unit 1: the declaration of independence and the articles of confederation
march 1765- the stamp act
Although Great Britain won the French and Indian War, the conflict resulted in large debt that the country was unsure how to pay. British Parliament and the monarchy decided that the colonies should help pay the war debt. The Stamp Act of 1765 was one of Britain's first measures meant to help offset the costs. This act taxed all paper goods, including newspapers and legal documents, by requiring that printers use stamped paper produced in Great Britain. Imagine buying a newspaper and finding that the price has increased because the paper on which it was printed needed a special watermark, or stamp. You would understandably be upset. Many American colonists thought the tax was unfair because they had no representation in Parliament and therefore no say in the levying of taxes. After months of fiery protest, the British government repealed the hated Stamp Act.
march 5, 1770- the boston massacre
"Murders, blood, and carnage / shall crimson these streets." —Mercy Otis Warren, The Adulateur (1772) As tensions rose during the revolutionary period, Boston became the center of colonial resistance. In response, the British sent troops to the area in an attempt to keep order. The soldiers were not paid well and often had to look for additional work to make ends meet. These conditions added stress to the local economy, and many colonists resented the soldiers for taking jobs that could have been filled by colonists. In 1770, a group of civilians started harassing a group of soldiers outside of the Old State House. Colonists began throwing objects, and in the confusion, the soldiers fired into the crowd, killing five people. This incident became known as the Boston Massacre. In the days following the incident, little justice came for the colonists, although the local government charged the British soldiers, and the event became a rallying call against British occupation.
Declaring Independence
Between 1500 and 1775, Great Britain gathered the rich and numerous resources of the New World. After jockeying with other Western European nations for control of land in the New World, Great Britain found itself in control of lucrative colonies up and down the Atlantic coast of North America. Some British citizens who traveled to the New World sought to escape persecution, to become wealthy, or to gain favor with Britain's monarchy. As the decades passed, friction began to develop between the British government and its North American colonies. The biggest problems came from deciding how much power British Parliament should have over the colonies. American colonists couldn't elect members to British Parliament. Because they had no representative in the British government, many colonists thought they shouldn't have to pay taxes to Britain. By the summer of 1776, the American colonists had experienced more than 10 years of worsening tension with Great Britain. The conflict had turned violent six years earlier, resulting in the Boston Massacre, and outright warfare began in the spring of 1775. The delegates to the Second Continental Congress gradually became convinced that reconciliation with Great Britain was impossible.
Shays's Rebellion and the Constitutional Convention
Imagine being a struggling farmer and having your land taken away from you to pay off your debts. When that happened in 1786 in Massachusetts, the lack of a national currency combined with high unemployment led to a rebellion of farmers known as Shays's Rebellion. Many of the farmers were veterans of the Revolutionary War and sought to remedy the situation in the same way they had protested the British Parliament—with rebellion and war. The government suppressed the rebellion, but the event raised eyebrows. Delegates, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, met in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786 to discuss national problems. In their report to the Confederation Congress, the delegates agreed that the situation was critical. Congressmen debated whether the nation needed a more-powerful central government to prevent problems like Shays's Rebellion and to address national economic struggles. Congress called for a Constitutional Convention in 1787 to reform the Articles of Confederation. When the delegates convened at the convention to amend the Articles, it soon became clear that the Articles should be replaced entirely. In 1788, following its ratification by the states, the US Constitution officially became the new governing document for the country.
1767-1770 the townshend acts
In 1767, British Parliament again attempted to tax the colonies by passing the Townshend Acts. The acts were named for Charles Townshend, a British politician in charge of the British treasury. The Townshend Acts placed new taxes on lead, glass, tea, paint, and paper imported by the colonies from Great Britain. Unlike the Stamp Act, which had been a direct tax paid when buying an item, the Townshend Acts were considered external taxes that were instead paid by merchants. The colonists protested because they ended up paying the tax anyway, even if indirectly, because merchants raised their prices to reflect the new taxes. In March 1770, the acts were partially repealed, although the tax on tea remained.
september 5, 1774- october 26, 1774- the first continental congress
In response to the Intolerable Acts, 12 of the 13 colonies (excluding Georgia) sent delegates, 56 in all, to meet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September 1774. The delegates discussed how the colonies should reject the Intolerable Acts. The colonists forged two important agreements: they would boycott all British commerce after December and send a letter directly to King George III about ending the Intolerable Acts.
