5 page paper
budsimpson
8ConstitutingaDemocracy.pptxConstituting a Democracy
Without the Demos
Slaves, Women, Workers, and Virtual Representation
As you can tell, we’re going to explore not only the “genius” of the founding, we’ll explore those members of the public whose interests were excluded. While there was a ratification process for the Constitution that was, in many ways remarkably democratic, the rights of women, Indians, African Americans, unpropertied whites, and others were ignored. As you can likely surmise, this leaves only a relatively small minority who were, in fact, fully represented.
The authors of the Constitution did ultimately provide protections for many outside the represented minority, although these were often a secondary effect. The founders were as afraid of each other as they were of foreign powers and the general public (the masses, in Marxian terminology).
Newburgh Conspiracy 1783
Gen. Alexander McDougall
Maj. Gen Henry Knox
Alexander Hamilton
Horatio Gates
While waiting for a peace treaty to be signed, soldiers became restless. Officers, not being paid, began to conspire to take over the government. They hoped that George Washington would lead them in this coup. They went so far as to ask Washington’s friend and aide Alexander Hamilton to approach the general with this idea.
That Washington did reject the aims of the conspiracy is a major reason why a United States exists today. The, in some ways astonishing integrity (if that was the reason) of this leader to walk away from power, is one of the unique aspects of the American creation story.
Treaty of Paris
September 3, 1783
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay negotiate the treaty.
Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens were also appointed to the commission, but didn’t make it.
After the war, Spain fearing the obvious intentions of the Americans to move West, closed off the Mississippi to American traffic. This caused tremendous damage to the economic prospects of frontier farmers and to the food stores in the East.
The Spanish could do this because they controlled New Orleans, the outlet to the Gulf of Mexico.
Not being able to take the sea route, the farmers had to get their crops to market via the Appalachians.
1783 Spain Closes Mississippi to American Traffic
Impact on Western Farmers and Markets
8
This idyllic, romanticized painting doesn’t readily indicate the Appalachian route’s difficulties.
The United States
of
America
under the Articles of Confederation
One of the most important pieces of legislation produced by the new Congress under the Articles of Confederation was the Northwest Ordinance pf 1787.
It established U.S. territory that was independent of any state (giving administrative control to the centralized Congress of the Confederation), outlawed slavery in the territory, and specified how lands within the territory would be admitted into the Confederation as new states.
..\..\Teaching Materials\History 11\Transcript of Northwest Ordinance.docx
Northwest Ordinance 1787
The Northwest Ordinance legitimized American settlements in lands that had been promised to indigenous peoples by the British. Tribes were forced even farther West and conflicts arose in what would become a hundred year war between the United States and the indigenous people of North America.
Continued Disaster for American Indians
While the rise in the colonial, and then U.S population, must have seemed relatively dramatic, at the time of country’s creation there were fewer than 4 million people counted More than 700,000 of these were slaves (1790 Census).
Compare this to the almost 320 million living in the U.S. today.
Growth of the Colonies
1607 Jamestown: 210 Settlers
1620-1629 Plymouth: 2,500 Settlers
1650 Colonial Population as a Whole: 28,000 Settlers
1690 Colonial Population: 214,000
1750 Colonial Population: 1.2 million
1780 Colonial Population: 2.8 million
1790 1st U.S. Census: 3,929,214
After the war, debt was rampant. May returned home to find their families gone ad their farms taken over by others. The states themselves were also deeply inn debt.
As often happens, post-war inflation was devastating to the working classes.
Post – War Poverty
Debt and Inflation
Women’s Committees Demand Price Controls
But even Paine suggests that free markets will eventually solve the problems.
The women respond that their children are dying now.
The states, ruled almost entirely by wealthy merchants or landowners, began to impose taxes on the commoners in order to pay off the war debt.
In Massachusetts, taxed farmers saw parallels between their situation and the situation with the British that led to war in the first place. They would rise up against the Boston elites in what was called Shay’s Rebellion. The Massachusetts state government eventually squashed it, but it scared leading men throughout the Confederation. They began to fear that such uprisings might take place in their own states and that no others could come to their aid since each state was sovereign.
