AP US History

Chapter 1

New World Beginnings

33,000 B.C. - A.D. 1769

225 Million Years Ago - Pangaea started to break apart.

10 Million Years Ago - North America was shaped by nature - Canadian Shield

2 Million Years Ago- Great Ice Age

35,000 Years Ago  - The oceans were glaciers and the sea level dropped, leaving an isthmus connecting Asia and North America.  The Bering Isthmus was crossed by people going into North America.

10,000 Years Ago  - Ice started to retreat and melt, raising the sea levels and covering up the Bering Isthmus.

Peopling the Americas

Evidence suggests that early people may have come to the Americas in crude boats, or across the Bering Isthmus.

By the time Columbus arrived in America in 1492, over 54 million people may have been living in North & South America.

The Earliest Americans

Unlike in Mexico with the Aztecs, dense populations did not exist in North America. This may have made it easier for the Europeans to colonize the continent.

Europeans Enter Africa

People of Europe were able to reach sub-Saharan Africa around 1450 when the Portuguese invented the caravel, a ship that could sail into the wind.  This ship allowed sailors to sail back up the western coast of Africa and back to Europe.

The Portuguese set up trading posts along the African beaches trading with slaves and gold, trading habits that were originally done by the Arabs and Africans.  The Portuguese shipped the slaves back to Spain and Portugal where they worked on the sugar plantations.

Columbus Comes upon a New World

Columbus was actually looking for a new trading route with the Indies when he stumbled upon the Americas.

When Worlds Collide

Possibly 3/5 of the crops cultivated around the world today originated in the Americas.

The Columbian Exchange refers to the increase of global commerce (globalization).

Within 50 years of the Spanish arrival in Hispaniola, the Taino natives decreased from 1 million people to 200 people due to diseases brought by the Spanish. 

In centuries following Columbus's landing in the Americas, as much as 90% of the Indians had died due to the diseases.

The Conquest of Mexico and Peru

In the 1500's, Spain became the dominant exploring and colonizing power. The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Americas between the Spanish and the Portuguese.

The Spanish conquerors came to the Americas in the service of God as well as in search of gold and glory.

Encomienda: The process by which the Spanish government allowed Indians to be enslaved by colonists as long as the colonists promised to Christianize them.

The islands of the Caribbean Sea served as offshore bases for the staging of the Spanish invasion of the mainland Americas.

By the 1530s in Mexico and the 1550s in Peru, colorless colonial administrators had replaced the conquistadores.

The Spanish arrived in Tenochtitlan, the Azetec capital, with the intention of stealing all of the gold and other riches.

On June 30, 1520, the Aztecs attacked the Spanish because of the Spaniards' lust for riches.  The Spanish countered, though, and took over the capital and the rest of the Aztec empire on August 13, 1521.

Due to the rule of the Spanish, the Indian population in Mexico went from 20 million to 2 million in less than a century.

The influx of precious metal from South America helped grow the European economy.

Some of the conquistadores wed Indian women and had children.  These offspring were known as mestizos and formed a cultural and biological bridge between Latin America's European and Indian races.

Exploration and Imperial Rivalry

In 1565, the Spanish built a fortress at St. Augustine, Florida to protect the sea-lanes to the Caribbean.

In 1680, after the Spanish captured an area known today as New Mexico in 1609, the natives launched a rebellion known as Pope's Rebellion.  The natives burned down churches and killed priests.  They rebuilt a kiva, or ceremonial religious chamber, on the ruins of the Spanish plaza at Santa Fe.

The misdeeds of the Spanish in the New World led to the birth of the "Black Legend."  This false concept stated that the conquerors just tortured and killed the Indians, stole their gold, infected them with smallpox, and left little but misery behind.

Chapter 2

The Planting of English America

1500-1733

The Spanish were at Santa Fe in 1610.

The French were at Quebec in 1608.

The English were at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

England's Imperial Stirrings

King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s, launching the English Protestant Reformation, and intensifying the rivalry with Catholic Spain.

Elizabeth Energizes England

In 1580, Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, plundering and returning with his ship loaded with Spanish booty.  He had a profit of about 4,600%. 

When the English fleet defeated the Spanish Armada, Spain's empirical dreams and fighting spirit had been weakened - helping to ensure the English's naval dominance over the North Atlantic.

England on the Eve of an Empire

An economic depression that hit England in the later part of the 1500s caused many people to lose their homes. This, coupled with peace with the Spanish, set the stage for the English to start moving to North America.

England Plants the Jamestown Seedling

In 1606, a joint-stock company, known as the Virginia Company of London, received a charter from King James I of England for a settlement in the New World.  The company landed in Jamestown on May 24, 1607.

In 1608, Captain John Smith took over the town and forced the settlers into line.

By 1609, of the 400 settlers who came to Virginia, only 60 survived the "starving winter" of 1609-1610.

Cultural Clash in the Chesapeake

Lord De La Warr reached Jamestown in 1610 with supplies and military.  He started the First Anglo-Powhatan War when he started raiding and burning Indian villages.

The Indians were again defeated in the Second Anglo-Powhatan War in 1644.

By 1685, the English considered the Powhatan people to be extinct.

The Indian's New World

Disease was the biggest killer of Indians and their cultures. It took a particularly high tool on elderly Indians, which led to the extinction of cultures.

Virginia: Child of Tobacco

John Rolfe married Pocahontas in 1614, ending the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

In 1619, self-government was made in Virginia.  The London Company authorized the settlers to summon an assembly, known as the House of Burgesses. 

King James I didn't trust the House of Burgesses and so in 1624, he made Virginia a colony of England, directly under his control.

Maryland: Catholic Haven

Maryland was formed in 1634 by Lord Baltimore.

Maryland was made for a refuge for the Catholics to escape the wrath of the Protestant English government.

The Act of Toleration, which was passed in 1649 by the local representative group in Maryland, granted toleration to all Christians.

The West Indies: Way Station to mainland America

By the mid-17th Century, England had secured its claim to several West Indian Islands. 

Sugar was, by far, the major crop on the Indian Islands.

To support the massive sugar crops, millions of African slaves were imported.  By 1700, the ratio of black slaves to white settlers in the English West Indies was 4:1.  In order to control the large number of slaves, the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 denied even the most fundamental rights to slaves.

Colonizing the Carolinas

Civil war plagued England in the 1640s. 

In 1707, the Savannah Indians decided to end their alliance with the Carolinians and migrate to the back country of Maryland and Pennsylvania, where a new colony founded by Quakers under William Penn promised better relations.  Almost all of the Indians were killed in raids before they could depart - in 1710.

Rice became the primary export of the Carolinas.

Late-Coming Georgia: The Buffer Colony

The English founded Georgia to primarily serve as a buffer to protect the Carolinas from the Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana.

Georgia was founded in 1733.

Chapter 3

Settling the Northern Colonies

1619-1700

The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism

German friar Martin Luther denounced the authority of the priests and popes when he nailed his protests against Catholic doctrines to the door of Wittenberg's cathedral in 1517.  He declared that the Bible alone was the source of God's words.  He started the "Protestant Reformation."

John Calvin of Geneva elaborated Martin Luther's ideas.  He wrote his basic doctrine in Latin in 1536, entitled Institutes of the Christian Religion.  These ideas formed Calvinism. Calvanism supported the idea of predestination.

When King Henry VIII broke his ties with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s, he formed the Protestant Church.  There were a few people who wanted to see the process of taking Catholicism out of England occur more quickly.  These people were called Puritans.

A tiny group of Puritans, called Separatists, broke away from the Church of England (Protestant).  Fearing that his subjects would defy him both as their political leader and spiritual leader, King James I, the head of state of England and head of the church from 1603-1625, threatened to kick the Separatists out of England.

The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth

Losing their identity as English, a group of Separatists in Holland came to America in search for religious freedom.  The group settled outside the domain of the Virginia Company and, without legal permission, settled in Plymouth Bay in 1620.

Captain Myles Standish- prominent among the non-belongers of the Mayflower who came to Plymouth Bay; an Indian fighter and negotiator.

Before disembarking from the Mayflower, the Pilgrim leaders drew up and signed the Mayflower Compact.  This was a simple agreement to form a crude government and to submit to the will of the majority under the regulations agreed upon.  It was signed by 41 adult males.  It was the first attempt at a government in America.

In the Pilgrims' first winter of 1620-1621, only 44 of the 102 survived.

In 1621, there was the first Thanksgiving Day in New England.

William Bradford- elected 30 times as governor of the Pilgrims in the annual elections; a self-taught scholar who read Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and Dutch; Pilgrim leader.

The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth

Charles I dismissed English Parliament in 1629 and approved of anti-Puritan persecutions of Archbishop William Laud.

In 1629, an energetic group of non-Separatist Puritans, fearing for their faith and for England's future, secured a royal charter to form the Massachusetts Bay Company.  (Massachusetts Bay Colony) 

During the Great Migration of the 1630s, about 70,000 refugees left England for America.  Most of them were attracted to the warm and fertile West Indies, especially the sugar-rich island of Barbados.

John Winthrop- the Bay Colony's first governor - served for 19 years.

Building the Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was not a democracy because its governor (Winthrop) did not like Democracy. He did not think that the "commoners" could rule. 

The colony's religious residents (freemen) annually elected the governor and his assistants and a representative assembly called the General Court. Non-religious residents could not vote.

Visible Saints was another name for the Puritans.

John Cotton- a very devoted Puritan.

Michael Wigglesworth wrote the poem, "The Day of Doom," in 1662.

Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth

Anne Hutchinson- an intelligent woman who challenged the Puritan orthodoxy; was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of her challenges to the Church.

Roger Williams- popular Salem minister who also challenged the Church; an extreme Separatist; was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Rhode Island "Sewer"

Roger Williams fled to the Rhode Island area in 1636.  There, he established religious freedom for all kinds of people.

New England Spreads Out

Hartford was founded in 1635.  Boston Puritans settled into the Hartford area lead by Reverend Thomas Hooker.

In 1639, the settlers of the new Connecticut River colony drafted a document known as the Fundamental Orders.  It was basically a constitution.

New Haven was established in 1638.

Part of Maine was purchased by Massachusetts Bay in 1677 from the Sir Ferdinando Gorges heirs.

In 1641, New Hampshire was absorbed by the greedy Massachusetts Bay.  The king took it back and made New Hampshire a royal colony in 1679.

Puritans versus Indians

The Wampanoag chieftain, Massasoit, signed a treaty with the Plymouth Pilgrims in 1621.  The Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims have the first Thanksgiving in that same year.

In 1637, hostilities exploded between the English settlers and the powerful Pequot tribe.  The English militiamen and their Narragansett Indian allies annihilated the Pequot tribe.

In 1675, Massasoit's son, Metacom (also nicknamed King Philip by the English) launched a series of attacks and raids against the colonists' towns.  The war ended in 1676.

Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence

In 1643, 4 colonies banded together to form the New England Confederation.  It was made to defend against foes or potential foes.  The confederation consisted of only Puritan colonies - two Massachusetts colonies (the Bay Colony and small Plymouth) and two Connecticut colonies (New Haven and the scattered valley settlements).

Each colony had 2 votes, regardless of size.

As a slap at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, King Charles II gave rival Connecticut in 1662 a sea-to-sea charter grant, which legalized the squatter settlements.

In 1663, the outcasts in Rhode Island received a new charter, which gave kingly sanction to the most religiously tolerant government yet devised in America.

In 1684, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's charter was revoked by London authorities.

Andros Promotes the First American Revolution

In 1686, the Dominion of New England was created by royal authority.  Unlike the homegrown New England Confederation, it was imposed from London.  It embraced all of New England until in 1688 when it was expanded to New York and East and West Jersey.

The leader of the Dominion of New England was Sir Edmund Andros - an able English military man.  He established headquarters in Puritanical Boston.

Andros stopped the town meetings; laid heavy restrictions on the courts, the press, and schools; and revoked all land titles.

In 1688-1689, the people of old England engineered the Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution.  They dethroned Catholic James II and enthroned the Protestant rulers of the Netherlands, the Dutch-born William III and his English wife, Mary, daughter of James II.

