a. monarchy and republican government
- REPUBLICANISM AS A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

- George Washington served as a role model par excellence for the new republic. Washington modeled his behavior on that of the Roman aristocrat Cincinnatus, a representative of the patrician or ruling class, who had also retired from public service in the Roman Republic and returned to his estate to pursue agricultural life.

- The aristocratic side of republicanism—and the belief that the true custodians of public virtue were those who had served in the military—found expression in the Society of the Cincinnati. This society admitted only officers of the Continental Army and the French forces, not militia members or minutemen.

In eighteenth-century America, as in Great Britain, a married woman (feme covert) had no legal or economic status independent of their husband. Married women’s status as femes covert did not change as a result of the Revolution and wives remained economically dependent on their husbands. The women of the newly independent nation did not call for the right to vote, but some wives of elite republican statesmen began to agitate for equality under the law between husbands and wives, and for the same educational opportunities as men.

Adams, Murray, and Warren, who stood up for women’ rights, all came from privileged backgrounds. All three were fully literate, while many women in the American republic were not. Female authors who published their work provide evidence of how women in the era of the American Revolution challenged traditional gender roles.

Overall, the Revolution reconfigured women’s roles by undermining the traditional expectations of wives
 and mothers, including subservience. In the home, the separate domestic sphere assigned to women,
 women were expected to practice to responsible for raising good children, especially frugality and simplicity.The Revolution also opened new doors to educational opportunities for women.
 
THE MEANING OF RACE

By the time of the Revolution, slavery had been firmly in place in America for over one hundred years. The Revolution served to reinforce the assumptions about race among white Americans in many ways. They viewed the new nation as a white republic; blacks were slaves, and Indians had no place. Racial hatred of blacks increased during the Revolution because many slaves fled their white masters for the freedom offered by the British. The same was true for Indians who allied themselves with the British.

Slavery offered the most glaring contradiction between the idea of equality stated in the Declaration of
 Independence:”all men are equal” and the reality of race relations in the late eighteenth century.

Racism shaped white views of blacks. Thomas Jefferson, who penned the Declaration of Independence, however, owned more than a hundred of slaves. He thought blacks were inferior to whites. White slaveholders took their female slaves as mistresses, as most historians agree that Jefferson did with one of his slaves. Together, they had several children.

In Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia in the 1780s, he urged the end of slavery in Virginia and the removal of blacks from that state. He envisioned an “empire of liberty” for white farmers and relied on the argument of sending blacks out of the United States.

Southern planters strongly objected to Jefferson’s views on abolishing slavery and removing blacks from
 America. When Jefferson was a candidate for president in 1796, an anonymous wrote that if that project succeeded,  three hundred thousand slaves would be set free in Virginia, farewell to the safety under the support of the President of the United States. Slaveholders and many other Americans protected and defended the institution.
7.3(Quoc Hien) (1-2)
THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS

In 1776, John Adams urged the thirteen independent colonies—soon to be states—to write their own state constitutions. The state constitutions of the new United States illustrate different approaches to addressing the question of how much democracy would prevail in the thirteen republics. Some states embraced democratic practices, while others adopted far more aristocratic and republican ones. The 1776 Pennsylvania constitution and the 1784 New Hampshire constitution both provide examples of democratic tendencies. The 1784 New Hampshire constitution allowed every small town and village to send representatives to the state government, making the lower house of the legislature a model of democratic government. The 1778 South Carolina constitution also sought to protect the interests of the wealthy.

THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

Most revolutionaries pledged their greatest loyalty to their individual states. In June 1776, the Continental Congress prepared to announce independence and began to think about the creation of a new government to replace royal authority. states. Congress readied the Articles in 1777 but did not officially approve them until 1781. In the end, the states failed to provide even half the funding requested by the Congress during the war, which led to a national debt in the tens of millions by 1784. By the 1780s, some members of the Congress were greatly concerned about the financial health of the republic, and they argued that the national government needed greater power, especially the power to tax. In the 1780s and beyond, men would soon express their profound dissatisfaction with their treatment. Their anger found expression in armed uprisings and political divisions. Without stable commercial policies, American exporters found it difficult to do business, and British goods flooded U.S. markets in the 1780s, in a repetition of the economic imbalance that existed before the Revolutionary War.