Shays’ Rebellion August ‘86-June ‘87
Sam Adams
John Hancock
Massachusetts Assembly
It wasn’t only yeoman framers and working class elements who were dissatisfied with the situation under the Articles of Confederation. Many large landowners and merchants felt that interstate commerce led to too many conflicts and loss of profits.
Each state had it’s own tax and tariff system as well as its own system of weights and measures, its own money, and its own understanding of contracts. The overall economy of the Confederation was, to put it mildly, a mess.
Commerce Under the Articles
Is difficult at best, and often wholly dysfunctional. Who is there to efficiently and effectively solve disputes between citizens of the various states?
A small group (12) of the Confederation’s leading citizens, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, met at Annapolis in 1786 to amend the Article of Confederation to make it more commerce friendly.
Very few showed up and the convention itself was largely unsuccessful. It did however produce a document requesting a larger convention to pursue more than commercial issues. This time they would get Washington on board and many others who were concerned with the state of the Confederation (and especially with the rebellious nature of the working classes as evidenced by Shay’s Rebellion).
Annapolis Convention September 1786
Over the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, a convention of mostly wealthy and certainly otherwise prominent men, created the United States as a single nation rather as a perpetual union of 13 separate nations.
It was contentious and often rowdy. Washington maintained the requisite decorum and Franklin brought the sensibilities of an elder ( although he may have been too far gone by then. As the Constitutional Convention began, he was suffering from a variety of maladies that may have left him without his usual sharp wit and incisive intellect).
Many, like Washington’s friend George Mason and Virginia governor William Randolph, will leave the convention without signing the document that was produced.
Jefferson, himself in France t the time, said he would not have signed the document as written. He felt that, on the one hand, it took too much autonomy from the states, and on the other hand, failed to resolve the slavery issue.
Constitutional Convention
May 14 to September 17, 1787
Constitutional Issues
Great Compromise
3/5th Clause
Bicameralism
Weak Executive
Standing Armies
Best Men, Popular Consent
Strong Central Government
Electoral College
Big states and small states had to compromise on methods of representation in a bicameral Congress. In the so-called Great Compromise, the House would be represented proportionally and the Senate equally. (Today, California with a population of 39 million gets two Senators as does Wyoming with fewer than 600,000.)
The southern states demanded that slaves be counted but the north refused to allow full representation for the slaves (knowing full well that the slaves would not actually be represented). They came to another compromise, which in effect legalized slavery and gave southern states a bump in representation based on 3/5th of their respective slave populations. This gave the South a disproportionate electoral power.
The rather bizarre, but creative, Electoral College was designed to undercut what the elite Constitutional authors saw as the potential disasters of direct democracy.
The fear of monarchy led them to create a relatively weak executive with no standing army to impose its will upon the people.
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
The 3/5th Clause
Article 1, Section 2
After tempers had flared and many had retreated in disgust, Gouverneur Morris wrote a preamble to the Constitution and it was signed by 39 of the original 55 delegates.
It was then sent to the states for ratification (approval). The Constitution would go into effect if at least 9 of the 13 states signed. Each state held a convention to debate the merits and flaws of the document.
In New York, newspaper editorials by three men (Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay) writing under the name Publius, extolled the virtues of the Constitution. The 85 so-called Federalist Papers were later collected and today make up one of our best primary sources to understand what the participants actually thought at the time.
Eventually, the 9th state, New Hampshire, ratified and the nation came into to being in theory in the summer of 1788. The new government actually took over in March of 1789. Either, I suppose, could be seen as the date for the birth of a new nation.
Ratification
Patrick Henry
George Mason
Virginia
Mercy Otis Warren
Massachusetts
Melancton Smith
New York
The Anti-Federalists were generally for state’s rights and a weak central government, some were anti-slavery, some felt the common man and individual rights were ignored.
Many, including Thomas Jefferson, demanded a Bill of Rights, since the Constitution itself only laid the rights, duties, and responsibilities of the new Federal government.
Some states ratified the Constitution only on the condition that such a listing of rights would be forthcoming.
Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia ratify only on condition that a Bill of Rights is forthcoming.
Madison proposed nineteen amendments of which twelve were passed by Congress. Only ten were ratified by the states. We now know these ten amendments as the Bill of Rights.
The Federalists concede to popular demand and include a Bill of Rights
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
The First Amendment gave us the Establishment Clause, restricting the Federal Government from identifying a preferred religion, and the right of free speech, particularly meant to allow disagreements with the government without fear of prosecution.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Read the Second Amendment carefully and determine whether or not you think this gives each individual the right to carry a weapon.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The Patriot Act increases the government's surveillance powers in four areas:
Records searches. It expands the government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by third parties. (Section 215)
Secret searches. It expands the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)
Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).
"Trap and trace" searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects "addressing" information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214).
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/surveillance-under-usa-patriot-act
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/surveillance-under-usa-patriot-act
The Evisceration of the Fourth Amendment
Unchecked power
The result [of the Patriot Act] is unchecked government power to rifle through individuals' financial records, medical histories, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage, travel patterns, or any other activity that leaves a record. Making matters worse:
The government no longer has to show evidence that the subjects of search orders are an "agent of a foreign power," a requirement that previously protected Americans against abuse of this authority.
The FBI does not even have to show a reasonable suspicion that the records are related to criminal activity, much less the requirement for "probable cause" that is listed in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. All the government needs to do is make the broad assertion that the request is related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.
Judicial oversight of these new powers is essentially non-existent. The government must only certify to a judge - with no need for evidence or proof - that such a search meets the statute's broad criteria, and the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.
Surveillance orders can be based in part on a person's First Amendment activities, such as the books they read, the Web sites they visit, or a letter to the editor they have written.
A person or organization forced to turn over records is prohibited from disclosing the search to anyone. As a result of this gag order, the subjects of surveillance never even find out that their personal records have been examined by the government. That undercuts an important check and balance on this power: the ability of individuals to challenge illegitimate searches.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Who determines what is cruel or unusual?
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson debated over the need for a Bill of Rights. Hamilton said he feared that such a list would be construed to mean that these were the only rights a citizen had.
Jefferson countered that all they had to do was to say that these were not the only rights. This is what the Ninth Amendment does.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Tenth Amendment would lay the foundation of debates between the respective powers of the United States and of the individual states. It is still a bone of contention today, but in 1861 it led to a Civil War.
Slavery was one of those issues that would be left to the states until the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article 4, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
SEC. 3. And be it also enacted, That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the Territories on the Northwest or South of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other part of the said States or Territory, the person to whom such labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor
Signed into law by George Washington in Feb. 1793.
Proposed by Butler and Pinckney of S.C.
Washington, the first president of the new republic, was painfully aware that everything that he did would be seen as a precedent.
He gathered a group of brilliant men around him, including John Adams (Vice-President), Thomas Jefferson (Secretary of State), and Alexander Hamilton (Secretary of the Treasury). Each would have a tremendous impact on the creation of the country, and each was a profoundly capable yet deeply flawed character.
The Constitution was only the half of it. That document now had to be interpreted and enacted. It was now that the country began to see what the real possibilities and limitations were.
Neutrality 1793 Resignation 1796
Washington warns the younger American leaders to be everyone’s friend and nobodies ally.
Amidst scandal, constant bickering, and sheer fatigue, Washington decides to go home, where he dies just a few years later.
One of the first orders of business in the new republic was to control the Northwest Territories. This meant the elimination or at least the domination of indigenous peoples.
Little Turtle’s War
Miami and Shawnee
1786-1795
Wayne
Battle of Fallen Timbers
France had begun its own Revolution demanding a more equalitarian society and espousing the Rights of Man against monarchical tyranny.
After years of bloody civil war and wars to liberate others under monarchical rule, Napoleon Bonaparte would take control of France and brandish his own form of totalitarianism.
Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, believed in strong central control, both politically and financially. He would largely create modern American capitalism.
He had two big early schemes. One: he wanted to assume the vast debt from the states and pay it back with Federal taxes. This Assumption Plan would serve to confirm the right of the Fed to tax and would establish credit domestically and abroad.
