THE NEW NATIONAL PERIOD

John Dickenson, “Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.”

Building the New Nation:

I.               BUILDING UNION:

The Constitution of 1787

Shay’s Rebellion, 1786-7

Philadelphia, 1787

Structural Features:  Three Branches: Judiciary/Executive/Legislative:

Key Concepts:

a. Federalism

1. Virginia Plan (TWO HOUSES, BASED ON POP.)

2. New Jersey Plan (ONE HOUSE, ONE VOTE PER STATE)

3. Connecticut Plan (THE GREAT COMPROMISE)

b. Democracy

c. Liberty: we are preoccupied with rights

"Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others." Locke

--he was crucial in that he helped Americans envision the attainment of natural rights.

"Men by nature are free, equal, and independent." Rousseau, The Social Contract 1762

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."

d. Limited government

--GOVERNMENT MUST REMAIN AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE TO BE ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY REPLACE THE STATE OF NATURE.

e. Equality: belief in an equal chance at life

f. Civic Duty: perfect society has a price

     

II. PROTECTING LIBERTY: The Bill of Rights…

III.           PUTTING INTO PRACTICE: First Party System:           

a.     Federalists  (Hamilton)

b.     Anti-Federalists (Jefferson)

c.   Testing the First Party System:

                                    Naturalization Act

Sedition Act

Alien Enemies Act

Alien Act

Abigail Adams

“...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”

Virginians could not have the "passion for Liberty" they claimed they did, since they "deprive their fellow Creatures" of freedom.

REVOLUTION IN TWO ACTS

 TWO REVOLUTIONS:

I.                     View #1:

Lexington and Concord

                  Bunker Hill

                  Saratoga

                  Valley Forge

                  Yorktown

II.                 View #2:

Franklin in France

Deborah Samson

Thomas Peters

     

What is the difference between these two views? Is one more historically accurate than the other?

MIDTERM EXAM STUDY GUIDE

The midterm is scheduled for May 5.
The format is as follows: There will be 52 multiple choice questions.
You will choose two that you do not want to answer.
These questions will come from all readings and lectures from the colonial era through the Constitution(next week).

FRANKLIN DISCUSSION...The American Enlightenment

"Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest personal satisfaction."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D9BBMDWoNM

FRANKLIN QUOTES:

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

A small leak can sink a great ship.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.

He was so intelligent, that he could name a horse in nine Languages. So ignorant, that he bought a cow to ride on.

He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.

Historian Walter Isaacson tells us, "had faith in the wisdom of the common man and felt that a new nation would draw its strength from what he called 'the middling people.'"

“We hold these truths to be…”

Describe Franklin’s childhood.

What was Franklin’s daily life like?

Give some examples of how Franklin spends his time making society better. Why do you think he does this?

Give some examples of how Franklin spends his time making himself better.

Look at Franklin’s list of Virtues on 95 and 96. Are these still beneficial precepts by which to live one’s life?

Look at the passage on page 43 that begins, “One of the Pieces in our News-Paper gave Offence to the Assembly.”

What does the passage suggest?

In Part 3 of the Autobiography Franklin reflects on the problems encountered when governments are in the hands of people who pursue their own private interests at the expense of the public good. 

What solution does he advocate?  How realistic do you think it is? 

Describe Franklin’s religious beliefs. What does the passage about George Whitefield say about Franklin’s view of religion?

Isaacson writes, "The essence of Franklin is that he was a civic-minded man. He cared more about public behavior than inner piety, and he was more interested in building the City of Man than the City of God."

How does he view Whitefield? (115)

“If someone comes from Constantinople to preach Mohamedism, we should give that person a pulpit and be willing to listen.”

How should Franklin be remembered?

Inventor? Patriot? Slaveowner? Abolitionist? Author? Entrepreneur?

Franklin’s death:

April 17, 1790

--funeral march attended by 20,000

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

I. Changing Policies:

(ending “salutary neglect”)

      A. Navigation Acts:

      B. Sugar Act (1764)

      C. Stamp Act (1765)

      D. Townshend Duties (1767)

II. Escalation:

A.           The Boston Massacre

B.           Burning of the Gaspee

C.           The Boston Tea Party, 1773

D.           Intolerable Acts

(1774, also called The Coercive Acts)

1. Boston Port Bill
2. Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act
3. Impartial Administration of Justice Act

4. Quartering Act

--RELATED BUT NOT CALLED INTOLERABLE EVEN THOUGH IT WAS INTOLERABLE--
The Quebec Act

III. Events plus Ideas=

Revolution

A. EVENTS:

Lexington and Concord

B. IDEAS:

1.              Thomas Paine,

  “Common Sense” 1776

2.              Thomas Jefferson:

Declaration of Independence

THE REVOLUTION ITSELF…

      …pervasive localism.

Three important moments…

1.              Franklin in France

2.              Saratoga

3.              Yorktown

Mid Century Challenges

Mid Century Challenges

I. Great Awakening:   

Religious movements characterized by conversions that people called “new birth”

There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.

That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone[1] is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of: there is nothing between you and hell but the air; ‘tis only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock.

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and Justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet ‘tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.

George Whitefield

"Father Abraham, whom have you in heaven? Any Episcopalians? No! Any Presbyterians? No! Any Independents or Methodists? No, No No! Whom have you there? We don't know those names here. All who are here are Christians...Oh, is this the case? The God help us to forget your party names and to become Christians in deed and truth." GW

How is the Great Awakening a challenge to British authority?

II. French and Indian War

“play off” system

                   Battle of Quebec:

                                           Sept. 13, 1759

50 warships

                                                       200 transport ships

                                                       8500 men

                               General James Wolfe:

“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

How is the French and Indian War a challenge to British authority?

III. Economic Shift

What is industrialism and how does it change the historical trajectory of the world?

IV. Land Conflicts

       A. Susquehannah Company

                               (Pennamite Wars)

       B. Paxton Boys

C. South Carolina Regulators

D. North Carolina Regulators

E. The Boston Fire of 1760

V. The Great Migration of 1773

From 1763 to 1776 there was an influx of immigrants into British North America:

55,000 Protestant Irish

                   40,000 Scots

                   30,000 English

                   12,000 Germans (mostly to Philadelphia)

                   84,500 enslaved Africans

How might this immigration alter the historical trajectory of the colonies?

By the way, total population of the

13 colonies was about 2.5 million…

and the largest city in the colonies in 1776 is Philadelphia with 25,000.

…one example, a family of four from Heuchelheim, Germany.

V. The American Enlightenment:

VI. Significance