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The American Yawp, Volume 1, edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the original free This shelf’s study material is shared under the same license (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Chapter 8 · pp. 239–270
This chapter follows the United States from the shaky years after the Revolution through the early republic. It covers Shays's Rebellion, the writing and ratification of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the compromises over slavery. It then moves to Hamilton's financial system, the rise of political parties, foreign-policy crises, free speech, the growth of slavery, religious freedom, and the election of 1800. This first part covers the crisis that pushed leaders to rethink the government, and the making and approval of the Constitution.
In 1786 and 1787, thousands of farmers in western Massachusetts were deep in debt. The economy was weak, and creditors were threatening to foreclose, meaning they could seize farms to collect what was owed. Many of these farmers were Revolutionary War veterans. Leaders blamed the Articles of Confederation, because they gave the national government no way to raise its own revenue. The farmers asked the state to protect them from creditors, but Massachusetts sided with the lenders. (pp. 239–240)
The farmers, called Shaysites after their leader Daniel Shays, answered with methods the patriots had used before 1776. They set up blockades around courthouses so judges could not issue foreclosure orders. They believed they were continuing the 'Spirit of 1776' by defending their rights and demanding that their grievances be heard. (p. 240)
Governor James Bowdoin saw something different: rebels trying to take over the government by mob force. He raised thousands of militiamen under General Benjamin Lincoln. By January 1787 the militia had arrested more than a thousand Shaysites and reopened the courts. Shays and other leaders were indicted for treason, and some were sentenced to death. In the end, Shays and most of his followers were pardoned. (p. 240)
Americans did not agree on the lesson of the uprising. Thomas Jefferson thought a bit of rebellion now and then kept a country free. Others feared the nation was sliding toward anarchy and that the states could not keep order. (p. 240)
Nationalists such as James Madison used the rebellion as proof that the country needed a strong central government. Madison warned that liberty can be put at risk by the misuse of liberty, just as it can by the misuse of power. In other words, a government too weak to restrain disorder also threatens freedom. (p. 240)
After years of pressure from Madison and other nationalists, the alarm over Massachusetts moved leaders to act. In summer 1787, delegates from twelve of the thirteen states met in the Pennsylvania state house in Philadelphia. Only Rhode Island refused to send anyone. The delegates were officially told to revise the Articles of Confederation. The meeting became the Constitutional Convention. (p. 240)
The biggest problem the delegates faced was that the national government could not levy taxes. As a result, the cost of paying off Revolutionary War debt landed on the states. The states then owed money to the lenders who held their war bonds. This pressure helps explain why Massachusetts protected wealthy bondholders instead of poor western farmers. (p. 241)
Madison wanted a brand-new constitution, not a repair job. Before the convention he researched the history of government in the United States and the history of republics around the world. His findings became the Virginia Plan. (p. 241)
The plan challenged the accepted wisdom of the day. Classical learning said a republic could survive only in a small, similar society, such as Rome or a small country like Denmark. People who lived far apart or differed too much, the thinking went, could not govern themselves. So power should stay local, and a central government should be weak. Madison disagreed. He argued for an 'extended republic' that could hold many peoples, climates, and customs under one government. (pp. 241–242)
The Virginia Plan therefore called for:
Large states liked the plan because it gave their citizens much more influence in the legislature. (p. 242)
Most delegates agreed the Articles had failed, but they split over how states should be represented in Congress. This question also shaped decisions about the executive, federal powers, and slavery. (p. 242)
William Paterson's New Jersey Plan kept the system of the Continental Congress, where each state had one vote. Roger Sherman of Connecticut added that state legislatures should choose members of Congress, since ordinary voters lacked information and could be misled. James Wilson of Pennsylvania replied that a much stronger national government needed support drawn as directly as possible from the people. (p. 242)
Sherman then proposed a way out, and after months of debate a slightly changed version became the Great Compromise:
