Download The Treaty of Paris Period: 1783-87

The Treaty of Paris Period: 1783-87
PERIOD 1: The Continental Congress Period (1774-76)
The first period began when the First Continental Congress met from Sept. 5-26, 1774 and then again as
the Second Continental Congress on Oct. 10, 1775. The term they used was the “United Colonies of
North America” to refer to the thirteen British colonies that decided to unite in order to align themselves
in opposition to British colonial policy after the French and Indian War.
Continental Congress Period Questions:
a. What was the outcome of the French and Indian War?
b. How many total colonies did the British have in North America? Was it only 13?
Answers:
a. In the early 1750s, “Canada” was a French colony—all of it, not just today’s province of
Quebec, though little of it was settled. In 1756, the French and Indian War began between Great
Britain and France for continental supremacy. In 1762, France avoided losing the vast Louisiana
portion of New France by turning it over to Spain. In 1763, the French and Indian War ended and
what was left of New France—Canada—was surrendered to the British. The British renamed a
small portion of it, north of the thirteen American colonies, the “Province of Quebec.”
The French no longer had North American colonies.
b. By 1776, after having taken Canada from France, the British had 20 colonies in North America
(not counting the West Indies), aside from the thirteen colonies that declared independence:
1. Acadia, taken from France in 1713.
2. The renamed “Quebec” taken from France.
3. Nova Scotia (which included New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island until 1784)
4. Rupert’s Land, a vast expanse that included territories eventually added to Ontario or Quebec,
broken off to form Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba, or ceded to the United States in
1783—what was left became the NW Territories and then part of Canada in 1867.
5. Newfoundland
6. East Florida
7. West Florida
Thirteen additional British colonies formed a Continental Congress in 1774 and then broke away in 1776.
The other seven colonies (above) stayed with Great Britain and were soon joined by fleeing Loyalists
from the thirteen colonies that left. The American Revolution was a second act to the French and Indian
War but this time, the thirteen seceding American colonies crossed sides and joined the French, the
Spanish and most Native Americans, who believed British colonial expansion was over and that an
American expansion would begin if the United States became independent. In the French and Indian War,
the American colonists help evict France from the continent. In the American Revolution, France helped
the United States win its independence but they were unsuccessful in both their joint attempt to evict
Great Britain from the continent and to recover Canada.
PERIOD 2: The Declaration of Independence Period (1776-83)
The second period began when the Second Continental Congress declared independence from Great
Britain on July 2, 1776 (the declaration was ratified on July 4) Following military confrontations that had
begun on April 19, 1775, on Nov. 15, 1777 in York, Pennsylvania, Congress, which was a unicameral
body made up of delegates from the thirteen seceding colonies, passed the Articles of Confederation.
Class Reading: According to their entry for the Articles of Confederation:
“The Articles were created by delegates from the states in the Second Continental Congress out of a need
to have ‘a plan of confederacy for securing the freedom, sovereignty, and independence of the United
States.’ After the war, (many) complained that the Articles (created a central government that was)
too weak (to be) effective… There was no president, no executive agencies, no judiciary and no tax
base. The absence of a tax base meant that there was no way to pay off state and national debts from
the war years except by requesting money from the states, which seldom arrived.”
Declaration of Independence Period Questions:
a. Is this Wikipedia entry accurate? If there were no presidents, who was in charge?
b. Why was the central government that the Articles created considered “weak”?
c. Why did Congress need to pay off its “national debts from the war years”?
Answers:
a. Wherever Congress met, that city was the seat of the national government. Eight cities served as
the seat of the national government before Washington, DC between 1774 and 1800:
Philadelphia, York and Lancaster in Pennsylvania; Baltimore and Annapolis in Maryland;
Trenton and Princeton in New Jersey; and New York City, New York. During the time before the
Constitution, there were presidents: they were Presidents of Congress. Additionally, there were
actually three executive agencies. Between 1774, when the First Continental Congress met, and
1789, when George Washington became the first President of the United States under the new
Constitution, fourteen separate men served as Presidents of Congress:
http://www.nationalcchs.org/
b. The Articles of Confederation were designed to be “weak,” weak in the sense of political
structure and power, just as there are “strong” and “weak” gubernatorial structures and “strong”
and “weak” mayoral structures. The Articles were “weak” because they designated that Congress
as a legislative body would create the budget, not the President of Congress by himself.
