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2. Revolution, Independence, Formation and Consolidation of the Federal Republic
REVIEW QUESTIONS FOR SELF-EVALUATION
1. What were the principal causes for the American victory in the revolutionary war?
The time period of 1763 to 1776 was a difficult time for Britain, in which the policies that
were designed to raise money and to maintain order in the colonies led directly to conflict
with the colonists and finished in a revolutionary war.
When war erupted in 1775, it seemed clear that Britain would win. It had a large, wellorganized land army, and the Royal Navy was unmatched on the sea. Many of the British
troops in the Revolutionary War were veterans who had fought in the French and Indian
War. On the other hand, the Americans had only a collection of undisciplined militiamen
who had never fought before. The American navy was small. The state of the army did
improve after George Washington whipped the Continental Army into a professional
fighting force, but the probabilities still seemed heavily very little.
Nonetheless, the Americans believed that they did have a strong chance of success. They
had a lot at stake: unlike the British, they were fighting on their home turf to protect their
own homes and families. Perhaps most important, they were also fighting a popular war.
Finally, though most Americans had no previous military experience, their militia units were
usually close-knit bands of men. They elected their own officers—usually men who did
have some military training but who also knew the territory well. This native officer corps
was a great source of strength, and as a result, American morale was generally higher
than morale in the Royal Army.
Geography also gave the Americans an advantage that proved to be a major factor in the
war’s outcome. To the British forces, the North American terrain was unusually rugged. In
addition, because American settlements were spread out across a vast range of territory,
the British had difficulty mounting a concentrated fight and transporting men and supplies.
American troops, on the other hand, were used to the terrain and had little trouble. Finally,
the distance between England and the United States put a great strain on Britain, which
spent a great deal of time, energy, and money ferrying soldiers and munitions back and
forth across the Atlantic.
During the first two years of the Revolutionary War, most of the fighting between American
colonists and the British took place in the North. At first, the British won because of their
far superior sea power. However, they were not very well coordinated. In October 1777,
the British army surrendered at the Battle of Saratoga, New York. That was a significant
victory for the American forces because it persuaded France to sign treaties of alliance
and commerce with the United States. In 1778 a French-American alliance was signed
and this marked the turning point of the war.
In 1781 the British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia and the British government
asked for peace. Yorktown was a signal victory.
2. Which ideological positions defended the political parties?
During the pre-Revolutionary and revolutionary period there were two groups of people,
Loyalists, defenders of the British interests, and Patriots, defenders of American interests.
During the Confederation, the Federalists emerged, who were in favour of a strong
national government, a Federal Bank, a stable financial system and were conservative,
and the Anti-federalists who did not favour strong central government, and believed in an
agrarian economy.
According to the Federalist ideas, the government should be based on the principle of
government by the best people for the best people. Federalists were committed to
following: a strong central government, opposed to state jurisdiction, and to keeping of law
and order. They were in favour of a restriction of state and individual rights, were
committed to business, were pro-tariff, conservative in social and cultural issues, and proBritish.
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On the other hand, the Democratic Republican Party, the Jeffersonians, were in favour of
a weak central government. Therefore, they defended a high degree of state autonomy
and considered that central government should be closely controlled by a select group of
educated people. Jeffersonians were against any government intervention in economy.
The Federalists would eventually disappear and the Democratic Republican Party would
split into what we call today the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The first one
favored states’ rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank
and wealthy, moneyed interests. The Democratic Party was the chief party in the United
States until the Civil War. On the other hand, Republican Party was opposed to slave
labour and belief in independent artisans ad businessmen as well as the opposition to
plantation system whereby the rich could buy up all the good farm land and work it with
slaves, leaving the yeoman independent farmers the leftovers.
3. Who were the intellects behind the Declaration of Independence?
The Declaration of Independence is a state document and is considered to be the basis of
American political beliefs. On July 4, 1776, Congress adopted the Declaration of
Independence, which stated that the “United States Colonies ought to be Free and
Independent States”. The intellects behind the Declaration of Independence were Thomas
Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson prepared a first draft of
it, and the committee accepted it, with some alterations suggested by John Adams and
Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson echoed his friend George Mason who wrote in the Virginia
Bill of Rights (1775) that “all men are by nature equally, free and independent and John
Locke, who had written that the basic reason of government is to guarantee life, liberty,
and property.
4. What kind of inconsistencies can be seen in Jefferson’s presidency?
A main characteristic of Jefferson’s presidency was inconsistency, since his policy
contradicted his theories. In certain things he fulfilled his party’s ideas, nonetheless, we
can see different examples of inconsistency such as the fact that the National Bank
continued to exist and that Jefferson did not interfere with the tariff, which was maintained.
