US history to 1865 - Chapter 8

James Madison

He and the Virginians convinced the confederation congress to allow a September 1786 meeting of delegates at Annapolis, Maryland, to try again to revise the trade regulation powers of the Articles. "Father of the Constitution;" he was responsible for drafting most of the language of the Constitution.He had a keen sense of governmental structure and how to frame these ideals in a workable statute that would maintain efficacy. He wrote a series of Federalist Papers which help to explain the reason and rationale of the Constitution.

Luther Martin

A lawyer; a member of the Continental Congress. Like many delegates to the Continental Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, he was concerned that states might lose their individual rights and that the federal government was becoming a strong central government. Ultimately, he refused to sign the Constitution because he thought it gave too much power to the federal level. He successfully defended many famous cases, including Aaron Burr for treason and Samuel Chase for impeachment. He wrote about his opposition to strong central government. He died in poverty.

Iroquois Confederacy

A league of six Indian tribes; the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Banded together to survive European influence, changing weather and to stop the inner tribal wars. Hienwatha is given credit for convincing the five tribes to form together.

constitutional convention

55 men assembled at Philadelphia in May 1787. They had already concluded that there were weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation. Few attended who were opposed to revising the articles., A meeting held in 1787 to consider changes to the Articles of Confederation; 1787 meeting at which the U.S. Constitution was created.

Newburgh Conspiracy

A plot hatched in 1783 by officers in the Continental Army to oust Congress in a coup and set up a military dictatorship. The country's first and only instance of a threatened military coup. Army to Congress to demand its pay.

Alexander Hamilton

A representative at the Annapolis meeting who had the most ambitious plans. He is of New York. He hoped the Philadelphia meeting would do whatever was necessary to strengthen the federal government. First Secretary of the Treasury. He advocated creation of a national bank, assumption of state debts by the federal government, and a tariff system to pay off the national debt. He died in a shootout dual with Aaron Burr.

Democracy

A government by the rule of the many. A system of government in which the people have the power to rule, either directly or indirectly, through their elected representatives. The framers of the Constitution created a government that curbed the dangers of democracy that they perceived.

gradual emancipation

A law that Pennsylvania's legislature enacted in 1780, providing that infants born to a slave mother on or after March 1, 1780, would be freed at age twenty-eight. A method of abolishing slavery slowly so that the transition from a slave to a wage labor system is less disruptive.

Land Ordinance of 1785

A law that divided much of the United States into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers. It called for three to five states, divided into townships six miles square, further divided into thirty-six sections of 640 acres, each section enough for four family farms. Property was thus reduced to easily mappable squares. An ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of Lands in the Western Territory.

Virginia plan

A total repudiation of the principle of a confederation of states. Largely the work of Madison, the plan set out a three-branch government composed of a two-chamber legislature, a powerful executive, and a judiciary. A plan at the constitutional convention to base representation in the legislature on population.

requisition

Act of ordering or demanding something; to make a request or demand

The Constitution Art. 5

Amendment

impost

An import tax; in 1781 and 1786, Morris led an effort to amend the Articles to allow the government to collect a 5 percent impost, yet each time it failed by one vote.

Article VII

Appointment of military officers

Article XIII

Articles are Supreme Law, amendment

New Jersey Plan

Delegates from New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and New Hampshire - all small states - unveiled this alternative proposal. It maintained the existing single-house congress of the Articles of Confederation in which each state had one vote. It gave sweeping powers to the New Congress: the right to tax, regulate trade, and use force on unruly state governments. It retained the confederation principle that the national government was to be an assembly of states, not of people.

The Federalist Papers

Essays initially published in the New York newspapers that brilliantly set out the failures of the Articles of Confederation and offered an analysis of the complex nature of the Federalist position. A series of eighty-five political essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in support of ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Amendment 1

Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

Republicanism

Political writers in the late 1770s embraced the concept of _______ as the underpinning of the new governments. The belief that the unworkable model of European-style monarchy should be replaced with a form of government in which supreme power resides in the hands of citizens with the right to vote and is exercised by a representative government answerable to this electorate.

Amendment 10

Powers of the States and People

Federalists

Pro-constitution forces. A term used to describe supporters of the Constitution during ratification debates in state legislatures. Constitution supporters; they argued that the government of the Constitution would correct the defects of the Articles, and the power to forge a secure and prosperous union.

Amendment 3

Quartering of Soldiers

The Constitution. Art. 7

Ratification

Amendment 2

Right to Bear Arms

Amendment 6

Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses

Article VI

Rights denied the States; No state shall send an embassy or receive any embassy from or enter into any agreement, treaty, etc. with any state.

Article IX

Rights granted the Federal Government

Amendment 4

Search and Seizure

Article X

The committee of the states, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States, in Congress assembled, by the consent of the nine states.

