Date
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What’s the Situation?
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What’s the Problem? What’s the Solution in the
Constitution?
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1777
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Articles of Confederation – a republic.
Its basic rules:
1.
Unanimous vote to change
the system – That’s 13 of 13.
2. 9 of 13 to
pass a law (such as a tariff)
3. Can’t tax, but can print money and borrow
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The solution: Continue the republic (a
representative democracy)
But eventually the framers
will recognize that those 3 basic rules of the Articles are a problem.
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1777+
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State governments (elected) and state constitutions
created
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The solution: Continue this.
|
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Note: slavery is a state law
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Example: PA abolishes slavery;
the South continues
state “slave codes.”
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1779
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Virginia Statute of
Religious Freedom
Who wrote it? Thomas
Jefferson
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Virginia votes in 1785 for
no established church.
The solution: Part of the Constitution as is freedom of religion
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1781
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Articles of Confederation –
States ratify
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-
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1781, 1783…
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No support for a tariff (a
tax collected at a port) for revenue
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No income
The solution:
Congress must be able to tax and Congress must be able to pass laws
(something true for all below) by shifting
-
from 2/3 (66+%) vote of the states
-
to just being
more than 50% vote of the representatives with the Constitution
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1783
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Philadelphia insurrection
by unpaid military (one of several)
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No income to pay what the nation owed even to our
military
The solution:
Congress must be able to tax.
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1783
|
Treaty of Paris
- US to protect Loyalists,
pay debts (US doesn’t)
- British to leave Ohio
Valley (Br also doesn’t)
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These become part of the problems.
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1783
|
1st (of many)
state begins to pass protective tariffs
to keep out British manufactured goods
|
Imagine this pretend, simplified example:
-
2 neighboring states in the US, one with a tariff of
.10 cents on British widgets valued at $2.00 and one with a tariff of $1 on
the same widget. In other words, one state’s citizens can have a British
widget for $2.10, but the other state’s citizens pays $3.00
-
Crafty citizens in the .10 cent state haul imported
widgets across the state line and then sell them for say $2.75—THUS wiping
out the usefulness of the protective tariff while making a .65 personal profit per widget.
The solution:
Congress must be able to regulate interstate
(between states) commerce.
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1784
|
Spain blocks Americans from
lower Mississippi
|
Americans in the west can only cheaply market their
grains if they can put their crops on barges in the rivers that feed the
Mississippi River and float downstream to the Gulf and New Orleans and thus
to the great global markets.
The solution:
Congress must be able to get passable treaties.
|
|
Issue of British Commercial
Treaty plus British merchants trade with the
state with the lowest tariff.
|
The varied protective tariffs mean states compete
with each other.
The solution:
Congress must be able to regulate commerce
with foreign nations and be able to get passable treaties.
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1784
|
Draft of Northwest Ordinance (passed in 1787)
-Who writes the first
draft? Thomas Jefferson
|
The Northwest Ordinance is
usually talked about as the only
positive action of the Articles of Confederation era. It setup:
Process for full statehood (not continuing colonial status as the British did)
where an area became a territory with appointed governor, then when it had
enough population wrote a state constitution and asked to be admitted, and
finally when admitted had equal voting rights with any other state (no matter
how old)
No slavery
Sale of public
lands to support public education (Additional information not in your
textbook)
The solution: Continue this.
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1785
|
States governments (PA, SC,
NC, NY, RI, NJ, GA) issuing paper money
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Paper money not backed by real assets leads to
deadly inflation.
The solution:
Only Congress must be the only level of government that can print or coin money.
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1786
|
Annapolis Convention –
interstate commerce issues, but only 12 delegates
|
The solution:
Congress must be able to regulate interstate (between states) commerce.
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1786
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Daniel Shays’s Rebellion
(remember what the word means?)
|
Unpaid veterans, state taxes, currency and
debtors/creditors
The solution:
Congress must guarantee that mobs (even well
intentioned) can’t take over government, including of a state.
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Date
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Major Issues
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Details
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1787-05 -09
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Philadelphia Convention
|
|
- Why a convention?
|
The states had experimented with this method.
Reason:
- Think
for a minute. If Richmond city government in 2000 passes a law saying
folks can raise pigs in the city but in 2003 passes a law saying they
can’t, which law is true. The LAST law wins. Legislation by those chosen
to create laws can be changed by
just having a different city government.
- Conventions
of representative citizens for the purpose of writing a Constitution,
move the process offline and make the document not comparatively
temporary legislation, but permanent.
The solution:
Write the Constitution in a convention.
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- Who are the factions
there?
- Big state/small state
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The solution:
Like most arrangements in the Constitution, this splits the difference:
House of Representatives and representation based on
the number of people in the state pleased big states (PA, NY, VA)
Senate with 2 votes per state pleased small states (NJ, MA)
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- Slave owners
|
Slave owners
got:
3/5 of slaves
counted toward their representation in the House of Representatives (and
taxation)
Fugitive slave
return
No ending of
the slave trade until 1808
|
|
-
What about….?
|
Not women
Not Americans
Not Native Americans as
citizens (as nations within the nation)
|
|
-
What major
structures beyond the legislature
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President
-
Election every
4 years but by the electoral
college (and how the South benefited)
o
Not by the vote of Congress
o
Not by the vote of citizens
Note: Congress can impeach the President
-
Executes the laws
Note:
Congress—not the Constitution and not the President—set up the specific
departments (War, Treasury, State) and the Attorney General and the
Postmaster General
-
Foreign policy
Note: Senate must
vote for treaties.
Note: like the
Constitution and federal laws, treaties are also the “supreme Law of the
Land”
-
Commander and chief
Note: only
Congress can declare war.
Supreme Court and its Chief
Justice
-
Interprets the
Constitution
-
Has some
appellate responsibilities
Note:
Congress set up the federal judicial system, including the number of
justices.
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Date
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Major Issues
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Details
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1787-1788
|
Federalists and Federalist
Papers
|
Federalists = name that
minimizes the strong central government desired by the framers and maximizes
attention on the 2 levels of government (central and state) that existed in
the plan.
Federalist
Papers = Publications in newspapers
to try to convince states to ratify the Constitution.
Who writes it? = James
Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay.
Madison argues for a republic
(government by elected representatives), not a democracy. The
Constitution’s framers reject democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy.
If you want to be sure of
their support for the republic, go into the Constitution Study Tool and enter
the letters repub. Then try the first letters of the other 3 forms of
government listed. The only one you’ll find is republic
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Anti-Federalists
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Anti-Federalist? = men such
as Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, John Dickinson
Why? Such issues as:
-
Secrecy of the
convention.
-
That the focus
of government shifted from the states to the central government.
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That there was no statement of rights preserved to the people and the states
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Method used to
replace the Articles of Confederation
-
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1789
|
What’s the method of
approval of the Constitution?
|
Method used to replace the Articles of
Confederation = 9 of 13 states
5 states asked for a Bill of Rights.
Federalists had argued
against that saying it was unnecessary.
|
1789
|
Bill of Rights
|
In running for a seat in
the House of Representatives, Madison promised his constituency that he would
work for the Bill of Rights. He went through existing lists of rights and came
up with 12, of which 10 were later ratified by the states.
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Slavery
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Representatives
and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several
states which may be included within this union, according to their respective
numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of
years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons[1].
|
I
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02
|
03a
|
|
Section
9. The
migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing
shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited
by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a
tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for
each person.
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I
|
09
|
01
|
|
No
person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up
on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
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IV
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02
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03
|
|
[Amendments to the Constitution can occur]
provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand
eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth
clauses in the ninth section of the first article;
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V
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-
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-
b
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