Ch.8 Securing the Republic

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa

- A militant message was expounded by two Shawnee brothers - Tecumseh, a chief who had refused to sign the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. Tenskwatawa, a religious prophet who called for complete separation from whites, the revival of traditional Indian culture, and resistance to federal policies. - White people, Tenskwatawa preached, were the source of all evil in the world, and Indians should abandon alcohol, white clothing etc... - Tecumseh meanwhile traversed the Mississippi Valley, pressing the argument that the alternative to Indian resistance was extermination.

Gabriel's Rebellion

- A plot by slaves in Virginia to gain their freedom - Organized by a Richmond blacksmith Gabriel, and his brothers Solomon also a blacksmith, and Martin a slave preacher. - Conspirators planned to march on the city of Richmond - They would kill some whites and hold the rest captive until their demands be met - After the rebellion, the Virginia legislature tightened controls over the black population

Report on Manufactures

- A report delivered to Congress in December 1791, Hamilton called for the imposition of a tariff (tax on imported foreign goods) and government subsidies to encourage the replacement of foreign goods by locally manufactured goods

expedition of Lewis & Clark

- An expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley. - Their objects were both scientific and commercial -- to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and to discover how the region could be exploited economically. - Jefferson hoped the explorers would establish trading relations with western Indians and locate a water route to the Pacific. - They were accompanied by a fifteen year old Shoshone Indian woman, Sacajawea, the wife of a French fur trader, who served as guide and interpreter.

Strict Constructionists

- Because Hamilton insisted that all his plans were authorized by the Constitution's broad "general welfare" clause, many southerners who had supported the new Constitution became strict constitutionalists, who insisted that the federal government could exercise only powers specifically listed in the document. - Jefferson for example believed the new national bank unconstitutional, because the right of Congress to establish a bank was not mentioned in the Constitution.

Pennsylvania Abolition Society

- Benjamin Franklin was elected as the organization's president - The society asked him to bring the matter of slavery to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 - He petitioned the U.S. Congress in 1790 to ban slavery - The Pennsylvania Abolition, which had members and leaders of both races, became a model for anti-slavery organizations in other states during the antebellum (time period preceding war) years.

Whiskey Rebellion

- Broke out in 1794 when backcountry Pennsylvania farmers sought to block collection of the new tax on distilled spirits - The "rebels" invoked the symbols of 1776, displaying liberty poles and banners reading "Liberty or Death." - Washington dispatched 13,000 militiamen to western Pennsylvania - The "rebels" offered no resistance in response

Hartford Convention

- December 1814, a group of New England Federalists gathered at Hartford, CT, to give voice to their party's long standing grievances, especially the domination of the federal government by Virginia presidents and their own region's declining influence as new western states entered the Union. - The Hartford Convention did not call for secession or disunion. But it affirmed the right of a state to "interpose" its authority if the federal gov. violated the Constitution.

Marbury v. Madison

- Decision made under the Marshall Court - referring to Chief Justice Marshall, a federalist - First landmark decision of the Marshall court came in 1803, in the case of Marbury v. Madison - Marshall's decision declared unconstitutional the section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that allowed the courts to order executive officals to deliver judges' commissions. It exceeded the power of congress outlined in Constitution and was therefore void. - The supreme court had assumed the right to determine whether an act of Congress violates the Constitution -- a power known as "judicial review"

alien and sedition acts of 1798

- Federalists moved to silence their critics - A new Naturalization Act allowed the deportation of persons from abroad deemed "dangerous" by federal authorities. - The Sedition Act authorized the prosecution of virtually any public assembly or publication critical of the government - The new law meant that opposition editors could be prosecuted for almost any political comment they printed. The main target was the republican press

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

- In 1792, Mary Wollstoncraft published in England - Wollstoncraft did not directly challenge traditional gender roles - Her call to greater access to education and to paid employment for women rested on the idea that this would enable single women to support themselves and married women to perform more capably as wives and mothers

XYZ affair

- In 1797, John Adams assumed leadership of a divided nation. On the international front, the country was nearly dragged into the ongoing European war. As a neutral nation, the United Staes claimed the right to trade nonmilitary goods with both Britain and France, but both countries seized American ships with impunity - In 1797, American diplomats were sent to Paris to negotiate a treaty to replace the old alliance of 1778. French officals presented them with a demand for bribes before negotiations could proceed. When Adams made public the envoys' dispatches, the French officials were designated by the last three letters of the alphabet. - This XYZ affair poisoned America's relations with its former ally.

