Essential Questions:

1) In what ways was the new nation being tested politically after 1800?

2) Summarize Shay's Rebellion: how did it demonstrate the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation? 

3) How did the Bill of Rights evoke the ideas of limiting government?

The Articles of Confederation

The United States faced severe economic and foreign policy problems. A huge debt remained from the Revolution; paper money issued during and after the war was worthless; and Britain and Spain occupied territory won by the United States.

The new nation lacked the machinery of government. It consisted of nothing more than 75 post offices, a large debt, a small number of unpaid clerks, and an army consisting of just 672 soldiers. There was no federal court system, no navy, and no system for collecting taxes. Congress enacted a tariff to raise revenue; created departments of state, treasury and war; and organized a federal judicial system.

The Articles of Confederation was the United States' first constitution. Proposed by the Continental Congress in 1777, it was not ratified until 1781. They represented a victory for those who favored power for the states in opposition to the national government. Article 2 stated that "each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power...which is not...expressly delegated to the United States.…" Any amendment required unanimous consent of the states.

The Articles of Confederation created a national government composed of a Congress, which had the power to declare war, appoint military officers, sign treaties, make alliances, appoint foreign ambassadors, and manage relations with Indians. All states were represented equally in Congress, and nine of the 13 states had to approve a bill before it became law.

Under the Articles, the states, not Congress, had the power to tax. Congress could raise money only by asking the states for funds, borrowing from foreign governments, or selling western lands. In addition, Congress could not draft soldiers or regulate trade. There was no provision for national courts.

The Articles of Confederation did not include a president. The states feared another George III might threaten their liberties. The new framework of government also barred delegates from serving more than three years in any six year period.

The Articles of Confederation created a very weak central government. It is noteworthy that the Confederation Congress could not muster a quorum to ratify on time the treaty that guaranteed American independence, nor could it pay the expense of sending the ratified treaty back to Europe.

The Articles' framers assumed that republican virtue would lead to states to carry out their duties and obey congressional decisions. But the states refused to make their contributions to the central government. Its acts were "as little heeded as the cries of an oysterman." As a result, Congress had to stop paying interest on the public debt. The Continental army threatened to mutiny over lack of pay.

A series of events during the 1780s convinced a group of national leaders that the Articles of Confederation provided a wholly inadequate framework of government.

Following the British surrender at Yorktown, Washington moved 11,000 Continental Army soldiers to Newburgh, N.Y. By 1783, the army was near the point of mutiny over Congress' failure to pay them. In March, Continental Army officers, camped at Newburgh, N.Y., considered military action against the Confederation Congress. On Mar. 15, Washington strode in. "Do not open the flood gates of civil discord," he told them, "and deluge our rising empire in blood." Washington strongly believed that the military needed to be subordinate to civilian authority.

Shay's Rebellion

On a 90-degree June day in 1783, former Revolutionary War soldiers, carrying muskets, marched on the Philadelphia statehouse where Congress was meeting. They threatened to hold the members hostage until they were paid back wages. When Congress asked Pennsylvania to send a detachment of militia to protect them, the state refused, and the humiliated Congress temporarily relocated, first in Princeton, N.J., and later in Annapolis, Md., and New York City, N.Y.

In 1786, nearly 2,000 debtor farmers in western Massachusetts were threatened with foreclosure of their mortgaged property. The state legislature had voted to pay off the state's Revolutionary War debt in three years; between 1783 and 1786, taxes on land rose more than 60 percent. Desperate farmers demanded a cut in property taxes and adoption of state laws to postpone farm foreclosures. The lower house of the state legislature passed relief measures in 1786, but creditors persuaded the upper house to reject the package.

When lower courts started to seize the property of farmers such as Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, western Massachusetts farmers temporarily closed the courts and threatened a federal arsenal. Although the rebels were defeated by the state militia, they were victorious at the polls. A new legislature elected early in 1787 enacted debt relief.

By the spring of 1787, many national leaders believed that the new republic's survival was at risk. The threat of national bankruptcy, commercial conflicts among the states, Britain's refusal to evacuate military posts, Spanish intrigues on the western frontier, and armed rebellion in western Massachusetts underscored the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. The only solution, many prominent figures were convinced, was to create an effective central government led by a strong chief executive.

To strengthen popular support for the new government, Congress approved a Bill of Rights in the form of ten amendments to the Constitution protecting the rights of the individual against the power of the central government.

The Constitution provided only a broad outline of the office and powers of the president, and it was up to the first president, George Washington, to establish many precedents. He modeled the executive branch along the lines of a general's staff. He asserted the power to dismiss presidential appointees without the Senate's permission. He negotiated treaties and then sent them to the Senate for ratification.

