Week 3. Making a
New Nation
2)
Articles of Confederation reveal deep suspicion of centralized power (especially
executive power) and belief that only small republican governments are workable.
3)
Unicameral Congress; no independent executive or judiciary; no coercive power or
income independent of the states; failure to enact import tax – vetoed by
Rhode Island (2% of national population).
4)
Unanimous consent of 13 states required for levying taxes or amending the
Articles.
5)
Western lands ceded by the states to Congress; Northwest Ordinance bans slavery
in Northwest Territory.
6)
Failure of Congress to persuade Indian tribes to cede land to U.S. leads to
decade of bloody conflict.
7)
England dominates American markets and refuses to evacuate Western posts.
8)
Shays’ Rebellion: national government appears incapable of maintaining order
or protecting property.
2)
Convention declares the people, not the states or the new federal government,
sovereign.
3)
Federal system divides powers between the states and the federal government;
three branches (executive, legislative and judicial) with overlapping powers
(checks and balances).
4) Bold
creation of a strong executive: delegates assume that the people would trust
only General Washington to exercise such broad powers.
5)
Critical compromises on dividing power between large and small states and on 3/5
representation for slave population in apportioning the House of
Representatives.
6)
Distrust of democracy and the people: president chosen by electors selected (in
most cases) by the state legislatures; senators also chosen by the legislatures;
only House directly chosen by the people.
7)
Delegates boldly declare nine states sufficient for ratification: Rhode Island
and North Carolina reject because of lack of bill of rights and key states,
Virginia, New York and Massachusetts, ratify by narrow margins.
8)
Radical separation of church and state adopted (as in Virginia Constitution).
9)
Divisive ratification struggle; anti-Federalists likely a majority as debate
begins; critical role of Federalist Papers (by James Madison,
Alexander Hamilton and John Jay).
10) 11
states ratify: ratification conventions extremely close in key states: Virginia
(89-79), New York (30-27), Massachusetts (187-168).
2)
Congress enacts Bill of Rights (Rhode Island and North Carolina ratify
Constitution).
3)
Conflicting national visions of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.
4)
Emergence of the first American party system; responses to French Revolution
exacerbate party split.
5)
Washington, determined to avoid a repeat of Shays’ Rebellion, uses federal
military power in Whiskey Rebellion (1794).
6) Adams
narrowly chosen (by three electoral votes) in the first politically contested
election (1796).
7)
Quasi-war with France leads to naval cooperation with Britain; relations remain
tense due to Republican opposition to Jay’s Treaty.
8) Alien
and Sedition, Naturalization and Judiciary Acts lead to Virginia and Kentucky
Resolutions (by Madison and Jefferson): first assertion that states can nullify
federal laws that exceed the powers delegated to the federal government by the
states.
9)
Bloody conflicts on the frontier; Indian land claims and status remain contested
under new Constitution.
10)
Revolution of 1800: peaceful transfer of power after bitter campaign and
electoral tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr; Jefferson narrowly selected by
the House; Adams relinquishes the presidency and returns to Massachusetts.
2)
Jefferson’s “Republican simplicity”: internal taxes repealed; cuts in
federal budget, bureaucracy and the military; federal government sells shares in
the National bank.
3)
Jefferson substitutes handshake for bowing at New Year’s Day receptions for
the people at the new presidential mansion (later called the White House).
4)
Jefferson purchases Louisiana Territory from France and doubles the size of the
United States (1803).
5)
Jefferson encourage the Lewis and Clark and Zebulon Pike expeditions to map and
promote settlement of the new western lands.
6)
Twelfth Amendment ratified (1804) to prevent repeat of electoral deadlock of
1800.
7) John
Marshall’s Supreme Court establishes judicial review of the constitutionality
of federal legislation in Marbury v.
Madison (1803).
2)
British respond to manpower shortage by impressment of American sailors on the
high seas; some had actually fled the Royal Navy but vast majority were U.S.
citizens.
3)
Tecumseh and The Prophet rally tribes to side with Britain and resist ceding
land to U.S. in the “Old Northwest” (Ohio and Michigan); fighting erupts in
the “Old Southwest” (Alabama and Mississippi).
4) Trade
embargo begun by Jefferson and continued by Madison leads to economic depression
and political alienation in the Northeast; New England threatens secession at
1814 Hartford Convention.
5) War
promotes American nationalism, industrial expansion and a new generation of
nationalistic political leaders (Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel
Webster).
6)
British troops burn the Capitol and the White House but attack on Baltimore
fails; Francis Scott Key writes “Star Spangled Banner”.
7)
Andrew Jackson defeats British forces in New Orleans (several weeks after a
peace treaty had been signed in Europe).
8)
Britain (reluctantly) acknowledges American commercial rights and independence.
9)
Indian attempts at unified resistance suppressed in Northwest and Florida.