Interestingly, the supposedly “weak” Articles of Confederation set up a system of state oversight
over the national government that would make today’s states green with envy: First, Congress
could not go into debt unless three-fourths of the states approved it. Second, Congress could
not go to war in peacetime—in other words, unless attacked first—without approval by threefourths of the states. And third, if Congress recessed without finishing their agenda, a
committee of states—which was in reality simply a subcommittee of Congress—could be
appointed to finish it for them. The President of Congress was also a member of Congress, like
the British Prime Minister is also a Member of Parliament. This was all done on purpose.
Thus, the Articles of Confederation were designed by choice as a “weak” system whereby the
Constitution sets up a “strong” system. The systems are either “weak” or “strong” by design; the
terms are not meant as criticism or compliments; thus, you can’t have a system that is “too weak”.
By teaching that the Articles were “weak” without explaining what “weak” means, three things
happen: first, students are never taught that there were Presidents of Congress during the time
before George Washington’s presidency, and second, students don’t learn the difference between
a “weak” and a “strong” system of government; and third, students don’t learn how the inability
of the Articles to pay the nation’s war debts is one of the many reasons why a second, new
Constitution eventually had to be written.
c. Congress wasn’t supposed to have any long-term debts. Each state was responsible for both
paying its own debts and contributing money to Congress to fund the national budget, which
between 1775 and 1783 was primarily used for funding the Revolutionary War.
Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was funded by voluntary contributions from member
states. That is exactly how the European Union and the United Nations are funded today.
How the EU is funded:
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/financing/fin_en.cfm#own_res
How the UN is funded:
http://www.un.org/en/ga/about/art19.shtml
If a member of the EU doesn’t voluntarily contribute their portion of the EU budget, that state will
eventually be kicked out of the EU, and then all of their trade with EU states will be subject to taxes,
tariffs and quotas. If a member of the UN doesn’t voluntarily contribute their portion of the UN budget,
they can have their voting privileges revoked until they have paid up. Likewise, the first version of the
United States was a regional organization, very much like the EU; states were independent countries, they
had their own governments, their own militias, their own currency, their own trading relationships. An
attack on one was an attack on all. What changed the United States into a single country from a
collection of countries was the need to pay off its war debts. If the Revolutionary War had not
produced a national debt, or, if the national debt had been paid off by state contributions, there would not
have been a need for a new Constitution—or to form a single country. It wasn’t the fault of Congress or
the Articles that the war debts weren’t paid; the states decided to ignore congressional appeals for what
were, admittedly, voluntary contributions. However, from the view of the states, Congress had agreed to
pay the war debts even though the United States had won the war—by signing the Treaty of Paris, which
contained a provision obligating the United States to pay its war debts to Great Britain in exchange
for Britain releasing its claims to property held by the United States and future territorial claims
(i.e., interfering with American expansion). Think of this exchange as a mandatory condition for
British recognition of American independence. Paying the war debts was part of the “terms of secession.”
PERIOD 3: The Treaty of Paris Period (1783-87)
The Treaty of Paris Period is nothing less than the brief but critical time when the United States was a
collection of independent states led by a unicameral Congress rather than a bicameral Congress. This
unicameral Congress, rotating between cities instead of a permanent capital, was presided over by a,
rather than a President of Congress. The first version of the United States is very different from the
current version, with its permanent capital, a bicameral Congress, a President who leads a separate
executive branch and an independent judiciary. The first version is criticized, ignored, forgotten and
ultimately not taught in the schools. Instead, U.S. history jumps from the end of the Revolutionary War to
the Constitutional Convention, as if the Convention happened the following week, without explaining
why it happened at all. As a result, students never learn why the United States created a new, “strong”
constitutional system that gave added powers to a now bicameral legislature and independent executive in
order to govern a new country composed of formerly independent states now willing to form a single
nation, a “more perfect” union.