In 1691, Massachusetts was made a royal colony.

There was unrest in New York and Maryland from 1689-1691, until newly appointed royal governors restored a semblance of order.

Old Netherlands at New Netherland

Late in the 16th Century, the Netherlands fought for and won its independence from Catholic Spain with the help of England.

In the 17th Century, the Dutch (the Netherlands) became a power.  Golden Age.  It fought 3 great Anglo-Dutch naval battles.  The Dutch Republic became a leading colonial power, with by far its greatest activity in the East Indies. 

The Dutch East India Company was nearly a state within a state and at one time supported an army of 10,000 men and a fleet of 190 ships, 40 of them men-of-war.

This company hired an English explorer, Henry Hudson, to seek great riches.  He sailed into the Delaware Bay and New York Bay in 1609 and then ascended the Hudson River.  He filed a Dutch claim to a wooded and watered area.  The Dutch West India Company was less powerful than the Dutch East India Company, and was based in the Caribbean.  It was more interested in raiding than trading. 

In 1628, in raided a fleet of Spanish treasure ships and stole $15 million.

The company established outposts in Africa and Brazil.

In 1623-1624, the Dutch West India Company established New Netherland in the Hudson River area.  It was made for its quick-profit fur trade.  The company also purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for worthless trinkets. The island encompassed 22,000 acres.

New Amsterdam, later New York City, was a company town.  The Quakers were savagely abused.

Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors

New England was hostile to the growth of its Dutch neighbor, and the people of Connecticut finally ejected intruding Hollanders from their verdant valley.  3 of the 4 member colonies of the New England Confederation were eager to wipe out New Netherland with military force.  Massachusetts, providing most of the troops, rejected this.

From 1638-1655, the Swedish trespassed on Dutch preserves by planting the anemic colony of New Sweden on the Delaware River.

The Golden Age for Sweden was during and following the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648, in which its brilliant King Gustavus Adolphus had carried the torch for Protestantism.

Resenting the Swedish intrusion, the Dutch dispatched a small military expedition in 1655.  It was led by the able of the directors-general, Peter Stuyvesant, who had lost a leg while soldiering in the West Indies and was dubbed "Father Wooden Leg" by the Indians.  The main fort fell after a bloodless siege, whereupon Swedish rule came to an abrupt end.

Dutch Residues in New York

In 1664, the Dutch were forced to surrender their territory (New Netherland) to the English when a strong English squadron appeared off the coast of New Amsterdam.  New Amsterdam was named New York, after the Duke of York.

Penn's Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania

A group of dissenters, commonly known as Quakers, arose in England in the mid-1600s.  Officially, they were known as the Religious Society of Friends.

Quakers were especially offensive to the authorities, both religious and civil.  They refused to support the Church of England with taxes.

William Penn was attracted to the Quaker faith in 1660.  In 1681, he managed to secure from King Charles II an immense grant of fertile land, in consideration of a monetary debt owed to his deceased father by the crown.  The king called the area Pennsylvania. 

Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors

The Quakers treated the Indians very well.  Many immigrants came to Pennsylvania seeking religious freedom.

"Blue Laws" prevented "ungodly revelers" from staging plays, playing cards, dice, games, and excessive hilarity.

By 1700, Pennsylvania surpassed all but Massachusetts and Virginia as the most populous and wealthy colony.

William Penn was never fully liked by his colonists because of his friendly relations with James II.  He was arrested for treason thrice and thrown into prison.

In 1664, New Netherland, a territory along the Hudson River, was taken by the English and granted to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. This grant that was given to Carteret and Berkeley divided the region into East and West New Jersey, respectively.

Berkeley sold West New Jersey in 1674 to a William Penn and his group of Quakers, who set up a sanctuary before Pennsylvania was launched.

In 1681 (the same year that Penn was given the region of Pennsylvania from King Charles II), William Penn and his Quakers purchased East New Jersey from Carteret's widow.

In 1702, the proprieters of East and West New Jersey voluntarily surrendered their governmental powers over the region to the royal crown after confusion began to arise over the large number of landowners and growing resentment of authority. England combined the two territories (East and West New Jersey) into one colony in 1702.

The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies

The middle colonies New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, were known as the "bread colonies" because of their heavy exports of grain.

These colonies were more ethnically mixed than any of the other colonies.  The people were given more religious tolerance than in any other colonies.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1706. He moved to Philadelphia at the age of 17.

Chapter 4

American Life in the 17th Century

1607-1692

The Unhealthy Chesapeake

Half the people born in early Virginia and Maryland did not survive past age 20 due to widespread disease.

At the beginning of the 18th Century, Virginia was the most populous colony with 59,000 people.  Maryland was the 3rd largest, after Massachusetts, with 30,000.

The Tobacco Economy

By the 1630s, 1.5 million pounds of tobacco were being shipped out of the Chesapeake Bay every year and almost 40 million by the end of the century.

Because of the massive amounts of tobacco crops planted by families, "indentured servants" were brought in from England to work on the farms.  In exchange for working, they received transatlantic passage and eventual "freedom dues", including a few barrels of corn, a suit of clothes, and possibly a small piece of land.

Virginia and Maryland employed the "headright" system to encourage the importation of servant workers.  Under its terms, whoever paid the passage of a laborer received the right to acquire 50 acres of land.

Chesapeake planters brought some 100,000 indentured servants to the region by 1700.  These "white slaves" represented more than 3/4 of all European immigrants to Virginia and Maryland in the 17th Century.

Frustrated Freemen and Bacon's Rebellion

In 1676, about 1,000 Virginians, led by a 29-year-old planter, Nathaniel Bacon, revolted against the Virginia government. They resented Virginia's Governor William Berkeley for his friendly policies towards the Indians.  When Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of savage Indian attacks on frontier settlements (due to his monopolization of the fur trading with them), the crowd attacked Indians and chased Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia. They torched the capitol.

During the civil war in Virginia, Bacon suddenly died from disease.  Berkeley took advantage of this and crushed the uprising, hanging more than 20 rebels.  Charles II complained of the penalties dealt by Berkeley.

Due to the rebellions and tensions started by Bacon, planters looked for other, less troublesome laborers to work their tobacco plantations.  They soon looked to Africa.

Colonial Slavery

Africans had been brought to Jamestown as early as 1619, but as late as 1670, there were only about 2,000 in Virginia - about 7% of the total population of the South.

In the 1680s, the wages in England rose, therefore decreasing the number of indentured servants coming to America.  By the mid-1680s, black slaves outnumbered white servants among the plantation colonies' new arrivals. 

In 1698, the Royal African Company, first chartered in 1672, lost its monopoly on carrying slaves to the colonies.  Due to this, many Americans, including many Rhode Islanders, rushed to cash in on the slave trade.  (Eventually, Rhode Island became the first state to abolish slavery.) 

Blacks accounted for half the population of Virginia by 1750.  In South Carolina, they outnumbered whites 2:1.

Most of the slaves came from the west coast of Africa, especially stretching from present-day Senegal to Angola.

Starting in 1662, Virginia enacted "slave codes" (laws) made blacks and their children the property of the white masters for life.

Southern Society

Just before the Revolutionary War, 70% of the leaders of the Virginia legislature came from families established in Virginia before 1690.

Social Scale:

- Planters: owned gangs of slaves and vast domains of land; ruled the region's economy and monopolized political power.

- Small Farmers: largest social group; tilled their own modest plots and may have owned one or two slaves.

- Landless Whites: many were former indentured servants.

- Black Slaves

The New England Family

In contrast with the Chesapeake, the New Englanders tended to migrate in families as opposed to single individuals.

Family came first with New Englanders.

There were low premarital pregnancy rates, in contrast with the Chesapeake.

Because southern men frequently died young, leaving widows with small children to support, the southern colonies generally allowed married women to retain a separate title their property and gave widows the right to inherit their husband's estates.  But in New England, Puritan lawmakers worried that recognizing women's separate property rights would undercut the unity of married persons by acknowledging conflicting interests between husband and wife.  When a man died in the North, the Church inherited the property, not the wife.

New England women usually gave up their property rights when they married (to maintain the unity of marriage).  In contrast to old England, the laws of New England made provisions for the property of widows and even extended important protections to women with marriage.

Above all, the laws of Puritan New England sought to defend the integrity of marriages.

Life in the New England Towns

Massachusetts was at the front of the colonies attempting to abolish black slavery.

New towns were legally chartered by the colonial authorities, and the distribution of land was entrusted to proprietors.  Every family received several parcels of land.

Towns of more than 50 families had to have an elementary school. 

Just 8 years after Massachusetts was formed, the colony established Harvard College, in 1636.  Virginia established its first college, William and Mary, in 1693.

Puritans ran their own churches, and democracy in Congregational Church government led logically to democracy in political government.

The Half-Way Covenant and the Salem Witch Trials

About the middle of the 17th century, a new form of sermon began to be heard from Puritan pulpits - the "jeremiad."

Troubled ministers in 1662 announced a new formula for church membership, the Half-Way Covenant.  This new arrangement modified the covenant, or the agreement between the church and its adherents, to admit to baptism-but not "full communion"-the unconverted children of existing members.  This move increased the churches' memberships.  This boost in aided the money-stricken church.

A group of adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women.  A witch hunt ensued, leading to the legal lynching of 20 women in 1692.

In 1693, the witchcraft hysteria ended when the governor of Massachusetts prohibited any further trials and pardoned those already convicted.  In 1713, the Massachusetts legislature annulled the "conviction" of the "witches" and made reparation to their heirs.

The New England Way of Life

The soil of New England was stony and hard to plant with. 

There was less diversity in New England than in the South because European immigrants did not want to come to a place where there was bad soil.  The summers in New England were very hot and the winters very cold.

The Native Americans recognized their right to USE the land, but the concept of OWNING was unknown.

The people of New England became experts at shipbuilding and commerce due to the timber found in the dense forests.  They also fished for cod off the coasts.

The combination of Calvinism, soil, and climate in New England made for energy, purposefulness, sternness, stubbornness, self-reliance, and resourcefulness.

The Early Settlers' Days and Ways

Women, slave or free, on southern plantations or northern farms, wove, cooked, cleaned, and care for children.  Men cleared land; fenced, planted, and cropped the land; cut firewood; and butchered livestock as needed.

Resentment against upper-class pretensions helped to spark outbursts like Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 in Virginia and the uprising of Maryland's Protestants toward the end of the 17th century.  In New York, animosity between lordly landholders and aspiring merchants fueled Leisler's Rebellion, an ill-starred and bloody insurgence that rocked New York City from 1689-1691.

In 1651, Massachusetts prohibited poorer folk from "wearing gold or silver lace," and in 18th century Virginia, a tailor was fined and jailed for arranging to race his horse-"a sport only for gentlemen." 

Chapter 5

Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution

1700-1775

Britain governed most of North America by 1775 (32 colonies), but only 13 colonies had rebelled against the crown by this time. Canada, Jamaica, and others did not rebel. This was due to the social, economic, and political differences between the colonies.

Conquest by the Cradle

Over the course of the 1700s, the population in the North American colonies exploded. By the end of the century, Britain no longer hadmore people than its colonies.

In 1775, the most populous colonies were Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Maryland.

About 90% of people lived in rural areas.

A Mingling of the Races

Colonial America was a melting pot.

Germans were 6% of the total population in 1775.  Many Germans settled in Pennsylvania, fleeing religious persecution, economic oppression, and the ravages of war.

Scots-Irish were 7% of the population in 1775.  They were lawless individuals.

By the mid 18th century, a series of Scots-Irish settlements were scattered along the "great wagon road", which hugged the eastern Appalachian foothills from Pennsylvania to Georgia.

The Scots-Irish led the armed march of the Paxton Boys in Philadelphia in 1764, protesting the Quaker oligarchy's lenient policy toward the Indians. A few years later, they led the Regulator movement in North Carolina, a small but nasty insurrection against eastern domination of the colony's affairs.

