Expectations

• Effort

• Attitude

Why study history?“To gain access to the laboratory of the human experience.” -American Historical Society

To develop an enhanced capacity for: Informed CitizenshipCritical Thinking Awareness

Multiple Perspectives

• Beware of Bias! • What Contributes to Bias? • Experience • Education • Environment

• Who’s Bias? • Zinn • Beard • Mr. Schmitz • Mr. Brewer

About me

• Studied Politics at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington

• White middle class

• Politically left leaning

• Student teacher at Seattle U

• Grew up in Chile

My Experience with US History

• State Hero of Connecticut

• Captured an executed on an intelligence gathering mission during the battle of Long Island in 1776

• “I only regret I have but one life to live for my country.”

What is a Nation-State?

This Week: Critical Period

Treaty of Paris – 1783

Constitutional Convention - 1787

Growing Pains

Today:

• “The Articles of Confederation” 1777-1781 (Jeeze Maryland)

• Federalism

• Treaty of Paris

Democracy

“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, were fifty-one percent of the people may take away rights of the other forty nine.”

-Thomas Jefferson

First Government: “A Firm League of Friendship”

• Effective Central Government needed because of Wartime Urgency

• Progress was slow 1777-1781 because fear of a central authority and debate between states over extensive land claims.

• 6 Drafts: Franklin – Dickinson (x3)

• United STATES of America vs. UNITED States of America

Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation

-Political

-Economic

-Foreign Policy

Political Weaknesses

• NO Executive Branch

• NO National Court System

• UNICAMERAL Congress

• ONE Vote for each state regardless of size

• Amendments Required UNANIMOUS consent

• Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence

Federalism

National Government State Government

Articles of Confederation

National Government State Government

Economic Weaknesses

• Congress could NOT impose taxes.

• Congress could NOT regulate commerce.

• Individual states could impose tariffs on other states.

Treaty of Paris (Part Deux)

• Signed in 1783 in the city of…

• Ended the revolutionary war and recognized independence of who?

• Established US boundaries

• Jay, Adams, and Franklin

Complicated Negotiations…

• The Americans/thirteen states wanted…

• The British wanted…

• The French wanted…

• Why did the Americans and British broker their own treaty?

Stipulations

• Regulated expansion of the US by establishing boundaries.

• Was supposed to guarantee fair treatment of loyalists.

• Prisoner exchange

• Debt collection, regardless of nationality

• British troops were supposed to leave the United States

Foreign Policy Problems

• British built forts, disrupted trade, armed natives

• Colonies can’t trade with British colonies in the West Indies

• Spanish banned American shipping along the Mississippi

• France demands repayment for helping with the war

Barbary Pirates

Dissent Amongst the Troops

• Greatest potential danger to the success of the American Revolution = the disintegration of the Continental Army.

• After 1780 Congress promised officers lifetime pension of half their pay.

• 1782, Financier Robert Morris stopped army pay as a cost saving measure.

Newburgh Conspiracy

• Threatened uprising of the Continental Army

• So called because a letter was circulating the amongst the officers at their camp in Newburgh, New York on March 10, 1783. It had been a hot topic of debate throughout 1782

• Washington reacts and calls a meeting of the officers on March 15.

Conspiracy?

• Credited to John Armstrong, some historians believe it was sent by nationalists in Congress in order to give congress power over the states.

• Some believe that nationalists simply took advantage of the situation.

Successes of the AOC: $$$

• Land Ordinance of 1784

• Written by Thomas Jefferson calling on congress to develop land west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River into 10 separate states.

• Didn’t have a game plan.

Land Ordinance of 1785

• Set forth how the government would measure, divide, and distribute the land it had acquired from the Treaty of Paris.

• A way for the Continental Congress to make money.

• Territory was to be divided into individual townships, 6 miles in length, divided into 36 separate square miles of territory.

• Was the precedent for westward expansion until the homestead act of 1862

Breakdown • Each section encompasses

640 acres

• Section 16 (And later 36) were set aside for Public School

• 8, 11, 26, 29 to provide veterans with land bounties after the Revolutionary War.

• Government would sell the rest at public auction, minimum was $640 per section or $1 per acre.

• Roughly 260,000sq miles

Question to Consider

What’s the best government for a new nation?

Consider: debt, fragmentation, decision making

Federalists

• Wanted a strong central government

• Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

• Federalist Papers

Anti-federalists

• Were afraid of a centralized government

• Patrick Henry and Sam Adams

• Why?

For Tomorrow

Finish the vocabulary section of the worksheet

Watch the videos and fill out the worksheet

Be prepared for a cooperative learning lesson