The delegates took even longer to settle on the executive. On June 1, James Wilson proposed putting executive power in one person. Only four years after the Revolution, that sounded to many like an elected monarch. The delegates also worried about how to shield the executive from corruption or undue control. Not until early September did they settle on a president chosen by a special electoral college. (p. 243)
The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. It still needed approval from special state ratification conventions, not just Congress. This put the final decision in the hands of the people of each state. Critics organized to persuade voters to reject it, and citizens argued in newspapers, letters, sermons, and coffeehouses. (pp. 243–244)
A major issue was the lack of a bill of rights. The convention had voted down George Mason's proposal for one, and opponents rallied around that omission. These Anti-Federalists feared a powerful federal government could take away individual liberty. The Federalists, who supported ratification, said a list of rights was unnecessary and even risky, since it might stop future citizens from claiming new rights. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Madison defended the Constitution in the Federalist Papers, published in New York newspapers in 1787 and 1788. (p. 244)
Massachusetts mattered because other states were watching. Anti-Federalists probably led at first, but after weeks of debate enough delegates switched sides to approve the Constitution narrowly. The convention also voted for proposed amendments to send to the first Congress. Other state conventions copied this pattern of ratifying while proposing changes. (p. 244)
The most important contest came in Richmond in June 1788. Federalists Madison, Edmund Randolph, and John Marshall faced Patrick Henry and George Mason. Virginia was the most populous state and had many leading figures, so the new government needed its cooperation. After nearly a month, Virginia approved 89 to 79. (p. 244)
On July 2, 1788, Congress announced that enough states had ratified and that the Constitution was in effect. The arguments continued, though, because North Carolina, New York, and Rhode Island had not yet finished. New York ratified by only three votes. Rhode Island ratified by two votes, a full year after Washington's inauguration. (p. 244)
Washington's election as president made the new Constitution's authority hard to challenge. By 1793 the label "Anti-Federalist" had almost no meaning. Still, the ratification fight left behind one lasting feature: the first ten amendments, added in 1791 and known together as the Bill of Rights. (p. 245)
James Madison did not want these amendments at first. He backed them as a political compromise and out of necessity. He had won his seat in the House of Representatives by promising Virginia voters that he would pursue a list of protected rights. Keeping that promise helped calm the critics of the Constitution. (p. 245)
The rights were broad in wording but narrow in who actually held them:
So the same founding period that wrote down liberties for some people also built protections for slavery into the system.
The compromise over the slave trade may have been the most important of all those that shaped the Constitution. Many Americans saw the Atlantic slave trade as even more violent and immoral than slavery itself. Many Northerners objected on moral grounds. They also saw a political danger. More imported Africans in the South would mean more power for Southern whites, because the Constitution counted each Black person as three-fifths of a person for representation. Districts with many enslaved people therefore gave white voters extra weight. (p. 245)
The Upper South had its own reasons to welcome a ban. Virginia and Maryland already had a surplus of enslaved laborers. If imports stopped, prices would rise when their enslavers sold people to South Carolina and Georgia, which depended on a continuing supply. (p. 245)
The deal made at the 1787 convention is called the "dirty compromise." It worked like this:
As a result, the trade continued until 1808. (p. 245)
Three developments led to the ban:
Many white Americans, Jefferson among them, hoped that ending imports and spreading the existing enslaved population across the country would keep the nation a "white man's republic." Some even thought slavery might fade away. (p. 246)
The law itself was weak. It had little funding and no effective enforcement. It also did not free Africans who were brought in illegally. Their fate was left to the states, and many states simply sold them at auction. The ban therefore kept alive the idea that human beings could be property. The new federal government protected slavery even as it widened rights for white men. (p. 246)
Washington's cabinet showed the country's disagreement over how large and powerful the federal government should be. Alexander Hamilton, the treasury secretary, and Vice President John Adams wanted an active government that would promote prosperity by supporting industry. Thomas Jefferson, the secretary of state, wanted to limit federal power and keep an economy based on farming. Washington struggled to balance the Federalist and Republican factions inside his own administration. (p. 246)
