us history: chapter 6
republican motherhood
-according to the ideology of republican motherhood that emerged as a result of independence, women played an indispensable role by training future citizens. -even though republican motherhood ruled out direct female involvement in politics, it encouraged the expansion of educational opportunities for women, so that they could impart political wisdom to their children.
the arduous struggle for liberty
-as a result of the long struggle against british rule, the public sphere, and with it the right to vote, expanded markedly. -bound labor among whites declined dramatically, religious groups enjoyed greater liberty, blacks mounted a challenge to slavery in which many won their freedom, and women in some ways enjoyed a higher status. on the other hand, for indians, many loyalists, and the majority of slaves, american independence meant a deprivation of freedom.
abolition in the north
-between 1777 (when vermont drew up a constitution that banned slavery) and 1804 (when new jersey acted), every state north of maryland took steps toward emancipation, the first time in recorded history that legislative power had been invoked to eradicate slavery. -generally, abolition laws did not free living slaves. instead, they provided for the liberty of any child born in the future to a slave mother, but only after he or she had served the mother's master until adulthood as compensation for the owner's future economic loss. -children born to slave mothers in pennsylvania after passage of the state's emancipation act of 1780 had to serve the owner for twenty-eight years, far longer than had been customary for white indentured servants. -for slaves alive when the northern laws were passed, hopes for freedom rested on their own ability to escape and the voluntary actions of their owners. and many northern slaveholders proved reluctant indeed when it came to liberating their slaves.
democratizing government
-by the 1780s, with the exceptions of virginia, maryland, and new york, a large majority of the adult white male population could meet voting requirements. -new jersey's new state constitution, of 1776, granted suffrage to all "inhabitants" who met a property qualification. -in 1807, property-owning women, mostly widows, did cast ballots. -"the suffrage," declared a 1776 petition of disenfranchised north carolinians, was "a right essential to and inseparable from freedom." a proposed new constitution for massachusetts was rejected by a majority of the towns in 1778, partly because it contained a property qualification for voting. "
christian republicanism
-despite the separation of church and state, colonial leaders were not hostile to religion. -proponents of evangelical religion and of republican government both believed that in the absence of some kind of moral restraint (provided by religion and government), human nature was likely to succumb to corruption and vice. -american religious leaders interpreted the american revolution as a divinely sanctioned event, part of god's plan to promote the development of a good society.
voluntary emancipations
-during the war of independence, nearly every state prohibited or discouraged the further importation of slaves from africa. the war left much of the plantation south in ruins. -during the 1780s, a considerable number of slaveholders, especially in virginia and maryland, voluntarily emancipated their slaves. in 1796, robert carter iii, a member of one of virginia's wealthiest families, provided for the gradual emancipation of the more than 400 slaves he owned.
gender and politics
-gender formed a boundary limiting those entitled to the full blessings of american freedom. -the husband still held legal authority over the person, property, and choices of his wife. despite the expansion of democracy, politics remained overwhelmingly a male realm. -for men, political freedom meant the right to self-government, the power to consent to the individuals, and political arrangements that ruled over them. -for women, however, the marriage contract superseded the social contract. a woman's relationship to the larger society was mediated through her relationship with her husband. in both law and social reality, women lacked the essential qualification of political participation—autonomy based on ownership of property or control of one's own person. many women who entered public debate felt the need to apologize for their forthrightness.
toward free labor
-in colonial america, slavery was one part of a broad spectrum of kinds of unfree labor. in the generation after independence, with the rapid decline of indentured servitude and apprenticeship and the transformation of paid domestic service into an occupation for blacks and white females, the halfway houses between slavery and freedom disappeared, at least for white men. wage workers became more available as indentured servants completed their terms of required labor, and considerable numbers of servants and apprentices took advantage of the turmoil of the revolution to escape from their masters. -the lack of freedom inherent in apprenticeship and servitude increasingly came to be seen as incompatible with republican citizenship. -by 1800, indentured servitude had all but disappeared from the united states.
