Unit 2 AmHis L1 -L5

Question 1

When the (rev) war ended, key debates and disagreements remained over:

Answer 1

1. Distribution of power between Continental Congress and state governments
2. Slavery
3. Other ambiguities in the articles themselves

Question 2

the Constitutional Convention, which would go on to create:

Answer 2

1.The new political system of the United States (outlined in a U.S. Constitution)
2.Creation of a Bill of Rights

Question 3

What was the main economic consequence of the rev war

Answer 3

america in severe debt

Question 4

What was the goal of the constitutional convention

Answer 4

•The goal of some was not to revise the Articles of Confederation but rather create a NEW American political system altogether.
Key figures: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Question 5

What was the outcome of the constitutional convention

Answer 5

Creation of the U.S. Constitution (including the Bill of Rights): a new political system for America!
- Therefore, the Constitutional Convention is amongst the most significant events in the history of the United States

Question 6

What was madison’s virginia plan?

Answer 6

1. Enhance the power of the federal government.
2. Divide power into 3 branches:
   1.Legislative (a two-chamber congress)
   2.Executive (a president)
   3.Judiciary (federal court system)

Question 7

Federalists

Answer 7

•Favoured strong central government and supported the U.S. Constitution

•Key Figures: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington

Question 8

Anti-Federalist

Answer 8

• Rejected the Constitution out of fear that it gave the central government too much power and would undermine the autonomy of state governments.

• Key Figures: Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams

Question 9

The federalist papers

Answer 9

85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution.

Argued: Diversity of opinions in a largerepublic – where power in a state is held by the people, their elected representatives, or an elected president instead of a monarch – would protect individual rights by preventing any one faction from dominating the nation’s government.

Question 10

The bill of rights

Answer 10

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution are composed of the Bill of Rights.

•Written by James Madison and passed in 1791.
•Written in response to anti-federalist calls for greater constitutional protection over individual liberties.
•The Bill of Rights therefore lists specific prohibitions on governmental power over individual people and states.

Question 11

The U.S constitution

Answer 11

Goal: “To form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty.”

Two important principles:
1.Separation of Powers
2.Checks and Balances

Purpose: “Thwart the possibility of tyranny.”Meaning: Avoid any one person, group, or institution of gaining too much political power

Question 12

Congress

Answer 12

•Legislative Branch (laws and taxes)
•Bicameral (Two Houses/Chambers): House of Representatives and a Senate.
•Outlined in Article 1

Question 13

The President

Answer 13

•Executive Branch (Head of State & Head of Government)
•Oversees government administration (implements laws)
•Serves as Commander and Chief of Armed Forces.
•4 year term for a maximum of 2 terms.
•Article 2

Question 14

Supreme Court

Answer 14

•Judicial Branch (court system)
•Upholds the constitution and rules on cases.
•Serves as a court of appeals
•Outlined in Article 3

Question 15

George Washington

Answer 15

Washington takes the Oath of Office on April 30th 1789 in New York (then the capital).
•The government and new country faced enormous challenges.
•Washington faced these challenges with no precedents to help him.
As he stated: “I walk on untrodden ground.”

Question 16

Themes of the Washington Presidency

Answer 16

1. A respected American: Leadership in the Continental Congress and General of the Continental Army in war.
2. Humble and modest: “Mr. President” instead of “His Elective Majesty” or “His Mightiness.”
3. An excellent moderator: Used his presidency to moderate the functioning of government while enabling his ministers to dispute politics and policies. Washington sympathized with the federalists but remained non-partisan!
   - Examples: Alexander Hamilton /Thomas Jefferson.

Question 17

WASHINGTON’S 3 CHALLENGES:

Answer 17

1.Fiscal recovery
2.Foreign policy
3.Political rivalries and factions

Question 18

FISCAL RECOVERY

Answer 18

Consequence of the Revolutionary War:
•New federal government essentially bankrupt:
1. Owed $12 million to France
2. Continental Congress had borrowed $40 million from individual Americans.
3. Bond Campaign

Question 19

Alexander Hamilton

Answer 19

Appointed Secretary of the Treasury.
•Entrusted by Washington to develop a fiscal program designed to solve the country’s financial problems

Question 20

Hamilton’s Fiscal Program (1790)

Answer 20

Solve National Debt to Foreign creditors (ie. France) need to be paid immediately.
• Belief: 1. As long as the U.S. owes money to other countries it could not be truly independent.
2. If they default on their debt they will struggle to borrow money from others in the future.

•Result: Congress repays France in full by 1796. HOW??

Federal government generated revenue using an Excise Tax: a duty placed on internally produced goods.