To secure the nation's credit, the first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, had the federal government assume the entire indebtedness of the federal government and the states. To issue currency, collect taxes, hold government funds, regulate private banks, and make loans, he recommended that the federal government establish a Bank of the United States. His other proposals to stimulate manufacturing through high tariffs, bounties, encouragement of immigration, and federal aid for roads were defeated.

By 1796, the United States had produced the world's first modern political parties. Opposition to Hamilton’s plans intensified during the closing years of Washington’s first term. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison feared that Hamilton wanted to model American society along the lines of monarchical England. Partisan divisions deepened in response to the French Revolution and the wars between France and Britain. The Jeffersonians supported the French; the Hamiltonians, the British. President Washington supported a policy of neutrality.

During 1793 and 1794, Washington’s administration confronted a French effort to entangle America in its war with England (the Genet Affair), armed rebellion in western Pennsylvania (the Whiskey Rebellion), conflicts with Indians, and the threat of war with Britain. In 1796, Washington was able to retire gracefully. He had suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion, defeated an Indian confederacy in the Ohio country, and negotiated Britain out of its western forts. In a Farewell Address, he called on Americans to avoid political partisanship and entangling alliances with foreign nations.

Deteriorating relations with France during the presidency of John Adams resulted in an undeclared naval war and prompted Federalists in Congress to enact the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. These acts were designed to silence dissent and weaken support for the Jeffersonian Republicans, prompting Jefferson and Madison to draft the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions that advanced the idea that states had the power to declare acts of Congress null and void.

Thomas Jefferson was convinced that the Federalists had threatened republican government by levying oppressive taxes, stretching the provisions of the Constitution, and subverting civil liberties. As president, he slashed army and navy expenditures and eliminated most federal taxes. To encourage land ownership, he persuaded Congress to cut the price of public lands. He also moved Congress to reduce the residence requirement for citizenship, and freed all people imprisoned under the Sedition Act and refunded their fines.

It was during Jefferson’s presidency that the Supreme Court asserted the power of judicial supremacy and judicial review and became a vigorous and equal third branch of government. The acquisition of Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 doubled the country's size.

During Jefferson's second term the United States became embroiled in the Napoleonic wars, as Britain and France interfered with American shipping. To assert America’s neutral rights, Congress adopted an embargo prohibiting American trade with foreign countries. An unpopular and costly failure, the embargo provoked widespread smuggling.

By 1812, many Americans believed that only war with Britain could preserve Americans neutral rights and national honor. American grievances included interference with American trade, impressment of thousands of American sailors, and incitement of Indian attacks.

The War of 1812 was crucial to the future of the United States. It effectively destroyed Indians' ability to resist American expansion. It allowed the United States to solidify its control over the lower Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. It encouraged New England merchants to invest in textile factories. It also ended America’s brief experiment with a two party political system, as the Federalists were branded as traitors for failing to support the war.

Following the War of 1812, a spirit of nationalism pervaded the nation, evident in the creation of a second Bank of the United States; enactment of a tariff to protect industry, and a series of Supreme Court decisions strengthening the power of the central government. The United States acquired Florida from Spain, convinced Russia and Spain to relinquish their claims to the Oregon country, and delivered a strong warning, in the Monroe Doctrine, that European powers were not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.

A severe economic depression, the Panic of 1819, and a bitter controversy over slavery in Missouri in 1819 and 1820, provoked growing political divisions and a deepening sectional split between North and South.

The Constitution & The Bill of Rights

Between 1776 and 1789 a variety of efforts were made to realize the nation's republican ideals. New state governments were established in most states, expanding voting and officeholding rights. Lawmakers let citizens decide which churches to support with their tax monies. Several states adopted bills of rights guaranteeing freedom of speech, assembly, and the press, as well as trial by jury. Western lands were opened to settlement. Educational opportunities for women increased. Most northern states either abolished slavery or adopted a gradual emancipation plan, while some southern states made it easier for slaveowners to manumit individual slaves.

Concern for the new nation's political stability led leading revolutionary leaders to draft a new Constitution in 1787, which worked out compromises between large and small states and between northern and southern states. The federal system balanced power between the national government and the state governments; within the national government, power was divided among three separate branches in a system of checks and balances.

In addition to listing the powers of the national government-which include the power to collect taxes, regulate trade, and declare war-the Constitution enumerates the powers forbidden to the states and to Congress; and the procedures for electing and appointing government officials as well as procedures for amending the document.

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was ratified in 1791. These amendments, which were originally intended to protect individual liberties from the power of the central government, guarantee freedom of speech, the press, religion, petition, and assembly; and specify the rights of the accused in criminal and civil cases.