Chap. 9: The Confederation and the Constitution; 1776-1790

Objectives

• Compare the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.

• To what extent was the American Revolution revolutionary?

The Great Debate - The Constitution 1787 - 1789

• Should the United States adopt the new Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation?

For: The Federalists - led by Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Jay and Marshall; including most commercial, seacoast, urban and upper-class groups

Against: The Anti-Federalists - led by Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and George Clinton; including many noncommercial, western, agrarian, and state-oriented interests.

• Issue #1: Need for Change - Does the government of the Articles need to be replaced?

• Yes No

• Issue #2: Can a republic govern a large territory and a diverse population?

• Yes No

• Issue #3: Will the new constitutional government create an aristocratic power in the presidency?

• No Yes

• Issue #4: Does the proposed Constitution protect the people’s liberty?

• Yes No

The Confederation and the Constitution

• Our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, had both weaknesses and strengths. Spurred by Shays’ Rebellion, the federal Constitution represented a moderately conservative reaction against the democratic and decentralizing effects of the Revolution and the Articles of Confederation. Its ratification had sparked dissent between the federalists and the anti-federalists.

• The American Revolution was not a radical transformation, like the French or Russian revolutions, but it did produce political innovations and some social change in the direction of greater equality and democracy.

Examples include separation of church and state, the abolition of slavery in the North, written constitutions, and a shift in political power from the east to the frontier.

I. A Revolution of Sentiments• More of an accelerated evolution than revolution• Social democracy stimulated• No primogeniture• Some property requirements for voting reduced • Increased separation of church and state

– Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom• Egalitarian sentiments unleashed by

revolution questioned slavery• 1774: Congress called for

complete abolition slave trade• But new country could not risk disunity

• Although Abigail Adams fought for women’s rights, they did not get them

• Republican motherhood: mother instilling Republican “civic virtues” in children

Cruel practices of slave trade

II. Constitution Making in the States

• Continental Congress in 1776 called upon the colonies to draft new constitutions

• Mass. called a convention to draft its constitution and submitted final draft to people for ratification

• Similarities– Written– Bill of Rights– Required annual elections– Weak executive and judicial branches– Legislatures given sweeping powers

• Will this be a problem? Yes!– Westerners having more of an impact

• A political shift in power

III. Economic Crosscurrents• Royal and Loyalist holdings

confiscated, eventually cut up into smaller farms– Helps spread economic

democracy• Much of England’s

commerce reserved to loyal parts of empire so Americans forced to find new customers, make own goods

• Americans could now trade freely w/ foreign nations Inflation – prominent and rampant. Old rich lost money and new rich were viewed w/ suspicion.

IV. A Shaky Start Toward Union

• Would we be up to the task or would we fall on our face?!?!

• “Be careful of what you wish for—you just may get it!?

• People far from united • Suspicious of any authority• British manufacturing began

flooding/dumping the American market with cheap goods

• But…the 13 sovereign sovereign states were basically alike in gov’t structure, functioned under similar constitution, had a heritage for self-government, and had good leaders

V. Creating a Confederation • 13 states were basically sovereign, for they coined

money, raised armies and navies, erected tariff barriers, and Vir. even signed a separate treaty w/ Fr.

• Articles of Confederation finished in 1777, but ratified by last state in 1781 – Main problem over western land

(some states had western land, some didn’t)– Western land holdings sold to central govt. who

would dispose of it for the common benefit and carve new equal states, thus ending controversy*

• Settlers moving west will thank new federal gov’t (See Northwest Ordinance of 1787)

Currency of N.C.

Western Land Cessions to the US

VI. The Articles of Confederation: Our 1st Constitution• “Firm league of friendship”• No executive branch• Little judicial branch • Each state gets one vote (unfair to more populated states) • Certain bills acquired 2/3 approval• An amendment, unanimous• Weak because central govt. had:

- no power over interstate commerce - no power to raise taxes (only voluntary)Yet there were some successes:

- at least a start- held us together through the war

- the handling of western lands