•Federal government used revenue generated by a federal excise tax on whiskey – becomes known as “Whiskey Tax.”

•Significance: The so-called “whiskey tax” was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government!

Question 21

Whiskey Tax Reaction

Answer 21

Debt-free states (South Carolina) resent the tax: an unnecessary sacrifice for the problems of other states!•Washington approves the tax while other states oppose it!
•Leads to the Whiskey Rebellion

Question 22

Who succeeds in reviving the American economy after the revolution

Answer 22

Hamilton

Question 23

Foreign Policy

Answer 23

The French Revolution (1793 – 1794)

•Culminates in The Terror and the execution of King Louis XVI and 40,000 French citizens.
•Ignites a war between Britain and France.

• French revolutionaries declare war on all major monarchies of Europe

Question 24

John Jay

Answer 24

•Chief Justice of Supreme Court.
•Ordered by Washington to seek a peaceful solution with Britain.
•Result: Jay’s Treaty

Question 25

Jay’s Treaty

Answer 25

1.British agree to withdraw all remaining Redcoats from U.S.Were still present in U.S. as Americans continued to seize loyalist land (violating Treaty of Paris 1783).

2.British pay damages for U.S. ships and cargo seized but do not promise that future seizures would not take place.
3.The British agreed to leave their remaining outposts on U.S. soil. (leftover from the Revolution)
Overall:

•Jay’s treaty tied up many loose ends left by the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution, but did very little to address the current tensions between Britain and America

Question 26

Significance of Jay’s Treaty: Washington Retires

Answer 26

•The vehement attacks that followed the signing of Jay’s Treaty convinced a weary and tired Washington to retire.

In choosing not to seek a third term, Washington established a precedent that a president should normally serve no more than two terms!!

•This precedent became law in 1951

Question 27

The two first organized political parties

Answer 27

Democratic-Republicans and Federalists

Question 28

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Answer 28

Founding Father of Confederation.
▪Principal Author of the Declaration of Independence
▪Second Vice-President of the United States (Adams)
▪3rd President of the United States (1801-1809)

▪Public Image: “Simple Farmer”
▪Private Reality: Wealthy landowner and Virginian Slaveholder

Question 29

Agrarian republic

Answer 29

Jefferson’s ideal goal of America.

Protect state rights and individual liberties and make the government more controlled by ordinary people.
- Opposed the wealthy aristocracy of the northern cities.

Democracy could be ‘tilled’ (developed) in the fields: create an American democracy of simple farmers

The United States have a duty to spread the “Empire of Liberty” throughout the World.

Question 30

PRINCIPLES OF JEFFERSONIAN GOVERNMENT

Answer 30

The powers of the president and the branches of government should be limited under the ideals of the Constitution.

• The National Government: “A dangerous necessity”

2. Promote State Rights and authority.
3. Freedom of speech and the press: “best methods to fight tyranny.”
4. Emphasize individual rights (Bill of Rights: a central document)
5. Citizens have a duty to vote and to resist monarchism and the political power of the elite

Question 31

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE (1803)

Answer 31

The creation of an “Agrarian Republic” depended on westward expansion across the frontier.

Problem: lands west of the Mississippi and the mouth of the river at New Orleans were controlled by the French dictator: Napoleon Bonaparte.

-France had regained this territory from Spain in exchange for territories in Tuscany (Italy)

Jefferson sent American representatives to meet with Napoleon to discuss the potential purchase of New Orleans for $2 million.
- The surprise counter: Napoleon offers the sale of the entire Louisiana territory for $15 million ($320 million today) or 4 cents per/acre

Question 32

The Expeditions of Louis & Clark

Answer 32

Very little was known about the land west of the Mississippi.

• Jefferson commissions an expedition led by two officers of the U.S. Army: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark – to explore the new territory

The two men traveled eight thousand miles through unmapped and often dangerous territory.

Question 33

TECUMSEH

Answer 33

Shawnee chief from the Ohio River valley who resisted American frontier expansion and urged Native Americans to:
1.Form a huge Indian confederacy to resist the whites from moving west. - Similar to Pontiac (Recall Seven Years War: Pontiac’s Revolt)
2.End all relations with the United States.
3.Abandon signed treaties.
4.Cease farming practices and maintain nomadic lifestyle.

Tecumseh formed a Native Alliance across the Northwest and established an alliance with the British

Question 34

Jefferson’s Foreign Policy

Answer 34

• Maintain the “position of neutrality” started by his predecessors.
• Spent most of his second term (1804-1808) keeping the U.S. neutral and hoping that “nature and a wide ocean” would keep the U.S. entirely isolated from the Napoleonic Wars (1800-1815).