Shays' rebellion (hgiang)
After the Congress’s victory in creating an orderly process for organizing new states and territories, there are economic problems in 1780s. The economic crisis came to a peak in 1786 and 1787 in western Massachusetts, where farmers were put into a dilemma which was they had to pay high taxes and debts. For several years after the peace in 1783, these indebted citizens had petitioned the state legislature for redress. Their petitions to the state legislature raised economic and political issues for citizens of the new state. In 1786, when the state legislature again refused to address the petitioners’ requests, Massachusetts citizens took up arms and closed courthouses across the state to prevent foreclosure on farms in debt. The uprising has known as Shays' rebellion has exploded. Despite some given measures of the governmnet, the rebellion continued. To address the uprising, Governor James Bowdoin raised a private army of forty-four hundred men then Shays’ Rebellion resulted in eighteen deaths overall, but the uprising had lasting effects. Shays’ Rebellion lead to a decision to amend the Articles of Confederation in order to deal with insurgencies and provide greater stability in the United States.

7.4 (T.Linh)
·        The economic problems that plagued the thirteen states of the Confederation set the stage for the creation of a strong central government under a federal constitution. The original purpose of the convention was to amend the Articles of Confederation, some—though not all—delegates shifted quickly to create a new framework for a more powerful national government. 

·        There had been two sides, one centralized government and questions of how Americans would be represented in the federal government and one side opposed the proposal for a stronger federal government argued that such a plan betrayed the Revolution by limiting the voice of the American people.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

·        In early 1786, Virginia’s James Madison advocated a meeting of states to address the widespread economic problems that plagued the new nation.

·        Heeding Madison’s call, the legislature in Virginia invited all thirteen states to meet in Annapolis, Maryland, to work on solutions to the issue of commerce between the states.

·        But the 1786 Annapolis Convention failed to provide any solutions. As only five states sent delegates.  

·        Outbreak of Shays’ Rebellion spurred delegates from twelve of the thirteen states to gather for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 

·        ALTHOUGH, the stated purpose of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 was to amend the Articles of Confederation, it shifted into the demand of creating a new framework for a national government which is called the United States Constitution. 

·        Fifty-five men met in Philadelphia in secret; they know what they were doing would be controversial, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, Robert Yates and John Lansing did not believe the delegates had the authority to create a strong national government.

THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATION

·        One issue that the delegates in Philadelphia addressed was the way in which representatives to the new national government would be chosen. Would individual citizens be able to elect representatives? Would representatives be chosen by state legislatures? How much representation was appropriate for each state?

·        A strong national government that could overturn state laws was proposed by James Madison. 

·        A bicameral or two-house legislature, with an upper and a lower house. The people of the states would elect the members of the lower house, whose numbers would be determined by the population of the state. State legislatures would send delegates to the upper house. The number of representatives in the upper chamber would also be based on the state’s population. 

·        This proportional representation gave the more populous states, like Virginia, more political power. The plan also called an executive branch and a judicial branch

·        Executive—Carries out laws (president, vice president, Cabinet, most federal agencies) Judicial—Evaluates laws (Supreme Court and other courts).

·        Members from the upper and lower houses would be appointed to the two branches. By doing this Virginia could assure its political power and slavery safe. 

·        William Paterson introduced a New Jersey Plan to counter Madison’s scheme, proposing that all states have equal votes in a unicameral national legislature. 

·        Roger Sherman from Connecticut offered a compromise to break the deadlock over the thorny question of representation. His Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise, outlined a different bicameral legislature (in which the upper house would have equal representation for all states; each state would be represented by two senators chosen by the state legislatures. Only the lower house, the House of Representatives, would have proportional representation).

THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY

The question of slavery stood as a major issue at the Constitutional Convention as slaveholders wanted enslaved residents to be counted along with White people, termed “free inhabitants,” when determining a state’s total population.

·        New York’s Gouverneur Morris, hated slavery and did not even want the term included in the new national plan of government.

·        Slaveholders argued that slavery imposed great burdens upon them and that, they carried this liability, they deserved special consideration; enslaved people needed to be counted for purposes of representation.

·        Beginning in 1775, the Second Continental Congress asked states to pay for war by collecting taxes and sending the tax money to the Congress. The amount each state had to deliver in tax revenue was determined by a state’s total population, including both free and enslaved individuals. States routinely fell far short of delivering the money requested by Congress under the plan. 

·        In April 1783, the Confederation Congress amended the earlier system by having the enslaved population count as three-fifths of the White population. In this way, slaveholders gained a significant tax break. 

·        Under the three-fifths compromise in the 1787 Constitution, three out of every five enslaved people would be counted when determining a state's population. The three-fifths compromise gave extra political power to slave states, although not as much as if the total population, both free and enslaved, had been used.