He was the greatest advocate of human rights in the history of the United States, possibly
in the world, and yet he owned slaves, sometimes as many as 200 slaves. In fact,
Jefferson bought and sold slaves furtively through agents while he served as President of
the United States. This was a man who was a strict constructionist and wanted the
Constitution narrowly interpreted and yet he purchased Louisiana territory from Bonaparte
in 1803 and enforced the embargo in 1807 and '08 with more presidential powers than any
president up until Abraham Lincoln. Jefferson was a believer in states' rights but his
activities as the President of the United States only increased the likelihood that this would
become a great nation and not a nation of constituent confederated states. Jefferson was
a pacifist, at least in theory— he said, "Peace is my passion," and yet he fought a war
against the pirates of Tripoli, and when the War of 1812 came along, he wanted to invade
Canada. Jefferson was a man who believed in fiscal responsibility and was obsessed with
eliminating the national debt of the United States. He said, "a national debt is a national
disgrace." And yet he died tens of thousands of dollars in debt himself and was bankrupt
essentially for the last decade of his life. So in every possible way, when you start to
explore the life and achievement of Jefferson, you find that there is a gap, sometimes large
and sometimes small, between his vision and the beautiful articulation of that vision on the
one hand, and then his actual achievement as a human being on the other.
5. Why was Jackson such a popular person before his election as President?
Jackson’s life was not very easy. He was born in a humble family in a backwoods
settlement in the Carolinas. When he was fourteen years he was alone. All his family had
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dead and although at the beginning his life wasn’t on the right track, he soon began to take
his live in a serious way. He became a lawyer in 1788. He was elected the new state’s first
congressman in 1796, U.S. senator in 1797 and major general of the Tennessee militia in
1802. All these position gave Jackson a good reputation. However, it was his victory in the
battle of New Orleans what made him so popular before his election as President.
Andrew Jackson proved himself to be an able and daring soldier more than once in his life.
In 1813 or 1814 the Creek Indians and other Indians of the North rose in arms. At this
time, the United States had its second war with England. One of the plans of the British
was to capture New Orleans, which was an important city situated at the mouth of the
Mississippi River. They thought, if they once got possession of this, it would be easy to
march up the Mississippi Valley and take possession of the western country. Andrew
Jackson's success with the Indians had made him very popular, and he was appointed a
general and ordered to fight the British. He collected a force of soldiers with which to
march to New Orleans and defend it against the British soldiers. The British were terribly
beaten, and after the victory, they had great respect for the American soldiers.
The way he had put an end to the war with the Indians and driven the British away from
New Orleans gave him fame, and he became known all over the country as a hero and a
soldier. Andrew Jackson had thus made himself famous, and in 1824, and again in 1828,
when the time for the election of the President came, one of the great parties, which we
now know as the Democratic Party, asked him to be their candidate for President.
6. What were the two conflicting contradictory interpretations of the Constitution
that were written by Hamilton and Jefferson?
Jefferson didn’t like a strong federal government and instead advocated states’ rights. He
feared tyranny of any kind and only recognized the need for a strong, central government
in terms of foreign affairs.
Jefferson’s philosophy concerning the role of the central government can be most clearly
seen when investigating his disagreement with Alexander Hamilton over the creation of a
National Bank. Hamilton was a faithful supporter of a strong central government. While it a
National Bank was not expressly mentioned in the Constitution. Hamilton also felt that the
elastic clause (Art I., Sect. 8, Clause 18) gave the government the power to create such a
body. Jefferson completely disagreed. He felt that all powers given to the National
Government were enumerated. If they were not expressly mentioned in the Constitution
then they were reserved to the states.
The US Constitution created a Governmental structure for the United States know as
federalism. Federalism refers to a sharing of powers between the national government and
the state governments. The Constitution gives certain powers to the federal government
and reserves the rest for the states. Therefore, while the Constitution says that the federal
government is supreme with regards to those powers, that has been expressly or implicitly
delegated to it, the states remain supreme in matters reserved to them.
7. Why was the Bank an important controversial issue in the Jacksonian
democracy?
Andrew Jackson idealized an economy of small farmers and artisans as he believed these
sorts of economic pursuits encouraged good quality and independence. He consequently
opposed many of the dominant tendencies within America’s emerging market economy
during his own time. He worried about the new large manufacturing centers and the
growing numbers of companies in America. But most of all he worried about the
concentrations of capital and economic power that created them.
