chapter 6 - the constitution 9/22/2013 · · 2013-09-22the constitutional convention, 1787 the...

Chapter 6 - The Constitution 9/22/2013

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American History: Connecting with the Past14th Edition

CHAPTER 6

The Constitution and the New Republic

Alan Brinkley The States: Experiments in Republicanism

1. Revolutionary state constitutions served as experiments in republican government

2. Insights gleaned from state experiences later applied to constructing central government

3. State constitution writers insisted on preparing written documents

4. Precedents in colonial charters, church covenants

5. Major break with England’s unwritten constitution

Natural Rights and theState Constitutions

1. State constitutions guaranteed natural rights:

Freedom of religion

Freedom of speech

Freedom of the press

Private property

Trial by jury

Advocates of Centralization

1. In 1780s, wealthy and elite groups began clamoring for stronger national government to deal with economic problems.

Traders/Merchants class

Land speculators / Property owners

Investors

Lacking the power to tax

2. By 1787, how drastic should we change the Articles of Confederation?

3. Alexander Hamilton – a powerful voice and political genius

The Constitutional Convention, 1787 The Constitution of 1787

1. The Rise of a Nationalist Faction Money Debates

2. The Philadelphia Convention Representation?

Slavery?

National Authority?


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Inventing a Federal Republic:The Virginia Plan

1. Central government may veto all state acts

2. Bicameral legislature of state representatives One house elected, the other appointed

Larger states would have more representatives

3. Chief executive appointed by Congress

4. Small states objected to large‐state dominance

Inventing a Federal Republic:The New Jersey Plan

1. Congress given greater taxing and trade regulation powers

2. Each state would have one vote in a unicameral legislature

Compromise Saves the Convention

1. Each state given two delegates in the Senate—a victory for the small states

2. House of Representatives based on population—a victory for the large states

All money bills must originate in the House

3. Three‐fifths of the slave population counted toward representation in the House

Compromising on Slavery

1. Issue of slavery threatened Convention’s unity Northerners tended to be opposed

Southerners threatened to bolt if slavery weakened

2. Slave trade permitted to continue to 1808

3. “Great as the evil is, a dismemberment of the Union would be worse.”

—James Madison

We, the People

1. Convention sought to bypass vested interests of state legislatures

2. Power of ratification to special state conventions

3. Constitution to go into effect upon approval by nine state conventions

4. Phrase “We, the People” made Constitution a government of the people, not the states


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Signing of the Constitution Who Are the Federalists?

1. Supported the Constitution

2. Name suggests they supported less of a strong central government than they did

3. Well‐organized

4. The Federalist Papers (written by J. Madison, A. Hamilton and John Jay)

Who are the Antifederalists?

1. Opposed the Constitution

2. Distrusted any government removed from direct control of the people

3. Suspected the new Constitution favored the rich and powerful

4. Their ideas later reflected in the age of Andrew Jackson

Patrick Henry Condemns the Centralization of Government (1788)

...This Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features. Sir, they appear to me horridly frightful: Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting; it squints towards monarchy: And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every American? Your President may easily become King: Your Senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority; and a very small minority may continue forever unchangeably this Government, although horridly defective: Where are your checks in the Government?

Anti‐Federalist Essay

IT is proper you should be reminded that most of you have taken an oath to support the present [state] government consistently with the [state]

constitution. By that constitution all the power of the government is vested in the general assembly, the governor, and the chief judges. It is now

proposed to you to adopt a new system which gives every essential part of that power, that is, all legislative, executive, judicial, military, and pecuniary [financial] authority to a Congress who will sit at or near Philadelphia, 4 or

500 miles from you. —This I understand to be subverting our government . . . And therefore a plan which ought to be opposed by every citizen. . . .

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐The Independent Gazetteer and The Freeman's Journal, Philadelphia, Nov. 1787‐April 1788

Anti‐Federalist Essay

…In the adoption of the new constitution in its present form, we will lose more than all that we have fought for and gained in a glorious and successful war of seven years. Yea, and still more than this, our very character of citizens

and freemen will be changed to that of subjects and slaves…

…the Congress and President are to have an absolute power over the standing army, navy, and militia; and the President, or rather Emperor, is to

be commander in chief.