Outline and Principles of the Declaration Philosophical Framework
In the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson acknowledges the importance of explaining why the colonists had decided to take the significant act of rebelling. In the famous second paragraph of the Declaration, Jefferson offers a philosophical justification for the colonists' decision to declare independence. Closely echoing John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Jefferson begins by asserting that "all men are created equal" and are entitled to certain fundamental rights: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Jefferson argues that government exists to safeguard these rights. When the government fails to protect their rights, citizens are justified in rebelling. The Declaration acknowledges that citizens should not revolt for trivial or frivolous reasons. Only when the repeated outrages of a government amount to an attempt to subjugate its citizens to "absolute Despotism" should the populace rise up. The Declaration then proceeds to describe the tyranny of King George by listing all the specific ways the king had violated the natural and traditional rights of the colonists.
february 10, 1763- the french and indian war and the treaty of paris
The 1763 Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War, which was primarily a conflict between European nations for colonial and regional power in North America. Although France and its American Indian allies did win some major battles against the British in present-day New England and eastern Canada, Great Britain recovered under the military direction of William Pitt. The end of the war forced France from all its North American territories, except New Orleans.
Justifying Independence
The Declaration of Independence voiced the complaints the colonists had against the British government. Thomas Jefferson argued that these acts justified independence for the colonies: dismissing colonial legislatures and generally denying colonists their right to representation taxing the colonists without their consent maintaining a standing army in the colonies without the consent of the legislature and elevating the military above civilian authority forcing colonists to house British soldiers in their homes making judges dependent on the king for their salaries and their tenure in office refusing colonists the right to a trial in front of a jury of their peers cutting off the trade of the colonies abolishing the charters, forms of government, and important laws of colonies refusing to protect the colonies and waging war on them encouraging revolts and Indian attacks on the colonies The signers of the Declaration of Independence didn't consider themselves radical. As the list of grievances suggests, the delegates sought the right to political representation, the right to consent to taxation, the right to a fair trial, and so on. This justification for rebellion provided important philosophical support to the delegates. At the same time, the Founding Fathers knew that what they were doing was unprecedented. In throwing off the authority of the British Crown, the colonists entered uncharted territory. On what principles should they base the new nation? How should the government of a new country operate so as to avoid the past injustices? Jefferson, like many of the Founding Fathers, was deeply influenced by the political philosophy of the Enlightenment, including the ideas of John Locke. To answer these important questions, Jefferson outlined a new theory of government in the Declaration of Independence, drawing heavily upon the language and ideals of the Enlightenment. The Declaration of Independence is based on three basic principles: natural rights, popular sovereignty, and order. Jefferson begins with the concept that all men possess certain natural rights, entitling them to a safe, free life: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Jefferson states that government's purpose is to protect the rights of citizens, who are the source of political authority: "To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Because the people are sovereign, they have the right to overthrow any government that fails to protect citizens' rights: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government." Jefferson believed in order and stability. He argued that citizens should overthrow their government only in the worst circumstances—that is, when rulers deprived citizens of their rights. In that case, the populace had a right and even an obligation to rebel: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes . . . But when a long train of Abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." With these words, Thomas Jefferson expressed the principles by which the United States would be governed: natural rights, popular sovereignty, and order. Immediately, the new government faced the challenge of balancing these three basic principles and of putting them into practice.
Forming a New Nation
The Founding Fathers knew that the structure of a government is immensely important. Governments created with the best of intentions had declined into tyranny because their structures and institutions failed to preserve their ideals. Although the Founders admired the English system of government, they believed that it had failed at its job of protecting the life, liberty, and happiness of its subjects in the colonies. In November 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the first governing document of the United States, the Articles of Confederation. The document's authors feared a strong central government and wanted to ensure that tyranny and monarchy could not exist in the new United States. They also feared that a national government would be too far removed from the people and thought that democracy would work better at the local level. In many ways, the Articles of Confederation made the structure of the United States similar to that of the present-day European Union, where each state has considerable power and the central authority handles only certain issues. The Articles created a unicameral, or single-chamber, legislature, where each state had a single vote. A two-thirds majority was required to pass a law, while unanimous approval was necessary to amend or change the Articles. In addition, the Articles did not create an executive branch, so the United States did not have a president during this time. The weakness of the central government ensured that it would not produce tyranny, but it also made it very difficult for the confederation to become more than a "league of friendship."
Read this definition of a confederation: a group of states that ally to form a political unit in which they keep most of their independence but act together for purposes such as defense Which statement best describes why the early United States was a confederation?
