history exam 2

Midnight Judges

217 government workers lay beyond Jefferson's command, all judicial and military appointments made by John Adams as his very last-minute in office. Jefferson refused to honor those "midnight judges" whose hires whose hires had not yet been fully processed. One disappointed job seeker, William Marbury, sued the new secretary of state for failure to make good on the appointment. This led to the landmark case of Marbury vs. Madison

Philadelphia/ Constitutional Convention

55 men who assembled at Philadelphia in May 1787 for the constitutional convention were generally those who had already concluded that there were serious weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation. Some powerful leaders did not attend the convention.

Joseph Brant

A young mohawk leader Thayendanegea traveled to England in 1775 to complain to King George about land-hungry New York settlers. Brant pledged Indian support for the king in exchange for protection from encroaching settlers. In the Ohio Country, parts of the Shawnee and Delaware tribes started out pro-American but shifted to the British side by 1779 in the face of repeated betrayals by American settlers and soldiers.

Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams wanted independence and other changes that would revolutionize the new country. She send many letters to her husband giving advice to him. She worried that southern slave owners might shrink from a war in the name of liberty. She expressed to him to remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.Her chief concern was husbands' legal domination over wives.

Three-Fifths Clause

All free persons plus "three-fifths of all other persons" constituted the numerical base for the apportionment of representatives.

Bill of Rights

An important piece of business for the First Congress, meeting in 1789, was the passage of the Bill of Rights. Seven states had ratified the Constitution with the strong expectation that their concerns about individual liberties and limitations to federal power would be addressed through the amendment process. In September of 1789, Congress approved a set of twelve amendments and sent them to the states for approval; by 1791, ten were eventually ratified. The first through eighth dealt with individual liberties, and the ninth and tenth concerned the boundary between federal and state authority. Congress never considered proposals to change structural features of the new government, and Madison had no intention of reopening debates about the length of the president's term or the power to levy excise taxes.

John C. Calhoun

Another War Hawk and a 29 year old from South Carolina. Calhoun won a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Hartford Convention

Antiwar Federalists in New England could not gloat over the war's ambiguous conclusion because of an ill-timed and seemingly unpatriotic move on their part. The region's leaders had convened a secret meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, in December 1814 to discuss a series of proposals aimed at reducing the South's power and breaking Virginia's lock on the presidency. They proposed abolishing the Constitution's three-fifths clause as a basis of representation; requiring a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority for imposing embargoes, admitting states, or declaring war; limiting the president to one term; and prohibiting the election of successive presidents from the same state. They even discussed secession from the Union but rejected that path. Coming just as peace was achieved, however, the Hartford Convention looked very unpatriotic.

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa

Brothers in the Shawnee tribe. A part of Tecumseh's message was the assertion that all Indian lands were held in common by all the tribes. "No tribe has the right to sell [these lands], even to each other, much less to strangers." Tecumseh said, "Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" When Tecumseh returned from his recruiting trip he was furious with both Harrison and the tribal leaders. Leaving his brother in charge of Prophetstown on the Tippecanoe River, the Shawnee chief left to seek alliances with the tribes in the south. The Americans won the battle of Tippecanoe, but Tecumseh was now more ready than ever to make war on the United States.

Federalists and Republicans

By the mid-1790s, polarization over Hamilton's economic program, the French Revolution, Haiti, and most crucially the Jay Treaty had led to two distinct and consistent rival political groups: Federalists and Republicans. Federalist leaders supported Britain in foreign policy and commercial interests at home, while Republicans rooted for liberty in France and worried about monarchial Federalists at home. The labels did not yet describe full-fledged political parties; such division was still thought to be a sign of failure of the experiment in government. Yet newspapers increasingly backed one group or the other; party lines were never drawn.

Alexander Hamilton

Collaborated with James Madison and John Jay for the federalist papers. Was also the first secretary of treasure.

Marbury vs. Madison

Decided in 1803, the court ruled that although Marbury's commission was valid and the new president should have delivered it, the court could not compel him to do so. What made this significant was little noted at the time: The court found that the grounds of Marbury's suit, resting in the Judiciary Act of 1789, were in conflict with the Constitution. For the first time, the court disallowed a federal law on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

George Washington

Elected in February 1789 by a unanimous vote of the electoral college. Washington was the first president of the United States. Washington perfectly embodied the republican ideal of disinterested, public-spirited leadership. Indeed he cultivated that image through astute ceremonies such as the dramatic surrender of his sword to the Continental Congress at the end of the war, symbolizing the subservience of military power to the law. Henry Knox was his Department of War, Treasury was Alexander Hamilton, State Department was Thomas Jefferson, Attorney General was Edmund Randolph, and Chief Justice was John Jay.