Jackson’s economic nostalgia explains more than his opposition to the Bank. Jackson’s
criticism of the Bank was really a criticism of all banks, and the sort of economic behaviors
they encouraged. He believed that an economy built on credit was inherently unstable and
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a person who made his money through speculation rather than the production of
something real was less independent and less virtuous. He believed that and economy
that rested on the circulation of paper was unstable and morally suspicious. Moreover this
sort of economy rewarded a narrow and dubious slice of the public rather than the
hardworking artisan or virtuous small farmer.
8. What was the aim of the Alien and Sedition Acts?
In 1798, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a series of laws which, on the surface,
were designed to control the activities of foreigners in the United States during a time of
impending war. Known collectively as the “Alien and Sedition Acts”, the legislation
sponsored by the Federalists was also intended to quell any political opposition from the
Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson.
The first of the laws was the Naturalization Act, passed by Congress on June 18. This act
required that foreigners be residents for 14 years instead of 5 years before they became
eligible for U.S. citizenship.
Congress then passed the Alien Act on June 25, authorizing the President to deport aliens
"dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" during peacetime.
The third law, the Alien Enemies Act, was enacted by Congress on July 6. This act allowed
the wartime arrest, imprisonment and deportation of any alien subject to an enemy power.
The last of the laws, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable
activity, including the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a
high offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment. By virtue of these legislation twentyfive men, most of them editors of Republican newspapers, were arrested and their
newspapers forced to shut down.
One of the men arrested was Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache,
editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora. Charged with libeling President
Adams, Bache's arrest erupted in a public protest against all of the Alien and Sedition
Acts.
Many Americans questioned the constitutionality of these laws. Indeed, public opposition
to the Alien and Sedition Acts was so great that they were in part responsible for the
election of Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, to the presidency in 1800. Once in office,
Jefferson pardoned all those convicted under the Sedition Act, while Congress restored all
fines paid with interest.
9. What was the importance of the Second War for Independence?
In 1812 the United States declared war against Great Britain. However, this created a
division in public opinion: the South and the West were in favour of the war but the states
from New Jersey northward were against it. The War of 1812 was an economic conflict
based on the concept of freedom of the seas. Great Britain wanted to control a large area
of the North Atlantic Ocean to prevent the United States from trading freely with Europe.
After a series of diplomatic approaches, the whole situation was about to collapse the
American economy, which mainly was based on foreign trade. Without free trade
overseas, the United States could not exist as a free and independent state. Therefore, the
United States declared war on Great Britain.
Thus, in 1812, President James Madison went to war with Britain because the British
warships besieged American ships. The country was not prepared for this war and the
federal government had great difficulties financing it. In December 1814, Britain and the
United States agreed on a compromise peace since neither wanted to carry on with the
war. The consequences of this treaty were that the border lines were restored to their
former position and that Canada made clear that it would stay within the British rule for as
long as it pleased.
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This war was not a big war in the military sense but emotionally and psychologically this
battle played a very important role: the Unites States could take its place in the
international concert of powers.
10. What was the Nullification crisis?
Toward the end of his first term in office, Jackson was forced to confront the state of South
Carolina on the issue of the protective tariff. Business and farming interests in the state
had hoped that Jackson would use his presidential power to modify tariff laws they had
long opposed. In their view, all the benefits of protection were going to Northern
manufacturers, and while the country as a whole grew richer, South Carolina grew poorer,
with its planters bearing the burden of higher prices.
The protective tariff passed by Congress and signed into law by Jackson in 1832 was
milder than that of 1828, but it further embittered many in the state. In response, a number
of South Carolina citizens endorsed the states' rights principle of "nullification," which was
enunciated by John C. Calhoun, Jackson's vice president until 1832, in his South Carolina
Exposition and Protest (1828). South Carolina dealt with the tariff by adopting the
Ordinance of Nullification, which declared both the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void
within state borders. The legislature also passed laws to enforce the ordinance, including
authorization for raising a military force and appropriations for arms.
Nullification was only the most recent in a series of state challenges to the authority of the
federal government. There had been a continuing contest between the states and the
national government over the power of the latter, and over the loyalty of the citizenry,
almost since the founding of the republic.
FURTHER TASKS
1. Outline the main ideas of the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence is a legal text written by Thomas Jefferson. It was
completed and signed in July of 1776 and marked the official separation between the 13
colonies and Great Britain.
The document is divided into three parts: a preamble, a list of grievances and a
conclusion.
