History 2

Yes the Articles were a failure because it was hard for anything to be approved or even voted on.

In the 1780's the Philadelphia Convention was called and the Constitution started to be drafted.

• 1) No checks & balance on Congress
• 2) Central government had no power over crime/economics so the government could not protect the states
• 3) No executive leadership - Congress was in charge
• 4) Difficulty passing legislation. Had to have 7 out of 13 reps to meet, 9 to pass anything, and all to amend
• 5) Many representatives never went to meetings because it was to far away or only spent 1 year in term
• 6) The central gov had no power to tax even in time of war so the government could not hire anyone and not every state liked sending in money to help

Interstate commerce had become an issue for many states. Virginia and Maryland were having a lot of problems and decided to come up with a solution on their own. Many other states liked this idea so a convention in Annapolis Maryland was started to start a federal regulation. Not even 7 states showed up so the representatives from the ones who did decided to wait a year to build up excitement and have another meeting.

Many poor farmers were trying to avoid land being taken by debt they could not pay off so they decided to try and get the courts to close. Many others from around the states also stepped in with this rebellion. It showed the weakness of the Articles because it threatened a civil war on the U.S. but the government had no way to stop it as it was to weak.

• Virginia plan - wanted a supreme court .
• New Jersey plan - wanted a supreme court but with limited powers.
• Virginia - 2 houses of congress representing population and wealth voted by popularity.
• New Jersey - 1 with equal representation
• Virginia - 3 executive branches elected by congress with veto power and veto state laws.
• New Jersey - several executive branches elected by congress with no veto power at all

Yes they were nationalists. They opposed the Virginia plan at first because they were scared the large states/government would get to big and destroy the small states.

The Great Compromise by Ben Franklin brought the two sides together. It was agreed that there would be two houses of Congress. One house (HOR) representing each state by population and one house (Senate) representing each state equally and all of the representatives would be voted in by popular vote.

• *The executive branch would be only 1 person, be voted on by popular vote, and had veto powers.
• *There was a supreme court.
• * Congress could not regulate international slave trade for 20 years
• *3/5ths compromise (5 blacks = 3 whites)

Special conventions made up by people voted in by voters were in charge of ratification. 9 out of 13 states had to approve it.

Larger states took longer to ratify as they would benefit the most.

Madison and two others brought up the issue of no guarantee of individual rights. Many believed that the people would not be effected by the Constitution and many states had Bills of Rights to protect them. It was then decided on that if the Constitution was approved a list of amendments (Bill of Rights) would be made up and decided on.

The interest should be voted on by what would benefit them both overall.

The national government should have overall laws and powers that affects the country as a whole. The states should be able to have powers to protect their citizens and reflect their ideas/views.

Powers that would make them a strong government but not to strong should be given.

The government needed money so they could hire workers and be able to enforce laws and help out states when needed. Some were pessimistic as they did not want to be forced to pay a lot of taxes and go into debt. They also did not want the government to be to strong.

Loose construction is something that is not clearly stated can or can not be done in the Constitution. One of the amendments stated that the government could make laws to strengthen the government. Because of this agendas could be pushed through even if they were not approved by voters if it would help the government.

Funding - Paper money was started to pay some military and others who had not been paid (from the war). The money was just a promise to pay but became one of the ways many people lived then. Government bonds were also started. The bond would say on this date this amount of money with interest would be paid to the owner.

Assumption - The states were in debt and many believed the federal government should help pay off the states debt. Some states (Virginia) did not like the idea as they had paid off their own debt and was still being asked to pay off other states debt.

First National Bank - Bankers who would handle day to day transactions for the government. There would not be a problem of bad paper money anymore as the national bank would only give banks paper money for whatever gold they actually had.

Subsidizing Economic Growth - To help diversify the country Hamilton wanted the government to help farmers, merchants, factories etc to move into smaller cities to help build them up to be larger.

Agrarian Suspicions; The Whiskey Rebellion - Hamilton said if the government wanted people to follow rules they needed to enforce them no matter right or wrong.

Hamilton thought the way to get support of the powerful was with money (promising more money with bonds etc).

Jefferson thought Hamilton's ideas would give the government to much power and many things were unconstitutional/unnecessary.

Britain would not stop violating the U.S. natural rights. So in 1812 war was approved by Congress (at the same time Britain decided to stop violating their rights but word didn't get to America in time). New Englanders were closer to Canada which the Army wanted to invade to hold hostage to get Britain to sign a treaty but they did not want the war. One general was a spy so did what was best for his country not the U.S. another general took to long and brought family so gave up before starting a fight so their was no more of a surprise.

• America and Britain are now the only ones in war.
• 1) England was going to come down from Canada and cut off the U.S. with New England on one side and then everyone else on the other. They needed control over the lakes (Lake Champagne and the Great Lakes) for supply lines to win it. They were unable to get control.
• 2) Britain decided to invade the Chesapeake Bay area and went toward D.C. The U.S. had very little time to get ready and mostly had young militia boys on the line and they got scared. So D.C. was evacuated and Britain burnt it. They then went toward Fort McHenry but the military was ready for them and Britain had problems and went back to the Bay Area.
• 3) The third attack was in New Orleans. It was a swampy area and so the U.S. tried to cut down all the trees to make Britain harder to get there. Jackson found a good spot with a canal and on top of that cotton bales. So Britain troops would need to go over 12feet to get to the Americans. They forgot their ladder and when some went back to get it the U.S. shot many of their men. When many men died the British retreated.

The treaty was signed in a neutral town of Ghent and it was saying that neither the U.S. or Britian won the war

Many people were drawn to Hamilton's economic policies because Jackson cut military funds so during the war there was no clothing, ammunition, ships etc... The national bank also went under so there was no funding for the war.

Even though the war was not won by us it was still a big thing to many Americans. The flag was made and became big, the National Anthem, uncle sam posters, and people like Perry became symbols from the War. The symbols were a big deal because we were building a nation. Also American Art and Literature became big which helped show that we were not from Europe any longer.

• 1) The tariff of 1816 was higher
• 2) The Second National Bank was created in 1816
• 3) Bills for "Internal Improvements" were made which would be taxes for roads and canals. The country was trying to expand more west but roads were needed to do this so the government would buy stocks in roads and once they started making money would take out their stock and buy stock on another road etc....

"Old Republicans" stood in the way of this nationalist trend. They were people who believed in supporting the old ways of running the country/government. The panic of 1819 (depression) hit and many people believed it was others faults. 1) If you wanted to blame anyone for the war you could blame the Nationalists 2) The british merchants were trying to come back 3) After the war thousands moved out west. Because many people traveled out west they were heading into areas that were not states but still American territories. The problem was nobody knew if Missouri should be a slave state or not. Finally a deal was made Missouri would be a slave state, Maine a free state, and then a line would be drawn anything under it would be slave states above it would be free states.

J. Q. Adams was John Adams (the second president) son. He traveled and spent a lot of time in Europe when he was younger and knew a lot about diplomacy. He voted on what he liked and did not vote on things he did not like even if it was a nationalist idea. He became Secretary of State for Monroe and 1) settled problems with Spain about our western boundary (Transcontinental Treaty of 1819) and 2) the Monroe Doctrine was mostly Adams ideas.

Adams' supported many of the nationalist ideas but also supported ideas like a national university with free tuition, wanted to support the sciences (especially the stars). This angered many groups like the "Old Republicans" as they thought money should only go to needed things and many ideas Adams wanted to support were not needed.