APUSH 3.7 to 3.10 — APUSH Notes and Study Guides

In the last set of notes, we went over the American Revolution and its entirety, including its causes and effects, and now we’re going to look at the first Constitution of the United States. Believe it or not, the Constitution we currently have today isn’t our first Constitution and is in fact our second. So let’s talk about our first Constitution before it: the Articles of Confederation.

The Articles of Confederation

After the colonies declared independence in 1776, they needed a new document to unify the states. This new document was called the Articles of Confederation and was ratified in 1781. However, the Articles of Confederation gave nearly all of the federal government’s power into the legislative branch and also gave states most of the power due to fears of another tyrannical government similar to Britain. There was no executive branch or president. The new government had no power to tax or regulate commerce, and there was no Supreme Court. Because the Articles emphasized estate power, all states had to agree to any amendments to the Articles, making them difficult to modify. The federal government was also unstable, and the country had a weak economy. One of the first problems the new government faced was migration to the west. Migration often led to conflicts with the native people, and the establishment of settlements outside of the states. To solve this, the government passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

The Constitutional Convention

In the Constitutional Convention in 1787, fifty-five delegates from the states met in order to fix the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and replace it. However, the biggest issue in creating a new government was deciding how representation was going to be done. Two main proposals were drawn up as possible solutions. Firstly, the Virginia Plan proposed a strong, centralized state with a bicameral legislature (two houses in Congress) where each house would have representatives based on population. This was supported by bigger states because they would get more representation. States with a smaller population wanted a different proposal, the New Jersey Plan, which called for a unicameral legislature (one house in Congress) in which every state would have equal representatives. The final plan that ended up solving both problems was called the Great Compromise. This plan proposed a bicameral legislature where one house, the House of Representatives, would represent the states by population, while the other house, the Senate, would represent each state equally with two votes per state.

There were several more compromises about representation during the drafting of the new Constitution. Another one involved whether or not slaves in the South should be counted for the purposes of representation in the House of Representatives. The southern states argued that slaves should be included to gain more representation, while the northern states argued that they should not because slavery was founded on the idea that slaves were not human. This led to the Three-Fifths Compromise, in which the states agreed that three-fifths of all slaves would be counted as part of a state’s population for representation. Because the North was abolishing slavery, the South wanted to ensure that slavery wouldn’t be outlawed everywhere. This led to another agreement that the slave trade would not be prohibited until 1808.

For representation, it was determined that members of the House of Representatives would be voted in by the people for two-year terms while members of the Senate would be elected by state legislature for six-year terms. The president would become the head of the new executive branch and be elected through the electoral college, meaning they would be elected by the states and each state had electors based on their population that would vote on behalf of its citizens.

Ratification

Before the Constitution could replace the Articles of Confederation, it needed to be ratified by nine out of thirteen states. This led to the formation of two opposing sides: the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists wanted to ratify the Constitution and they were mostly urban and commercial people. The Anti-Federalists were mostly rural people and plantation owners. They opposed ratification because they feared it gave too much power to the central government and did not protect states or individual rights, as there was no Bill of Rights. As a result, three Federalists (Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay) wrote 85 essays called The Federalist Papers to convince the Anti-Federalists to ratify the Constitution. They succeeded, in part because they agreed to add a Bill of Rights to protect individual rights and states from the federal government. By 1788, nine states had ratified the Constitution, making it the new governing document of the United States.

The Northwest Ordinance

The Northwest Ordinance did several things. Firstly, it promoted public education and protected private property. Secondly, it abolished slavery in the Northwest. Lastly and most importantly, it gave a method for territories in the west to apply for statehood after getting a large enough population. However, this was one of the only successful things this new government did before it had to be replaced.

The Constitution

Now let’s look at the Constitution itself! There are two major ideas to focus on here: Federalism and separation of powers.

So what is federalism? By definition, federalism is the sharing of power between state and national governments. But while neither the national nor the state government was meant to be more powerful than the other, it was a bit more complicated than that. For example, the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the Constitution states that national law overrides state law if they contradict. However, only specific national laws, known as the enumerated powers of Congress in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, fall under this clause. These powers include the federal government’s power to declare war. Because of the Supremacy Clause, if the federal government declares war, states cannot refuse to participate in the war. On the other hand, the Tenth Amendment states that any power not granted to the federal government is kept by the states. This means that states have control over areas such as marriage, education, and police. Federalism essentially means that some powers are given to the federal government, others are given to states, and some are shared.

For international issues, during George Washington’s presidency, France had gone through the French Revolution and was now at war with Britain. Thomas Jefferson’s supporters, known as Democratic-Republicans or Jeffersonians, wanted to support France due to their alliance during the American Revolution. However, Washington believed that the U.S. should not interfere in foreign affairs. As a result, he issued the Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793, which declared that the U.S. would not get involved in wars in Europe.

