AMERICAN HISTORY Meeting 5 -- Notes The assignment for today was to read Chapters 12 and 13

Transcription

1 AMERICAN HISTORY Meeting 5 -- Notes The assignment for today was to read Chapters 12 and 13 Background What was going on in the new American nation in its first years? First Government: The Articles of Confederation ( ) o Things started slowly at first. The actual battles of the American Revolutionary War ended in 1781 but the war didn t officially end until the Treaty of Paris was signed in o At first, the new nation operated under the Articles of Confederation, a plan that had been adopted early in the war by the Continental Congress. It provided for a system of government which was already in place, with each state having its own government (which had mostly been set up when they were colonies, except that the governors of each state were Americans, elected by the people of each state, rather than appointed by the British government. o One of the main problems the new nation had was how to deal with the debts it had because of the Revolutionary War and how to pay for them. o Eventually, the weak de-centralized government of the Articles of Confederation was enough of a problem that representatives of each of the 13 states met in a Constitutional Convention ( ). Central Government: The Constitution ( ) o The Constitution was controversial, at first. Basically, many of the states (especially in the South) were reluctant to agree to a centralized government that had a higher power than the individual states. Others simply didn t trust having too much power in one place. As a result of these concerns, the Constitution had major checks and balances written into it, trying to ensure that all the power wasn t concentrated in one place. o The politics of the Constitution both the checks and balances that were written into it and who was for and against it when it in the process of being approved by the states led to the development of the first political parties. Those who agreed that the U.S. needed a strong central government were called Federalists (i.e., they supported a strong Federal government and campaigned in the various states for the Constitution to be ratified). Their leader was Alexander Hamilton (so they were sometimes called Hamiltonians). Those who did not want a strong central government were called Anti- Federalists. Their leader was Thomas Jefferson. (Your book also calls them Democratic Republicans, or just Republicans. They used all of these names, as well as being called Jeffersonians and Jeffersonian Democrats. NOTE: These terms -- republican and democrat -- used at that time are not the same as today s political parties. Political parties are not in the Constitution. They re just a custom that emerged in U.S. politics. (George Washington, for one, worried that this development was a bad thing.) See chart on p. 215 summarizing the political positions of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists (or Democratic Republicans) The Constitution was finally ratified (passed) by the states and George Washington was elected to be the first President. 1

2 The First Government ( ) o George Washington was the first President (John Adams was his Vice-President). They served in office for 2 terms. o Political Parties -- The two political parties the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists still had very different viewpoints about government policy. Basically, the Anti-Federalists did not like the idea of central authority and wanted a strict interpretation of the Constitution (meaning that any powers that were not specifically written into the Constitution were considered to be left to the states to deal with and decide individually). The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution (sponsored by the Anti- Federalists) to specify the rights that were guaranteed to the people. The South s economy was mainly agricultural. Their economy was based on big farms (plantations) and big money crops (like tobacco, cotton, corn, etc. that were grown on large farms, with labor provided by slaves). The North, on the other hand, had a more diversified economy that was more city-based. The big money in the North was more based on trade, shipping, fishing, etc. and they were just beginning to expand into manufacturing (making printing presses, furniture, fabric, etc.) The Northern businessmen wanted a central bank (your book abbreviates this as BUS meaning the central Bank of the United States), from which they could borrow money to allow them to buy land, build buildings, buy equipment and materials, etc.) The Northerners were also more willing than the Southern farmers to have the central government collect taxes which the Northerners wanted the government to spend on improving roads, ports, etc. o George Washington, as President, was very worried about the development of the two political parties (which he called factions ) and thought that factionalism was basically a bad thing. [He also worried about sectionalism, meaning placing the interests of one region of the country over the needs and interests of the country as a whole (like favoring the South in ways that would hurt the North)]. The National Bank issue -- Over the issue of establishment of the government bank, President George Washington held a formal debate between Alexander Hamilton (his Secretary of the Treasury), who was for the establishment of the central bank, and Thomas Jefferson (his Secretary of State), who was against it. Hamilton won the debate. Hamilton s argument was basically that the U.S. had to collect taxes and pay the war debts. He believed that the British hadn t given up on recovering their colonies and that they would be back, so there had to be some financing for defense of the country by building a navy to protect our coasts. He also believed that the U.S. wouldn t survive as just a big farming nation, and that it couldn t succeed without having a growing business and manufacturing economy, and that it couldn t do that without a major central bank. Jefferson s argument was basically that the U.S. economy should be based on agriculture and self-sufficiency (as found on big plantations). Jefferson said that for the general operation of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. This was not a popular idea in the North, where the economy was already growing beyond just agriculture and land holdings. 2