·        Northerners agreed to the three-fifths compromise because the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed by the Confederation Congress, banned slavery in the future states of the northwest. This ban balanced political power between states with enslaved people and those without. 

THE QUESTION OF DEMOCRACY

·        Many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had serious reservations about democracy, which they believed promoted anarchy. 

·        To allay these fears, the Constitution blunted democratic tendencies that appeared to undermine the republic. 

·        Thus, to avoid giving the people too much direct power, the delegates made certain that senators were chosen by the state legislatures, not elected directly by the people. 

·        The delegates created the Electoral College, the mechanism for choosing the president. Critics, then as now, argue that this process prevents the direct election of the president.

THE FIGHT OVER RATIFICATION

·        The delegates decided that in order for the new national government to be implemented, each state must first hold a special ratifying convention. When nine of the thirteen had approved the plan, the constitution would go into effect.

·        Opinions were deeply divided, but most American were opposed. People began to sway public opinion, and start campaigns.

·        Supporters of the 1787 Constitution, known as Federalists, made the case that a centralized republic provided the best solution for the future. Those who opposed it, known as Anti-Federalists, argued that the Constitution would consolidate all power in a national government, robbing the states of the power to make their own decisions had a fierce debate over the visions of the American government. 

·        The Anti-Federalists argue that the Rich would have the power than ordinary people. The Elite would not represent the people. And the Rich would change the law to benefit their class.

·        New York’s ratifying convention illustrates the divide between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. 

·        When one Anti-Federalist delegate named Melancton Smith took issue with the scheme of representation as being too limited and not reflective of the people, Alexander Hamilton responded: 

“It has been observed by an honorable gentleman [Smith], that a pure democracy if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proven, that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity: When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation but prepared for every enormity. In these assemblies, the enemies of the people brought forward their plans of ambition systematically. They were opposed by their enemies of another party; and it became a matter of contingency, whether the people subjected themselves to be led blindly by one tyrant or by another”

 

·        Including all the state ratifying conventions around the country, a total of fewer than two thousand men voted on whether to adopt the new plan of government. In

