🇺🇸 American Revolution

November 8, 2022

The American Revolution 🇺🇸
  • The American Revolution was not a true revolution — the colonists didn’t overthrow a government.
  • “No taxation without representation.”
    • The colonists paid substantially less (1/26) taxes compared to the people living in England.
  • Young, dynamic population
    • 65% of the population was under 21
  • Spread grassroots style
    • Massive amount of propaganda and pamphlets
  • Colonists were not 100% unified, they were divided
    • ~60% being rebellious and ~40% being loyal to England
    • Most of the rebellion came from New England

Ending salutary neglect
  • England had to change tax policies; empires are expensive
  • 1765 - Stamp Act
    • Paper tax; alienated the upper-class (rich/educated colonists)
  • 1766 - Stamp Act Congress
    • The first organized act of rebellion
    • Stamp Act repealed
  • 1770 - Boston Massacre
  • 1773 - Tea Tax → Boston Tea Party
    • Massively symbolic
  • 1774 - Intolerable Acts
    • Closed Boston’s port (martial law)
    • Galvanized the colonists
  • 1775 - Lexington & Concord

Declaration of Independence
  • The Second Continental Congress chose Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
  • The Declaration of Independence was a formal document written to express America’s freedom from English rule
  • Influence from John Locke

    Natural rights
    • All men are created equal
    • Unalienable rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness)

    Social contract government (right to revolt)
    • It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.
    • It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it (the government).

The War for Independence

The Continental Army
  • The army of the colonies that were against the British
  • Symbolic; represented republicanism and hope to the colonies
  • Important for war - George Washington wanted to avoid general engagements
    • Engagements → big battles
    • Goal → to survive & gain help from Europe (France, Dutch, Spain)

Major Early Battles
  • Battle of Bunker Hill (June, 1775)
  • Battle of Long Island (1775 → 1776)
    • America loses NYC
  • Battle of Trenton (December 26, 1776)
    • Surprise attack; helps Americans re-gain control over New York
  • Battle of Saratoga (September, 1777 → October, 1777)
    • Backwoods campaign
    • America used sharpshooters to target the generals; all but 1 general was killed
    • The turning point in the war
    • Europe recognizes the American Independence
  • Valley Forge (December 1777)
    • Friedrich von Steuben re-organizes the army into a more professional and disciplined fighting force

Significant Events & People
  • American loss of Charleston
    • One of America’s worst defeats.
    • The British sieged the city of Charleston, SC.
  • Battle of Camden
    • It was the worst American defeat in the field.
    • Left the British in temporary control of the southern colonies
  • Battle of King's Mountain
    • The first major patriot victory to occur after the British invasion of Charleston, SC in May 1780.
  • The "Over Mountain Men”
    • American frontiersmen from west of the Appalachian Mountains who took part in the American Revolutionary War
  • Battle of Cowpens
    • Slowed British efforts to invade North Carolina.
  • Battle of Yorktown
    • The British surrender; was the start of American independence.
    • Led to George Washington eventually becoming the first president.
  • Banastre Tarleton
    • A British army officer; was hated and feared by the patriots during the American Revolution.
    • Helped lead the southern campaign against the patriots.
  • Thomas Sumter
    • Leader of the troops against the British in North and South Carolina.
  • Francis Marion
    • Known as the “Swamp Fox”.
    • One of the most successful military leaders of the American Revolutionary War.
    • He led bands of guerrillas in several victories against British and Britain-allied Colonists.
  • Paris Peace Treaty (1783)
    • Britain makes huge land concessions to the Americas.
    • Establishes 13 states; territory now goes to the Mississippi River.
    • The United States is now a continental empire.
    • Britain envisions a close economic relationship with a newly independent America.