Hamilton believed self-interest was the strongest motive in human behavior. The desire for property pushes people to build commerce and industry. He saw two jobs for government. First, protect private property from theft. Second, direct people's passions so that they serve the public good. In this view, a wise government uses people's desire for gain so that both individuals and the state benefit. (pp. 246–247)
Hamilton did not think government should make wealth equal. Like many leaders of his time, he treated inequality as a basic fact of society. His aim was to connect the interests of rich "monied men" to the federal government's finances. If the wealthy depended on the government, they would work to keep it solvent. For this reason he described the federal government as a "Repository of the Rights of the wealthy." His financial plan was built to create that link. (p. 247)
The first part of Hamilton's plan was assumption. The federal government would take over the states' unpaid debts, mostly left from the Revolutionary War, which came to about $25 million. People who held state bonds or promissory notes would hand them to the treasury. In return they would get new federal bonds with the same face value. Hamilton expected these bonds to circulate like money and act as "an engine of business." The plan worked on a large scale: by the end of 1794, 98 percent of the domestic debt had been converted. (pp. 247–248)
Assumption was controversial for two reasons:
Washington and Congress accepted Hamilton's reasoning anyway. (p. 248)
Alexander Hamilton wanted the new government to be financially strong. One of his main tools was a national bank. In 1791 Congress gave the Bank of the United States a twenty-year charter (p. 248).
The Bank did several jobs:
The ownership plan was just as important. The government held only 20 percent of the stock. Private investors held the other 80 percent. Hamilton's goal was to link wealthy men's money to the government's success, so they would want it to stay solvent (p. 248).
The constitutional fight. Thomas Jefferson and other Republicans said the Bank was unconstitutional. Their reasoning was simple: the Constitution never says Congress may create a bank. Hamilton replied that the Bank was both legal and necessary. He pointed to its roles in holding funds, supplying currency, and controlling inflation, and he said these supported national prosperity. Congress approved the Bank despite strong opposition (p. 248).
Who gained and who complained. The Bank's stock and the new federal bonds together created more than $70 million in financial instruments. These helped start securities markets. They also let the government borrow more, and they supported the fast growth of state-chartered banks and private corporations in the 1790s. Federalists saw this as a central purpose of government. Critics disagreed. Some wanted a smaller role for industry. Others lived on the frontier and had little capital. Both groups felt the system strengthened class divisions and gave rich people too much influence over the federal government (pp. 248–249).
The new bonds had to be paid off, so the government needed steady income. In 1791 Hamilton proposed an excise tax on goods including whiskey (p. 249).
This tax fell hardest on Western farmers. Grain was their most valuable cash crop. Hauling it across the Appalachians to Eastern markets was costly, so selling it to a local distillery paid better. A tax on whiskey therefore hit them directly. Many people saw it as a split in the republic: East against West, merchants against farmers, and cities against the countryside (p. 249).
How resistance escalated.
Washington's response. He used two approaches at once. He sent a committee of three respected Pennsylvanians to seek a peaceful settlement. He also gathered thirteen thousand militiamen at Carlisle. On September 19 Washington briefly led the troops himself, the only sitting president ever to do so. He then handed command to Henry Lee, who was governor of Virginia (p. 249).
The outcome. The farmers scattered as the army moved west. Hamilton supervised arrests and trials to show the government's power. Many suspects were freed for lack of evidence, and Washington pardoned the rest, including two men sentenced to death for treason. The result was mixed. The government had shown it could put down internal unrest. But many poor Westerners still saw it as an enemy (p. 250).
Hamilton also wanted a nation that prospered through foreign trade, which meant good relations with Britain. The problem was that Britain and France were at war. Their navies made American shipping risky and expensive. Britain also practiced impressment, seizing sailors to serve in its navy, which frightened American crews. Washington knew the United States was weak, so in April 1793 he declared that it would stay neutral (p. 250).