About 5% of the multicolored colonial population consisted of other European groups- French Huguenots, Welsh, Dutch, Swedes, Jews, Irish, Swiss, and Scots Highlanders.

Africans in America

By about 1720, the proportion of females in the Chesapeake area soon began to rise, and the number of families increased.

On the Sea Islands off South Carolina's coast, blacks evolved a language, Gullah.  It blended English with several African languages, including Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa.

In New York City in 1712, a slave revolt killed 12 whites and caused the execution of 21 blacks.

In 1739 in South Carolina along the Stono River, a revolt exploded.  The rebels tried to march to Spanish Florida but were stopped by a local militia.

The Structure of Colonial Society

By the mid 1700s, the richest 10% of Bostonians and Philadelphians owned 2/3 of the taxable wealth in their cities.

By 1750, Boston contained a large number of homeless poor, who were forced to wear a large red "P" on their clothing.

In all the colonies, the influx of indentured servants added to the population of the lower classes.

The black slaves were the lowest class in society.

Clerics, Physicians, and Jurists

A position in the Christian ministry held the highest prestige.

Most physicians were poorly trained and not highly esteemed. The first medical school opened in 1765.

Epidemics were a constant nightmare.  A crude form of inoculation was introduced in 1721.  Powdered dried toad was a favorite prescription for smallpox.  Diphtheria was also a killer, especially of young people. 

Lawyers were also not held in high regard.

Workday America

Agriculture was the leading industry, involving about 90% of the people.  The staple crop in Maryland and Virginia was tobacco.  The fertile middle (bread) colonies produced large quantities of grain. 

Fishing was not nearly as prevalent as agriculture, but it was financially rewarding.

Trade was popular in the New England group - New York and Pennsylvania.

Triangular Trade: a ship would leave a New England port with rum and sail to Africa. It would pick up slaves and then sail to the West Indies. It would pick up molasses and take this to New England where it would be converted to rum.

Manufacturing in the colonies was of only secondary importance. 

Lumbering was the most important manufacturing activity. By 1770, about 1/3 of the British merchant marine was American built.

As early as the 1730s, fast-breeding Americans demanded more and more British products-yet the slow growing British population early reached the saturation point for absorbing imports from America.  This trade imbalance prompted the Americans to look for foreign markets to get money to pay for British products.

In 1773, bowing to pressure from British West Indian planters, Parliament passed the Molasses Act, aimed at crushing North American trade with the French West Indies.  The colonists got around this by smuggling.

Horsepower and Sailpower

The roadways in the colonies were in terrible condition.

An intercolonial postal system was established by the mid-1700s.

Dominant Denominations

Two established, or tax-supported, churches were prominent in 1775: the Anglican and the Congregational. 

The Church of England (Anglicans) became the official faith in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and a part of New York.  The College of William and Mary was founded in 1693 to train a better class of clerics for the Anglican Church.

The Congregational Church had grown out of the Puritan Church, and was formally established in all the New England colonies except independent-minded Rhode Island.  Presbyterianism was never made official in any of the colonies.

Religious toleration had made tremendous strides in America.  There were fewer Catholics in America; hence anti-Catholic laws were less severe and less strictly enforced.  In general, people could worship or not worship as they pleased.

The Great Awakening

A few churches grudgingly said that spiritual conversion was not necessary for church membership.

Jacobus Arminius was a Dutch theologian who preached that individual free will, not divine decree, determined a person's eternal fate (Arminianism). This challenged the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.

The Great Awakening exploded in the 1730s and 1740s. The Awakening was started in Northampton, Massachusetts by Jonathan Edwards.  He said that through faith in God, not through doing good works, could one attain eternal salvation.  He had an alive-style of preaching.

George Whitefield gave America a different kind of enthusiastic type of preaching.  The old lights, orthodox clergymen, were skeptical of the new ways of preaching.  New lights, on the other hand, defended the Awakening for its role in revitalizing American religion.

The Awakening had an emphasis on direct, emotive spirituality and seriously undermined the older clergy.  It started many new denominations and greatly increased the numbers and the competitiveness of American churches.

Schools and Colleges

Puritan New England was more interested in education than any other section.  Dominated by the Congregational Church, it stressed the need for Bible reading by the individual worshipper.

College education was regarded very highly in New England. In New England, the schools were focused on training men for the ministry.

9 local colleges were established during the colonial era.

A Provincial Culture

The red-bricked Georgian style was introduced in 1720.

Art & architecture were popular in the colonies.

Scientific progress in the colonies lagged behind progress in Britain.  Ben Franklin was considered the only first-rank scientist in the New World.

Pioneer Presses

A celebrated legal case in 1734-1735 involved John Peter Zenger, a newspaper printer.  He was charged with printing things that assailed the corrupt royal governor of New York.  The jury voted him not guilty to the surprise of the judge and many people.  This paved the way for freedom of the press.

The Great Game of Politics

By 1775, 8 of the colonies had royal governors, who were appointed by the king.  3 of the colonies (Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) were under proprietors who themselves chose the governors.  2 colonies (Connecticut and Rhode Island) elected their own governors under self-governing characters.

Nearly every colony used a two-house legislative body.  The upper house, or council, was appointed by the crown in the royal colonies and by the proprietor in the proprietary colonies.  The lower house, as the popular branch, was elected by the people.

Lord Cornbury: made governor of New York and New Jersey in 1702.  He was a drunkard, a spendthrift, and a bad person.

Chapter 6

The Duel for North America

1608-1763

In the late 1600's and early 1700's, Spain, England, and France fought over territory in North America. The four big wars were: King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War, and the French and Indian War.

France Finds a Foothold in Canada

In 1598, the Edict of Nantes was issued by the crown of France.  It granted limited religious freedom to French Protestants, and stopped religious wars between the Protestants and Catholics.

In 1608, France established Quebec. The leading figure was Samuel de Champlain, an intrepid soldier and explorer whose energy and leadership earned him the title "Father of New France".

The government of New France (Canada) was under direct control of the king.  The people did not elect any representative assemblies.

New France Sets Out

New France contained one valuable resource - beaver. 

French Catholic missionaries, notably the Jesuits, tried to convert the Indians to Christianity and to save them from the fur trappers.

Antoine Cadillac- founded Detroit in 1701 to thwart English settlers from pushing into the Ohio Valley.

Robert de La Salle- explored the Mississippi and Gulf basin, naming it Louisiana.

In order to block the Spanish at the Gulf of Mexico, the French placed several fortifications in Mississippi and Louisiana.  The French founded New Orleans in 1718.

Illinois became France's garden empire of North America because much grain was produced there.

The Clash of Empires

The early battles between the Europeans for control over North America were mostly between British and French colonists. At this time, neither European power saw North America as a place worth devoting significant military resources. The British colonists referred to these conflicts as King William's War (1689-1697) and Queen Anne's War (1702-1713). The wars ended in 1713 with peace terms signed at Utrecht.  France was terribly beaten in these conflicts, and Britain received French-populated Acadia and Newfoundland and the Hudson Bay.  The British also won limited trading rights in Spanish America.

The War of Jenkins's Ear started in 1739 between the British and Spanish. This small battle became a war and became known as King George's War in America.  It ended in 1748 with a treaty that handed Louisbourg back to France (allied with Spain), enraging the victorious New Englanders.

George Washington Inaugurates War with France

In 1754, George Washington was sent to the Ohio Valley to secure land that had been purchased by some Virginians.  His 150 Virginian militia killed the French leader, causing French reinforcements to come.  The Virginians were forced to surrender on July 4, 1754.

The increase in conflict caused the British in Nova Scotia to worry that the French in Acadia would attack them. So in 1755, the British in Nova Scotia attacked and defeated the French Acadians and scattered them as far as Louisiana.

Global War and Colonial Disunity

The French and Indian War started in 1754. It was the American theater of the Seven Years' War. This war was fought in America, Europe, the West Indies, the Philippines, Africa, and on the ocean.

In Europe, the principal adversaries were Britain and Prussia on one side. France, Spain, Austria, and Russia were on the other side.  The French wasted so many troops in Europe that they were unable to put enough forces into America.

The Albany Congress met in 1754.  Only 7 of 13 colony delegates showed up.  It attempted to unite all of the colonies, but the plan was hated by individual colonists and the London regime. 

Braddock's Blundering and Its Aftermath

General Braddock set out in 1755 with 2,000 men to capture Fort Duquesne.  His force was slaughtered by the much smaller French and Indian army.  (Braddock's Blunder)  Due to this loss of troops, the whole frontier from Pennsylvania to North Carolina was left open to attack. George Washington, with only 300 men, tried to defend the area.

In 1756, the British launched a full-scale invasion of Canada.

Pitt's Palms of Victory

In 1757, William Pitt became a prominent leader in the London government. He started to take control of British military leadership in North America. He attacked and captured Louisbourg in 1758.

To lead the attack in the Battle of Quebec in 1759, Pitt chose James Wolfe.  The French and British armies faced each other on the Plains of Abraham, with the British lead by Wolfe and the French lead by Marquis de Montcalm.

Montreal fell in 1760. The Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the battle and threw the French off the continent of North America. Out of this conflict, the British became the dominant power in North America.

Restless Colonists

Intercolonial disunity had been caused by enormous distances; geographical barriers; conflicting religions, from Catholics to Quakers; varied nationalities, from German to Irish; differing types of colonial governments; many boundary disputes; and the resentment of the crude back-country settlers against the aristocrats.

War's Fateful Aftermath

In 1763, Ottawa chief, Pontiac, led several tribes, aided by a handful of French traders who remained in the region, in a violent campaign to drive the British out of the Ohio country.  His warriors captured Detroit in the spring of that year and overran all but 3 British outposts west of the Appalachians.

The British countered these attacks and eventually defeated the Indians.

London government issued the Proclamation of 1763.  It prohibited settlement in the area beyond the Appalachians.  (The Appalachian land was acquired after the British beat the Indians).  It was made to prevent another bloody eruption between the settlers and Indians.  Many colonists disregarded it.

Chapter 7

The Road to Revolution

1763-1775

Because the British controlled more North American territory after the Seven Years War, they had to devote more troops and supplies to secure the territories. The British needed more money to support this, so they started levying taxes on the American colonists.

The Deep Roots of Revolution

Two ideas had taken root in the minds of the American colonists by the mid 18th century (not mutually exclusive): 

1) Republicanism: all citizens willingly work towards the common good, which trumps their private interests. The stability of society and the authority of government depended on society's capacity for selflessness, self-sufficiency, and courage. This school of thought opposed authoritarian institutions.

2) Radical Whigs: The Radical Whigs was a group of British political commentators who criticized the monarchy's corruption and encouraged citizens to be vigilant against attempts to take away liberty.

Mercantilism and Colonial Grievances

British mercantilism in the colonies was a system in which the British expected the colonies to export raw materials to Britain and import manufactured goods exclusively from Britain.

Georgia was the only colony to be formally created by Britain.

The British viewed the American colonists as tenants: the colonists should exclusively support Britain (via supply of raw materials, purchase of British exports, etc).

The Navigation Law of 1650 stated that all goods flowing to and from the colonies could only be transported in British vessels.  It aimed to hurt rival Dutch shippers.

The Merits and Menace of Mercantilism

British mercantile laws were not strictly enforced in the colonies and these laws benefited the colonies in some ways. However, many colonists did not like the mercantile laws.

The Stamp Tax Uproar

Britain incurred a large debt due to the Seven Years War, most of which was created defending the North American colonies. Britain began to look for ways of getting the colonists to pay for this debt.

In 1763, Prime Minister George Grenville ordered the British navy to begin strictly enforcing the Navigation Laws.  He also got Parliament to pass the Sugar Act of 1764, the first law ever passed by Parliament to raise tax revenue in the colonies for England. The Sugar Act increased the duty on foreign sugar imported from the West Indies.

The Quartering Act of 1765 required certain colonies to provide food and quarters for British troops.

In 1765, Grenville imposed a stamp tax on the colonies to raise revenue to support the new military force.  This stamp tax, known as the Stamp Act, required colonists to use stamped paper to certify payment of taxes on goods like newspapers, legal documents, and diplomas.