the revolution in pennsylvania
-in pennsylvania nearly the entire prewar elite opposed independence, fearing that severing the tie with britain would lead to rule by the "rabble" and to attacks on property. -formed a temporary alliance with supporters of independence in the second continental congress (then meeting in philadelphia), who disapproved of their strong belief in equality but hoped to move pennsylvania toward a break with britain. -pennsylvania adopted a new state constitution that sought to institutionalize democracy by concentrating power in a one-house legislature elected annually by all men over age twenty-one who paid taxes. it abolished the office of governor, dispensed with property qualifications for officeholding, and provided that schools with low fees be established in every county. it also included clauses guaranteeing "freedom of speech, and of writing," and religious liberty.
right to vote
-in virginia and south carolina, the new constitutions retained property qualifications for voting and authorized the gentry-dominated legislature to choose the governor. -maryland combined a low property qualification for voting with high requirements for officeholding, including £5,000—a fortune—for the governor. -vermont's constitution of 1777 was the only one to sever voting completely from financial considerations, eliminating not only property qualifications but also the requirement that voters pay taxes. -pennsylvania's constitution no longer required ownership of property, but it retained the taxpaying qualification. as a result, it enfranchised nearly all of the state's free male population but left a small number, mainly paupers and domestic servants, still barred from voting.
jefferson and religious liberty
-in virginia, thomas jefferson drew up a bill for establishing religious freedom, which was introduced in the house of burgesses in 1779 and adopted, after considerable controversy, in 1786. -in an overwhelmingly christian nation, the separation of church and state drew a sharp line between public authority and a realm defined as "private." it also offered a new justification for the idea of the united states as a beacon of liberty. in successfully opposing a virginia tax for the general support of christian churches, james madison insisted that one reason for the complete separation of church and state was to reinforce the principle that the new nation offered "asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and religion."
white freedom, indian freedom
-independence offered the opportunity to complete the process of dispossessing indians of their rich lands in upstate new york, the ohio valley, and the southern backcountry. -even as the war raged, americans forced defeated tribes like the cherokee to cede most of their land. -the treaty of paris marked the culmination of a century in which the balance of power in eastern north america shifted away from the indians and toward white americans.
british emancipators
-lord dunmore's proclamation of 1775, and the philipsburg proclamation of general henry clinton issued four years later, offered sanctuary to slaves, except those owned by loyalists, who escaped to british lines. -some of these escaped slaves were recaptured as the tide of battle turned in the patriots' favor. -they ended up in nova scotia, england, and sierra leone, a settlement for former slaves from the united states established by the british on the coast of west africa. -some were re-enslaved in the west indies.
colonial loyalists
-loyalists—those who retained their allegiance to the crown—experienced the conflict and its aftermath as a loss of liberty. many leading loyalists had supported american resistance in the 1760s but drew back at the prospect of independence and war. -in the south, numerous slaves sided with the british, hoping an american defeat would bring them freedom.
the dream of equality
-many americans rejected the society of privilege, patronage, and fixed status that these institutions embodied. -the lower classes did not rise to power as a result of independence. -american freedom would be forever linked with the idea of equality
the founders and religion
-men like thomas jefferson, john adams, james madison, and alexander hamilton believed religion necessary as a foundation of public morality. -but they viewed religious doctrines through the enlightenment lens of rationalism and skepticism. -jefferson wrote a version of the bible and a life of jesus that insisted that while jesus had lived a deeply moral life, he was not divine and performed no miracles.
the new constitutions
-nearly all americans now agreed that their governments must be republics, meaning that their authority rested on the consent of the governed, and that there would be no king or hereditary aristocracy. -in part to counteract what he saw as pennsylvania's excessive radicalism, john adams in 1776 published thoughts on government, which insisted that the new constitutions should create balanced governments whose structure would reflect the division of society between the wealthy (represented in the upper house) and ordinary men (who would control the lower). -adams's call for two-house legislatures was followed by every state except pennsylvania, georgia, and vermont.
free black communities
-on the eve of independence, virtually every black person in america had been a slave. -now, free communities, with their own churches, schools, and leaders, came into existence. -in all the states except virginia, south carolina, and georgia, free black men who met taxpaying or property qualifications enjoyed the right to vote under new state constitutions.