3 o Hamilton s was the bigger vision for the new nation and in 1791, the government founded the National Bank of the United States. [We ve still got this. Most people call it the Fed or the Federal Reserve. The value of the currency of the U.S. used to be based on the number of gold bars that were kept in reserve to back up the paper money we printed. These gold bars were kept in a secure facility, most recently located at Ft. Knox in Kentucky. ] Indian issues -- Another main issue that arose during Washington s administration was in regard to the Native Americans. The British government had protected the Indians lands from encroachment by the American colonials. (This wasn t totally altruistic: The British, when they ruled the colonies, valued the Indians as allies against the French in Canada.) With the British gone, though, American settlers began to move into Indian lands. Some Indians fought back, but they didn t have the numbers or the firepower that the settlers had and Indian raids provided justification for the settlers to war against the native peoples. In general, the Indians lost and kept losing as the settlers pushed them out of their former lands, or killed them. The French Revolution -- During this time, the French Revolution took place in France. At first, the American public was generally sympathetic, thinking that the French rebelling against their king were following their own model in declaring independence. Once again, the factions had different views. To Hamilton, the French rebels were out of control, crazed mobs. The Federalists opposed the French Revolution and were opposed when the French diplomat Edmond Génet came to the U.S. to try to get the Americans to declare war on Britain to help their former French allies. The Anti-Federalists, especially Jefferson and James Madison, supported the French Revolution and tried to help Génet convince the U.S. to declare war on Britain and fight in France s behalf. When the Terror occurred in France (i.e., the revolutionaries beheaded many of the nobles and finally executed the king, Louis XVI and his wife the queen, Marie Antoinette in 1793), the American public lost interest in helping the French revolutionaries. Treaties -- Other issues that arose during Washington s terms involved treaties between the Americans and British (Jay s Treaty, pp ), trying to ensure that American merchants could freely trade on the high seas and the Americans and Spanish (Pinckney s Treaty), establishing the boundaries between the Southern American states and Florida, which was held by the Spanish, and rights for American ships to dock and trade in New Orleans (which the Spanish had taken over from the French) and rights for American ships to sail up the Mississippi. In 1796, Federalist John Adams (Vice President under Washington) defeated Thomas Jefferson to become President. (Jefferson then became VP.) Adams was a very practical man, but he had a prickly New Englanders personality. [Even though he was a Federalist, he didn t get along with Alexander Hamilton, and sort of split the Federalist party into the high Federalists (Hamilton s group) and the low Federalists (Adam s group).] 3

4 o Washington D.C. was selected as the site for the new capital city of the U.S., and construction began on the city streets, the Congressional building, and the White House. [John Adams and his wife Abigail lived in the White House while it was under construction, built mostly by slaves.] Adams managed to avoid war with France, which was a very practical but not particularly popular move. Jefferson, Adams VP, as leader of the Anti-Federalist Republicans helped found a bunch of newspapers that constantly and viciously criticized Adams. [Newspapers were the internet of that day. They were everywhere, and very influential on popular opinion.] Adams eventually passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in The Alien acts lengthened the residence requirement for American citizenship from 5 to 14 years and gave the President the authority to jail any alien at his order and to order any non-citizen out of the country. The Sedition act provided jail fines and jail penalties for speaking or writing with intent to defame or bring into contempt or disrepute the President or other members of the government. [This was a direct contradiction of the Bill of Rights first amendment right of free speech. It gave ammunition to the Republicans to accuse Adams (and by extension, a strong central government) of tyranny. More than anything else, the Alien and Sedition Acts were so unpopular that they ensured that Adams was a one-term President.] In his last weeks as President, Adams named John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Justice Marshall was a strong Federalist and his rulings acted as a strong check and balance on the Jeffersonian Republicans, whose faction occupied the White House for the next 30 years. Adams also filled a whole lot of federal judgeships with Federalists (supposedly on the last night before he left office so these were called the midnight judges ). In1800, Jefferson was elected President. Aaron Burr was his VP. Despite the enmity between Federalists and Republicans, there was a peaceful transfer of power. That has been an American tradition ever since. Jefferson cultivated a reputation as a simple man. His Republican beliefs were seen in his deliberately un-costly personal habits (walking to work at the White House from his boardinghouse) and cutting the Federal budget as deeply as he could. He cut the funds for the army, cancelled Hamilton s expansion of the navy, cut income taxes deeply, and greatly reduced the influence of the Bank of the United States. Jefferson quickly reversed as many parts of the Alien and Sedition acts as he could. (He reduced the term of residence for citizenship from Adams 14 years back to 5. He pardoned those who had been jailed for sedition and returned their fines.) Jefferson didn t like the midnight judges appointed by Adams. He tried to block one of them, Wm. Marbury, from taking his position. Marbury sued, and the Supreme Court upheld [in Marbury vs. Madison, 1803] the principle of judicial review, meaning that the Supreme Court is the highest legal authority in the land, with the authority to declare laws passed by the Congress un- 4