American colonists started to rebel against the newly passed taxation measures as they felt the laws were starting to impinge on their liberties.

Forced Repeal of the Stamp Act

27 delegates from 9 colonies met in New York City for the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. The members drew up a statement of their rights and grievances and requested the king and Parliament to repeal the hated legislation. The meeting was largely ignored by England, but it was one step towards intercolonial unity.

Nonimportation agreements (agreements made to not import British goods) were another stride toward unionism.

The Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty took the law into their own hands by enforcing the nonimportation agreements.

The Stamp Act was repealed by Parliament in 1766.

Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, which reaffirmed England's right to rule absolutely over the American colonies.

The Townshend Tea Tax and the Boston Massacre

In 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts.  They put a light import tax on glass, white lead, paper, paint, and tea.

American colonists were rebellious to the new taxes and as a result of these rebellions, the British landed 2 regiments of troops in the colonies in 1768.

On March 5, 1770, a crowd of 60 townspeople attacked 10 redcoats and the redcoats opened fired on the civilians, killing/wounding 11 of them.  The massacre was known as the Boston Massacre.

The Seditious Committees of Correspondence

Lord North, the prime minister of Britain, was forced to persuade Parliament to repeal the Townshend revenue duties.

Samuel Adams: master propagandist and engineer of rebellion; formed the first local committee of correspondence in Massachusetts in 1772 (Sons of Liberty).

Committees of Correspondence were created by the American colonies in order to maintain communication with one another. They were organized in the decade before the Revolution when communication between the colonies became essential.

In March of 1773, the Virginia House of Burgesses, the lower house of the Colony of Virginia, proposed that each colonial legislature appoint a standing committee for intercolonial correspondence. Within just a year, nearly all of the colonies had joined.

Tea Brewing in Boston

In 1773, the British East India Company was overstocked with 17 million pounds of unsold tea.  If the company collapsed, the London government would lose tax revenue.  Therefore, the London government gave the company the exclusive right to sell tea in America (at a discount).

Fearing that it was trick to get the colonists to pay import taxes, the colonists rejected the tea.  When the ships arrived in the Boston harbor, the governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, forced the citizens to allow the ships to unload their tea.

On December 16, 1773, a band of Bostonians, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships and dumped the tea into the sea.  (Boston Tea Party)

Parliament Passes the "Intolerable Acts"

In 1774, Parliament punished the people of Massachusetts for their actions in the Boston Tea Party.  Parliament passed laws, known as the Intolerable Acts, which restricted colonists' rights.  The laws restricted town meetings and required that officials who killed colonists in the line of duty to be sent to Britain for trial (where it was assumed they would be acquitted of their charges). Another law was the Boston Port Act.  It closed the Boston harbor until damages were paid and order could be ensured. 

The Quebec Act was also passed in 1774, but was not apart of the Intolerable Acts.  It gave Catholic French Canadians religious freedom and restored the French form of civil law. The American colonists opposed this act for a variety of reasons: it angered anti-Catholics; it extended the land area of Quebec.

Bloodshed

In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to respond to colonial grievances over the Intolerable Acts.  12 of the 13 colonies (excluding Georgia) sent 55 men to the convention.  (The First Continental Congress was not a legislative body; it was a consultative body. It was a convention rather than a congress.)

After 7 weeks of deliberation, the 1st Continental Congress created several papers.  The papers included a Declaration of Rights and appeals to other British-American colonies, to the king, and to the British people. 

The creation of The Association was the most important outcome of the Congress.  It called for a complete boycott of British goods: nonimportation, nonexportation, and nonconsumption.

In April 1775, the British commander in Boston sent a detachment of troops to Lexington and Concord. Their plan was to seize stocks of colonial gunpowder and to capture the "rebel" ringleaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock.  At Lexington, 8 Americans were shot and killed.  This incident was labelled as the "Lexington Massacre."  When the British went to Concord, they were met with American resistance and had over 300 casualties and 70 deaths.  Because of this, the British realized that they had a war, rather than a rebellion, on their hands.

Imperial Strength and Weaknesses

The population of Britain was over 3 times as large as America.  Britain also had a much greater economic wealth and naval power.

Unfortunately for the British, though, British troops were committed to fighting the rebellion in Ireland. Troops were also needed in case France decided to attack Britain. (France was bitter from its recent defeat.)  Britain was therefore forced to divert much of its military power and concentration away from the Americas. 

Britain's army in America had to operate under numerous difficulties; provisions were short, officers were not well-trained, troops were operating far from their home base, the Americans did not have a single city from which they operated (ex: Paris for the French).

American Pluses and Minuses

Americans benefited from good leadership and from the fact that they were fighting defensively. They were poorly organzied, though.

Marquis de Lafayette: Frenchman who was made a major general in the colonial army at the age of 19; the "French Gamecock"; his services were invaluable in securing further aid from France.

The Articles of Confederation was adopted in 1781.  It was the first written constitution adopted by colonists.

Due to the lack of metallic money in America, Continental Congress was forced to print "Continental" paper money.  Within a short time, this money depreciated significantly and individual states were forced to print their own paper money.

A Thin Line of Heroes

Food and military supplies were limited in the colonies. At Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, American men went without food for 3 days in the winter of 1777-1778.

Baron von Steuben: German who helped train the America fighters to fight the British.

Lord Dunmore: royal (British) governor of Virginia.  In 1775, he issued a proclamation promising freedom for any enslaved black in Virginia who joined the British army. "Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment"

Chapter 8

America Secedes from the Empire

1775-1783

The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1775. All 13 colonies were represented. The objective of the meeting was to draft a set of appeals to which the king would respond; independence was still not a widely accepted goal.

Congress Drafts George Washington

The Second Continental Congress selected George Washington to lead the Continental army.

Bunker Hill and Hessian Hirelings

From April 1775 to July 1776, the colonists were mixed in their feelings for independence: some voiced a desire to mend differences, while others raised armies to fight the British.

In May 1775, a small American force lead by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured the British garrisons at Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

In June 1775, the colonists captured Bunker Hill.  The British took it back, but they had heavily casualties.

In July 1775, the Second Continental Congress released the "Olive Branch Petition", which professed American loyalty to the king and begged to the king to stop future hostilities.  The petition was rejected by the king.  With the rejection, the Americans were forced to choose to fight to become independent or to submit to British rule and power.

In August 1775, King George III proclaimed that the colonies were in rebellion.  He then hired German Hessians to bring order to the colonies.

The Abortive Conquest of Canada

In October 1775, the British burned Falmouth (Portland), Maine.  In the same month, colonists attacked Canada, hoping that they could add it as a 14th colony and remove it as a possible source for a British base.  The attack failed when General Richard Montgomery was killed.

In January 1776, the British burned the town of Norfolk, Virginia

Thomas Paine Preaches Common Sense

The Americans continued to deny any intention of independence because loyalty to the empire was deeply ingrained; many Americans continued to consider themselves apart of a transatlantic community in which the mother country of Britain played a leading role; colonial unity was poor; and open rebellion was dangerous.

Thomas Paine released a pamphlet called Common Sense in 1776.  It argued that the colonies had outgrown any need for English domination and that they should be given independence. 

Paine and the Idea of "Republicanism"

Thomas Paine called for the creation of a new kind of political society, specifically a republic, where power flowed from the people themselves. This was outlined in a pamphlet called the Common Sense.

Jefferson's Explanation of Independence

At the Second Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee proposed that the colonies declare their independence. Thomas Jefferson was appointed to draft up the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was formally approved by Congress on July 4, 1776. The "declaration" was more of an "explanation" of why the colonists sought their independence.

Patriots and Loyalists

During the War of Independence, the Loyalists were called "Tories" and the Patriots were called "Whigs." 

The American Revolution was a minority movement. Most colonists were apathetic or neutral. Patriot militias did a good job of winning the "hearts and minds" of the colonists.

The Loyalists made up just 16% of the American population.  Many educated and wealthy people remained loyal to England.  Loyalists were most numerous where the Anglican church was strongest.  The Loyalists were well entrenched in New York City, Charleston, Quaker Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.  They were least numerous in New England.

The Patriots were numerous where Presbyterianism and Congregationalism flourished - mostly in New England.

The Loyalist Exodus

Before the Declaration of Independence, the Loyalists were not extensively persecuted.  After the declaration, though, they were subjected to more ridicule, hangings, and imprisonment.

Many Loyalists fled to the British lines.

General Washington at Bay

The British concentrated their forces in New York City instead of Boston because Boston was evacuated in March 1776.

In 1776, General Washington and his men were overpowered by the British at the Battle of Long Island.  Washington and his men escaped to Manhattan Island.

General William Howe was General Washington's adversary.

On December 26, 1776, Washington crossed the Delaware River to surprise and capture 1,000 Hessians in Trenton.

Burgoyne's Blundering Invasion

London officials developed a plan for capturing the vital Hudson River valley in 1777.  It would sever New England from the rest of the states and paralyze the American cause.  The main invading force, lead by General Burgoyne, would push down towards Lake Champlain from Canada.  General Howe's troops in New York, if needed, could advance up the Hudson River to meet Burgoyne near Albany.  The third force was commanded by colonel Barry St. Leger, who would come in from the west by way of Lake Ontario and the Mohawk Valley.

General Burgoyne was forced to surrender his entire command at Saratoga on October 17, 1777 to American general Horatio Gates (Burgoyne's Blunder).  This win made it possible for the Americans to recieve much-needed aid from France. (Turning point in war.)

Revolution in Diplomacy?

The French wanted to support the American quest for independence in the hopes that they could destabilize the British empire. The Continental Congress drafted a Model Treaty which dictated that the Americans would only have a commercial trading connection with the French (i.e. no political or military connections).

The British offered the Americans home rule after the British lost at the Battle of Saratoga.  The French feared American-British reconciliation, so in 1778, the French made an open alliance with the Americans. The French would join the fight against the British for American independence.

The Colonial War Becomes a World War

Spain and Holland became allied against Britain in 1779. Catherine the Great of Russia lead the creation of the Armed Neutrality, which passively allied the remaining neutral European countries against Britain.

The British decided to evacuate Philadelphia and concentrate their strength in New York City.

Blow and Counterblow

General Benedict Arnold turned a traitor against the Americans in 1780.

General Nathaniel Greene succeeded in clearing most British troops out of Georgia and South Carolina.

The Land Frontier and the Sea Frontier

In 1784, the Iroquois were forced to sign the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which was the first treaty between the United States and an Indian nation. They ceded most of their land to the Americans.

George Rogers Clark: conceived the idea of capturing the British forts located in the Illinois country in 1778-1779.

John Paul Jones is known as the father of the navy.  He employed the tactic of privateering.

Privateering: when privately owned and crewed vessels were authorized by a government during a wartime to attack and capture enemy vessels, men, cargo, etc; it diverted the enemy's manpower from the main war effort; it brought in needed gold, harassed the enemy, and raised American morale by providing victories in a time when victories were few.

Yorktown and the Final Curtain

From 1780-1781, the U.S. government was nearly bankrupt.

British General Cornwallis retreated to the Chesapeake Bay at Yorktown to await seaborne supplies and reinforcements. Admiral de Grasse joined the Americans in an assault of Cornwallis via the sea.  George Washington, along with Rochambeau's French  army and Admiral de Grasse, cornered Cornwallis.  He was forced to surrender on October 19, 1781.

Peace at Paris

In 1782, a Whig ministry (favorable to the Americans) replaced the Tory regime of Lord North.

Conditions of the Treaty of Paris of 1783:

- British formally recognized the independence of the United States. 

- Florida is given to Spain.

- The independent American now consisted of territory stretching to the Mississippi on the west, to the Great Lakes on the north, and to Spanish Florida on the south.

- Yankees were to retain a share in the fisheries of Newfoundland.

- The Loyalists were to no longer be prosecuted.

- Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures that confiscated Loyalist property be restored.   The states vowed to put no lawful obstacles in the way of Loyalist property collection.

Ben Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay negotiated the peace terms with Britain.