Barbary Wars

For well over a century, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, called the Barbary States by the Americans, controlled all Mediterranean shipping traffic by demanding large annual payments for safe passage. Countries that did not pay ran the risk of seizure. In the 1790s some hundred American crew members were taken captive and held in slavery, the United States agreed to pay $50,000 a year in tribute. In May 1801, when the monarch of Tripoli failed to secure a large increase in his tribute, he declared war on the United States. From 1801 to 1803, U.S. frigates engaged in skirmishes with north African privateers. In 1805 the United States and the monarch of Tripoli negotiated a treaty. Periodic attacks by by Algiers and Tunis continued to happen in Jefferson's second term in office. The Second Barbary War ended in 1815 when a hero of 1804 , Stephen Decatur, now a captain, arrived on the northern coast of Africa with a fleet of twenty-seven ships.

XYZ Affair and Quasi-War

French privateers- armed private vessels- started detaining American ships carrying British goods; by March 1797, more than three hundred American vessels had been seized. To avenge these insults, Federalists started murmuring openly about war with France. Adams preferred negotiations and dispatched a three-man commission to France in the fall of 1797. But at the same time, he asked Congress to approve expenditures on increased naval defense. When the three American commissioners arrived in Paris, French officials would not receive them. Finally, the French minister of foreign affairs sent three French agents, later known as X, Y, and Z, to the Americans commissioners with the information that $25,000 might grease the wheels of diplomacy and that a $12 million loan to the French government would be the price of a peace treaty. Americans reacted to the XYZ affair with shock and anger. The Federalist-dominated Congress appropriated money for an army of ten thousand soldiers and repealed all prior treaties with France. In 1798, twenty naval warships launched the United States into its first undeclared war called the Quasi-War by historians to underscore its uncertain legal status. The main scene of action was the Caribbean, where no more than one hundred French ships were captured.

Hamilton's Economic Policies

Hamilton wanted to solidify the government's economic base by improving agriculture, transportation, and banking. Dramatic increases in international grain prices motivated American farmers to boost agricultural production for the export trade. From the Connecticut River Valley to the Chesapeake, farmers planted more wheat, generating new jobs for millers, coopers, dockworkers, and shipbuilders. Cotton production also boomed with Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin. Cotton production soared, giving a boost to transatlantic trade with Britain, whose factories eagerly processed the raw cotton into cloth. Road building also simulated the economy. Before 1790, one road connected Maine to Georgia, but with the establishment of the U.S Post Office in 1792, road mileage increased sixfold. Private companies also built toll roads, such as the Lancaster Turnpike, the Boston-to-Albany turnpike, and third road from Virginia to Tennessee. In 1790, Boston had only three stagecoach companies; by 1800, there were twenty-four. The third development was commercial banking. During the 1790s, the number of banks nationwide multiplied tenfold, from three to twenty-nine in 1800. Banks drew in money chiefly through the sale of stock. They then made loans in the form of banknotes, paper currency backed by the gold and silver from stock sales. The U.S population expanded along with economic development, propelled by large average family size and better than adequate food and land resources. A measured by the first two federal consensus in 1790 and 1800, the population grew from 3.9 million to 5.3 million, an increase of 35 percent.

Whiskey Rebellion

Hamilton's plan to restore public credit required new taxation to pay the interest on the large national debt. In deference to the merchant class, Hamilton did not propose a general increase in import duties, nor did he propose land taxes, which would have fallen hardest on the nation's wealthiest landowners. Instead, he convinced congress in 1791 to pass a 25 percent excise tax on whiskey, to be paid by farmers bringing grain to the distillery and then passed on to the whiskey consumers in higher prices. Members of congress from eastern states favored the tax because their favorite drink was rum. A New Hampshire representative observed that the country would be "drinking down the national debt." Hamilton had one ally named John Neville who refused to quit even after a group of spirited farmers burned him in effigy. In May 1794, Neville filed charges against seventy-five farmers and distillers for tax invasion.

Impressment

In 1803, France and Britain went to war, and both repeatedly warned the United States not to ship arms to the other. Britain acted on these threats in 1806, stopping U.S ships to inspect cargoes for military aid to France and seizing suspected deserters from the British navy, along with many Americans. Ultimately 2,500 sailors were taken by force by the British, who needed them for their war with France. In retaliation Jefferson convinced congress to pass a nonimportation law banning particular British-made goods.