In the preamble the author explains the reasons for the declaration, the self-evident truths,
the purpose of Government, and the reasons for altering or abolishes a form of
Government. After the French and Indian War, Britain was in debt. The parliament passed
several Acts in an attempt to raise revenue in the colonies by imposing and indirect tax on
foreign imports. This was what led the colonial Americans to draft the Declaration of
Independency. The self-evident truths are: that all men are created equal, all men are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights and that among these are Life,
Liberty and pursue of Happiness.
The list of grievances enumerates 27 abuses of King George III over a 10 year period and
provides ample evidence that the Declaration was justified. We can summarize it so:
 Unfair taxation
 Cutting off trade
 Abolishing good and helpful laws
 Making arbitrary laws himself
 Creating new government departments with officials that harass the people
 Depriving colonist of trial by jury
 Protecting his own officials that were murderers
 Attempting to establish military rule
 Hiring mercenaries to harass and kill colonists
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 Capturing and forcing colonists to fight against their fellow colonists or be killed
 Fostering domestic uprisings in the colonies
 Disallowing or not hearing any appeals for justice
Lastly, the document shows the Rights of United “Sovereign” states, the pledges and the
people who signed the document.
2. Explain the ideological differences between the Federalist and Republican
Parties.
The Federalists and the Democratic Republicans were extremely different in thought,
design, and status of people involved. This paper, will deal with what these differences
were, and whom each party consisted of. I will start by explaining some about who the
Federalists were, then I will describe the Democratic Republicans, and finally I will
summarize some of the contrasts between the two. The Federalists were a powerful and
wealthy party. Mostly lawyers, big businessmen, bankers, merchants, and professionals
made up the Federalist Party. The Federalists had a lot of money and were mostly
influential in New England and the North part of the United States because big business
was very popular there. They loved Britain and all things British. According to the
Federalists, just because something was not specifically written in the Constitution doesn’t
mean that it wasn’t covered or addressed as something that the federal government could
handle. The Federalist Party also supported a strong governmental leadership. They
thought that the most important branch of government was the executive branch, and that
a strong leader was needed in this office of president to make the country strong. Some
important Federalist Party supporters included George Washington, John Adams, John
Jay, and Alexander Hamilton. There were some people who didn’t agree with everything
that the Federalist Party believed. This new party was known as the Democratic
Republicans. This party was made up of farmers, small businessmen, and laborers. The
Democratic Republicans weren’t backed by as much money, and were considerably
poorer than the Federalists. The south and west parts of the United States were most
influenced by the Democratic Republicans because that is where the majority of the
farming population was located. These people were not very enamored by Britain or British
things and were thought of as Anglophobes. Their party felt that if an issue wasn’t written
or referred to directly in the Constitution, that the federal government had no place
regulating or handling those issues. The party of Democratic Republicans wanted a strong
democratic government, and therefore very much supported a strong legislature that would
create laws to govern the people. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were some very
influential Democratic Republicans.
There were many differences between the Federalist and Democratic Republican Parties.
One party was wealthy, the other poor. Each party had control over a particular part of the
nation. They each had their own idea as to how to interpret the Constitution. This split
between parties was just the beginning of the American political party system.
3. Explain the significance of the Missouri Compromise.
With the War of 1812 won, Americans could concentrate on solving what was a growing
internal problem: what to do about slavery. The first ships containing African slaves had
arrived on American shores in 1619, and the slave trade had followed in the 18th Century.
The expansion of cotton and other types of farming in the South required more and more
labor, and more and more plantation owners turned to slaves to fill their workloads.
By the turn of the 19th Century, outrage was growing over slavery, primarily in the
Northern states. And as more and more territories were applying to become states, the
decision of whether those states could allow slavery was becoming a very important issue.
The slavery issue was rapidly driving the country into two separate camps, and Congress
wasn't doing anything to stop the polarization.
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When Missouri applied to become a state, in 1819, the Union had 22 states, 11 allowing
slavery and 11 outlawing it. Missouri wanted to become a slave state. Anti-slavery leaders
were afraid that allowing another slave state would upset what was then a delicate balance
between slave states and free states.
Slavery really had two fronts, then. One was economic: Slave owners counted slaves as
saved revenue, meaning that they would have had to pay for that labor otherwise. The
other front was moral: Many people believed that it was wrong and against the principles
of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that one person
could own another. Abolitionists wanted slavery outlawed everywhere, and they were
willing to resort to violence to get what they wanted. Many slave owners and even nonslave-owning Southerners were willing to fight to keep what they thought was their right to
own slaves if they chose. The country was close to going to war with itself.
So how did Congress solve this growing problem? By compromising. Because both sides
were on opposite sides of the issue, both sides couldn't be satisfied by the same outcome.
