PERIOD 3: 1754 – 1800
FAST REVIEW
KEY POINTS
PERIOD 3: 1754 - 1800
TIMELINE
1763 Great Britain wins the French and Indian War
1765 Parliament enacts the Stamp Act
1770 Boston Massacre
1773 Boston Tea Party
1776 Congress declares Independence
1781 The Articles of Confederation were ratified
1787 Constitutional Convention meets
1789 George Washington becomes America’s first president
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
1. The French and Indian War began as a struggle for control of the upper Ohio River.
2. The French and Indian War ended French power in North America. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the British North American empire now stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Colonists celebrated peace by praising their mother country and optimistically predicting the beginning of a prolonged period of peace and prosperity.
3. Native Americans did not celebrate the British victory. The war left them in a vulnerable position by ending their lucrative trade networks with French fur traders. It also prevented tribal leaders from using shifting military alliances to negotiate favorable agreements by playing the French and English against each other.
“NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”
1. The French and Indian War doubled Britain’s national debt. Indignant royal officials complained that the average person in Great Britain had a debt 45 times as great as that of the average colonist.
2. Parliament enacted the Stamp Act to assert royal control and to raise revenue to help pay for British troops in America.
3. The Stamp Act provoked a contentious debate over Parliament’s right to tax its American colonies.
4. British leaders argued that Parliament was based upon a system of virtual representation in which each member represented the interests of all Englishmen, including the colonists.
5. The colonists rejected virtual representation. They argued that as Englishmen they could only be taxed by their elected representatives.
6. The Stamp Act sparked a series of popular boycotts, mob protests, and violence against royal officials.
7. The Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party played important roles in escalating tensions between the colonists and British authorities.
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1. REPUBLICANISM is the belief that government should be based on the consent of the governed. The colonists had a long-standing tradition of making local decisions in town meetings and in representative assemblies such as the House of Burgesses.
2. Key republican values included an emphasis on individual talent over hereditary privilege, opposition to standing armies, belief in the virtue of agrarian life, and a firm commitment to self-government by locally elected representatives.
3. Republican ideas shaped the American revolutionary movement by providing a common ideological framework that bound together the Northern and Southern colonies.
4. The political ideas of British writers such as John Locke inspired colonists to rethink the rights of British subjects. For example, in Common Sense, Thomas Paine defended republican principles while denouncing monarchy as a form of government that threatened people’s liberty. Paine’s widely read pamphlet illustrates the power of ideas to influence American revolutionary thought.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1. The pivotal American victory at Saratoga persuaded France to declare war on Great Britain and openly aid the American cause.
2. The French king Louis XVI did not support America because he was sympathetic to republican values. Instead, he was motivated by a desire to avenge his country’s humiliating defeat in the French and Indian War.
3. During the Revolutionary War, Native Americans allied with the British or the Americans depending upon their own self-interests.
4. The Treaty of Paris officially recognized American independence and sovereignty over territories extending from the Mississippi River in the west, to the Great Lakes in the north, and to Spanish Florida in the south.
THE INFLUENCE OF REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS ON AMERICAN WOMEN
1. Abigail Adams’s famous plea to “Remember the Ladies” demonstrated that at least some colonial women were aware of the discrepancy between their subordinate legal status and the republican ideal of equality.
2. During the Revolutionary War, women contributed to the Patriot cause by managing and in some cases defending their family farms and shops. Groupslike the Philadelphia Ladies Association raised funds and distributed clothingto Washington’s Continental Army.
3. In seaport cities and thriving market towns, women exercised a new role as the purchasers of consumer goods such as tea, milk, butter, candles, sheets, coats,and gowns.
4. Although women began to play a more important role in America’s consumer culture, their subordinate legal status remained unchanged. For example,women could still not form a contract, buy or sell property, serve on a jury, or vote.
5. Restricted by custom and legal barriers. women did play an important role intheir local churches where they often constituted a majority of the congregation.
6. Although women’s subordinate legal position remained unchanged, the new republic required well-informed citizens. This need helped give rise to a new ideal of American wives that historians now call REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD. According to its advocates, republican mothers have the important responsibility of becoming exemplary parents who would raise their children to become virtuous citizens. Women would thus play a vital role in shaping America’s moral character.
7. In order to fulfill their role as republican mothers, women needed a better education. During the 1790s and early 1800s, reformers organized privates chools and academies devoted to opening new educational opportunities for American women. As a result, the once substantial literacy gap between men and women significantly closed.
THE INFLUENCE OF REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS ON AFRICAN AMERICANS
1. The American Revolution created a new ideal of a society based upon liberty and human rights. This language of liberty did not fall upon deaf ears in the North. Motivated by political and religious opposition to slavery, Mid-Atlantic and New England states initiated a “First Emancipation” by enacting laws eliminating slavery.
2. The Continental Congress further underscored the growing antislavery sentiment in the North. Enacted in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance contained the spread of slavery by prohibiting it in the territories comprising the Old Northwest. As a result, slavery rapidly became identified as a distinctive Southern institution.
ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
1. The Articles of Confederation created a “firm league of friendship” that could not exercise power independent of the states. For example, Congress could not tax the people, regulate trade, or raise an army. Congress could only ask the states for money and soldiers.
2. The limited national government consisted only of a unicameral legislature. The government lacked executive and legislative branches.
3. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided an orderly procedure for territories to become new states on an equal basis with the original 13 states. As a result ofthis far-reaching law, settlers in the Northwest Territory would not become colonial subjects. Instead, they would be citizens of the United States.
4. The Northwest Ordinance contained the spread of slavery by banning it from the region’s vast and fertile lands. As a result, slavery rapidly became identified as a distinctive Southern institution.
5. The Northwest Ordinance marked the continuation of American westward expansion into territory controlled by American Indian nations.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
1. On May 25, 1787, 55 delegates from every state except Rhode Island met in Philadelphia. The delegates quickly resolved to abandon the Articles of Confederation and create a new government.
2. During about 4 months of intense negotiations the delegates seized control of America’s destiny. They skillfully resolved contentious issues by reaching compromises that distinguished the possible from the impossible.
3. The Great Compromise resolved a dispute between the large states led by Virginia, and the small states, led by New Jersey. The compromise created a bicameral, or two-house Congress. Members of the House of Representatives would be apportioned on the basis of population, while each state would be allotted two seats in the Senate.
4. The words slave and slavery do not appear in the original Constitution. However, the Framers did indirectly recognize slavery in the Three-Fifths Compromise. Under the terms of this agreement, each slave counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining a state’s level of taxation and representation. This increased the congressional representation of the slave states and also gave them a greater voice in the Electoral College.
5. The Framers decision to allow the importation of slaves to continue until 1808 also indirectly recognized the existence of slavery.
THE DEBATE OVER RATIFICATION
1. The Constitution would not go into effect until it was ratified by at least nine of the thirteen states.
2. A heated debate erupted between Federalists, who supported the Constitution, and Anti-Federalists, who opposed it.
3. The Anti-Federalists drew their primary support from small farmers and rural areas. They argued that the proposed Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights and that the new national government would dominate the states and threaten individual liberties.
4. The Federalists drew their primary support from large landowners, wealthy merchants, and urban areas. They argued that the proposed Constitution would create a federal government with enough power to promote the general welfare and ensure domestic tranquility.
5. Written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, the Federalist Papers clearly articulated the Constitution’s key principles.
6. The Federalists ensured the ratification of the Constitution by promising the addition of a Bill of Rights that would enumerate individual rights and explicitly restricted the powers of the federal government.
THE CONSTITUTION
1. The Constitution rectified flaws in the Articles of Confederation by granting the federal government the power to tax, coin money, regulate interstate commerce,and raise an army. The “necessary and proper” clause gave Congress the power to implement these and all other “powers vested by this Constitution.”
2. Advocates of a broad interpretation of the necessary and proper clause typically supported internal improvements and a national bank.
3. Debates over how to interpret the necessary and proper clause contributed tothe formation of political parties.
4. The Constitution created a federal system by granting specific powers to the national government while reserving other powers to the states.
5. The House of Representatives gave people a direct voice in the new government. However, the electoral college and the selection of senators by state legislatures expressed the Founders desire to curb popular passions.
6. Charles Beard contended that wealthy white men wrote the Constitution to as an economic document designed to protect private property. For example, the Three-Fifths Compromise was intended to protect the economic interests of slaveholders.
7. Beard’s critics argue that the Constitution was written by practical men motivated by republican principles. For example, the Constitution limited executive authority by rejecting monarchy, dividing the government into three co-equal branches, and creating a system of checks and balances to curb abuses of power.
THE NEW REPUBLIC
1. George Washington commanded unmatched prestige and respect. His administration created institutions and precedents that put the principles of the Constitution into practice.
2. Alexander Hamilton served as America’s first Secretary of the Treasury. At Washington’s request, he submitted a series of far-reaching economic proposals. Hamilton’s plans included funding the national debt at face value, assuming state debts, imposing tariffs on imported goods, and chartering a national bank.
3. Hamilton’s proposal to charter a national bank triggered America’s first debate on whether the Constitution should be interpreted strictly or loosely. Jefferson favored a “strict” interpretation by forcefully arguing that what the Constitution does not permit it forbids. Hamilton countered by favoring a “loose” interpretation arguing that what the Constitution does not forbid it permits.
4. Hamilton’s arguments prevailed, and Washington signed the bank bill into law, thus chartering the First National Bank of the United States.
5. Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution. However, parties began to coalesce around the economic policies and political views of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The Federalist Party supported Hamilton’s programs while opponents led by Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican party.
6. The emergence of the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans inaugurated America’s two-party system. Historians divided American political history into party eras. The first party era began with the election of John Adams in 1796.
7. George Washington’s Farewell Address encouraged national unity. He cautioned against political factions and warned about the danger of entering into permanent alliances with European powers.