Question 35

The Chesapaeake incident

Answer 35

1803-1807: British ships continue to stop American vessels in both international and American waters, seizing deserters and forcing Americans into the Navy – ignoring American citizenship claims and documentation.

“All Americans – as former British subjects – owe allegiance to the Crown.”(AKA: Once an Englishman, always an Englishman

Question 36

THE EMBARGO ACT

Answer 36

Embargo Act, Legislation by the U.S. Congress in December 1807 that closed U.S. ports to all exports and restricted imports from Britain. it failed.

Question 37

Causes of the war of 1812

Answer 37

1.Continued violation of American neutrality.
Policy of Impressments (forced enlistment of American sailors)
Search and seizures of American cargo.

2.British support for Native resistance to frontier expansion
Example: Tecumseh
Americans felt they had not yet achieved “full” independence.

Significance: - Americans feel independent “on paper only.” War of 1812: A Second War of Independence

Question 38

War Hawks

Answer 38

Young Democratic-Republicans who demanded war with Britain.
Why?
1.This group/party traditionally sympathized with France.
Recall: Dem-Rep. view on the Napoleonic Wars

2.Angered by a lack of British respect for American independence.

3.Wanted the territorial expansion of the United States to include British North America (Canada!)
More land for the “Agrarian Republic” envisioned by Jefferson.

Question 39

Federalists during the war of 1812

Answer 39

• Unanimously opposed the war in Congress, especially in New England. Why?

1.This party traditionally sympathized with the United Kingdom.

2.Feared the economic consequences of fighting the British.
- New England merchants benefit from British trade.

3.Opposed the invasion of British North America (Canada!)
- Feared more “agrarian” states would give more votes to Dem-Reps.
- Recall electoral base of each

Question 40

BRITISH CAPTURE OF FORT DETROIT

Answer 40

• Main clashes between Britain and U.S. occurred along border with Upper Canada (Ontario).
• Niagara Falls & Detroit
• The British knew the Americans were coming to capture Canada and decided to launch an offensive.
• A small force of British soldiers and their Native American allies capture Fort Detroit.

How?
- The British commander, General Isaac Brock, played on the American general William Hull’s fears of ruthless Native American fighters to convince the Americans to surrender without a fight.

Question 41

Where and when did Tecumseh die?

Answer 41

Killed at the Battle of Thames River (Moraviantown – now Chatham, Ont.)

Question 42

Raid on York (1813)

Answer 42

• One of the few American “victories” (brief).
• In April 1813, the capital of Upper Canada, York (now Toronto), was attacked and briefly occupied by an American force.
• The American troops looted the town, setting fire to government buildings and destroying records

Question 43

THE TREATY OF GHENT (1815

Answer 43

Over time both sides eager for peace in a war turning into a stalemate.

The warring nations simply agreed to:
1. Stop fighting
2. Restore old boundaries
3. Put other problems off for future settlement.

Question 44

Era of Good Feelings

Answer 44

TheEra of Good Feelingsmarked the middle of the 19th Century when Americans shared three common visions:
1. A desire for unity among all Americans.
2. Increase America’s presence and role in foreign affairs.
3. Encourage the territorial, economic and technological growth of the nation

Question 45

Convention of 1818

Answer 45

Establishes joint American-British control of the Oregon territory (Pacific Northwest).

Question 46

Transcontinental Treaty with Spain (1819) (Adams-Onis Treaty)

Answer 46

A weakened Spanish Empire ceded Florida to the United States in exchange for recognition of Spanish sovereignty over Tex

Question 47

The Monroe Doctrine

Answer 47

A new American foreign policy created by Sec. of State. John Quincy Adams on behalf of new Republican president James Monroe(Republican) concerning the Western Hemisphere.

The United States would not tolerate further European colonization of the Americas, and would protect the revolutionary movements of these newly created states from European intervention. In exchange, America vowed not to interfere in European continental affairs.

Example: Revolutions across Central/South America against the Spanish Empire

Question 48

Protected Tariffs

Answer 48

protect domestic industry from foreign competition.

Question 49

THE COTTON GIN

Answer 49

Despite the development of industry and technology during this period, agriculture still remained the primary source of economic growth (dating back to Jefferson’s dream of “Agrarian Republic.”)

1793: Cotton Gin is invented: mechanical method for separating cotton fibers. and seeds.

Alabama & Mississippi: “cotton hubs” – massive exports.
Impact of the Cotton Gin:
1.Cotton industry rapidly grows in the South – leading to the continued growth of slavery.
2.Northern factories profit from manufacturing goods and using ports such as those in New York and Boston to export cotton.
3.To link the North and South, massive canals, railroads and roads develop in order to accelerate national expansion and facilitate the exchange of cotton and goods