 While republicanism offered an alternative to monarchy, it was also an alternative to democracy, a system of government characterized by majority rule, where the majority of citizens have the power to make decisions binding upon the whole.
 While many now assume the US was founded as a democracy. Conservative Whigs believed in government by a patrician class. The great debate after independence was secured centered on this question: Who should rule in the new American republic?
 According to political theory, a republic requires its citizens to cultivate morality. Whether republicanism succeeded or failed in the US would depend on civic virtue and an educated citizenry.
 Revolutionary leaders agreed that the ownership of property provided one way to measure an individual’s virtue, arguing that property holders had the greatest stake in society and therefore could be trusted to make decisions for it. By the same token, they believed that non-property holders should exercise the political right to vote, a republic would limit political rights to property holders. In this way, republicanism exhibited a bias toward the elite.
George Washington served as an outstanding model for the new republic, talented and virtuous, he was widely appreciated by the public according to the political and social philosophy of republicanism. He did not seek to become the new king of America; instead he retired as commander in chief of the Continental Army and returned to his Virginia estate at Mount Vernon to resume his life among the planter elite.
7.2 ( Trần Gia Khánh)
In eighteenth-century America, as in Great Britain, coverture is the legal status of a married woman (or feme covert) had no legal or economic status independent of her husband. She could not conduct business or buy and sell property. Her husband controlled any property she brought to the marriage, although he could not sell it without her agreement. The wives of elite republican statesmen, began to agitate for equality under the law between husbands and wives, and for the same educational opportunities as men. Some women hoped to overturn coverture. Abigail Adams ran the family homestead during the Revolution, but she did not have the ability to conduct business without her husband’s consent. In the letter to her husband in 1776 mentiond the difficulties of running the homestead when her husband is away. Born in Massachusetts, Warren actively opposed British reform measures by publishing anti-British works. In 1812, she published a three-volume history of the Revolution. By publishing her work, Warren stepped out of the female sphere and into the otherwise male-dominated sphere of public life. Murray, who came from a well-to-do family in Gloucester, questioned why boys were given access to education as a birthright while girls had very limited educational opportunities. She began to publish her ideas about educational equality beginning in the 1780s, arguing that God had made the minds of women and men equal. Murray’s more radical ideas championed woman’s economic independence. She argued that a woman’s education should be extensive enough to allow her to maintain herself—and her family—if there was no male breadwinner. Her ideas were both radical and traditional, however: Murray also believed that women were much better at raising children and maintaining the morality and virtue of the family than men. Adams, Murray, and Warren all came from privileged backgrounds were fully literate, while many women in the American republic were not. Their literacy and station allowed them to push for new roles for women in the atmosphere of unique possibility created by the Revolution and its promise of change. Overall, the Revolution reconfigured women’s roles by undermining the traditional expectations of wives and mothers, including subservience.
By the time of the Revolution, slavery had been firmly in place in America for over one hundred years. In many ways, the Revolution served to reinforce the assumptions about race among White Americans. They viewed the new nation as a White republic; Black people were enslaved, and Native Americans had no place. Racial hatred of Black people increased during the Revolution because many enslaved people fled their enslavers for the freedom offered by the British. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that separation from the Empire was necessary because George III had incited “the merciless Indian savages” to destroy the White inhabitants on the frontier. Similarly, Thomas Paine argued in Common Sense that Great Britain was guilty of inciting “the Indians and Negroes to destroy us.” Benjamin Franklin wrote in the 1780s that, in time, alcoholism would wipe out the Natives, leaving the land free for White settlers.
Slavery offered the most glaring contradiction between the idea of equality stated in the Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal”) and the reality of race relations in the late eighteenth century. Thomas Jefferson enslaved more than one hundred people although he penned the Declaration of Independence. He freed only a few either during his lifetime or in his will cause he thought Black people were inferior to White. In his Notes on the State of Virginia in the 1780s, Jefferson urged the end of slavery in Virginia and the removal of Black people from that state. Jefferson envisioned an “empire of liberty” for White farmers and relied on the argument of sending Black people out of the United States, even if doing so would completely destroy the slaveholders’ wealth in their human property. Jefferson’s views were strongly objected. When he was a candidate for president in 1796, an anonymous “Southern Planter” wrote if his project succeeds then worst case scenario farewell to the existance of the Southern states. This leads to Slaveholders and many other Americans protected and defended the institution.
7.2 (Hoang Dung)
In Massachusetts, the Wheatley family manumitted Phillis in 1773 when she was twenty-one. Other revolutionaries formed societies dedicated to abolishing slavery. One of the earliest efforts began in 1775 in Philadelphia, where Dr. Benjamin Rush and other Philadelphia Quakers formed what became the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Similarly, wealthy New Yorkers formed the New York Manumission Society in 1785. The 1780 Massachusetts constitution technically freed all enslaved people. Nonetheless, several hundred individuals remained enslaved in the state. In the 1780s, a series of court decisions undermined slavery in Massachusetts when several people, citing assault by their enslavers, successfully sought their freedom in court. These individuals refused to be treated as having slave status in the wake of the American Revolution. Despite these legal victories, about eleven hundred people continued to be held in the New England states in 1800. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the war for independence, did not address Native peoples at all. All lands held by the British east of the Mississippi and south of the Great LakesThe Iroquois Confederacy, a longstanding alliance of tribes, also split up: the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Seneca fought on the British side, while the Oneida and Tuscarora supported the revolutionaries. Ohio River Valley tribes such as the Shawnee, Miami, and Mungo had been fighting for years against colonial expansion west; these groups supported the British. The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) ended with the defeat of the Natives and their claims. Under the Treaty of Greenville (1795), the United States gained dominion over land in Ohio. In 1786, as a revolutionary response against the privileged status of the Church of England, Virginia’s lawmakers approved the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. In 1790, however, Pennsylvania removed this qualification from its constitution.

The New England states were slower to embrace freedom of religion. In the former Puritan colonies, the Congregational Church

In 1776, John Adams urged the thirteen independent colonies—soon to be states—to write their own state constitutions. Enlightenment political thought profoundly influenced Adams and other revolutionary leaders seeking to create viable republican governments. Fearing the potential for tyranny with only one group in power, he suggested a system of checks and balances in which three separate branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—would maintain a balance of power. The 1776 Pennsylvania constitution and the 1784 New Hampshire constitution both provide examples of democratic tendencies. The 1784 New Hampshire constitution allowed every small town and village to send representatives to the state government, making the lower house of the legislature a model of democratic government. Conservative Whigs, who distrusted the idea of majority rule, recoiled from the abolition of property qualifications for voting and office holding in Pennsylvania. The Maryland and South Carolina constitutions provide examples of efforts to limit the power of a democratic majority. Maryland’s, written in 1776, restricted office holding to the wealthy planter class. The 1778 South Carolina constitution also sought to protect the interests of the wealthy. John Adams wrote much of the 1780 Massachusetts constitution, which reflected his fear of too much democracy. Like South Carolina, Massachusetts put in place office-holding requirements.