With Washington's approval, John Jay went to London to negotiate. Jay was chief justice and an ally of Hamilton (pp. 250–251). In November 1794 he signed the treaty that carries his name:
Federalists praised the treaty. They said it protected trade and kept a weak country out of European wars. Republicans were angry. They thought it put the nation on the side of a monarchy against a fellow republic, and they suspected it favored Northern merchants over the agricultural South. Jefferson and Madison had opposed the talks from the start (p. 251).
The debate in Congress was a turning point. Federalists and Republicans had been temporary factions. After this fight they became two distinct political parties, though they were still loosely organized (p. 251).
At first almost every American cheered the French Revolution. Many believed liberty was spreading outward from America. Towns held speeches and parades each July 14. Women wore classical-style dress, and men pinned revolutionary cockades to their hats (pp. 251–252).
Enthusiasm cooled in 1793. The French ambassador, Edmond-Charles Genêt, urged Americans to attack Spanish Florida and Louisiana. When Washington refused, Genêt threatened to appeal directly to the public, and Washington demanded his recall. Meanwhile, Genêt's faction lost power at home, so he stayed in America rather than risk his life. The radicals who took over France began the bloody Reign of Terror, and news of the killings made many Americans doubt the revolution (pp. 252–253).
These doubts shaped party loyalty. Americans who feared the revolution was out of control tended to become Federalists and wanted closer ties to Britain. Federalists were already nervous about radical democracy after Shays's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion, and they valued social stability. Those who stayed hopeful tended to become Republicans. Jefferson even said he would accept huge destruction before he would see the revolution fail. Foreign policy and domestic politics thus pushed in the same direction (pp. 251, 253).
After Jay's Treaty, France allowed its ships to attack American shipping. President John Adams, who took office after the peaceful election of 1796, sent envoys to France in 1797 to settle the matter. French officials, whom the Americans labeled X, Y, and Z in their reports, hinted that talks could begin only if the Americans paid a bribe. When the story came out, the XYZ Affair outraged the public. Towns wrote to Adams pledging support, and many people wanted war. A popular toast declared "Millions for defense," but nothing for tribute (p. 253).
War was never formally declared. The undeclared Quasi-War was fought at sea, mostly between French warships and American merchant vessels. Fear ran high on shore. In Charleston, people watched the horizon for a French fleet and hunted for suspected French agents (pp. 253–254).
New England added its own fear in 1798. The minister Jedidiah Morse told his congregation that an anti-Christian group called the Illuminati had planned the French Revolution. This was a hoax, yet rumors of infiltration spread quickly and deepened anti-French feeling. The panic also showed how anxious Americans were about the future of religion (pp. 254, 259).
In 1798 many New Englanders feared France. A minister named Jedidiah Morse told his congregation that a secret anti-Christian group, the Illuminati, had planned the French Revolution. This was a hoax, but it spread fast and made the foreign threat seem larger (p. 254). During the undeclared naval Quasi-War with France, Congress passed two laws in 1798 to stop internal subversion.
The laws were aimed at French agents. In practice, the Sedition Act was used against critics of President Adams and the Federalists. Federalists prosecuted several Republican printers and even a Republican congressman. The Alien Act was never enforced, but some foreigners left the country anyway (p. 255).
Why did Federalists think this was acceptable? Many founders defined free speech narrowly: the government could not censor you before you spoke, but it could punish you afterward. On this view, unruly speech made society less free. James Wilson argued that an author must answer for attacks on the government's safety or welfare. So most Federalists saw the acts as part of a cautious, conservative Revolution (p. 255).
The laws caused a backlash in two ways (pp. 255–256):
The Northwest Ordinance (1787) banned slavery north and west of the Ohio River. Many people read this as a sign that slavery would fade away. Yet Congress admitted Vermont as a free state (1791) and Kentucky as a slave state (1792). That pairing began a pattern of keeping a 'balance of power' between North and South (p. 256).