Chapter 9

The Confederation and the Constitution

1776-1790

Constitution Making in the States

In 1776, the 2nd Continental Congress called the colonies to draft new constitutions.  Massachusetts called a special convention to draft its constitution and then submitted the final draft to the people.

As written documents, the state constitutions were intended to represent a fundamental law, superior to the short-lived impulses of ordinary legislation.

In the Revolutionary era, the capitals of New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were all moved westward.

Economic Crosscurrents

Economic democracy preceded political democracy.

After gaining its independence, the United States had limited trade with Britain, so it had to start making more products "in-house."

The post-war economy was not very good, and many Americans were poorer after the war.

Creating a Confederation

Shortly before declaring independence in 1776, the 2nd Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft a written constitution for the new nation.  The finished product was the Articles of Confederation.  It was adopted by Congress in 1777 and it convinced France that America had a genuine government.  The Articles of Confederation wasn't ratified by all 13 colonies until 1781.

The Articles of Confederation: America's First Constitution

The 13 colonies were joined together for joint action in dealing with common problems such as foreign affairs.

Congress had 2 major handicaps: 1) It had no power to regulate commerce, and this loophole left the states free to establish conflictingly laws regarding tariffs and navigation.  2) Congress couldn't enforce its tax collection program.  The states were NOT required to pay the government taxes, they were merely asked.

The Articles of Confederation had many faults, but it was a stepping stone towards the Constitution.

Landmarks in Land Laws

Land Ordinance of 1785: stated that the acreage of the Old Northwest should be sold and the proceeds should be used to help pay off the national debt.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787: a uniform national land policy; created the Northwest Territories and gave the land to the government, the land could then be purchased by individuals; when a territory had 60,000 people, it might be admitted by Congress as a state, with all the privileges of the 13 other states.

The World's Ugly Duckling

Britain declined to make any commercial treaty with the colonies or to repeal its Navigation Laws (required the use of British ships to trade with Britain). Lord Sheffield argued in his pamphlet that Britain could win back America's trade without repealing the navigation laws.

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 primarily stayed because they wanted to keep the Indians on their side in case the Americans decided to attack Canada.

Spain was openly unfriendly to the Americans.  It closed off the Mississippi river to commerce in 1784.

The Horrid Specter of Anarchy

Shay's Rebellion: occurred in western Massachusetts in 1786; impoverished back-country farmers, who were losing their farms through mortgage foreclosures and tax delinquencies, attempted to enforce their demands of cheap paper money, lighter taxes, and a suspension of property takeovers; led by Captain Daniel Shays.  The uprising was crushed but it led to changes in laws.

A Convention of "Demigods"

In 1786, Virginia called for a convention at Annapolis, Maryland to deal with the issue of interstate commerce. Alexander Hamilton saved the convention from collapsing (delegates from only 5 states showed up).  He called Congress to meet in Philadelphia the next year to fix entire fabric of the Articles of Confederation.

Alexander Hamilton was an advocate of a powerful central government.

On May 25, 1787, 55 representatives from every state except for Rhode Island were sent to Philadelphia to discuss how the government should operate.  (Constitutional Convention)  George Washington was elected as the leader.

Patriots in Philadelphia

The delegates hoped to save the revolutionary idealism and make it into a strong political structure.

Hammering Out a Bundle of Compromises

Some of the delegates decided they would scrap the old Articles of Confederation, contradicting instructions from Congress to revise it.

The "large-state plan" was proposed by Virginia and was the first suggested framework of the Constitution.  It said that a state's representation in Congress should be based upon the state's population.

New Jersey presented the "small-state plan."  It centered on equal representation in Congress without regards to a state's size or population.

A "Great Compromise" was eventually agreed upon.  It called for representation by population in the House of Representatives, and equal representation in the Senate.  Each state would have 2 senators.  The new Constitution also called for a President.  Because of arguments over if the slaves would count towards the general population of the state, the "three-fifths compromise" was created.  The new Constitution also called for the end of the slave trade by the end of 1807. All new state constitutions except Georgia's forbade overseas slave trade.

The Constitution was meant to be a broad document. It grew out of common law, in which it is unnecessary to be specific about every possible detail.

Rhode Island was not present at the Constitutional Convention.

Safeguards for Conservatism

The members of the Constitutional Convention agreed economically (they demanded sound money and the protection of private property), and they agreed politically (they favored a stronger government with 3 branches and with checks and balances system).

The Clash of Federalists and Anti-federalists

Anti-federalists opposed the stronger federal government because they feared it would take away the power of the common man. They were led by Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee.  The anti-federalists mostly consisted of the poorest class.

Federalists were led by George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.  Most of the Federalists lived in the settled areas along the seaboard.  Overall, they were wealthier, more educated, and better organized than the anti-federalists.  They also controlled the press.

The Great Debate in the States

Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire were the first 9 states to sign the Constitution.  Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island were the only states to not sign it.  (4 Laggard States)

The Four Laggard States

Virginia and New York eventually ratified the Constitution before it was put into effect.  Rhode Island and North Carolina were the last states to ratify it, and they did so only after the new government had been in operation for a few months.

These 4 states did not want to ratify the Constitution, but they could not safely exist as the only states "outside of the fold."

A Conservative Triumph

The architects of the Constitution believed that every branch (executive, judiciary, and legislative) effectively represented the people.

The Pursuit of Equality

The Continental Army officers formed an exclusive hereditary order called the Society of the Cincinnati.

Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom: created in 1786 by Thomas Jefferson and his co-reformers; stated that religion should not be imposed on anybody and that each person decided his/her own faith.

The Philadelphia Quakers founded the first anti-slavery society in 1775.

The 1st Continental Congress called for the complete abolition of the slave trade in 1774.  Several northern states went further and either completely abolished slavery or provided the gradual emancipation of slaves.  No states south of Pennsylvania abolished slavery.

Civic Virtue: the idea that democracy depended on the unselfish commitment of each citizen to the public good.

Republican Motherhood: the idea that the mother was selflessly devoted to her family; this was described as the model of a proper republican mother.

Chapter 10

Launching the New Ship of State

1789-1800

Growing Pains

The American population was doubling every 25 years in the late 1700s.

Washington for President

George Washington was unanimously elected as President by the Electoral College in 1789.  He took the oath of office on April 30, 1789.  He established the cabinet.

Washington's cabinet consisted of: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and Secretary of War Henry Knox.

Bill of Rights

James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights and helped get them passed by Congress in 1791.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 created the the federal court system, including the Supreme Court. It also created the office of attorney general.

John Jay became the first Chief Justice.

Hamilton Revives the Corpse of Public Credit

Alexander Hamilton set out to fix the financial system of America. One of his first objectives was to strengthen national credit. In this vein, he pushed for funding at par, which meant that the federal government would pay off its debts at face value plus interest. He also pushed for assumption, in which the federal government would pay states' debts.

States with large debts, like Massachusetts, accepted Hamilton's proposal, but states with small debts, like Virginia, did not want the government to assume state debts.  Hamilton's plan was passed by Congress in 1790 in a deal that placed the District of Columbia on the Potomac River (next to Virginia).

Customs, Duties, and Excise Taxes

Hamilton believed that a national debt was good for the country: the more creditors to whom the government owed money, the more people there would be with a personal stake in the success of the government.

Hamilton supported the first tariff law (1789), which imposed taxes on certain imports. This brought in much-needed revenue for the government and protected small American industries.

In 1791, Congress passed an excise tax on a few domestic items, including whiskey.

Hamilton Battles Jefferson for a Bank

Alexander Hamilton proposed a Bank of the United States that could print paper money and provide a stable national currency.  The national bank would also be a place where the Treasury could deposit monies.

Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed the Bank stating it was unconstitutional.  He felt that the states had the right to manage their own money.  Most of the opposition came from the south and most of the support came from the north.

Hamilton prevailed and the 1st Bank of the United States was created in 1791.  Its charter lasted for 20 years and was located in Philadelphia.

Mutinous Moonshiners in Pennsylvania

The Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794 was lead by distillers who strongly opposed the 1791 excise tax on whiskey.  The rebellion was ended when President Washington sent in federal troops.  Although the troops faced no opposition, a strong message was sent by the government stating that it would enforce the law.

The Emergence of Political Parties

Political parties had not existed in America when George Washington took office. 

The personal feud between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton developed into a political rivalry.

In the 1790s, Jefferson and Madison organized their opposition to the Hamiltonian program but confined it to Congress.  In due time, this organized opposition grew and the two-party system emerged.

The Impact of the French Revolution

When Washington's first administration had ended in 1793, a formation of two political groups had emerged: Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans and Hamilton Federalists.

Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans: supported states' rights and a smaller government

Hamilton Federalists: supported a powerful federal government

The French Revolution started in 1789 and eventually involved many European countries. It began peacefully but entered a violent phase when France declared war on Austria in 1792.  Things started to get worse when King Louis XVI was beheaded in 1793, the church was attacked, and the head-rolling Reign of Terror was begun. 

Washington's Neutrality Proclamation

Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans wanted to support the French in their war against the British. The Federalists were opposed.

Washington issued the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793 stating the country's neutrality from the Britain-France war.  He was backed by Hamilton.

Embroilments with Britain

For years, the British had retained the frontier posts on U.S. soil, all in defiance of the peace treaty of 1783.  The London government did not want to abandon the valuable fur trade in the Great Lakes region, and British agents openly sold firearms to the Miami Confederacy, an alliance of 8 Indian nations who terrorized Americans.

The Jeffersonians felt that American should again fight Britain in defense of America's liberties.  The Federalists opposed this action because Hamilton's hopes for economic development depended on trade with Britain.

Jay's Treaty and Washington's Farewell

In a last attempt to avoid war, President Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to London in 1794 to negotiate.  Opposed by Democratic-Republicans, Jay hammered out a treaty, Jay's Treaty, in which the British promised to evacuate the chain of posts on U.S. soil and pay for damages for the seizures of American ships.  Britain did not agree to anything about future maritime seizures or about supplying arms to Indians.  The treaty also called for the U.S. to continue to pay the debts owed to British merchants on pre-Revolutionary War accounts.

Jay's Treaty caused Spain, which feared an Anglo-American alliance, to strike a deal with the U.S.  In Pinckney's Treaty of 1795 with Spain, Spain granted the Americans free navigation of the Mississippi River and the large disputed territory north of Florida.

In his Farewell Address to the nation, Washington urged against permanent alliances.  He left office in 1797.

John Adams Becomes President

John Adams (Washington's Vice President) beat Thomas Jefferson to become to the 2nd President in 1797.

Hamilton became the leader of the Federalist Party, known as the "High Federalists."

Unofficial Fighting with France

France was upset with Jay's Treaty and it started capturing American merchant ships.  President John Adams sent John Marshall to France to negotiate in 1797.  Hoping the meet Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, Adams's envoy was secretly approached by 3 go-betweens, later referred to as X, Y, and Z (Mme de Villette, Jean Conrad Hottinguer, and Lucien Hauteral).  The French spokesmen demanded a bribe of $250,000 just to talk to Talleyrand.  Angered by the intolerable terms, Marshall and the envoy returned to the U.S.

Infuriated with the XYZ Affair, America began preparations for war:  the Navy Department was created; the three-ship navy was expanded; the United States Marine Corps was re-established.

Adams Puts Patriotism Above Party

Because France did not want another enemy, it said that if the Americans sent another negotiator minister, then he would be received with proper respect.

Napoleon Bonaparte was the dictator of France.

Eager to free his hands of a potential enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte signed the Convention of 1800 with American representative John Jay.  It annulled the alliance between France and America that had existed since the Revolutionary War. The convention also called for France to return captured American ships and for the U.S. to pay the damage claims of American shippers (damages were caused by France).

The Federalist Witch Hunt

To decrease the number of pro-Jeffersonians, the Federalist Congress passed a series of oppressive laws aimed at "aliens", or foreigners who came to America and supported Jefferson. 

These Alien Laws raised the residence requirements for aliens who desired to become citizens from 5 years to 14 years.  They also stated that the President could deport or jail foreigners in times of peace or hostilities.