Two important treaties were also negotiated during Washington’s presidency. Because the British were continuing to practice impressment and were using forts along the Great Lakes to aid natives in attacking the United States, Washington sent John Jay to negotiate with the British. This led to Jay’s Treaty, resulting in the British giving up their forts along the Great Lakes region. Later, Thomas Pinckney, the American minister to Spain, negotiated the Pinckney Treaty in 1795. This established the southern border of the U.S. to be along the 31st parallel, separating the U.S. from the territory of Spanish West Florida. This also gave the U.S. permission to use the Spanish port at New Orleans for trade in the Mississippi River.

Settlement of the Ohio River Valley continued to lead to conflicts with natives, leading to battles such as the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. In this battle, the U.S. Army defeated a confederacy of tribes in the region, leading to the natives surrendering all lands there and opening them up for settlement.

In 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion occurred after Alexander Hamilton pushed Congress to pass a bill that taxed whiskey. Farmers who drank whiskey were enraged, leading them to attack tax collectors in Pennsylvania. However, unlike Shays’ Rebellion, the federal government was now strong enough to stop the rebellion on its own, proving its effectiveness.

Also in 1794 was the Whiskey Rebellion, which occurred after Alexander Hamilton pushed Congress to pass a bill that taxed whiskey, infuriating the farmers who drank whiskey. These farmers, located in Pennsylvania, began attacking tax collectors, similar to Shays' Rebellion, which occurred earlier. However, unlike Shays' Rebellion, the federal government was able to easily stop this rebellion due to the strong central government under the Constitution, demonstrating its effectiveness. However, Thomas Jefferson and his supporters criticized the government’s response. Issues such as this, not helping France, and the National Bank led to the development of America’s two-party system. This was the result of debates between the Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republicans, or Anti-Federalists, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, over how much power the federal government should have.

The Presidency of George Washington

Now that the Constitution has formally been put into place, we’re now going to be looking over the presidencies of the first two presidents: George Washington and John Adams. So now that the position of president has been established, George Washington was unanimously elected to be the first president of the United States and he immediately established executive departments to enact order, creating the treasury department, the war department, the state department, and the justice department, each led by a secretary. These secretaries made up Washington’s cabinet and advised him on issues related to their departments, which is a practice that still exists to this day. Alexander Hamilton was appointed as Secretary of the Treasury while Thomas Jefferson was appointed as Secretary of the State.

Under George Washington, the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1792 as the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton, whose duty was to fix the economy of America, wrote a Financial Report with three key recommendations to fix America’s problems of inflation and the fact that they were in $54 million in debt to other countries after the Revolutionary War:

All state debts would be combined into one single national debt
High tariffs would be imposed on imported goods to protect the industries of the United States and to get money
A National Bank would be created to deposit government funds and print banknotes that would also allow the U.S. to borrow money from other nations

Of these, Congress would only accept the first point, mainly because Anti-Federalists were against the other two points because they saw it as the government overreaching their power.

Shays’ Rebellion

In the mid-1780s, many farmers who had fought in the American Revolution had fallen into heavy debts and struggled to repay them. Daniel Shays, one of these farmers, gathered around a thousand people in Massachusetts and they armed themselves and rebelled. This became known as Shays’ Rebellion and although the Massachusetts militia quickly put an end to the rebellion, it made the states realize that the Articles had made it so that the federal government was so weak that there was no president or army to call upon for help whenever there was a rebellion. This led to a need for a replacement.

The Constitution also provided for a separation of powers in the government, creating three branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. The legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch enforces laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws. The Constitution also established a system of checks and balances to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful. For example, although the legislative branch can create laws, the executive branch (president) must approve them before they become official or veto the law if the president doesn’t approve. However, the legislative branch can override a veto with a two-thirds majority vote from Congress.

The main idea in all of this is that both federalism and separation of powers were in the Constitution and were designed to make sure that no one person or group could abuse the power given to them.

The Presidency of John Adams

After George Washington’s presidency ended, John Adams, a Federalist, became the next president and Thomas Jefferson became his vice president in 1797. His presidency was marked by several issues. During his presidency, France began capturing American trade ships headed to Britain. Adams sent a delegation to France in 1797 to negotiate, but the French demanded a bribe just to talk. This led to a massive outrage in the states known as the XYZ Affair. Despite the outcry, Adams managed to keep America out of a war with France and dissolved the alliance with them.

But then later, Adams wanted Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts would grant the government the power to detain or deport non-citizens who criticized the government. This was meant to target Irish and Scottish immigrants who often criticized Adams of supporting the British. Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans saw this as a clear abuse of federal power, leading to him and James Madison composing the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. This declared that the states had the power to refuse to enforce any federal law that the states viewed as unnecessary or exceeding the powers that the federal government was supposed to have. Because of this issue, Adams was not re-elected and in the 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson became president. This was the first peaceful transfer of power between two different political parties in the United States.

To Unit 3

3.7, 3.8, 3.9, & 3.10: The Articles and the Constitution