5 Constitutional. (This judicial review was a new check and balance that is now a major part of our government system.) Here s the irony: Jefferson, who feared the expansion of federal power, was himself responsible for extending it. American territory was expanding on its own, and Jefferson had to scramble to keep up with what the citizens were already doing. In 1775, Daniel Boone led a group of settlers westward through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains before the American Revolution started. Almost immediately after the Revolutionary War ended, many more American pioneers began moving West. (Remember, under the terms of the treaty with the British, the American colonies now owned all the land westward to the Mississippi River.) It was a real issue among the states as to which ones could claim these territories. In addition, the movement of American settlers to occupy new lands meant immediate conflict with the Indians, who were often killed or pushed out of the way. In 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte of France took back from Spain (where he had put his brother on the throne as king) lands that he had previously deeded to them. Napoleon had some grand plans for making the fertile plains of America link up with the island territories the French held in the Caribbean. Then there was a revolt among the black slaves in Haiti. Napoleon sent French ships and troops, but failed to put the rebellion down and meanwhile, the British declared war on France. So in 1801, Napoleon surprised American diplomats (James Madison and Robert Livingston) by offering to sell America the French territory of Louisiana. For $15 million, the U.S. bought the Louisiana Purchase, including the city of New Orleans. Jefferson couldn t have done this without being able to borrow the funds from the Bank of the United States, and he extended the powers of the President by basically doubling the size of the country overnight! Nobody really knew how big the Louisiana Territory was (see map, p. 235). Jefferson immediately began to arrange an expedition the Lewis and Clark Expedition ( ). Their mission was to explore and map the new territory. They became national heroes when they returned. 5

6 o In 1804, Jefferson s VP Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in New York. Aaron Burr fled and hid out in the South for a year or so, but finally returned and served the final year of his vice-presidency under Jefferson. In1808, James Madison (a Jeffersonian Republican) was elected President. The War of 1812 o The British and the French went to war in America tried to stay out of it, but because of American shipping which depended on freedom of the seas American ships (and American sailors) got involved. American sailors were impressed meaning taken off of American ships and claimed by the British navy as sailors (about 10,000 in all). o Jefferson tried to avoid war, but there were War Hawks (mostly westerners) who wanted fight Britain over impressment and other issues, such as the westerners belief that the British in Canada were providing weapons to the Indians. o The Indians, especially the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, tried to forge an alliance to fight the settlers. They lost decisively in the battle of the Tippecanoe River. o By 1812, the pressure on President Madison was strong to go to war (from the westerners and from the merchant shippers of the North) and the war resolution passed. [All the Federalists in Congress voted no to war.] o It was a mess. The U.S. didn t really have an army or navy and they weren t really ready for war. The whole first year fighting in Canada the American army was regularly beaten by the British and Canadians. By the second year of the war, the Americans had put a fleet together on the Great Lakes and won a victory. o In 1814, the British burned Washington D.C. o The final battle was in New Orleans. The Americans, under Gen. Andrew Jackson (with some help from the French pirate, Jean Lafitte) beat the British. o The Treaty of Ghent in 1814 ended the war but didn t really settle anything. (No territory changed hands and the British wouldn t swear off impressment.) But at least the war was over. o Trade treaties finally settled what the war didn t in the following years. Westward Expansion o Andrew Jackson continued to be the hero of the westerners, and he fought Indians for territory including in Spanish Florida. o In 1819, the Spanish ceded Florida to the United States (in the Adams-Onis Treaty). o o o The U.S. continued to expand and the economy grew as well. The American System was a theory proposed in a speech by Henry Clay, Speaker of the House and member of the Whig Party (a political party that was mostly Western and was more or less aligned with the old Federalist party). The plan consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other 'internal improvements' to develop profitable markets for agriculture. This system also envisioned a U.S. consisting of two sections the North with manufacturing products and the South with agricultural products (and slavery). 6