Most revolutionaries pledged their greatest loyalty to their individual states. In June 1776, the Continental Congress prepared to announce independence and began to think about the creation of a new government to replace royal authority. Members of the Continental Congress also debated what type of representation would be best and tried to figure out how to pay the expenses of the new government. Passage of any law under the Articles of Confederation proved difficult. The Congress did not have the power to tax citizens of the United States, a fact that would soon have serious consequences for the republic. By the 1780s, some members of the Congress were greatly concerned about the financial health of the republic, and they argued that the national government needed greater power, especially the power to tax. This required amending the Articles of Confederation with the consent of all the states. These men proposed a 5 percent tax on imports coming into the United States, a measure that would have yielded enough revenue to clear the debt. However, their proposal failed to achieve unanimous support from the states when Rhode Island rejected it. The Confederation Congress under the Articles did achieve success through a series of directives called land ordinances, which established rules for the settlement of western lands in the public domain and the admission of new states to the republic. The Ordinance of 1784, written by Thomas Jefferson and the first of what were later called the Northwest Ordinances, directed that new states would be formed from a huge area of land below the Great Lakes, and these new states would have equal standing with the original states. The Ordinance of 1785 called for the division of this land into rectangular plots in order to prepare for the government sale of land. The Ordinance of 1787 officially turned the land into an incorporated territory called the Northwest Territory and prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River The land ordinances proved to be the great triumph of the Confederation Congress.

Despite Congress’s victory in creating an orderly process for organizing new states and territories, land sales failed to produce the revenue necessary to deal with the dire economic problems facing the new country in the 1780s. The economic crisis came to a head in 1786 and 1787 in western Massachusetts, where farmers were in a difficult position: they faced high taxes and debts, which they found nearly impossible to pay with the worthless state and Continental paper money. In 1786, when the state legislature again refused to address the petitioners’ requests, Massachusetts citizens took up arms and closed courthouses across the state to prevent foreclosure Despite these measures, the rebellion continued. The climax of Shays’ Rebellion came in January 1787, when the rebels attempted to seize the federal armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. Shays’ Rebellion resulted in eighteen deaths overall, but the uprising had lasting effects and convinced George Washington to come out of retirement and lead the convention called for by Alexander Hamilton to amend the Articles of Confederation in order to deal with insurgencies like the one in Massachusetts and provide greater stability in the United States.

 

7.4(T.N.Hoàng Minh)
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
In early 1786, James Madiso­­n of Virginia advocated a meeting of the states to resolve the widespread economic problems plaguing the new nation. Heeding Madison's call, the Virginia legislature invited 13 states to convene to find a solution to the trade problem, and as a result, there was no solution. In May 1787, delegates approved Alexander Hamilton's plan for Philadelphia. In February 1787, after the uprising in Western Massachusetts ended, the Congress of the Confederacy authorized Philadelphia. In 1787, Philadelphia amended the Articles of Confederation. That framework became the Constitution of the United States, and the Philadelphia convention became known as the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATION
James Madison put forward a proposal known as the Virginia Plan, which called for a strong national government that could overturn state laws. thanks to the proportional representation, it gave the more populous states, like Virginia, more political power. The Virginia Plan also calls for an executive branch and a judicial branch, both absent under the Articles of Confederation. The Virginia plan called for proportional representation that alarmed the representation of the smaller states. William Paterson introduced the New Jersey Plan to counter Madison's plot, proposing that all states have an equal number of votes in a unicameral national legislature. He also addressed current economic problems by calling on Congress to have the power to regulate commerce, increase revenue through taxes on imports and through the postal service, and enforce Congressional requirements. from the states. Roger Sherman's Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Grand Compromise, outlined a different bicameral legislature in which the upper house, the Senate, would have equal representation for all states; Each state shall be represented by two senators selected by the state legislatures. Only the lower house, the House of Representatives, has proportional representation.
THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY
The issue of slavery became a major issue at the Constitutional Convention because slave owners wanted slave residents to be counted alongside whites, known as "free residents" when determining the total number of slaves. the population of a state. Slavers believed that slavery posed a great burden on them and that, when they shouldered this responsibility, they deserved special consideration; Enslaved people should be counted for representation purposes. Beginning in 1775, the Second Continental Congress required the states to pay for the war by collecting taxes and sending them to Congress. In April 1783, the Congress of the Union revised the referendum system. used earlier by counting the slave population as three-fifths of the white population. In this way, the slave owners got a substantial tax break. Delegates in Philadelphia adopted this same three-fifths formula in the summer of 1787. Northerners agreed to a three-fifths compromise because the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed by the Congress of Confederation, forbade it. it. slavery in the future states of the Northwest. The three-fifths compromise gave the slave owners an advantage; they added three-fifths of their human wealth to their state's population, allowing them to appoint a representative portion based on the number of people they enslaved
THE QUESTION OF DECOMARY
Many delegates to the Constitutional Convention had serious reservations about democracy. To assuage these concerns, the Constitution removed democratic tendencies that seemed to undermine the
republic. Thus, to avoid giving the people too much direct power, delegates must ensure that senators are chosen by the state legislatures, not directly elected by the people.
THE FIGHT OVER RATIFICATION
The draft constitution was completed in September 1787. The delegates decided that in order for the new national government to be implemented, each state must first hold a special ratification convention. When nine out of thirteen people have approved the plan, the constitution will go into effect. When the American public learned of the new constitution, opinions were deeply divided, but most people opposed it. Supporters of the 1787 Constitution, known as the Federalists, argued that a centralized republic provided the best solution for the future. Those who opposed it, known as the Anti-Federalists, argued that the Constitution would be