Two: he wanted to establish a central Bank of the United States to direct financial actions among the states.
Both were opposed by Jefferson and Hamilton, although they both agreed to limited versions of the plans if the Federal capitol would be relocated to the South. This would become Washington, D.C.
Debt
D.C.
Hamilton’s Central Bank
The Southern states oppose it. They see it as an imposition and a violation of state’s rights.
At the expense of soldiers who had been forced to sell the war bonds that they had earned (often as wages) were forced to sell them cheap to speculators who had more resources to wait for more favorable terms.
Hamilton gave these speculators the terms they wanted, helping to create a capitalist class.
The very first U.S. bond issue was steeped in corruption.
Hamilton was intent on creating a capitalist class and dedicated to conditions conducive to wealth creation.
Pennies on the dollar to soldiers… face value to speculators.
William Duer
Asst. Sec. of Treasury
Insider trading bond scandal leads to Panic of `1792
Hamilton decided to levy a tax on alcohol and other perceived vices.
The problem for western farmers was that they had hit upon a scheme to profit on their crops now that the Mississippi was no longer available to them as a waterway to get to market. They turned the grain into alcohol, which allowed them much more latitude in their choice of markets.
The new taxes cut into their potential profits. They rebelled, but this is just what Washington wanted to demonstrate that the federal government now had the legal power to deploy an army to shut down rebellions within states.
Whiskey Rebellion 1794
The British maintained many of their forts in the Northwest Territory and continued to supply the indigenous population with weapons.
They also continued to disrupt American trade and kidnap American sailors. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was sent to discuss these issues with the British government. He was treated within disdain and came home with a treaty that many Americans saw as an abusive insult. They would not give any guarantees, but for consideration of the issues they demanded that the U.S. make them a most favored trading partner.
This upset revolutionary France which lost revenues because of America’s treaty with Britain, who they were currently at war with.
Jay’s Treaty 1794
After Washington left office and Adams was now President (with his political rival Jefferson as Vice-President … more on this later), three diplomats, Charles Pinckney, Eldridge Gerry, and John Marshall (Adam’s Secretary of State) were sent to soften the blow.
Talleyrand, France’s foreign minister sent three low level ministers to meet them, but refused to meet with them himself unless they agreed to pay a fee and supply a large loan. This led to poor relations between the two former allies. It was later dubbed the X,Y,Z Affair.
It also led to the construction of a new American navy to support its merchant ships who were now being attacked by both the British and the French. It also almost led to civil war and secession I the United States when Adam’s Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican’s engaged in a war of words over the issue.
XYZ Affair 1797
“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"
Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry to France
Quasi War
The Congress, dominated by the Federalists, passed a set of laws meant to stifle Republican opposition. They made it more difficult to become a citizen, which was aimed at Jefferson’s French immigrant friends, they made it easier to deport aliens who spoke against the Federalist government, and made it illegal for anyone (read Republicans) to speak against the government policy or any government official.
A handful of Republicans spent a significant amount of time in jail for offenses that we (and the Republicans) consider the right of free speech.
Jefferson responded by authoring the Kentucky Resolution that claimed that states had the right to determine a federal law’s constitutionality and to nullify the law if it did not meet constitutional standards. Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution that simply called for Congress to repeal the Sedition Act.
Naturalization Act
Alien Act
Sedition Act
1798
80
While white citizens were grappling with the very notions of freedom, many were slaveholders.
Slaves, often fought back. In 1800 Gabriel Prosser led a band of slaves in a bloody Virginia revolt. He asked poor whites to join him, correctly seeing the slave situation as an economic issue as well as a racial issue. No whites join him in the rebellion.
It failed on the surface, but brought the conditions of slavery into view for many in America who were dealing with other problems of rule.
The survival of the United States was not a foregone conclusion and the issue of slavery led to its near dissolution. [It might still ultimately lead to the dissolution of American as we fail to grapple with the problems of ethnic minorities, especially African Americans who continue to suffer from the iniquities of a racist social order.]
Gabriel Prosser
Aug. 1800