Treaty of Paris Period Questions:
a. What years are called “The Treaty of Paris Period”?
b. Why was the Treaty of Paris the most important governing document between the Declaration
of Independence and the new Constitution?
c. How was Congress different during the Treaty of Paris Period?
d. What powers did the Presidents of Congress before George Washington not have?
e. What could happen if the United States did not pay off its war debts?
f. What specific crisis led to the realization that paying off the nation’s war debts and confronting
military aggression was not possible under the Articles of Confederation?
g. What were the important events took place between the end of the Revolution and the start of
the Constitution?
Answers:
a. 1783-87.
b. The 1763 Treaty of Paris had decided North American continental supremacy once and for all:
Great Britain was unchallenged. The Dutch and French had been evicted and the Spanish decided
to focus on the North American continent’s western portion and southwest region as well as what
would become Latin America. The 1783 Treaty of Paris allowed for the existence of two separate
political entities in North America: Great Britain and the United States. It ended the British
monopoly on the continent, but for a price: exclusive trading advantages. The purpose of the
Treaty of Paris was “to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily
interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which (we) mutually wish to restore, and to
establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries upon the ground
of reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual
peace and harmony.” As a result, the 1783 Treaty of Paris was a major foreign policy-related,
governing document for the United States, since it established formal principles for all interaction
with the other political entity on this continent. Once the Treaty of Paris was formally signed in
France on Sept. 3, 1783, the focus of the United States government went from fighting a war to
attempting to comply with the terms of the peace. These are the major terms of the peace:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The United States are recognized as free, sovereign and independent states (note the plural); the
British Crown relinquishes claims to the Government, property, and territorial rights;
The boundaries between the U.S. and the other British colonies in North America were set; American
fishermen were granted fishing rights in the Grand Banks, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and off the coast
of Newfoundland, and each nation would both have perpetual access to the Mississippi River;
The U.S. Congress must "earnestly recommend" recognition by state legislatures of the rightful owners
of all confiscated lands and "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have
been confiscated belonging to real British subjects [Loyalists]" and the U.S. must prevent future
confiscations of Loyalist property;
It declares that both sides’ prisoners of war are to be released and all property left by the British army
in the United States would not be interfered with (including slaves); and Territories captured by
Americans subsequent to the treaty will be returned without compensation;
It recognizes that lawful debts will be paid to creditors on both sides.
c. Congress only had one chamber (simply called “Congress”); the President was chosen from
among the delegates to Congress; each state had only one vote, although anywhere from two to
seven people collectively cast that one vote; delegates were elected by their state legislatures.
d. The Presidents of Congress could not veto legislation, although they could vote against a bill like
any other delegate; the Presidents of Congress did not serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the
military; the Presidents of Congress were not elected by the people—they were elected by the
other delegates to Congress; and the Presidents of Congress, after the ratification of the Articles
of Confederation, served a single one-year term.
e. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist Papers that if the United States
did not pay off its war debts, the nation could cease to exist. Hamilton said, “We have reached
almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride
or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience. Do we owe debts
to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril for the preservation of
our political existence? These remain without any proper or satisfactory provision for their
discharge. Have we valuable territories and important posts in the possession of a foreign power
which, by express stipulations, ought long since to have been surrendered? These are still
retained, to the prejudice of our interests, not less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to
resent or to repel the aggression? We have neither troops, nor treasury, nor government.
Ours is at the lowest point of declension.” Madison added, “We must recommend a proper federal
system. Justice is the objective of government. It is the objective of civil society. It ever has been
and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society
under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy
may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured
against the violence of the stronger.” Hamilton concluded that, “It would greatly advance the
interests of the Union if the States that sent delegations to Annapolis would procure the
concurrence of the other States in the appointment of new delegations to meet at Philadelphia on
the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States and
to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of
the Federal Government adequate to remedy the inefficiencies of the current system.”