 The 1776 Pennsylvania constitution and the 1784 New Hampshire constitution both provide examples of democratic tendencies. In Pennsylvania, the requirement to own property in order to vote was eliminated, and if a man was twenty-one or older, had paid taxes, and had lived in the same location for one year, he could vote. This opened voting for most free white male citizen. The 1784 New Hampshire constitution allowed every small town and village to send representatives to the state government, making the lower house of the legislature a model of democratic government.

 Conservative Whigs, who distrusted the idea of majority rule, recoiled from the abolition of property qualifications for voting and office holding in Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania’s constitution also eliminated the executive branch (there was no governor) and the upper house. Instead, Pennsylvania had a one-house—a unicameral—legislature. In contrast, the Maryland and South Carolina constitutions provide examples of efforts to limit the power of a democratic majority, they restricted office holding to the wealthy planter class. The Massachusetts constitution in 1780 created two legislative chambers. Like South Carolina, Massachusetts put in place office-holding many requirements.

7.4 (qtrang)
The constitutional convention

- 1786: At Madison's call, the Virginia legislature invited all 13 states to meet in Annapolis, Maryland to find a solution to the problem of interstate commerce.

-> could not provide a solution because only 8 states responded and 5 states sent representatives.

   However, these five states agreed to Alexander Hamilton's plan for a convention on 5/1787 in Philadelphia. Shay's Rebellion brought more urgency to the planned congress

- 2/1787: after the Rebellion in western Massachusetts -> held the convention in Philadelphia -> all states except Rhode Island belonged to the country.

- Philadelphia Convention 1787: amending the Articles of Confederation (original purpose) -> participants create a new framework: the Constitution of the United States

- James Madison-Virginia Plan: called for a strong national government that could overturn state laws

   Under this plan, the most populous Virginia would dominate the nation's political power and ensure its interests, including slavery, would be secure.

- This plan alarmed representatives of smaller states -> William Paterson-New Jersey Plan: against Madison, states with equal votes

- Roger Sherman offers Connecticut compromise to break deadlock and tension: outlined a different bicameral legislature

- 1775: 2nd Continental Congress requires the states to pay for the war by sending taxes to Congress -> Congress of the Union so that slaves make up 3 fifths of the white population -> slave owners can significantly tax reduction

- The three-fifths compromised in 1787 Constitution: one slave counted as 3 out of 5 whites -> greater political power for slave states, giving advantage to slave owners
7.4 (vanh)
The question of democracy 

Many delegates to the Constitutional Convention had serious reservations about democracy. The Constitution blunted democratic tendencies to undermine the republic. The delegates also made certain that senators were chosen by state legislature and Electoral College as additional safeguard.
The fight over ratification
The draft constitution was finished in September 1787. The delegates decided that in order for the new national government to be implemented, each state must first hold a special ratifying convention. 
Most people were opposed, and divided into Federalists and Anti-Federalists

American revolutionaries redefined themselves through the newly established republican governments in each of the former colonies at that time. Majority rule that the states claimed to measure democracy on political issues.

John Adam, said that the old independent colonies should write their own constitutions in the preparation of becoming states. The fear of tyranny with a group in power motivated him to think about not only a system of checks and balances for 3 seperated branches of government but also one more thing: Each state remain sovereign, as its own republic.