The Sedition Act stated that anyone who impeded the policies of the government or falsely defamed its officials would be liable to a heavy fine and imprisonment.

The Virginia (Madison) and Kentucky (Jefferson) Resolutions

Kentucky and Virginia passed resolutions that stated that the states had the right to refuse laws created by the government. Virtually no other state followed the two states' resolutions.

Federalists versus Democratic-Republicans

Hamilton Federalists supported a strong central government; they believed that the government should support private enterprise, not interfere with it; and they supported the British.

Jeffersonian anti-Federalists demanded a weak central government and supported states' rights.

Chapter 11

The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic

1800-1812

Federalist and Republican Mudslingers

Thomas Jefferson became the victim of one of America's first "whispering campaigns."  The Federalists accused him of having an affair with one of his slaves.

The Jeffersonian "Revolution of 1800"

Thomas Jefferson beat John Adams to win the election of 1800 by a majority of 73 to 65 electoral votes.

Revolution of 1800: the term given to the election of 1800; no Federalist became president after this election.

Responsibility Breeds Moderation

Unlike his predecessors, after Jefferson's election, he dismissed few public servants for political reasons.

Jeffersonian Restraint

Jefferson quickly pardoned the prisoners of the Sedition Acts.  The Naturalization Law of 1802 reduced the requirement of 14 years of residence to the previous 5 years.

Jefferson also did away with the excise tax.

Albert Gallatin: Secretary of Treasury to Jefferson; believed that a national debt wasn't a blessing; he reduced the national debt.

The "Dead Clutch" of the Judiciary

Judiciary Act of 1801: passed by the expiring Federalist Congress; created 16 new federal judgeships and other judicial offices.  The new Republican-Democratic Congress quickly repealed the act and kicked out the 16 newly seated judges.  One Federalist judge, Chief Justice John Marshall, was not removed.  He served under presidents including Jefferson and others for 34 years.  He shaped the American legal tradition more than any other person.

James Madison was the new Secretary of State.

Marbury vs. Madison (1803) - James Madison, the new secretary of state, had cut judge Marbury's salary; Marbury sued James Madison for his pay. The court ruled that Marbury had the right to his pay, but the court did not have the authority to force Madison to give Marbury his pay. Most importantly, this decision showed that the Supreme Court had the final authority in determining the meaning of the Constitution.

Samuel Chase: a Supreme Court justice that the Democratic-Republican Congress tried to impeach; he was not removed due to a lack of votes in the Senate.

Jefferson, a Reluctant Warrior

Jefferson preferred to make the military smaller.

Jefferson was forced to change his thoughts of not using military force when the leader of Tripoli informally declared war on the United States.  Jefferson sent the new navy to Tripoli and after 4 years of fighting, a deal was reached.  The U.S. paid Tripoli $60,000 for the release of captured Americans.

The Louisiana Godsend

Napoleon Bonaparte convinced the king of Spain to give Louisiana land area to France in 1800.

Not wanting to fight Napoleon and France in western America, Jefferson sent James Monroe to join Robert Livingston in Paris in 1803 to buy as much land as he could for $10 million. 

Napoleon decided to sell all of Louisiana and abandon his dream of a New World Empire for 2 reasons:

1) He failed to re-conquer the island of Santo Domingo, for which Louisiana was to serve as a source of foodstuffs.

2) Because Britain controlled the seas, Napoleon didn't want Britain to take over Louisiana. Selling the land to America removed this possibility and it gave Napoleon much-needed cash. He also hoped giving the land to America would help make America a world-power that would disrupt the ambitions of the British king.

Robert Livingston: along with James Monroe, he negotiated in Paris for the Louisiana land area; signed a treaty on April 30, 1803, ceding Louisiana to the United States for $15 million.  The Americans had signed 3 treaties and gotten much land to the west of the Mississippi.  820,000 square miles at 3 cents/acre.  (Louisiana Purchase)

Louisiana in the Long View

Jefferson sent his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis and a military officer, William Clark to explore the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase.

The Aaron Burr Conspiracies

Aaron Burr: Jefferson's first-term vice president; after being dropped from Jefferson's cabinet, he joined a group of extremist Federalists who plotted the secession of New England and New York; Alexander Hamilton uncovered the plot.  Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel and Hamilton accepted.  Hamilton refused to shoot and he was shot and killed by Burr.

General James Wilkinson: the corrupt military governor of the Louisiana Territory; made an allegiance with Burr to separate the western part of the United States from the East and expand their new confederacy with invasions of Spanish-controlled Mexico and Florida; betrayed Burr when he learned that Jefferson knew of the plot; Burr was acquitted of the charges of treason by Chief Justice John Marshall and he fled to Europe.

A Precarious Neutrality

Jefferson was reelected in 1804, capturing 162 electoral votes, while his Federalist opponent (Charles Pinckney) only received 14 votes.

England was the power of the seas, and France had the power of land.

England issued a series of Orders in Council in 1806.  They closed the European ports under French control to foreign shipping.  The French ordered the seizure of all merchant ships that entered British ports.

Chesapeake Affair: a royal ship attacked the U.S. frigate, the Chesapeake, after the Americans refused to returned four alleged British deserters.

The Hated Embargo

In 1807, Jefferson passed the Embargo Act.  It banned the exportation of any goods to any countries.  With the act, Jefferson planned to force France and England, who both depended on American trade, to respect America and its citizens, who had been killed and captured by both countries.  The embargo significantly hurt the profits of U.S. merchants and was consequently hated by Americans.

The act was repealed in 1809 and a substitute act was enacted: The Non-Intercourse Act.  It opened up trade to every country except France and Britain.

The embargo failed because Jefferson overestimated the dependence of Britain and France on America's trade. Britain was able to trade with the Latin American republics and France had enough land in Europe to support itself.

Madison's Gamble

James Madison became president on March 4, 1809.

Congress issued Macon's Bill No. 2. It reopened American trade with the entire world, but it had a clause stating that if Britain or France repealed its commercial restrictions, then the U.S. would reinstate its trading embargo against the non-repealing country. Napoleon convinced James Madison to give Britain three months to lift its Orders in Council.  Madison did, but Britain chose not to lift its Orders in Council, and Madison had to re-enact the United States's trade embargo, but this time just against Britain. 

Macon's Bill No. 2 led to the War of 1812.

Tecumseh and the Prophet

Twelfth Congress: met in 1811; the "war hawks" wanted to go to war with the British and wanted to eliminate the Indian threats to pioneers.

Tecumseh & Tenskwatawa: Shawnee brothers who unified many Indian tribes in a last ditch battle with the settlers; allied with the British.

William Henry Harrison: governor of the Indiana territory; defeated the Shawnee at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

Mr. Madison's War

On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress to declare war on the British and it agreed.

The Democratic-Republicans who supported the war ("war hawks") felt that the country had to assert American rights to the world.  They wanted to invade Canada, the Indians' stronghold, because the Indians were being armed by the British to attack the settlers.

The Federalists were opposed because they supported Britain.

Chapter 12

The Second War for Independence and the Upsurge of Nationalism

1812-1824

On to Canada over Land and Lakes

The Americans tried to invade Canada from Detroit, Niagara, and Lake Champlain.  All were fought off by the Canadians.

The Americans then attacked by sea and were more successful. 

Oliver Hazard Perry: captured a British fleet in Lake Erie. 

General Harrison's army overtook the British at Detroit and Fort Malden in the Battle of the Thames in October 1813.

Thomas Macdonough: naval officer who forced the invading British army near Plattsburgh to retreat on September 11, 1814; he saved upper New York from British conquest.

Washington Burned and New Orleans Defended

In August of 1814, a second British force attacked Washington D.C. They burned most of the capital, including the White House and Capitol.

Francis Scott Key: American prisoner aboard a British ship who watched the British fleet bombard Fort McHenry; wrote the "Star Spangled Banner."

Andrew Jackson defended New Orleans at the Battle of New Orleans.

The Treaty of Ghent

Tsar Alexander I of Russia called the Americans and British to come to peace because he didn't want his British ally to lose strength in the Americas and let Napoleon take over Europe.  The Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814 in Ghent, Belgium, was an armistice.  John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay went to Ghent for the signing.  Both sides stopped fighting and conquered territory was restored. 

Federalist Grievances and the Hartford Convention

Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island met in 1814 in Hartford, Connecticut for a secret meeting to discuss their disgust of the war and to redress their grievances.  The Hartford Convention's final report demanded:

- Financial assistance from Washington to compensate for lost trade from embargoes.

- Constitutional amendments requiring a 2/3 vote in Congress before an embargo could be imposed, new states admitted, or war declared.

- The abolition of slavery.

- A President could only serve 1 term.

- The abolition of the 3/5 clause.

- The prohibition of the election of 2 successive Presidents from the same state.

Few took serious interest in the demands in the wake of the Ghent treaty. The Hartford resolutions marked the death of the Federalist party.  The party nominated their last presidential candidate in 1816.

The Second War for American Independence

The War of 1812 showed other nations around the world that America would defend its beliefs. 

The Rush-Bagot Agreement was made between the U.S. and Britain in 1817, and it limited the naval armament on the Great Lakes.

Nascent Nationalism

The most impressive by-product of the War of 1812 was heightened nationalism.

The army and navy were expanded and the Bank of the United States was revived by Congress in 1816.

"The American System"

Congress instituted the 1st protective tariff, the Tariff of 1816, primarily for protection for American companies.  British companies were trying to put American factories out of business by selling their British goods for much less than the American factories.  The tariff placed a 20-25% tax on the value of dutiable imports.  This tax increased over time, creating problems of no competition between companies.

Henry Clay created a plan for developing a profitable U.S. economy.  It was called the American System.  It had 3 main parts:

1) A strong banking system that would provide easy and abundant credit.

2) A protective tariff that would allow eastern manufacturing to flourish.

3) A network of roads and canals that would transport raw materials across the country.

President Madison vetoed a bill to give states aid for infrastructure, deeming it unconstitutional. The Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans were opposed to using federal money to support interstate improvements.

The So-Called Era of Good Feelings

The Federalists ran a presidential candidate for the last time in 1816.  James Monroe won the election.

The time during the administrations of President Monroe was known as the "Era of Good Feelings" because the 2 political parties were getting along.

The Panic of 1819 and the Curse of Hard Times

The Panic of 1819 was the first financial panic since President Washington took office.  The main cause was over-speculation in frontier lands. 

The Bank of the United States was hated by western farmers because it foreclosed on many farms.

Growing Pains of the West

Between 1791 and 1819, 9 states from the West had joined the United States.  People moved west because of cheap land, the construction of highways, and many Indian territories had been eliminated.

The Land Act of 1820 authorized a buyer to purchase 80 virgin acres at a minimum of $1.25 an acre.  The West also demanded cheap transportation and cheap money.

Slavery and the Sectional Balance

The House of Representatives passed the Tallmadge Amendment, making it more difficult for Missouri to become a state.  It did not allow for anymore slaves to be brought into Missouri and for the gradual emancipation of children born to slave parents already in Missouri.  The amendment was defeated by the slave states in Congress.

Peculiar Institution: an expression used to describe slavery and its economic impacts in the South

The Uneasy Missouri Compromise

Henry Clay introduced a compromise that decided whether or not Missouri would be admitted as a slave state.  Congress decided to admit Missouri as a slave state in 1820. But, Maine, which was apart of Massachusetts, was to be admitted as a separate, free state.  Therefore, there were 12 slave states and 12 free states.

The Missouri Compromise by Congress forbade slavery in the remaining territories in the Louisiana Territory north of the line of 36° 30', except for Missouri.

James Monroe was re-elected President in 1820.

John Marshall and Judicial Nationalism

McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819) involved an attempt by Maryland to destroy a branch of the Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on the Bank's notes.  John Marshall declared the U.S. Bank constitutional by invoking the Hamiltonian doctrine of implied powers.  He strengthened federal authority when he denied the right of Maryland to tax the Bank.