Missouri Compromise

In February 1819, Missouri applied for statehood. Since 1815, four other states joined the Union. But Missouri posed a problem. Although much of its area was on the same latitude as the free state of Illinois, its territorial population included ten thousand slaves. New York Congressman James Tallmadge Jr. proposed two amendments. First, slaves born in Missouri after statehood would be free at the age of 25 and the second declared that no new slaves could be imported into the state. In 1820, a compromise emerged. Maine applied for statehood as a free state, balancing against Missouri- latitude 36 degrees 30'- extended west, would become the permanent line dividing slave from free states, guaranteeing the North a large area where slavery was banned.

Shays's Rebellion

In January 1787, the insurgents learned of the private army marching west from Boston, and 1,500 of them moved swiftly to capture a federal armory in Springfield to obtain weapons. But the militia band loyal to the state government beat them to the weapons facility and met their attack with gunfire; 4 rebels were killed and another 20 wounded. The final and bloodless encounter came at Petersham, where Bowdoin's army surprised the rebels and took several hundred of them prisoner. 2 men were executed for rebellion, 16 more sentenced to hang were reprieved at the last moment. Some 4,000 men gained leniency by confessing their misconduct and swearing an oath of allegiance to the state. Shays's rebellion caused leaders throughout the country to worry about the confederation's ability to handle civil disorder.

Embargo Act

In June 1807, the American ship Chesapeake, harboring some British deserters, was ordered to stop by the British frigate Leopard. When the Chesapeake refused, the Leopard opened with fire, killing three Americans. In response, Congress passed the Embargo Act, prohibiting U.S ships from traveling to all foreign ports, a measure that brought a swift halt to all overseas trade carried in American vessels. The embargo act was a disaster. From 1790 to1807, U.S exports had increased fivefold, but the embargo brought commerce to a standstill.

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation

In November 1775, Dunmore issued an official proclamation promising freedom to defecting able-bodied slaves who would fight for the British. Dunmore had no intention of liberating all slaves, and astute blacks noticed that Dunmore neglected to free his own slaves. Within a month some fifteen hundred slaves had joined Dunmore's "Ethiopian Regiment."

Haitian Revolution

In addition to the Indian troubles and the Europeans war across the Atlantic, another bloody conflict to the south polarized and even terrorized many Americans in the 1790s. The French colony of St. Domingue, in the western third of the large Caribbean island of Hispaniola, became engulfed in revolution starting in 1791. Bloody war raged for more than a decade, resulting in 1804 in the birth of the Republic of Haiti, the first and only independent black state to arise out of a successful slave revolution. The Haitian Revolution was a complex event involving many participants, including the diverse local population and, eventually, three European countries. Some 30,000 whites dominated the island in 1790, running sugar and coffee plantations with close to a half a million blacks, two-thirds of them African birth. About 28,000 free mixed-race people owned one-third of the island's plantations and nearly a quarter of the slave labor force. Despite their economic status, these mixed-race planters were barred from political power, but they aspired to it.

Alien and Sedition Acts

In mid 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act, which not only made conspiracy and revolt illegal but also criminalized any speech or words that defamed the president or Congress. In all, twenty-five men, almost all Republican newspaper editors, were charged with Sedition; twelve were convicted. Congress also passed two Alien acts. The first extended the waiting period for an alien to achieve citizenship from five to fourteen years and required all aliens to register with the federal government. The second empowered the president in time of war to deport or imprison without trial any foreigner suspected of being a danger to the United States. The clear intent of these laws was to harass the French immigrants already in the United States and to discourage any others from coming. Republicans strongly opposed these acts because they conflicted with the Bill of Rights, but they did not have the votes to revoke the acts in Congress, nor could the federal judiciary be counted on to challenge them.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

Jefferson quickly launched four government-financed expeditions up the river valleys of the new territory to establish relationships with Indian tribes and to determine Spanish influence and presence. In 1804 Jefferson appointed 28 year old Meriwether Lewis, his secretary, to head the expedition and instructed him to investigate Indian cultures, to collect plant and animal specimens, and to chart the geography of the West. For his co-leader he chose William Clark. With their crew they worked up the Missouri river up into modern day North Dakota. Along the way they ran into Sacajawea. She served to them as an interpreter. Lewis wrote in his journal, "No woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter." When the two leaders returned home they were greeted as national heroes. They had established favorable relations with dozens of Indian tribes; they had collected invaluable information on the peoples, soil, plants, animals, and geography; and they had inspired a nation of restless explorers and solitary imitators.