Articles of Confederation 📰

First Official Government
  • America’s first official government lasted from 1781 to 1787.
    • League of 13 independent states
    • Each state had 1 representative and 1 vote
  • Highly decentralized 💥
  • Had no executive or judicial branch
  • Took 9/13 to ratify, 13/13 to amend AOC
    • AOC → Articles of Confederation
  • The government had no power to tax
    • No power to regulate trade
  • Why a “toothless gov”?
    • Just rebelled from the most centralized power in the world.
    • States thought of themselves as independent.
  • Events that killed the AOC
    • Economics → $80 million war debt & couldn’t tax; high inflation
    • Weak military / foreign threats
    • State vs. state conflicts
    • Failure of the Annapolis convention (1776)
      • Sets up the Constitutional Convention - Hamilton
    • ⭐️ Shay’s Rebellion (1786-1787)
      • Gave us a constitution
  • Things the AOC did right:
    • Political participation grew → leading to greater importance being placed on representation.
    • Expanded basic democratic rights into the Northwest → congress would guarantee trial by jury, freedom of speech, press, no slavery
    • Less aristocratic and more meritocratic society.
      • Meritocracy → a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people.

The Continental Convention
  • May/September 1787, Philadelphia
  • George Washington heads the convention
    • Symbolic → George Washington is the president
  • James Madison’s agenda
  • Plans for government:

    New Jersey Plan:
    • Keep the AOC structure; give it power
    • Appealed to smaller states (equal representation)
    • Didn’t want to give too much power to a central government ⭐️

    Virginia Plan (Madison):
    • Two house legislature (lower house & upper house)
      • Lower house representatives would be based off population
      • Upper house elected by lower
    • Add executive & judicial branches of government
      • Executive branch would be elected by the legislature
    • Highly centralized and nationalist ⭐️

The Constitutional Convention

Compromises

Great Compromise (Connecticut) → (Constitution ratified Sept 17, 1787)
  • Bicameral legislature
  • House would be based off population
    • Bigger states favored this
  • Senate representatives equal (AOC legacy)
    • Smaller states favored this
  • Executive branch & judicial branch

3/5 Compromise (North & South Compromise)
  • Every 5 slaves → 3 people for representatives
    • The south gets 47% of House
    • 1794 - cotton gin

Ratification Fight

Constitution Ratified
  • September 17, 1787
  • Still needed state ratification
  • One state → New York was questionable

The Federalist Papers
  • Where would the US go? (Hamilton or Jefferson)
  • Collection of 85 propaganda essays published anonymously in newspapers
    • Goal → Attempt to convince New York to ratify the constitution
    • Authors → Hamilton, Madison, Jay
    • Pen Name → Publius (the people)

Reactions
  • New Constitution resisted by the Anti-Federalists
    • Wrote counter essays
  • The new Constitution was too centralized
    • What about people’s rights?
  • ⭐️ Impacts
    • New York ratifies
    • Bill of Rights added (Madison)
    • First political parties

Federalist 10
  • “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.”
    • As long as we have freedom, people will group up. But we can’t get rid of freedom, just like you wouldn't get rid of air because it strengthens a fire.
  • “Difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended”
    • If there are more citizens, the republic size should increase to better represent the citizens.
  • “As each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, [better candidates will be elected], the suffrages of the people being more free”
    • When there is a bigger republic, better candidates will be elected, and people will have more say in the government.
  • “By increasing the number of electors, the representatives are less acquainted with local circumstances and lesser interests; and by decreasing the number, you render him too attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects.”
    • If you have too many representatives, they won’t focus as much on the state issues.
    • If you have too little representatives, they won’t focus as much on the federal issues.
  • “It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.” (faction requires liberty)

Federalist 51
  • “it is evident that each department should have a will of its own, and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear.” - this discusses how the government should be divided into three groups and ran by te people.
  • Angels - ”If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

“Anti-Feds” vs “Federalists”

Anti-Feds (Democrats)
  • The Jeffersonians → Democratic Republicans → Democrats
  • States rights (AOC)
  • Rule by the informed masses
  • ↑ Democracy (small government)
  • Strict interpretation of the constitution
  • Pro France
  • Economy: agriculture 🌾 & craftsmanship 🔨
  • Support: South & West

Federalists (Republicans)
  • Whigs → Anti-Slavery whigs → Republicans
  • Federal Rights / Control
  • Rule by the “best”, (property)
  • Limit Democracy
  • Loose interpretation of the Constitution
  • Pro England
  • Economy: industry 🏭, banking 💵, and trade (wants) 🤝
  • Support: East and North (NYC, Philly, Boston, etc)