1776 Pennsylvania and 1784 New Hampshire constitutions opened up the opportunity to express more clearly the democratic tendency for the whole people. However, conservative Whig John Adam and other conservative Whigs thought that 1776 constitution simply handed lots of benefits into the hands of non-business the right to vote. Meanwhile, the Maryland and South Carolina ones restricted the power of majority of the democracies; instead, they focused on the interests of the rich people. After a series of democracies launched, John Adam voiced his fear of the regime’s mushrooming growth, especially Massachusetts constitution, which considered to be a replication of South Carolina one.

The Continental Progress started to think of slowly moving towards the new government, which the royal authority position disappeared before this place became independent. However, too much questions were fabricated about this government, especially in cost, type of representation so that Articles of Confederation created “Articles of Confederation” between the states. The new rules from Articles of Confederation and Congress was considered too hard to be applied when the consent of most states was required to implement, while any acts put forward by the Congress were non-binding. The financial health of the republics and the power of the national governments were two of many problems got the attention of members in parliament, but to implement the solution, the acceptance of all the states were necessary.
One soldier in the Continental Army, Joseph Plumb Martin told that he could only received monthly payment in specie (hard currency) in 1781, 4 years from the time paper money was not given to him although he had fought against the British and helped secure independence. It showed difficulty in establishing workable foreign and commercial policies under the Articles of Confederation with the repetition of the economic imbalance that existed before the Revolutionary War.
Phạm Minh Đức A

While autocracy was still practiced in Britain, the rulers of the United States had found a new kind of regime. Republic State.In the late eighteenth century, republics were few and far between. Genoa, Venice, and the Dutch Republic provided examples of states without monarchs, but many European Enlightenment thinkers questioned the stability of a republic. Nonetheless, after their break from Great Britain, Americans turned to republicanism for their new government.Monarchy rests on the practice of dynastic succession, in which the monarch’s child or other relative inherits the throne.However, by the mid-1770s, many American colonists believed that George III, the king of Great Britain, had failed to do so. Patriots believed the British monarchy under George III had been corrupted and the king turned into a tyrant who cared nothing for the traditional liberties afforded to members of the British Empire. The disaffection from monarchy explains why a republic appeared a better alternative to the revolutionaries. Americans were based on the Roman republic when the people could appoint a leader to represent them. Indeed, conservative Whigs defined themselves in opposition to democracy, which they equated with anarchy. In the tenth in a series of essays later known as The Federalist Papers, Virginian James Madison wrote: “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” They believe that the opinion of the majority will always prevail over the opinion of the few. Revolutionary leaders agreed that the ownership of property provided one way to measure an individual’s virtue, arguing that property holders had the greatest stake in society and therefore could be trusted to make decisions for it. By the same token, non-property holders, they believed, should have very little to do with government. George Washington served as a role model par excellence for the new republic. Washington modeled his behavior on that of the Roman aristocrat Cincinnatus, a representative of the patrician or ruling class, who had also retired from public service in the Roman Republic and returned to his estate to pursue agricultural life. 

George Washington served as a role model par excellence for the new republic, embodying the exceptional talent and public virtue prized under the political and social philosophy of republicanism. He did not seek to become the new king of America; instead he retired as commander in chief of the Continental Army and returned to his Virginia estate at Mount Vernon to resume his life among the planter elite.

7.4: The Constitutional Convention and Federal Constitution. (Hà My)
1. The Constitutional Convention
- In early 1786, Virginia’s James Madison advocated a meeting of states to address the widespread economic problems that plagued the new nation. 
- Heeding Madison’s call, the legislature in Virginia invited all thirteen states to meet in Annapolis, Maryland, to work on solutions to the issue of commerce between the states.
- In 1768, the result of Annapolis Convention failed to provide any solutions because only 5 states sent delegates. 
- These delegates did, however, agree to a plan put forward by Alexander Hamilton for a second convention to meet in 5/1787 in Philadelphia. 
- In 2/1787, in the wake of the uprising in western Massachusetts, the Confederation Congress authorized the Philadelphia convention.
- The stated purpose of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 was to amend the Articles of Confederation.
- However, the attendees decided to create a new framework for a national government.
- That framework became the United States Constitution, and the Philadelphia convention became known as the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