"Revolution of 1800"

Jefferson ran for president in 1800 and said it wold produce a bloody civil war. He referred his election the "revolution of 1800" because of his repudiation of Federalist practices and his cutbacks in military spending and taxes. While he cherished a republican simplicity of governance, he inevitably encountered events that required decisive and sometimes expensive government action, including military action overseas to protect American shipping.

Election of 1824/"Corrupt Bargain"

John Quincy Adams was ambitious for the presidency. Henry Clay, Speaker of the House, ran for president. Treasurer William Crawford was a favorite of Republicans from Virginia and New York. Crawford suffered from a stroke and had to withdraw from running for president. A southern planter named John Calhoun was another serious contender. The final candidate was General Andrew Jackson from Tennessee. Jackson had far less national political experience than the others, but he enjoyed great celebrity from his military career. Eighteen states had put their votes into the members of the electoral college, making the election of 1824 the first one to have a popular vote tally for the presidency. Jackson proved by far to be the most popular candidate, winning 153,544 votes. Adams was second with 108,740. In the electoral college, Jackson received 99 votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. Jackson lacked the majority so the House stepped in for the second time in U.S history. In the end Adams won by one vote and Jackson's supporters later characterized the election of 1824 as the "corrupt bargain."

Patriots and Loyalists

Loyalists were those who remained loyal to the king. About one fifth of the American population remained loyal to the crown in 1776, and another two fifths tried to stay neutral, providing a strong base for the British. Loyalists believed that social stability depended on a government anchored by monarchy and aristocracy. They feared that democratic tyranny was emergent among the self-styled patriots who appeared to be unscrupulous, violent men grabbing power for themselves. Patriots were those who apposed the crown and sought for independence.

New Jersey Plan

Maintained the existing single-house congress of the Articles of Confederation in which each state had one vote. Acknowledging the need for an executive, it created a plural presidency to be shared by three men elected by the congress from among its membership. Where it sharply departed from the existing government was in the sweeping powers it gave to the new congress: the right to tax, regulate trade, and use force on unruly state governments. In favoring national power over states' rights, it aligned itself with the Virginia Plan. But the New Jersey Plan retained the confederation principle that the national government was to be an assembly of states, not of people.

John Jay

New York lawyer that helped with the federalist papers.

Declaration of Independence

On July 4th 1776, the amendments to Jefferson's text were complete and congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. In August delegates gathered to sign the official parchment copy. According to John Adams four men declined to sign, several others signed with regret, and many with doubts. The document was then printed, widely distributed, and read aloud in celebrations everywhere.

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley had already gained international recognition through a book of poems published in London in 1773. Wheatley's poems spoke of "Fair Freedom" as the "Goddess long desir'd" by Africans enslaved in America. Wheatley's master freed the young poet in 1775.

Republicanism vs. Democracy

Pure democracy was now taken to be a dangerous thing. As a Massachusetts delegate put it, "The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy." The delegates still favored republican institutions, but they created a government that gave direct voice to the people only in the House and that granted a check on that voice to the Senate, a body of men elected not by direct popular vote but by the state legislatures.

Northwest Ordinance

Set forth a three-stage process by which settled territories would advance to statehood. First, the congress would appoint officials for a sparsely populated territory who would adopt a legal code and appoint local magistrates to administer justice. When the male population of voting age and landowning status reached 5,000 the territory could elect its own legislature and send a nonvoting delegate to the congress. When the population of voting citizens reached 60,000, the territory could write a state constitution and apply for full admission to the union. At all three territorial stages, the inhabitants were subject to taxation to support the union, in the same manner as were the original states. This was probably the most important legislation passed by the confederation government. It ensured that the new United States, so recently released from colonial dependency, would not itself become a colonial power- at least not with respect to white citizens. The mechanism it established allowed for the orderly expansion of the United States across the continent in the next century.

Virginia Plan

Set out a three-branch government composed of a two-chamber legislature, a powerful executive, and a judiciary. It practically eliminated the voices of the smaller states by pegging representation in both houses of the congress to population. The theory was that government operated directly on people, not on states.

Boston King

South Carolinian Boston King, a refugee in New York City, recalled that the provision prohibiting evacuation of black refugees "filled us with inexpressible anguish and terror." King and others pressed the British commander in New York, Sir Guy Carleton, to honor pre-treaty British promises. Carleton obliged: For all refugees under British protection for more than a year, he issued certificates of freedom- making them no longer "property" to be returned. Boston King and his family fled to Nova Scotia after that.

Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation proved to be surprisingly difficult to implement, mainly because the thirteen states disagreed over boundaries in the land to the west of the states. Once the Articles were ratified and the active phase of the war had drawn to a close, the congress faded in importance compared with politics in the individual states.

War of 1812

The Indian conflicts in the old Northwest soon merged into the wilder conflict with Britain, known as the War of 1812. Between 1809 and 1812, Madison teetered between declaring either Britain of France America's primary enemy, as attacks by both countries on U.S ships continued. In 1809, Congress replaced Jefferson's embargo act with the Non-Intercourse Act, which prohibited trade only with Britain and France and their colonies, thus opening up other trade routes to alleviate the economic distress of American shippers, farmers, and planters. In June 1812, Congress declared war on Great Britain in a vote divided along sectional lines: New England and some other middle states opposed the war knowing what the negative effects on commerce it would have, while the south and the west strongly favored it. Ironically, Britain just announced that it would stop the search and seizure of American ships, but the war momentum would not be slowed. In late 1812 and early 1813, the tide began to turn in the American's favor. First came some victories at sea. Then the Americans attacked York and burned it in 1813. A few months later, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet at the western end of Lake Erie.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions tested the novel argument that state legislatures have the right to judge and even nullify the constitutionality of federal laws, bold claims that held risk that one or both men could be accused of Sedition. The resolutions in fact made little dent in the Alien and Sedition Acts, but the idea of a state's right to nullify federal law did not disappear. It would resurface several times in decades to come, most notably in a major tariff dispute in 1832 and in the sectional arguments that led to the Civil War.

Electoral College

The delegates devised an electoral college whose only function was to elect the president and the vice president. Each state's legislature would choose the electors, whose number was the sum of representatives and senators for the state, an interesting blending of the two principles of representation. The president thus would owe his office not to the congress, the states, or the people, but to a temporary assemblage of distinguished citizens who could vote their own judgement on the candidates. His term office was for four years, but he could be reelected without limitation.

Aaron Burr

The election of 1800 was significant because it was the first election decided by the House of Representatives. The electoral college gave Jefferson and Burr an equal number of votes. That meant that the House had to choose between those two men, leaving the Federalist John Adams out of the race. Thirty-six ballots and six days later, Jefferson got the votes he needed to win the presidency. This election demonstrated a remarkable feature of the new government: No matter how hard fought the campaign, the leadership of the nation could shift from one group to its rivals in a peaceful transfer of power.

War Hawks

The new Congress seated in March 1811 contained several dozen young Republicans from the west and south who would become known as the War Hawks. Led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, they welcomed a war with Britain both to justify attacks on the Indians and to bring an end to impressment. The War Hawks approved major defense expenditures, and the army soon quadrupled in size. The War Hawks proposed an invasion of Canada, confidently predicting victory in four weeks. Instead it lasted two and a half years, and Canada never fell.

Federalists and Anti-Federalists

The pro-Constitution forces called themselves the federalists. Their opponent was the anti-federalists, a label that made them sound defensive and negative, lacking a program of their own. To gain momentum federalists targeted the states most likely to ratify quickly. This gave them an advantage over the anti-federalists. Many people amongst the federalists were merchants, lawyers, and urban artisans. The anti-federalists were a composite group and wanted to block the Constitution. Much of their strength came from backcountry area long suspicious of eastern elites, many anti-federalists came from the same background as federalists. Anti-federalists drew strength in states that were already on sure economic footing like New York. But by the time the eight states had ratified the Constitution, the anti-federalists were at a disadvantage. In the end New Hampshire provided the ninth vote for ratification on June 21st, 1788.

First Bank of the United States

The second and third major elements of Hamilton's economic plan were his proposal to create a national Bank of the United States and his program to encourage domestic manufacturing. According to Hamilton's plan, the central bank was to be capitalized at $10 million, a sum larger than all the hard money in the entire nation. The federal government would hold 20 percent of the bank's stock, making the bank in effect the government's fiscal agent, holding its revenues derived from import duties, land sales, and various other taxes. The other 80 percent of the bank's capital would come from private investors , who would buy stock in the bank with either hard money or the recently funded and thus sound federal securities. The central bank would help stabilize the economy by exerting prudent control over credit, interest rates, and the value of the currency. When the bank's privately help stock went on sale, it sold out in a few hours, touching off a lively period of speculative trading by hundreds of urban merchants and artisans.