Cohens vs. Virginia (1821) involved the Cohens appealing to the Supreme Court after being found guilty of illegally selling lottery tickets in Virginia.  Virginia won and the conviction was withheld, but the ruling further cemented the powers of the federal government.

Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824) came up when New York tried to give a private company a monopoly of waterborne commerce between New York and New Jersey.  (Meaning that no other company could use the waterway.)  New York lost.

Judicial Dikes Against Democratic Excesses

Fletcher vs. Peck (1810): The Georgia legislature granted 35 million acres to private speculators; the next legislature cancelled the bribery-induced transaction.  John Marshall let the state give the acres to the private speculators calling it a contract and constitutional. The decision protected property rights against popular pressures. 

Dartmouth College vs. Woodward (1819): Dartmouth College was given a charter by King George III but New Hampshire wanted to take it away.  John Marshall ruled in favor of the college.

Daniel Webster: "Expounding Father"; served in both the House and Senate.

Sharing Oregon and Acquiring Florida

John Quincy Adams: Secretary of State to James Monroe.

The Angle-American Convention of 1818 allowed the Americans to share the Newfoundland fisheries with the Canadians and provided for a 10-year joint occupation of the Oregon Country without a surrender of the rights/claims of either America or Britain.

With the many revolutions taking place in South America, Spain was forced to take many of its troops out of Florida.  General Andrew Jackson went into Florida saying he would punish the Indians and recapture the runaways who were hiding away in Spanish Florida.  He did this and captured St. Marks and Pensacola, the 2 most important Spanish posts in the area. 

In the Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded Florida and Spanish claims to Oregon in exchange for America's claims to Texas.

The Menace of Monarchy in America

After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the Europeans wanted to completely eliminate democracy.

George Canning: British foreign secretary; asked the American minister in London if the United States would band together with the British in a joint declaration renouncing any interest in acquiring Latin American territory, and specifically warning the European dictators to keep out of Latin America.

Monroe and His Doctrine

Secretary Adams thought the British feared that the Americans would take Spanish territory in the Americas, ultimately threatening Britain's possessions in the Caribbean.

Monroe Doctrine (1823): President Monroe's warning to the European powers; its two components were noncolonization and nonintervention; it had little immediate impact.

- Monroe stated that the era of colonization in the Americas was over.

- Monroe also warned against foreign intervention.  He warned Britain to stay out of the Western Hemisphere, and stated that the United States would not intervene in foreign wars.

Monroe's Doctrine Appraised

The Europeans powers were offended by the Monroe Doctrine. This was in part because of America's soft military strength.

President Monroe was more concerned with the security of America when he issued the Monroe Doctrine.  He basically warned the Old World powers to stay away.  The Doctrine thrived off nationalism.

Russo-American Treaty of 1824: the Russians retreated farther north into Alaska

Chapter 13

The Rise of a Mass Democracy

1824-1840

The Democrat party emerged in 1828.

The "Corrupt Bargain" of 1824

Well-organized parties had not yet emerged, and there were 4 main "Republican" candidates in the election of 1824:  Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay.

No candidate won the majority of the electoral votes, so, according to the Constitution, the House of Representatives had to choose the winner out of the top 3 candidates.  Henry Clay was eliminated because he received the 4th most votes. Being the Speaker of the House, though, he did have much say in who became president. Clay convinced the House to elect John Quincy Adams as president.  Adams agreed to make Clay the Secretary of State for getting him into office.  The public felt that a "corrupt bargain" had taken place because Andrew Jackson had received the popular vote. 

A Yankee Misfit in the White House

John Quincy Adams was a strong nationalist and he supported the building of national roads and canals.  He also supported education.

Going "Whole Hog" for Jackson in 1828

Before the election of 1824, two parties had formed: National Republicans and Democratic-Republicans (also referred to as just "Democrat"). Adams and Clay were the figures of the National Republicans and Jackson was with the Democratic-Republicans.

Andrew Jackson beat Adams to win the election of 1828.  The majority of his support came from the South, while Adams's support came from the North.

"Old Hickory" as President

Jackson was the first president from the West and the second president without a college education.

The Spoils System

When the Democrats took control of the White House, they replaced most public officials with their own people (the common man).  These people were illiterate and incompetent.  This system of rewarding political supporters with jobs in the government was known as the "spoils system."

The Tricky "Tariff of Abominations"

In 1824, Congress significantly increased the tariff on imports.

The Tariff of 1828: called the "Black Tariff" or the "Tariff of Abominations"; also called the "Yankee Tariff".  It was hated by Southerners because it was an extremely high tariff and they felt it discriminated against them.  The South was having economic struggles and they used the tariff as a scapegoat for their problems.

In 1822, Denmark Vesey led a slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina.

The South Carolina Exposition, made by John C. Calhoun, was published in 1828.  It was a pamphlet that denounced the Tariff of 1828 as unjust and unconstitutional.

"Nullies" in the South

In an attempt to meet the South's demands, Congress passed the Tariff of 1832, a slightly lower tariff compared to the Tariff of 1828.  It fell short of the South's demands.

The state legislature of South Carolina called for the Columbia Convention.  The delegates of the convention called for the tariff to be void in South Carolina.  The convention threatened to take South Carolina out of the Union if the Federal government attempted to collect the customs duties by force.

Henry Clay introduced the Tariff of 1833. It gradually reduced the Tariff of 1832 by about 10% over 8 years.  By 1842, the rates would be back at the level of 1816. 

The compromise Tariff of 1833 ended the dispute over the Tariff of 1832 between the South and the White House.  The compromise was supported by South Carolina but not much by the other southern states.

Prior to the compromise, Congress had passed the Force Bill, which authorized the Federal government to use force to collect the tariffs.

The Trail of Tears

Jackson's Democrats were committed to western expansion, but such expansion meant confrontation with the Indians who inhabited the land east of the Mississippi.

The Society for Propagating the Gospel Among Indians was founded in 1787 to Christianize Indians.

The "Five Civilized Tribes" were the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles. These tribes made efforts to assimilate into white culture. President Jackson wanted to move the Indians so Americans could expand. 

Despite Supreme Court rulings that consistently favored the Indians' land rights, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.  It moved more than 100,000 Indians living east of the Mississippi to reservations west of the Mississippi.  Many Indians died on forced marches along the Trail of Tears.

Black Hawk led Indians to fight against the relocation in the Black Hawk War of 1832. The Indians were defeated.

The Seminoles in Florida retreated to the Everglades, fighting for several years until they retreated deeper into the Everglades or were moved to the Oklahoma area.

The Bank War

President Andrew Jackson despised the Bank of the United States because he felt it was very monopolistic.

The Bank of the United States was a private institution that was not accountable to the people; it was only accountable to its investors.  The bank minted gold and silver coins.  Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Bank of the United States, held an immense and possibly unconstitutional amount of power over the nation's financial affairs.

The Bank War erupted in 1832 when Daniel Webster and Henry Clay presented Congress with a bill to renew the Bank's charter.  Clay wanted to make it an issue for the election of 1832.  He felt that if Jackson signed off on the bill, then Jackson would alienate the people of the West who hated the Bank.  If Jackson vetoed the bill, then he would alienate the wealthy class of the East who supported the Bank.  Clay did not account for the fact that the wealthy class was now a minority.  Jackson vetoed the bill, calling the Bank unconstitutional. 

The veto showed that Jackson felt that the Executive Branch had more power than the Judicial Branch in determining the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States. This was despite the fact that the Supreme Court had already ruled that the Bank was constitutional in McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819).

"Old Hickory" Wallops Clay in 1833

A third party entered the election in the election of 1832: The Anti-Masonic party.  The party hated the Masonic Order, a secret society, because it thought the Order was comprised of privileged, elite people.  Although Jackson was supported egalitarianism and "the common man", he was a Mason himself; therefore the Anti-Masons were an anti-Jackson party.  It gained support from evangelical Protestant groups.

The Jacksonians (Democrats) were opposed to government involvement in social and economic life.

Andrew Jackson was reelected in 1832.

Burying Biddle's Bank

The Bank of the United States's charter expired in 1836.  Jackson wanted to make sure that the Bank was destroyed. 

In 1833, 3 years before the Bank's charter expired, Jackson decided to remove federal deposits from its vaults.  Jackson proposed depositing no more funds in the bank and he gradually shrunk existing deposits by using the funds to pay for day-to-day expenditures of the government.

The death of the Bank of the United States left a financial vacuum in the American economy.  Surplus federal funds were placed in several dozen state banks that were politically supportive of Jackson ("pet banks").

Smaller, wildcat banks in the west had begun to issue their own currency.  But this "wildcat" currency was extremely unreliable because its value was based upon the value of the bank from which it was issued.  In 1836, "wildcat" currency had become so unreliable that Jackson told the Treasury to issue a Specie Circular, a decree that required all public lands to be purchased with metallic money.  This drastic step contributed greatly to the financial panic of 1837.

The Birth of the Whigs

The Whigs were conservatives who supported government programs, reforms, and public schools.  They called for internal improvements like canals, railroads, and telegraph lines.

The Whigs claimed to be defenders of the common man and declared the Democrats the party of corruption. They absorbed the Anti-Masonic Party.

The Election of 1836

Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's choice as his successor in the election of 1836. He won the election. General William Henry Harrison was one of the Whig's many presidential nominees.  The Whigs did not win because they did not unite behind just one candidate.

Depression Doldrums and the Independent Treasury

The basic cause of the panic of 1837 was rampant speculation by banks. (Banks gave a lot of loans to people/businesses who, in the end, could not afford to repay the loans.) Jacksonian's financial policies also contributed to the panic. In 1836, the failure of two British banks caused British investors to call in foreign loans.  These loans were the beginning of the panic.

The panic of 1837 caused hundreds of banks to collapse, commodity prices to drop, sales of public to fall, and the loss of jobs.

The Whigs proposed government policies to fix the economic downturn: expansion of bank credit, higher tariffs, subsidies for internal improvement. Van Buren rejected these proposals because he wanted to keep government involvement out of the economy.

Van Buren proposed the Divorce Bill.  Not passed by Congress, it called for separating the government and banking. 

The Independent Treasury Bill was passed in 1840.  An independent treasury would be established and government funds would be locked in vaults. 

Gone to Texas

Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. Because of this, ownership of Texas passed from Spain to Mexico. Mexico gave a large chunk of Texas land to Stephen Austin, who promised to bring families into Texas.

Texans differed in many ways from the Mexicans, including the fact that Mexicans were against slavery, while the Texans supported it. 

Santa Anna: dictator of Mexico; in 1835, he removed Texans' local rights and started to raise army to suppress the rebelling Texans.

The Lone Star Rebellion

Texas declared its independence in 1836.  Sam Houston: commander in chief for Texas army.

General Houston forced Santa Anna to sign a treaty in 1836 after Houston had captured Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto. The treaty defined the Rio Grande as the southwestern boundary of an independent Texas.

The Texans wanted to become a state in the United States,  but the northerners did not want this because of the issue of slavery: admitting Texas would mean one more slave state.

Log Cabins and Hard Cider of 1840

William Henry Harrison defeated Van Buren to win the election of 1840 for the Whigs.

Politics for the People

There were 2 major changes in politics after the Era of Good Feelings that were highlighted by the election of 1840: 

1) Politicians who were too clean, too well dressed, too grammatical, and too intellectual were not liked. Aristocracy was not liked by the American people.  The common man was moving to the center of the national political stage.

The Two-Party System

2) There was a formation of a two-party system.  The two parties consisted of the Democrats and the Whigs (the National Republican Party had died out).  Jacksonian Democrats supported individual liberties, states' rights, and federal restraint in social and economic affairs.  The Whigs supported the natural harmony of society and the value of community, a renewed national bank, protective tariffs, internal improvements, public schools, and moral reforms, such as the prohibition of liquor and the abolition of slavery.

Chapter 14

Forging the National Economy

1790-1860

The Westward Movement

The life as a western pioneer was very grim. Pioneers were poor and stricken with disease and loneliness.

Shaping the Western Landscape

Fur trapping was a large industry in the Rocky Mountain area.  Each summer, fur trappers would meet with traders from the East to exchange beaver pelts for manufactured goods ("rendezvous" system).