Cotton drove slavery's growth. Tobacco wore out soil, so fields lasted only four or five growing cycles. Short-staple cotton could grow across the South but was hard to harvest. The cotton gin (1794) made it practical, and production reached sixty million pounds a year within about a decade. White Southerners moved west and built a cotton slave society. The enslaved population rose from 654,121 in 1790 to over 1.1 million in 1810 (pp. 256–257).
Most Northern states ended slavery through gradual emancipation. Children born to enslaved mothers were freed only after a long indenture. For example, Pennsylvania's 1780 law made them serve twenty-eight years to repay the enslaver. James Mars of Connecticut stayed bound until age twenty-five. By 1810 over 100,000 free people of color lived in the North (p. 257).
Even so, early laws narrowed Black Americans' rights (pp. 258–259):
Together these show why the early United States was effectively a 'white-man's republic.'
In 1776 all thirteen states either had a tax-supported church or required officeholders to profess a faith. Leaders thought this protected morality and order. Disestablishment is the slow process of ending such state support. It was not finished until Massachusetts did so in 1833 (p. 259). South Carolina shows an early step. Its 1778 constitution let any church of at least fifteen adult men be incorporated, if it accepted vague Christian basics. It dropped establishment entirely in 1790 (pp. 259–260).
A common misconception is that the First Amendment ended state churches everywhere right away. In fact, the religion clause limited only the federal government in those decades. Many states kept established churches well into the 1800s (p. 260).
In Virginia, Jefferson proposed a Statute for Religious Freedom in 1779, but the Anglican-dominated legislature rejected it. Madison revived it in 1785 and beat a rival bill that would have funded all Protestant churches equally. It passed in 1786, so Virginia stopped using public money for religion. Jefferson held that religion belongs to each person's conscience (p. 260).
Without state support, churches had to compete in an 'American spiritual marketplace.' Methodists did best. They grew from under a thousand members to 34 percent of all church members by the mid-1800s. Their traveling preachers, called circuit riders, followed settlers across the Alleghenies into the Ohio River Valley (p. 260).
At the national level, the 1787 convention easily agreed there should be no official religion, and the First Amendment (1791) confirmed it. Still, questions remained about chaplains, Sunday mail delivery, and non-Christian witnesses in federal courts. Americans kept debating what 'establish' meant (pp. 260–261).
By 1800 Adams was widely disliked, and he had poor relations with Hamilton, his own party's leader (p. 262). The campaign was ugly, and each side predicted disaster if the other won. Jefferson and Aaron Burr each got 73 electoral votes, to Adams's 65. Under the original rules, a tie went to the House, which was controlled by Federalists hostile to Jefferson. It chose Jefferson on the thirty-sixth ballot (p. 262).
Republicans called it a 'bloodless revolution.' They believed they had saved the country from aristocracy. Jefferson's inaugural address promised to follow the majority while respecting the Federalist minority. Adams left office peacefully. Jefferson said the change came through the people's vote, not the sword. The Twelfth Amendment (four years later) changed the election rules to fit how parties work and to prevent deadlocks (pp. 262–264).
Judicial review is the Supreme Court's power to decide whether acts of Congress violate the Constitution. It was established in Marbury v. Madison (1803). Adams had made last-minute 'midnight appointments,' and Jefferson and Madison refused to deliver the commissions. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in the administration's favor on the commissions. But he also claimed the broader power of review. In 1810 the Court applied it to state laws. Jefferson feared it would make the judiciary despotic (p. 264).
In his 1796 farewell address, Washington admitted that parties can act as checks that keep liberty alive. But he warned that in a republic the danger is too much partisanship. He compared it to a fire that, left unwatched, consumes instead of warms. The bitter 1790s showed why he worried (p. 265).