f. Two weeks before the states could meet in Annapolis in 1786, Shays’ Rebellion broke out in
Massachusetts on August 29, 1786. A huge economic depression had swept over the country
after the end of the Revolutionary War, leading to home and farm foreclosures and harsh
economic policies in Massachusetts to deal with it. Daniel Shays was leading an uprising that
sought to take over Massachusetts by seizing the federal armory at Springfield which, if
successful, threatened to spread to the other states and, eventually, past the boundaries with Great
Britain. Because Congress could neither tax to pay its debts or draft and then pay an army to
confront the uprising; instead, private citizens were organized into local militias that ultimately
defeated Shays and his men by early February of 1787.
g. After Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781, a draft of the
Treaty of Paris was signed on Nov. 30, 1782, followed by these eight key events:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
1783: Signing the Treaty of Paris: The Treaty of Paris Period began when the official Treaty of
Paris was signed on Sept. 3, 1783 by former President of Congress John Jay, future President of the
United States John Adams and future President of Pennsylvania Benjamin Franklin. It now had to be
ratified by both countries. It took months by ship to get documents from one country to another.
Getting it to Congress: By the time the treaty arrived in the United States, Congress was in Annapolis
(Nov. 26, 1783), making Annapolis the first peacetime capital of the United States.
Washington’s resignation: After the treaty was officially signed, General George Washington
decided to retire as Commander-in-Chief in Annapolis. Washington resigned his Army commission
in front of Congress and President Thomas Mifflin on Dec. 23, 1783.
1784: Ratifying the Treaty of Paris: Without Washington to lead the Army, Congress was
determined to make sure the agreements with the British were implemented, so the Treaty of Paris
was ratified on Jan. 14, 1784 (Ratification Day). It was ratified by acclamation by three-fourths of the
states (nine) and signed by President Thomas Mifflin and Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson.
Diplomatic representation: Congress, led by President Thomas Mifflin, appointed delegate
Thomas Jefferson as a minister to France on May 7, 1784, to eventually replace treaty signatory
Benjamin Franklin as US Ambassador to France. This was very symbolic; the transition from someone
who had made peace with Great Britain to the person who drafted the Declaration of Independence
signaled an immediate shift in foreign policy with the British. Later, as President, after the British
captured the USS Chesapeake off the coast of Virginia in 1807 for harboring British naval deserters, it
was Jefferson who placed an embargo on the British that continued into early 1809; however, the
embargo hurt the US far more since Britain was America’s largest trading partner. The British simply
increased their trade with Latin America to offset the American embargo, which the British countered
with the especially restrictive blockade decrees of January 7, 1807, November 11, 1807, and April 26,
1809—the latter coming after the United States had voted removed its own blockade of the British.
These British blockades would eventually become a major reason for the War of 1812.
1785: The Mount Vernon Compact: When the states of Maryland and Virginia disagreed on
Potomac River access, it threatened to unravel the agreements between the United States and Great
Britain because if two states within one political entity could not agree on formal boundaries, then how
could states be expected to respect British sovereignty? It therefore became imperative that Maryland
and Virginia resolve the dispute over the Potomac River. In Virginia, the now retired George
Washington was obsessed with the idea that the Potomac River, on which his home sat, be used as a
trade route to connect the states and the west.
7.
8.
In March of 1785, Madison called for a meeting in Alexandria, Virginia. The delegates were Samuel
Chase, Thomas Stone and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer from Maryland and George Mason and
Alexander Henderson of Virginia. James Madison and Edmund Randolph were appointed to be
Virginia delegates to this meeting, but Governor Patrick Henry failed to inform them of this
appointment. When the two Virginia delegates failed to meet their Maryland counterparts in
Alexandria, the meeting was moved to Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, from March 25-28, 1785.
Washington was not a delegate but his advice and reasoning as host were invaluable toward crafting
the 1785 Mount Vernon Compact, which provided for both states to have navigational rights on the
Potomac and Pocomoke Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, covering tidewater navigation and extending
to such issues as toll duties, commerce regulations, fishing rights, and debt collection. After signing the
1785 Mount Vernon Compact, Maryland and Virginia agreed to a second meeting, but the Maryland
delegates, led by Samuel Chase, were adamant that if they were to meet again, that it be in Annapolis.
