution was about to
  be ratified by the 9th state, New Hampshire,
  anyway), so it finally ratified by a vote of 89
  to 79.
• New York was swayed by The Federalist Papers,
  written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander
  Hamilton, and finally yielded after realizing
  that it could prosper apart from the union.
• North Carolina and Rhode Island finally ratified
  after intense pressure from the government.

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Federalist Papers

• Written by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, James
  Madison.
• Written anonymously
• 85 Federalist papers give lasting insights into
  the meaning of the constitution by those who
  drafted it.

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Ratification

• New York Ratified in part because of federalist
  papers, in part because Va. and New York
  Recognized that it couldnt go it alone.
• North Carolina and Rhode Island, the two
  cantankerous states, are the last to ratify.

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A Conservative Triumph

• The minority had triumphed again, and the
  transition had been peaceful.
• Only about ¼ of the adult white males in the
  country (mainly those with land) had voted for
  the ratifying delegates.
• Conservationism was victorious, as the safeguards
  had been erected against mob-rule excesses.
• Revolutionaries against Britain had been upended
  by revolutionaries against the Articles.
• It was a type of counterrevolution.
• Federalists believed that every branch of
  government effectively represented the people,
  unlike anti-federalists who believed that only
  the legislative branch did so.
• In the United States, conservatives and radicals
  alike have championed the heritage of democratic
  revolution.