toward religious toleration
-protestants who belonged to other denominations than the anglican church—had long invoked the language of liberty in seeking repeal of the laws that imposed various disabilities on non-anglicans. -before the revolution, most colonies supported religious institutions with public funds and discriminated in voting and officeholding against catholics, jews, and even dissenting protestants. -on the very eve of independence, baptists who refused to pay taxes to support local congregational ministers were still being jailed in massachusetts.
separating church and state
-the drive to separate church and state brought together deists like jefferson, who hoped to erect a "wall of separation" that would free politics and the exercise of the intellect from religious control, with members of evangelical sects, who sought to protect religion from the corrupting embrace of government. -throughout the new nation, states disestablished their established churches—that is, deprived them of public funding and special legal privileges—although in some cases they appropriated money for the general support of protestant denominations. -new york—whose constitution of 1777 established complete religious liberty—kept intact colonial provisions barring jews from voting and holding public office. -massachusetts retained its congregationalist establishment well into the nineteenth century. its new constitution declared church attendance compulsory while guaranteeing freedom of individual worship.
petitions for freedom
-the most insistent advocates of freedom as a universal entitlement were african-americans, who demanded that the leaders of the struggle for independence live up to their self-proclaimed creed. -many slaves ran away from their masters and tried to pass as freeborn. -the number of fugitive-slave advertisements in colonial newspapers rose dramatically in the 1770s and 1780s. -blacks sought to make white americans understand slavery as a concrete reality—the denial of all the essential elements of freedom.
revolutionary women
-the revolutionary generation included numerous women who contributed to the struggle for independence. -deborah sampson, the daughter of a poor massachusetts farmer, disguised herself as a man and in 1782, at age twenty-one, enlisted in the continental army. -a woodcut widely reprinted during the war of independence shows hannah snell, who allegedly joined the british army in 1745 disguised as a man. -other patriotic women participated in crowd actions against merchants accused of seeking profits by holding goods off the market until their prices rose, contributed homespun goods to the army, and passed along information about british army movements -mercy otis warren—the sister of james otis and wife of james warren, a founder of the boston committee of correspondence—was another commentator on politics. she promoted the revolutionary cause in poems and dramas and later published a history of the struggle for independence.
catholic americans
-the war of independence weakened the deep tradition of american anti-catholicism. -a year later, when the second continental congress decided on an ill-fated invasion of canada, it invited the inhabitants of quebec to join in the struggle against britain, assuring them that protestants and catholics could readily cooperate. -in 1778, the united states formed an alliance with france, a catholic nation. but the indispensable assistance provided by france to american victory strengthened the idea that catholics had a role to play in the newly independent nation. -this represented a marked departure from the traditional notion that the full rights of englishmen only applied to protestants.
expanding the political nation
-universal male suffrage, religious toleration, and even the abolition of slavery were discussed not only by the educated elite but by artisans, small farmers, and laborers, now emerging as a self-conscious element in politics. in many colonies-turned-states, the militia, composed largely of members of the "lower orders," became a "school of political democracy." -its members demanded the right to elect all their officers and to vote for public officials whether or not they met age and property qualifications.
the revolution as a borderlands conflict
-when the war ended, as many as 60,000 loyalists were banished from the united states or emigrated voluntarily—mostly to britain, canada, or the west indies—rather than live in an independent united states. -in the treaty of paris of 1783,, americans pledged to end the persecution of loyalists by state and local governments and to restore property seized during the war. -loyalists who did not leave the country were quickly reintegrated into american society, although despite the promise of the treaty of paris, confiscated loyalist property was not returned. -despite rejecting american independence, many loyalists who settled in canada brought with them not only a loyalty to the british crown but also a commitment to self-rule. their ideas would help to inspire rebellions in canada in 1837 that helped close out the age of revolution the american revolt had launched.
slavery and the revolution
-while indians experienced american independence as a real threat to their own liberty, african- americans saw in the ideals of the revolution and the reality of war an opportunity to claim freedom. -when the united states declared its independence in 1776, the slave population had grown to 500,000, about one-fifth of the new nation's inhabitants.
he revolution and the churches
the revolution enhanced the diversity of american christianity and expanded the idea of religious liberty. but even as the separation of church and state created the social and political space that allowed all kinds of religious institutions to flourish, the culture of individual rights of which that separation was a part threatened to undermine church authority.