When James Madison heard of this, he expressed agreement. At this second meeting, Virginia and
Maryland were supposed to return to Annapolis in September of the following year, 1786,
accompanied by all of the other states, who were supposed to discuss not only disputes between any of
the states but also interstate trade, commercial concerns and all outstanding financial issues that had
not been resolved by Congress.
1786: Shays’ Rebellion: In addition to Congress not having the power to levy taxes to pay its national
debts, Congress did not have the power to draft and then pay an army to confront an uprising led by
Daniel Shays that began in late August of 1786.
The Annapolis Convention: By the time the second multi-state meeting was to take place in
September of 1786, only five states sent a total of twelve delegates. The purpose of the 1786 Annapolis
Convention included conducting an overall assessment of the Articles of Confederation. They met
from Sept. 11-14, 1786. On the first day, they introduced themselves and determined what issues they
would focus on. John Dickinson, the author of the first draft of the Articles of Confederation, asked all
of the delegates to take the second day off—September 12—to give them time to make a list of all of
the problems their states had encountered in regard to property, individual rights, trade, commerce,
regulations and defects in the overall federal system. They reconvened on September 13; on that day,
James Madison and Alexander Hamilton argued that the Articles of Confederation were not adequate
to address the pressing issues facing the United States. Dickinson then asked Hamilton to draft a report
expressing this position to Congress and the rest of the states. Hamilton’s report called for “a future
Convention, with more enlarged powers…the situation of the United States (is) delicate and
critical…for all the members of the Confederacy” and urged Congress to “procure the concurrence of
the other States in the appointment of Commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday
in May next…to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further
provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government
adequate to the exigencies of the Union.”
The Treaty of Paris Period is the time between the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional
Convention, when there was neither a war going on nor a Constitution being written.
PERIOD 4: The Constitutional Convention Period (1787-89)
The start of the 1787 Constitutional Convention started the 1787-89 Constitutional Convention Period.
The report of the 1786 Annapolis Convention to Congress led to Congress, on February 21, 1787 calling
for a new convention on May 14, 1787 in Philadelphia to be attended by all of the states (it didn’t start
until May 25). After the new Constitution took effect in early 1789, the United States had a new
document to govern by.
Constitutional Convention Period Questions:
a. How many states attended?
b. When did the Constitutional Convention end?
c. How many states had to ratify it before the Constitution could go into effect?
d. When did the Constitution officially start?
Answers:
a. All states except for Rhode Island attended.
b. The convention ended on Sept. 17, 1787 with most of the delegates signing the new Constitution.
c. Nine states had to ratify it in order for it to go into effect. Eleven states initially ratified it by 1788
(North Carolina and Rhode Island did not) and then Congress set up elections for the new offices
that the Constitution provided for. Although all thirteen states eventually ratified it, Rhode Island
was the last one, waiting until 1790.
d. The Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789 when the new bicameral Congress was sworn
in. The unicameral Congress had been meeting in New York since January of 1785, before the
Mount Vernon Compact, at City Hall. On March 2, 1789, the last unicameral session of the
Articles of Confederation Congress met, with only one delegate from New York in attendance,
although many of the other delegates were still in New York City. Two days later, on March 4,
the first bicameral federal Congress met in the same building, which is today called Federal Hall.
George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States under the new
Constitution on April 30, 1789. Now the United States entered the Constitutional Period, which
we are still in to this day.
PERIOD 5: The Constitutional Period (1789-Present)
Before teaching the fifth period of the history of the United States—i.e. the Constitutional Period—
according to your textbooks, your students should be able to answer the following questions:
a. What specific events led to the realization that paying off the national war debts was not possible
under the Articles of Confederation?
b. What city ratified the Treaty of Paris, accepted Washington’s resignation in 1784 and held a
national convention in 1786 that led to the call for a Constitutional Convention?
c. What were the reasons why it was decided that the United States needed to write a new
Constitution in 1787?
d. What powers did states have in the first constitution that they don’t have in the second
Constitution?
The Treaty of Paris Period connects the end of the Revolutionary War (1783) to the Constitutional
Convention (1787). In addition to the material that is covered in your textbooks, you may want to add the
lessons contained in this handout about the Treaty of Paris Period so that your students can rediscover this
forgotten but important era in the history of the United States.