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Chapter 6 |
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After the Revolution, Americans tried to construct practicing governments based on republican principles.
Defining a Republican Culture
In the 1780s, many Americans feared their Revolution could still fail if not grounded in a virtuous republican government, but ordinary folk, influenced by evangelicalism, expected God-given progress founded on “goodness and not wealth.” They expected the Revolution to bring them greater liberty, a voice in government, and an end to special privilege. Others, fearing liberty led to democratic excesses, emphasized the need for order. Sorting out these conflicts generated political debate for a generation.
Living in the Shadow of Revolution
Although less wrenching than the great social upheavals of modern times, the Revolution caused Americans to reevaluate accepted social hierarchies and consider the role of equality in their society.
Social and Political Reform
Fearful of privilege, Republicans insisted on the appearance of equality and some social and political reforms. They abolished remnants of aristocratic privilege like entail and primogeniture, changed electoral patterns in part by lowering property requirements, and moved toward separation of church and state.
African Americans in the New Republic
Some Republicans noted the contradiction between their ideals of virtue and the evils of slavery, and many African Americans issued claims for equality based on that glaring inconsistency and the achievements of their people, including, for example, Benjamin Banneker and Phillis Wheatley. Northerners attacked and abolished the institution, but refused to accept freedmen as their equals. Though many southern Republicans questioned the morality of slavery and some freed their slaves as a result, the economic incentives of slave ownership proved too powerful in the South.
The Challenge of Women’s Rights
By the 1770s, few Americans espoused the previously accepted view of unlimited power for patriarchs. Some women began to demand more of their husbands and society and to claim special responsibility for nurturing in their children the virtues essential to a republican government. Although women made some gains in education and law, society still defined them exclusively as homemakers, wives, and mothers.
Postponing Full Liberty
Republicans of the era made few concrete achievements, but established ideals and assumptions that would influence later generations.
The States: Experiments in Republicanism
After the colonial declaration of independence in 1776, Americans wrote new state constitutions that were often provisional and sometimes experimental. These documents vividly revealed their social and regional differences.
Blueprints for State Government
The new state constitutions reflected certain political assumptions shared by most Americans including an insistence on written documents emerging from their distrust of power.
Natural Rights and the State Constitutions
The new state constitutions tended to emphasize fundamental freedoms, especially those of religion, speech, and press, and to grant great power to legislatures and little to governors. Several states did away with the office altogether.
Power to the People
Massachusetts set an important precedent by drafting its constitution in a special convention called for that purpose. Though the success of the state governments in representing the will of the people remained to be seen, in all states, more of “the People’s men” appeared in governmental office.
Stumbling Toward a New National Government
During the military crisis of the Revolution, the Second Continental Congress assumed national authority, but independence would necessarily result in the creation of greater central authority to conduct the war, borrow money, regulate trade, and negotiate treaties.
Articles of Confederation
Americans created a weak national Congress because they trusted state power more than central power. Most felt only apathy or hostility toward their new government, which they saw as powerless and irrelevant.
Western Land: Key to the First Constitution
The major point of dispute for the new government was the ownership of western lands. Some of the older states claimed them under the auspices of their royal charters, while other states felt such territories should be shared by all Americans, with ownership granted to the new confederation government.
Northwest Ordinance: The Confederation’s Major Achievement
The new national government eventually acquired these lands and provided for their orderly survey, sale, and governance, preventing the chaotic conditions of later settlement in the southwestern part of the new country and providing the new government with an important source of revenue.
Strengthening Federal Authority
Complaints about the Articles of Confederation abounded; most of them reflecting economic frustrations that emerged because recovery after the Revolution was slow.
The Nationalist Critique
The national government lacked the power to do much of anything about several important national problems, including most notably the floundering economy and overwhelming national and state war debts. Such problems led a group of “nationalists,” led by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, to call for major constitutional reforms that began with an amendment to allow Congress to impose taxes on the nation in an effort to pay its debts.
Diplomatic Humiliation
In foreign affairs too, the Confederation proved inadequate. The U.S. claimed lands occupied by the Spanish and the English, but the Congress did not have the powers necessary to contest the Europeans for control of the land. Internal affairs were not much better as congressional delegates met irregularly, states often failed to even send delegates, and the nation lacked a permanent capital.
“Have We Fought For This?”
Most Americans still feared centralized power, but many prosperous Republicans had come to realize that change needed to occur if the nation were to survive.
The Genius of James Madison
Some Republicans feared that liberty had been taken too far, believing ordinary citizens, who voted in open elections in many states, lacked republican virtue and threatened order. Moreover, the weakness of the Confederation threatened commercial prosperity. Only a strong central government, something that was believed to be antithetical to a republic, could solve these problems. Madison provided these anxious republicans with a theory to sustain their hope for a republic with a strong government. He argued that a large republic could prosper as a variety of interests would develop, check one another, and leave government in the hands of able and virtuous men without undermining liberty.
Constitutional Reform
The nationalist movement to revise the Articles of Confederation grew stronger because of fears aroused by Shays' Rebellion, culminating in the constitutional convention.
The Philadelphia Convention
The fifty-five men who were to write the constitution were mostly young, practical, and prominent nationalists.
Inventing a Federal Republic
They based their work primarily on Madison's Virginia Plan, which called for a strong central government “consisting of a supreme [two-house] Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary.”
Compromise Saves the Constitution
The delegates compromised, especially on the issues of representation and of counting slaves as population, but retained the essentials of the Virginia Plan.
Compromising with Slavery
The slavery issue threatened to disrupt the convention, but the delegates compromised repeatedly in order to complete what most of them saw as their most important responsibility, the establishment of a strong national government. These debates and compromises foreshadowed the sectional conflict that would arise over slavery in the next century.
The Last Details
In a last review of their work, the delegates created a stronger executive by establishing that the president would be selected by an electoral college so that he would be independent from Congress. Some members of the convention pushed for the inclusion of a Bill of Rights before adjourning, but others argued that the document already adequately protected individual rights.
We, the People
To bypass serious difficulties in the various state legislatures for ratification of their handiwork, the delegates called for approval by special state conventions, with the Constitution going into effect when approved by nine states.
Whose Constitution? The Struggle for Ratification
The delegates sent their handiwork to the Congress of Confederation, which submitted it to the states to consider for ratification. No one predicted an easy battle for ratification.
Federalists and Antifederalists
Federalists were better organized, more well-financed, and more capably led than their opponents, but Antifederalist views, especially their aversion to centralized power, had wide popular appeal. The Federalists eventually won the struggle for ratification, but Antifederalist views would remain influential throughout American history.
Adding the Bill of Rights
Among the most important of the Antifederalists’ arguments was a protest of the Constitution's lack of guarantees for individual rights. To overcome those objections without revising the entire document, the Federalists agreed to add a Bill of Rights in the form of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Conclusion: Success Depends on the People
By 1789, the first phase of American political experimentation was over, and the people had realized that their sovereignty was the key to a successful Republic. Throughout the 1780s, however, they had come to the conclusion that complete popular sovereignty could cause problems, and they created a new, stronger government based on the Constitution. Though most Americans were optimistic, no one really knew whether this new republican experiment would work.
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