Democratic-Republican Societies

- Inspired by the Jacobin clubs of Paris, supporters of the French Revolution and critics of the Washingotn administration in 1793 and 1794 formed nearly 50 democratic republican societies, reflecting the expansion of the public sphere - Federalists saw the societies as another example of how liberty was getting out of hand

Barbary Wars

- Jefferson hoped to avoid foreign entanglements, but he found it impossible as president to avoid being drawn in into the continuing wars of Europe - The Barbary states on the northern coast of Africa had long preyed on shipping in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, receiving tribute from several countries, including the U.S., to protect their vessels. - In 1801, Jefferson refused demands for increased payments, and the pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States - The Barbary Wars were the nations first encounter with the Islamic world. - In the 1790s in an attempt to establish peaceful relations, the federal government declared that the United States was "not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

Bank of the United States

- Modeled after the bank of England - Private corporation rather than a branch of the government, it would hold public funds issue bank notes that would serve as currency, make loans to the government when necessary, and return profit to shareholders

Judith Sargent Murray

- One of the era's most accomplished American women wrote essays for the Massachusetts magazine under the pen name "the gleaner." In her essay, "on the equality of the Sexes," written in 1779 and published - In 1790, Murray insisted that women had as much right as men to exercise all their talents and should be allowed equal educational opportunities to enable them to do so

Jay's Treaty

- Sent to London to present objections, while still serving as chief justice, John Jay negotiated an agreement in 1794 that produced the greatest public controversy of Washington's presidency. - Jay's treaty contained no British concessions on impressment or the rights of American shipping. - Britain did agree to abandon outposts on the western frontier, though it was supposed to have done so in 1783. - In return, the United States guaranteed favored treatment to British imported goods - Critics of the administration charged that it aligned the United States with monarchical Britain in its conflict with republican France. - Ultimately, Jay's treaty sharpened political divisions in the United States and led directly to the formation of an organized opposition party.

Louisiana Purchase

- The greatest irony of Jefferson's presidency and his greatest achievement, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. - This resulted not from astute American diplomacy but because the rebellious slaves of Saint Domingue defreated forces sent by the ruler of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, to reconquer the island. - To purchase Louisiana, Jefferson had to abandon his conviction that the federal government was limited to powers specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

Haitian Revolution

- The same Jeffersonians who hailed the French Revolution as a step in universal progress of liberty reavted in horror at the slave revolution that began in 1791 in Saint Domingue - Toussaint L'Overture, an educated slave on a sugar plantation, forged the rebellious slaves into an army able to defeat British forces - The slave uprising led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation in 1804 - The Haitian Revolution reaffirmed the universality of the revolutionary era's creed of liberty. - It inspired hopes for freedom among slaves in the Unites States

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

- The sedition act thrust freedom of expression to the center of discussion of American liberty - Madison and Jefferson mobilized opposition, drafting resolutions adopted by the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures. - Virginia and Kentucky resolutions strongly reinforced the idea that "freedom of discussion" was an indispensable attribute of American liberty and of democratic government.

Embargo Act

- Warfare between Britain and France resumed in 1803. By 1806, each combatant had declared the other under blockade, seeking to deny trade with America to its rival. - Deciding to use trade as a weapon, in December 1807, Jefferson persuaded Congress to enact the Embargo, a ban on all American vessels sailing for foreign ports. - In 1808, American exports plummeted by 80 percent. Unfortunately, neither Britain nor France took much notice.

Federalists and Republicans

Federalists: - Supporters of the Washington administration, favored Hamilton's economic program and close ties with Britain - Prosperous merchants, farmers, lawyers, and established political leaders (especially outside the south) tended to support the Federalists. - Elitist outlook - reflecting the traditional eighteenth-century view of society as a fixed hierarchy and of public office as reserved for men of economic substance - Freedom, Federalists insisted rested on the deference (humble submission and respect) to authority - Federalists may have been the only major party in American history forthrightly to proclaim democracy and freedom dangerous in the hands of ordinary citizens Republicans: - Led by Madison and Jefferson, more sympathetic to France than the Federalists and had more faith in democratic self government - Drew support from wealthy southern planters and ordinary planters - Republicans were far more critical than the Federalists of social and economic inequality, and more accepting of broad democratic participation as essential to freedom - Federalists denounced Republicans as French agents, anarchists, and traitors. - Republicans called their opponents monarchists intent on transforming the new national government into a corrupt, British style aristocracy.

impressments

Practice of kidnapping sailors, including American citizens of British origin during the French Revolution against British to serve in the British navy