Louisiana Purchase

The spanish had originally owned New Orleans and St. Louis and hoped to have a Spanish-Indian alliance to halt the expected demographic wave, but defending many hundreds of miles along the Mississippi River against Americans on the move was a daunting prospect. In 1800 Spain agreed to give this land to France in a secret deal. The French emperor Napoleon accepted the transfer and agreed to Spain's condition that France could not sell Louisiana to anyone without Spain's permission. Jefferson instructed Robert Livingston, America's minister in France, to try to buy New Orleans. The French negotiator asked him to name his price for the entire Louisiana Territory from the Gulf of Mexico north to Canada. Livingston shrewdly stalled and within days accepted the bargain price of $15 million. In late 1803, the American army took formal control over the Louisiana Territory, and the United States nearly doubled in size- at least on paper.

Report on Manufactures

The third component of Hamilton's plan was issued in December 1791. It was a proposal to encourage the production of American-made goods. Domestic manufacturing was in its infancy, and hamilton aimed to mobilize the new powers of the federal government to grant subsidies to manufactures and to impose modern tariffs on those same products from overseas. Hamilton's plan targeted manufacturing or iron goods, arms and ammunition, coal, textiles, wood products, and glass. He opened opportunities for children and unmarried young women. The report on manufactures was never approved by congress, and indeed never even voted on. Many confirmed agriculturists feared that manufacturing was a curse rather than a blessing.

Northwest Territory

Thomas Jefferson proposed dividing the territory north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River into nine states with evenly spaced east-west boundaries and townships ten miles square. He even advocated giving, not selling, the land to settlers, because future property taxes on the improved land would be payment enough. Jefferson's aim was to encourage rapid and democratic settlement and to discourage land speculation. Jefferson projected representative governments in the new states; they would not become colonies of the older states. Finally, Jefferson's draft prohibited slavery in the nine new states.

Thomas Paine and Common Sense

Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense to lay out a lively and compelling case for complete independence. Paine elaborated on the absurdities of the British monarchy. Paine basically called the king an ass and advocated republican government based on the consent of the people. Rulers were only representatives of the people, and the best form of government relied on frequent elections to achieve the most direct democracy possible. Paine's pamphlet sold more than 150,000 copies in weeks. Many people passed it around and read it to others.

William Henry Harrison

Up to 1805, Indiana's territorial governor, WHH, had negotiated a series of treaties in a divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at extracting Indian lands for paltry payments. But with the rise of power of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, Harrison's strategy failed. In 1809, while Tecumseh was away on a recruiting trip, Harrison assembled the leaders of the Potawatomi, Miami, and Delaware tribes to negotiate the Treaty of Fort Wayne. After falsely promising that this was the last cession of land the United States would seek, Harrison secured three million acres at about two cents per acre. In November 1811, Harrison decided to attack Prophetstown with a thousand men.

Henry Clay

Was a War Hawk and a 34 year old from Kentucky. Clay was elected Speaker of the House, which was an extraordinary honor for a newcomer.

Battle of Tippecanoe

Was a battle between the Americans and the Indians. William Henry Harrison ordered his men to attack Prophetstown. The two-hour battle resulted in the deaths of sixty-two Americans and forty Indians before the Prophet's forces fled. It was a battle over land dispute and the Indians didn't want to do what WHH wanted so he did what everyone else did and fought them for it.

James Madison

Was a federalist that was most responsible for The Federalist Papers.

The Federalist Papers

Was a group of essays brilliantly set out the failures of the Articles of Confederation and offered an analysis of the complex nature of the Federalist position. Probably the most important one was Federalist paper 10, which Madison challenged the Anti-federalists' heartfelt conviction that republican government had to be small-scale.

Jay's Treaty

Washington tapped John Jay to negotiate commercial relationships in the British West Indies and secure compensation for the seized American ships. Jay was also directed to address southerners' demands to end the British occupation of frontier forts and their continuing involvement in the northwest fur trade. Jay returned from his diplomatic mission with a treaty that no one could love. First, the Jay Treaty completely failed to address the captured cargoes or the lost property in slaves. Second, it granted the British a lenient eighteen months to withdraw from the frontier forts. Finally, the treaty called for a repayment with interest if the debts that some American planters still owed to British firms dating from the Revolutionary War. In exchanging for such generous terms, Jay secured limited trading rights in the West Indies and agreement that some issues would be decided later by arbitration commissions.