Video: Federalists and Anti‐Federalists

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐The Independent Gazetteer and The Freeman's Journal, Philadelphia, Nov. 1787‐April 1788


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A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

p176

Washington’s Cabinet

George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

(Dept. of State)

Alexander Hamilton

(Dept. of Treasury)

Henry Knox

(Sec. of War)

John Adams

1. The Federalists Implement the Constitution

2. Devising the New Government

3. The Bill of Rights4. Judiciary Act of 1789

Hamilton’s Financial Program

1. Public Credit: Redemption and Assumption

2. Creating a National Bank

3. Raising Revenue through Tariffs

Conflict Over The National Bank

1. National bank privately owned, partly funded by federal government

2. Would serve as main depository of U.S. government

3. Would issue currency acceptable in payment of federal taxes ‐‐money would maintain value

4. Jeffersonians opposed because it might “perpetuate a large moniedinterest” and brought corrupt British system to America

5. Jefferson opposed it as unconstitutional

6. Hamilton defended constitutionality through doctrine of “implied powers”

7. Congress chartered bank, 1791


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Conflicting Visions: Jefferson v. Hamilton

[Jefferson is] a man of profound ambition and violent passions (1792).

Hamilton was honest as a man, but as a politician, believed in the

necessity of either force or corruption to govern man (1811)

Conflicting Visions: Alexander Hamilton

Washington’s aide-de-camp in Revolution War

Secretary of the Treasury Wanted stronger ties to Britain Believed strong central government

preserves national independence Believed that elites should run

government Envisioned U.S. as an industrial power Feared anarchy more than tyranny

Conflicting Visions: Thomas Jefferson

Secretary of state under Washington Believed limited government preserves

liberty Envisioned U.S. as an agrarian nation Trusted the common people, not the

merchant / elite class Believed in honest nature of agrarian

people. Feared tyranny of central gov. Against large debt

Watch Jefferson v. Hamilton (“John Adams” HBO)

Conflicting Visions: Jefferson v. Hamilton

“Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. … for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles.”

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX (1787)

“Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures….Ideas of a contrariety of interests between the Northern and Southern regions of the Union, are, in the main, as unfounded as they are mischievous”

Alexander Hamilton, “Report of Manufactures” (1791)

Watch “Hamilton‐02.mp4”

Establishing National Sovereignty

1. Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

Establishing National Sovereignty

1. Native American Relations

2. Treaty of Greenville, 1795


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p192

Maintaining Neutrality

1. Citizen Genet

2. Jay’s Treaty

3. Pinckney’s Treaty

The Formation of Political Parties

1. The Federalist Party

2. The Republican Party

The Federalists and The Hamiltonian Idyll

The Republicans and The Jeffersonian Idyll The French Revolution Divides Americans

Ideological Politics

Washington issued Proclamation of U.S. neutrality

Thomas Jefferson disagreed and resigned from cabinet.


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Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796

1. "Let me now take a more comprehensive view, & warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally."

Adams Becomes President, 1796

Adams beat Jefferson by 3 votes!

Unofficial Fighting with France

1. Jay’s Treaty prompted France to treat U.S. as unfriendly nation

2. Quasi‐war: French seized U.S. ships

3. Diplomatic mission failed when three French officials (X, Y, and Z Affair) demanded bribe ‐> Provoked anti‐French outrage in U.S.

Repression and Protest

1. Purpose was to silence Republicans

2. Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798 ‐first civil liberties crisis: Alien Enemies Act and Alien Act gave

the president power to expel any foreigner

The Naturalization Act required U.S. residency of fourteen years for citizenship

Sedition Act criminalized criticism of the government

p197


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The Virginia (Madison) and Kentucky (Jefferson) Resolutions

1. Republicans saw Alien and Sedition Acts as dire threat to liberty

2. Argued that the federal government had been formed by a “compact” or contract among the states (John Locke)

3. Whenever the federal government exercised any undelegated powers, its acts were “unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

4. If the parties to the contract, the states, decided that the central government had exceeded those powers, the Kentucky Resolution claimed, they had the right to “nullify” the appropriate laws (Such claims emerged again in the

South in the decades before the Civil War).

Adams’s Finest Hour

1. 1799—Adams broke with Hamilton

2. Sent new team to negotiate with France

3. War hysteria against France vanished

4. Hamilton’s army now seen as a useless expense

Map 11-1 p204

Jefferson Elected President, 1800

1. Hamilton’s Federalists led campaign to replace Adams with Pinckney -> Adams (Federalist) lost anyway.

2. Still, Republicans Jefferson and Burr tied.

3. Lame duck Federalist House of Representatives would break the tie. On the 36th ballot, the House elected Jefferson.

4. In 1804, 12th Amendment ratified and required separate votes for president and vice president to avoid repeat of this situation.

The Peaceful Revolution: The Election of 1800

1. Adams and the “midnight judges”

Chief Justice John Marshall

2. Jefferson’s inaugural: “We are all republicans, we are all federalists”

3. Federalists lost touch with public

© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Table 10-2 p186

Peaceful “Revolution” of 1800

1. Peaceful transition of power from one rival party to another

2. Greater symbolism The Constitution survives its test of endurance.

Nation averted ideological civil war

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