The states all had considerable power, and a weak central government handled only certain issues.
Weaknesses of the Articles
The weakness of the national government under the Articles was felt first in the area of foreign relations. The central government remained unable to control trade and could not make binding treaties or carry out existing ones due to its lack of real power. Because it had no power to levy taxes, the government could not pay back the money it owed its former allies for aid during the Revolutionary War. It also could not maintain an army or navy to protect its interests. The United States in the Confederation period, therefore, gained little respect from other nations. Ultimately, the national government under the Articles of Confederation suffered too many weaknesses for it to survive. No separate executive department existed to carry out laws. Congress could not levy taxes and relied on the states to provide the money to conduct its affairs. With no judicial branch, the government relied on the states to enforce national laws. Because the national government could not regulate trade and each state had a different set of tariffs, many trade disputes cropped up between states. Additionally, there was no authority for a national currency; each state was responsible for printing its own money, often causing inflation.
april 18, 1775- april 19, 1775- the battles of lexington and concord
Throughout 1774 and 1775, American colonists continued resisting British rule. Fearing a backlash from the growing number of British soldiers in Boston, colonists began stockpiling weapons and organizing militias. On the night of April 18, 1775, Massachusetts governor Thomas Gage, who was also a British general, sent 700 British soldiers to capture weapons stored in the small town of Concord, outside of Boston. That night, well-known patriot Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride warning the countryside of British troop movements. Before reaching Concord, the British soldiers confronted a small group of militia in the town of Lexington on the morning of April 19. The British soldiers greatly outnumbered the colonial militia, who fell back after fighting for a short time. The British continued on to Concord, encountering a larger force of militia. After the colonial militia defeated the British in the battle at Concord, the British soldiers encountered constant attacks while marching back to Boston and suffered nearly 300 casualties.
1774- the intolerable acts
To punish the Massachusetts colony for the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts: • The Boston Port Act, the first law passed, closed the Boston port until the colonists paid for all of the tea that they had destroyed. • The Massachusetts Government Act revoked the colony's charter and reduced the political rights of the colonists. • The Administration of Justice Act allowed a British official accused of a crime to have his trial moved to a different colony or even to Great Britain. • The Quartering Act required colonists to provide housing for British soldiers.
Articles of Confederation
Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government had the power to conduct foreign affairs, declare war, and negotiate peace. It could also coin and borrow money, run the post office, and oversee the army and the navy. The states also agreed to "give full faith and credit to the public acts of other states," such as wills, contracts, and legal decisions, so citizens of one state could easily do business in another. The national government had some successes under this confederal system: ending the war with Great Britain, enacting the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and setting a precedent for power-sharing between the state and national governments. In particular, the Northwest Ordinance set a pattern for new states to be admitted to the Union, where they would be equal to the existing states.
december 16, 1773- the boston tea party
the boston Tea Party was the colonists' reaction to the Tea Act. On the night of December 16, 1773, approximately 50 young Bostonian men, led by Sam Adams, dressed as Mohawk Indians. With tomahawks in hand, they headed to the dock where the most recent shipment of British tea was located. The group of men threw 45 tons of tea into the chilly waters of Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party became a symbol of the American colonists' resistance to British control.
may 10, 1775- july 4, 1776- the second continental congress and the declaration of independence
on may 10, 1775, delegates from all 13 colonies met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, forming the Second Continental Congress. Though most of the delegates were reluctant to openly declare independence from Great Britain, the congress voted to create the American Continental army with George Washington as its leader. With outright war spreading between British soldiers and American colonists, five men (including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and group leader Thomas Jefferson) began creating the Declaration of Independence, which voiced the American colonies' reasons for splitting from Britain's rule. The five-man committee drafted the Declaration of Independence in June, and the Continental Congress accepted the document on July 4, 1776.
may 1773- the tea act
the tea act of 1773 was another attempt by British Parliament to impose its right to tax and govern the American colonies. In the years before the American Revolution, the Townshend tax on tea resulted in a thriving colonial smuggling operation to move tea from other countries into the American colonies without paying the duty. When the British East India Company began to suffer, however, Parliament passed the Tea Act, allowing the company to sell tea directly to the colonies at a cheap price. This action undercut the local colonial merchants who sold smuggled tea and gave the East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade. Although the Tea Act did not create a new tax, it still worried and angered American colonists who feared the act would be a first step to more British taxation and control.