Two struggles happening during the seven years of war in America
Military conflict w/ Great Britain
Revolutionary war for liberation
Political struggle w/in the colonies
Demand independence from Britain?
How to structure the new nation they had proclaimed?
Thomas Paine – The American War for Independence “contributed more to enlighten the world, and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality among mankind, than any human event…that ever preceded it.”
The States United
Colonies were unprepared for a conflict w/ Britain
Faced the task of defending themselves against the world’s greatest armed power
Faced the deeply divided about what they were fighting for
Defining American War Aims
Second Continental Congress met three weeks after Lexington and Concord in Philadelphia
One side was for complete independence from Great Britain
Lead by Samuel Adams, John Adams, Richard Henry Lee, etc.
Other side hoped for modest reforms in the imperial relationship, early reconciliation w/ Great Britain
Lead by John Dickinson, etc.
Everyone else tried to find ground between the two sides
Finally agreed to the “Olive Branch Petition”
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms – July 6, 1775
Proclaimed that the British government had left the American people w/ only two alternatives, “unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers or resistance by force.”
Americans first believed that they were fighting for a redress of grievances w/in British Empire
Began to change their minds as the first year of the war went on
Costs of war – human and financial – were so high that original war aims seemed too modest to justify them
Any affection that Patriots had toward British was quickly dispersed when British tried recruiting the Indians, slaves, and foreign mercenaries to fight the Americans
Colonist came to believe that the British government was forcing them toward independence by rejecting the Olive Branch Petition and instead enacting the Prohibitory Act
Prohibitory Act – closed the colonies to all overseas trade – enforced by a British naval blockade
It was the king to blame, not the Parliament, and the system that allowed him to rule that was the root of America’s problems
The island kingdom of England was no more fit to rule the American continent, than a satellite was fit to rule the sun
The Decision for Independence
Continental Congress – still in Philly – moved more slowly for a break w/ Britain
Declared that all American ports open to every country, EXCEPT for Great Britain
July 2, 1776
Congress adopted a resolution
“That these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved”
July 4, 1776
Congress adopted this Declaration of Independence
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”
“All men are created equal”
Now claimed themselves as the United States of America
Responses to Independence
News of Declaration of Independence lead to rejoicing in many places
Loyalists – those who did not want to fight in the war for independence – called Tories by American Patriots
Colonies began to call themselves states after the Declaration of Independence was signed
Created new government in their states by 1781 – republican ones
A need for central government
November 1777
Articles of Confederation
Continental Congress would survive as the chief coordinating agency of the war effort
Mobilizing for War
Congress created an arsenal in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1777
Relied heavily on the equipment that they could capture or steal from the British
After Revolution in New Jersey gave women the right to vote
Repealed after 1807
Women not yet equal partners
The War Economy
Disrupted traditional economic patterns
Strengthened American economies
New areas of trade opened
Substantial increase of trade in American states
No great industrial expansion result
Americans began to make their own cloth
Patriotic and fashionable
The Creation of State Governments
Struggling to create new governments to run the new country
Federal Constitution of 1789
Formation of state governments began in 1776
Two phases in creation of national government
The Assumptions of Republicanism
Americans agreed that new governments would be republican
Ideal of small “freeholder” became basic to American political theology
Crucial part of ideology – concept of equality
What you do, not who you are
American society more open than other nations
However, Native Americans, Blacks and Women still repressed
Americans were adopting a powerful, even revolutionary new ideology, one that would enable them to create a form of government never before seen in the world
The First State Constitutions
Two states saw no need for a national Constitution
Ten states completed the process of Constitution writing by 1776
Georgia, New York, Massachusetts delayed
Massachusetts did not finally adopt its version until 1780
Revising State Governments
Growing concern about the instability of the new state governments
Governors unable to demonstrate real leadership
States revised constitutions to cope w/ what they considered to be their problems
MAJOR CHANGE
Constitutional convention to meet only for the purpose of writing the constitution
MAJOR CHANGE
Significant strengthening of the executive
Toleration and Slavery
Freedom of Religion in all states
1786 – Virginia – Statue of Religious Freedom – complete separation of Church and State
Slavery
Pennsylvania – emancipation act in 1780
Massachusetts – 1783 – ownership of slaves was impermissible under the stat’s bill of rights
Slavery survived in all southern states
Racist assumptions about the natural inferiority of African Americas
Enormous economic investments
Inability of most southerners
The Search for a National Government
Most believed that central government should remain relatively weak and unimportant
Each state a sovereign nation
Articles of Confederation emerged
The Confederation
Articles of Confederation in 1777
Created government similar to the one already functioning
Exceptions
Authority to conduct wars and foreign relations, to appropriate, borrow and issue money.
Could not regulate trade, draft troops, or levy taxes directly on the people
No separate executive
Each state would have a single vote in Congress
Nine must approve for anything to pass
All 13 would have to approve the Articles before they could be ratified or amended
Small states wanted equal representation
Large states wanted representation based on population
Articles went into effect in 1781
Confederation lasted from 1781-1789
Complete failure
Diplomatic Failures
British continued to occupy Great Lakes territory
Boundary disputes w/ the Spanish
Treaty w/ Spain – 1786
Weakness seen by the British and Spanish
The Confederation and the Northwest
Resolution of conflicts over the northwest
1790 – 120,000 whites in western lands
By 1784 states had ceded enough land to Congress to be able to begin making policy for the national domain
Ordinance of 1784 – divided the western territory into ten self-governing districts
Ordinance of 1785 – congress created a system for surveying and selling the western lands.
Territory North of the Ohio River would be surveyed and marked off into neat rectangular townships
Grids
Every township would be divided into 36 sections
Four reserved for government
One for schools
Each section 640 acres
Dollar an acre to buy land
A population of 60,000 was needed to be able to apply for statehood
Guaranteed freedom of religion, right to trial by jury, prohibition of slavery in new territories
Brought order and stability to the process of white settlement
Indians and the Western Lands
Indian problems tried to be resolved in 1784, 1785, 1786
Iroquois, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee
Arthur St. Clair – tried and failed in 1789 to force an agreement on the Miami, Shawnee and Delaware
Little Turtle – defeated Americans in two battles near the western border of Ohio
November 4, 1791 – 630 white Americans died
Greatest military victory Indians had ever achieved
1794 – General Anthony Wayne – moving troops toward the Maumee River
Battle of Fallen Timbers – Americans won
Miami Indians sign Treaty of Greenville
New lands to United States
Acknowledgement of Indian territory
First recognition by the United States government of the sovereignty of Indian nations
Debts, Taxes, and Daniel Shays
Postwar Depression – 1784 – 1787
Congress had a great debt
Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison lobbying for a “continental impost” – 5% duty on imported goods to fund the debt
First effort to secure the impost – 1781 – approved by 12 states
Second effort – 1783 – failed
Farmers demanded paper currency
Mobs and riots began
Daniel Shays
Demanded paper money, tax relief, moratorium on debt, the relocation of the state capital from Boston to the interior, abolition of imprisonment for debt
Samuel Adams denounced Shays and his men as rebels and traitors