So Congress gave both sides something: Each side got a new state.
Maine applied for statehood about the same time, and both were eventually admitted to
the Union, Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.
The Missouri Compromise, as it was called, found its greatest champion in Henry Clay,
who was at that time the Speaker of the House. A War Hawk from his days advocating war
with Great Britain, he tried desperately to keep the North and South from fighting over the
slavery issue. Largely because of Clay's efforts, the Missouri Compromise went into effect.
Here are some details of the Compromise:
 Missouri was admitted as a slave state
 Maine was admitted as a free state
 Slavery was forbidden north of the 36 degree latitude mark, the southern boundary
of Missouri.
 People in the North were encouraged to return runaway slaves to their masters.
 Slavery was not prohibited anywhere, not even in the free territories.
The Missouri Compromise solved the immediate problem but didn't solve the slavery issue
as a whole. As many people on both sides were sure, that would take a war.
4. Describe the main features that characterized Jacksonian Democracy.
Andrew Jackson lost the 1824 election. Jacksonians often referred to that election as the
“Stolen Election” because although Jackson had quite votes, he did not have enough
electoral votes to automatically win the presidency. In the years leading up to the 1828
election Jackson and his followers continually criticized the Adams administration. Jackson
took the position that he was the people’s candidate and never lost an opportunity to point
out that the people’s choice in 1824 had been ignored by the elite. More than any of his
predecessors, Andrew Jackson was elected by popular vote: as President he to act as the
direct representative of the common man. This method proved successful and Jackson
defeated Adams in the 1828 election and four years later, defeated Henry Clay in the
election of 1832.
A new two-party system emerged from the election of 1828. From then on, parties ran their
candidates for President and Vice-president together. Several significant political issues
divided the people at the time, among them the National Bank and the protective
tariff. Jackson saw himself as President of All the People—defender of the “Common
Man.”
Jackson also tried to democratize Federal office holding and he quickly adopted a system
for replacing federal officeholders with his own supporters, a system his supporters
referred to as “rotation in office.” Opponents cynically dubbed Jackson’s process
“the spoils system.” Yet Jackson saw the process as beneficial for a democracy, as it was
intended to inhibit the development of an entrenched bureaucracy and to allow more
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citizens to participate in the routine tasks of government. Jackson repeatedly challenged
leaders in Congress, and leading senators and congressmen in turn saw Jackson as
arbitrary and overbearing. Clashes between Jackson and the Congress over issues such
as the bank, tariffs, internal improvements and other issues were sharp and deep.
5. Summarize the consequences of the Monroe Doctrine for the United States.
In the early nineteenth century most of Central and South America, or Latin America, was
ruled by Spain. In the 1820’s these Spanish colonies rebelled.
The Spanish government asked the great powers of Europe to help it to defeat the rebels.
When Americans heard this they were alarmed. They did not want the armies and navies
of powerful European nations in their part of the world. The rebel Spanish colonies were
the United States’ nearest neighbours. Americans felt that it was important to their
country’s safety to make sure that no foreign enemies gained influence in them.
In 1823 President Monroe warned European nations not to interfere in Latin American
affairs. “The American continents are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for
future colonization by European powers”, Monroe told Congress. “We should consider any
attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere [half of the
world] as dangerous to our peace and safety”.
Monroe’s statement came to be called the “Monroe Doctrine”. It became one of the most
important ideas in American foreign policy.
Many Americans had invested money in sugar and tobacco plantations in Cuba and other
colonies. Cuba rose in rebellion against their Spanish rulers in 1895. Cubans were being
badly treated by the Spaniards and by 1898 many Americans felt that the United States
should do something to help the Cubans so, the United States declared war against Spain.
The first battle of the Spanish-American War was fought in the Philippines. Then,
American soldiers also landed in Cuba and in less than two weeks of fighting, the Spanish
were again defeated. Other American soldiers occupied Puerto Rico and so on. When
peace was signed, Spain gave most of its overseas empire to the United States: Cuba,
Puerto Rico, the Philippines and a small Pacific island called Guam. At the same time the
United States also annexed Hawaii.
In less than a year the United States had become a colonial power, with millions of nonAmericans under its rule. Some Americans were worried by this. After all, they, too, had
once been a colonial people. The Americans built schools and hospitals, constructed
roads, provided pure water supplies and put an end to killer diseases like malaria and
yellow fever in the lands thy now ruled. They continued to rule most of them until the
middle years of the century. Then, the colonies were gradually independent.
Cuba was treated differently because it was declared independent shortly afterwards war
ended although for many years Cuba continued to be little more than a protectorate of the
United States.
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