2. The question of representation
- The question of slavery stood as a major issue at the Constitutional Convention because slaveholders wanted enslaved residents to be counted along with White people, termed “free inhabitants,” when determining a state’s total population.
- Some northerners, however, such as New York’s Gouverneur Morris, hated slavery and did not even want the term included in the new national plan of government.
- The issue of counting or not counting enslaved people for purposes of representation connected directly to the question of taxation.
- In 1775, the Second Continental Congress asked states to pay for war by collecting taxes and sending the tax money to the Congress.
- In 4/1783, the Confederation Congress amended the earlier system of requisition by having the enslaved population count as three-fifths of the White population.
- In summer of 1787, the delegates in Philadelphia adopted this same three-fifths formula.
- Under the three-fifths compromise in the 1787 Constitution, three out of every five enslaved people would be counted when determining a state's population. 
- The three-fifths compromise gave an advantage to slaveholders; they added three-fifths of their human property to their state’s population, allowing them to send representatives based in part on the number of people they enslaved.

3. The question of democracy
- Many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had serious reservations about democracy, which they believed promoted anarchy. 
- To allay these fears, the Constitution blunted democratic tendencies that appeared to undermine the republic.
- As an additional safeguard, the delegates created the Electoral College, the mechanism for choosing the president. 
- Under this plan, each state has a certain number of electors, which is its number of senators (two) plus its number of representatives in the House of Representatives. 

4. The fight over ratification
- 9/1787, the draft constitution was finished.
- When the American public learned of the new constitution, opinions were deeply divided, but most people were opposed.
- In the fierce debate that erupted, the two sides articulated contrasting visions of the American republic and of democracy.
- Supporters of the 1787 Constitution, known as Federalists, made the case that a centralized republic provided the best solution for the future.     
- Those who opposed it, known as Anti-Federalists, argued that the Constitution would consolidate all power in a national government, robbing the states of the power to make their own decisions.
- They also argued that the Constitution did not contain a bill of rights.
- New York’s ratifying convention illustrates the divide between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists.
- The opposition to the Constitution reflected the fears that a new national government, much like the British monarchy, created too much centralized power and, as a result, deprived citizens in the various states of the ability to make their own decisions.
7.3 Đỗ ngọc linh
THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS

John Adams encouraged the thirteen independent colonies—soon to be states—to write their own state constitutions in 1776. The ideas of the French philosopher Montesquieu, who advocated separation of powers, guided thinking adam. Adams wrote thinking about government and not pro-democracy. Instead, he proposed a system of government, The legislative and judicial branches maintain a balance of power. At the same time, the states remain sovereign and republican. Some states adopt democratic practices while others adopt the aristocracy and party.

The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 and the Hampshire Constitution of 1784 provide some examples of democracy such as the removal of property requirements. Conservatives do not believe in this rule because they consider the Pennsylvania constitution to be a waste. Abandon the operating branch and replace it with a rogue legal agency.

The maryland and south carolina constitutions provide examples of efforts to limit the power of democratic majority. 1780 consisted of two legislative chambers.

SHAYS’ REBELLION
Former shays officer joined the uprising, the authorities in Boston sang him as a relleader, and started the shays rebellion .
Massachusetts legislators closed the courts with a series of laws, largely designed to punish rebels. On the other hand, local officials are empowered to use deadly force against them. The rebels would lose their property, and if any militia refused to defend the state, they would be executed. Shays and Shattuck were two of the leaders of the rebels who rose up against the Massachusetts government between 1786 and 1787. They were veterans of the revolution. Even so, the rebellion continued. To settle, James Bowdoin raised forty-four hundred men, financed by wealthy Boston merchants. Rebellion in January 1787, when rebels tried to seize the federal armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. A force that defeated them The Rebellion resulted in eighteen deaths, but had lasting effects. To the men of fortune, mostly conservative sticks, Shays' rebellion strongly suggested the Republic was falling into turmoil. Shays Rebellion convinced George Washington to leave his retirement and lead the Convention called by Alexander Hamilton to amend the Confederate articles.

REPUBLICANISM AS A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY: According to political theory, a republic country requires its people to cultivate morality. The results of republicanism in America will depend on civic virtue and an educated citizenry. Revolutionaries agreed that property ownership was a way to measure an individual's virtue, arguing that property owners had the largest stake in society and could therefore be trust to make decisions for it. At the same time, they believe that people who do not own property should exercise their political right to vote, a republic would restrict political rights to property holders. In this way, republicanism exhibits a bias towards elites. George Washington was once an outstanding model for the new republic, talented and virtuous, he was widely appreciated by the public according to the political and social philosophy of republicanism. He did not seek to be America's new king; instead, he retired as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and returned to his Virginia estate at Mount Vernon to continue his life among the plantation elite.