George Caitlin: painter and student of Native American life who was one of the first Americans to advocate the preservation of nature; proposed the idea of a national park.

The March of Millions

By the mid-1800s, the population was doubling every 25 years.  By 1860, there were 33 states and the U.S. was the 4th most populous country in the western world.

The increased population and larger cities brought about disease and decreased living standards.

In the 1840s and 1850s, more European immigrants came to the Americas because Europe seemed to be running out of room. Immigrants also came to America to escape the aristocratic caste and state church, and there was more opportunity to improve one's life. Transoceanic steamboats also reduced ocean travel times.

The Emerald Isle Moves West

In the 1840s, the "Black Forties," many Irish came to America because of a potato rot that induced a famine through Ireland.  Most of the Irish were Roman-Catholic.  They were politically powerful because they bonded together as one large voting body. They increased competition for jobs, so they were hated by native workers.  The Irish hated the blacks and the British.

The German Forty-Eighters

Between 1830 and 1860, many Germans came to America because of crop failures and other hardships (collapse of German democratic revolutions).

Unlike the Irish, the Germans possessed a modest amount of material goods when they came to America. The Germans moved west into the Middle West (Wisconsin).

The Germans were more educated than the Americans, and they were opposed to slavery.

Flare-ups of Antiforeignism

The massive immigration of the Europeans to America inflamed the prejudices of American nativists.  The Roman Catholics created an entirely separate Catholic educational system to avoid the American Protestant educational system.

The American party (Know-Nothing party) was created by native Americans who opposed the immigrants.

Many people died in riots and attacks between the American natives and the immigrants.

Creeping Mechanization

In 1750, steam was used with machines to take the place of human labor.  This enabled the Industrial Revolution in England.

It took a while for the Industrial Revolution to spread to America because soil in America was cheap and peasants preferred to grow crops as opposed to working in factories.  Because of this, labor was scarce until the immigrants came to America in the 1840s.  There was also a lack of investment money available in America. The large British factories also had a monopoly on the textile industry, with which American companies could not compete.

Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine

Samuel Slater: "Father of the Factory System" in America; escaped Britain with memorized plans for textile machinery; put into operation the first machine to spin cotton thread in 1791.

Eli Whitney: built the first cotton gin in 1793. The cotton gin was much more effective than slaves at separating the cotton seed from the cotton fiber. Its development affected the entire world. Because of the cotton gin, the South's production of cotton greatly increased and demand for cotton revived the demand for slavery.

New England became the industrial center of the Industrial Revolution in America because it had poor soil for farming; it had a dense population for labor; shipping brought in capital; seaports enabled the import of raw materials and the export of the finished products.

Marvels in Manufacturing

The War of 1812 created a boom of American factories and the use of American products as opposed to British imports. 

The surplus in American manufacturing dropped following the Treaty of Ghent in 1815.  The British manufacturers sold their products to Americans at very low prices.  Congress passed the Tariff of 1816 to protect the American manufacturers. 

In 1798, Eli Whitney came up with the idea of using machines (instead of people) to make each part of the musket. This meant that the musket's components would be consistently manufactured, and thus, could be interchanged. The principle of interchangeable parts caught on by 1850 and it became the basis for mass-production.

Elias Howe: invented the sewing machine in 1846. The sewing machine boosted northern industrialization. It became the foundation of the ready-made clothing industry.

Limited Liability: an individual investor only risks his personal investment in a company in the event of a bankruptcy.

Laws of "free incorporation": first passed in New York in 1848; enabled businessmen to create corporations without applying for individual charters from the legislature.

Samuel F. B. Morse: invented the telegraph.

Workers and "Wage Slaves"

Impersonal relationships replaced the personal relationships that were once held between workers.

Factory workers were forbidden by law to form labor unions to raise wages.  In the 1820s, many children were used as laborers in factories.  Jacksonian democracy brought about the voting rights of the laboring man.

President Van Buren established the ten-hour work day in 1840 (for federal employees on public projects).

Commonwealth vs. Hunt: Supreme Court ruled that labor unions were not illegal conspiracies, provided that their methods were honorable and peaceful.

Women and the Economy

Farm women and girls had an important place in the pre-industrial economy: spinning yarn, weaving cloth, and making candles, soap, butter, and cheese. 

Women were forbidden to form unions and they had few opportunities to share dissatisfactions over their harsh working conditions.

Catharine Beecher: urged women to enter the teaching profession.

The vast majority of working women were single.

Cult of Domesticity: a widespread cultural creed that glorified the customary functions of the homemaker.

During the Industrial Revolution, families were small, affectionate, and child-centered, which provided a special place for women.

Western Farmers Reap a Revolution in the Fields

The trans-Allegheny region, especially Indiana and Illinois, became the nation's breadbasket.

Liquor and hogs became the early western farmer's staple market items because both of these items were supported by corn.

John Deere: produced a steel plow in 1837 which broke through the thick soil of the West.

McCormick Reaper: a horse-drawn mechanical reaper that could cut and gather crops much faster than with previous methods (i.e. hand-picking). This enabled larger-scale farming.

Highways and Steamboats

Lancaster Turnpike: hard-surfaced highway that ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster; drivers had to pay a toll to use it.

In 1811, the federal government began to construct the National Road, or Cumberland Road.  It went from Cumberland, in western Maryland, to Illinois.  Its construction was halted during the War of 1812, but the road was completed in 1852.

Robert Fulton: installed a steam engine on a boat and thus, created the first steamboat. The steamboat played a vital role in the economic expansion of the West and South, via their extensive waterways.

"Clinton's Big Ditch" in New York

Governor DeWitt Clinton: governor of New York who lead the building of the Erie Canal that connected the Great Lakes with the Hudson River in 1825; the canal lowered shipping prices and decreased passenger transit time.

The Iron Horse

The most significant contribution to the expansion of the American economy was the railroad.  The first one appeared in 1828.

Railroads were initially opposed because of safety flaws and because they took away money from the Erie Canal investors.

Cables (Telegraphs), Clippers, and Pony Riders

In the 1840s and 1850s, American navel yards began to produce new ships called clipper ships.  These ships sacrificed cargo room for speed and were able to transport small amounts of goods in short amounts of time.  These ships were eventually superseded by steamboats after steamboats were improved.

The Pony Express was established in 1860 to carry mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.  The mail service collapsed after 18 months due to lack of profit.

The Transport Web Binds the Union

The transportation revolution was created because people in the east wanted to move west.

The South raised cotton for export to New England and Britain.  The West grew grain and livestock to feed factory workers in the East and in Europe.  The East made machines and textiles for the South and the West.  All of these products were transported using the railroad; the railroad linked America.

The Market Revolution

The market revolution transformed the American economy from one in which people subsisted on things they grew/created to one in which people purchased goods that were produced all over the country.

Chapter 15

The Ferment of Reform and Culture

1790-1860

Reviving Religion

Thomas Paine promoted the doctrines of Deism.  Deists relied on science rather than the Bible and they denied the divinity of Christ.  They did believe in a Supreme Being who had created a universe and endowed human beings with a capacity for moral behavior.

Unitarianism was derived from Deism.  Unitarians believed that God existed in only one person, and not the Trinity.  It appealed to mostly intellectuals.

The Second Great Awakening began in 1800. A wave of religious fervor swept over the country. Women became more involved in religion during the Second Great Awakening.

Peter Cartwright: a revivalist, traveling preacher who converted thousands to Christianity.

Charles Grandison Finney: one of the greatest revivalist preachers.

Denominational Diversity

The Second Great Awakening widened the gap between the societal classes and regions.  The more prosperous and conservative denominations in the East were little touched by revivalism. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Unitarians derived its members from the wealthier parts of society, while Methodists and Baptists came from less prosperous communities in the South and West.

The issue of slavery split the churches apart.

A Desert Zion in Utah

Joseph Smith: formed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in 1830 when he deciphered the Book of Mormon from some golden plates given to him by an angel; led the Mormons to Illinois.

After Joseph Smith was killed 1844, Brigham Young led the Mormons to Utah to avoid persecution.

Free Schools for a Free People

Tax-supported public education came about between 1825-1850. Americans eventually saw they had to educate their children because the children were the future.  The teachers of the schools were mostly men and did not know how to teach.  There were not very many schools in the U.S. because of their high costs to communities.

Horace Mann: campaigned effectively for a better school system.

Higher Goals for Higher Learning

The first state-supported universities showed up in the South in 1795.

The University of Virginia was founded by Thomas Jefferson.

Women's schools at the secondary level came in the 1820s because of Emma Willard. At the time, it was still widely believed that a women's place is in the home.

An Age of Reform

States gradually abolished debtors' prisons due to public demand.  Criminal codes in the states were being softened.  The number of capital offenses was being reduced.  Society began to think that prisons should reform as well as punish.

Dorothy Dix: traveled the country, visiting different asylums; released a report on insanity and asylums; her protests resulted in improved conditions for the mentally ill.

In 1828, the American Peace Society was formed.  It was led by William Ladd. 

Demon Rum - The "Old Deluder"

In the early 1800s, many people developed drinking problems due to social norms and hard/monotonous life. This included women, clergymen, and members of Congress.  The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826.  Its members persuaded people to stop drinking. 

Drinking decreased worker efficiency and threatened the family structure.

Neal S. Dow: thought that alcohol should be outlawed; "Father of Prohibition"; supported the Maine Law of 1851 which banned the manufacture and sale of liquor in Maine.  (The country banned the sale of alcohol with the 18th amendment in 1918.)

Women in Revolt

In the early 19th century, the role of women was to stay at home and be subordinate to her husband.  Women could not vote and when married, she could not retain her property.  Because of these things, women actually started to avoid marriage.

Gender differences were emphasized in the 19th century because the market economy was separating women and men into distinct economic roles (women were viewed as artistic and the keepers of society's conscience, while men were viewed as strong but crude).

Feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York in a Woman's Rights Convention in 1848 to rewrite the Declaration of Independence to include women.

Wilderness Utopians

Several utopian communities were created in the early 1800s, but all of them ultimately failed.

Robert Owen: founded a communal society in New Harmony, Indiana in 1825 to seek human betterment.

The Dawn of Scientific Achievement

Americans were more interested in practical gadgets than in pure science.  Americans invented practical gadgets, but they borrowed and adapted scientific findings from the Europeans.

Medicine in America was still primitive by modern standards.  In the early 1840s, several American doctors and dentists successfully used laughing gas and ether as anaesthetics.

Artistic Achievements

Early American architects used a Federal Style that emphasized symmetry, balance, and restraint (columns, domes, pediments).

Between 1820 and 1850, a Greek revival in architecture came to America.  Most of the ideas of art and painting were taken from Europe.

"Dixie" was the battle hymn of the Confederates and was written in 1859.

The Blossoming of a National Literature

Before the mid-1800s, most literature in America was imported from Britain.

Following the War of 1812, American literature received a boost from the wave of nationalism and the arrival of romanticism to America.

Washington Irving: the first American to win international recognition as a literary figure.

James Fenimore Cooper: the first American novelist to gain world fame.

Trumpeters of Transcendentalism

The transcendentalist movement came about in the 1830s. The transcendentalists believed that knowledge transcends the senses and can't be found just by observation; knowledge comes from within the person.  Associated traits included self-reliance, self-culture, and self-discipline.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: transcendentalist poet and philosopher; urged American writers to forget European traditions and write about American interests; wrote "The American Scholar," which was an intellectual declaration of independence.

Henry David Thoreau: transcendentalist who believed that people should ignore bodily desires and pursue truth through study and meditation.

Glowing Literary Lights

Not all poets and writers of the time were transcendentalists.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: one of the most famous poets to come from America; wrote for the wealthy class; was adopted by the less-cultured class.

Literary Individuals and Dissenters

Edgar Allan Poe: wrote with a pessimistic tone, unlike the literature at the time.

Herman Melville: wrote the novel Moby Dick. 

Portrayers of the Past

In the mid-1800s, American historians began to emerge.