Great Compromise

In mid-July, ___________ broke the stalemate and produced the basic structural features of the emerging United States Constitution. It agreed on a bicameral legislature; provided two senators who voted independently. A decision made during the Constitutional Convention to give each state the same number of representatives in the Senate regardless of size; representation in the House was determined by population.

Amendments

In their effort to gain Antifederalists' support for the Constitution, Federalists frequently pointed to the inclusion of Article 5, which provides an orderly method of amending the Constitution. In contrast, the Articles of Confederation offered no means of amendment.

Shay's Rebellion

It caused leaders throughout the country to worry about the confederation's ability to handle civil disorder; 1786 revolt by Massachusetts farmers seeking relief from debt and foreclosure that was a factor in the calling of the Constitutional Convention. Daniel Shays, a farmer, led the rebellion.

Article IV

Laws of other states to be abided; extradition; full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings.

Article III

Mutual defense; "a firm league of friendship with each other for common defense and the security of their liberties."

Amendment 5

Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings

Amendment 7

Trial by Jury in Civil Cases

Article VIII

United States to pay for defense; taxes

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Republic

______ is a form of government in which power resides in the people. In modern times, the definition of a ______ is also commonly limited to a government which excludes a monarch. It is a form of government in which the people select representatives to govern them and make laws.

Robert Morris

a Philadelphia merchant with a gift for financial dealings, who was the government's superintendent of finance. In 1781 and 1786, he led an effort to amend the Articles to allow the government to collect a 5% impost (an import tax), yet each time it failed by one vote.

three-fifths clause

a clause in the Constitution, no longer in effect, that provided for counting each slave as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation and taxation.

Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett)

a female Massachusetts slave who was the first to win freedom in a Massachusetts court, basing her case on the just-passed state constitution that declared "all men born free and equal." , Enslaved African American who won her freedom in court.

bills of rights

lists of basic individual liberties that government could not abridge. Virginia passed the first bill of rights in June 1776, and many of the other states borrowed from it. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, which guarantee freedom of speech, religion, and other basic rights; drafted in response to some of the Anti-Federalist concerns.

Northwest Territory

territory north of the Ohio river and east of the Mississippi; nine new states with evenly spaced east-west boundaries and townships ten miles square.

...passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 as a means of administering the Old Northwest Territory. They hoped the sale of the western lands would bring money into a cash starved government. They stipulated grants of land to certain officers and soldiers of the late Continental army.. for complying with such engagements.

Congress

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union

Congress agreed to this Nov. 15, 1777. Ratified March 1781. Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. Congress was also given the authority to make treaties and alliances, maintain armed forces and coin money. However, the central government lacked the ability to levy taxes and regulate commerce, issues that led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 for the creation of new federal laws.

Amendment 9

Construction of Constitution; the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 8

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The Constitution Art. 6

Debts, Supremacy, Oaths

The Constitution Art. 4

The States

Treaty of Fort Stanwix

1784; U.S. commissioners used military threats to force Pro-Brit. Iroquois tribe peoples to take much of their land in N.Y. First treaty between the United States and an Indian nation, granting the Ohio territory.

United States Constitution

1787 - Continental Congress made a constitution after Articles of Confederation failed; It included a central government divided into three branches (president, Senate, House of Representatives, and Supreme Court) and controlled by checks and balances. The Bill of Rights were ten amendments to the new constitution that guaranteed rights of freedom to citizens; made a national gov't that controlled taxes, army, trade, and currency. It was intended as a moral and philosophical statement; it's more than a governing document.

Article XII

Assumption of debt

Article XI

Canada may join the United States

Article II

States Rights; "every state shall retain its sovereignty, freedom and independence."

Article I

Style; The style of the Confederacy - "The United States of America."

Articles of Confederation

The Continental Congress worked out a plan of government that embodied Revolutionary principles: the Articles of Confederation. It proved to be surprisingly difficult to implement, mainly because the thirteen states disagreed over boundaries in the land to the west of the states. The document was limited because states held most of the power, and Congress lacked the power to tax, regulate trade, or control coinage.

The Constitution. Art. 2

The Executive Branch

The Constitution Art. 3

The Judicial Branch

The Constitution Art. 1

The Legislative Branch

Article V

The Legislature

Antifederalists

The opponents of the Federalists; a composite group, united mainly in their desire to block the Constitution. Their biggest appeal lay in the long-nurtured fear that distant power may infringe on people's liberties. They feared a strong central government.

Northwest Ordinance

The third land act - 1787. It set forth a three-stage process by which settled territories would advance to statehood. The inhabitants were subject to taxation to support the Union, in the same manner as were the original states. The most important legislation passed by the confederation government. It ensured that the Unites States, recently released from colonial dependency, would not itself become a colonial power. It allowed for the successful and orderly expansion of the United States across the continent in the next century.