HIS 2213 Learning Unit Ten Lecture

1. Learning Unit #10: Lecture
“Were the Founders Democratic
Reformers or Economic
Opportunists?”

2. Part One:
Intellectual & Social Origins
of the American Revolution
& Constitutional
Government

3. The
Enlightenment
is also known
as “The Age of
‘Reason.” This label
describes a historical
period (late 1600s -
late 1700s) when
people began rejecting
superstitious beliefs
and instead started
relying on their own
mental faculties to
provide rational
explanations about
the world and
universe.

4. The Enlightenment
affected many areas of
human endeavor, but the
advances in science
were its most impressive.
Sir Isaac Newton, father
of modern physics, was
at the forefront of
scientific inquiry. A
devout Christian, Newton
felt he was discovering
the hidden, holy laws by
which God governed His
Sir Isaac Newton Creation--like a divine
1643-1727 clockmaker who has set
the mechanism in motion.

5. Some minds began to ask
whether ‘scientific’ laws
might also exist that could be
applied to the improvement
of society with the same
certainty as the laws
of physics. At the time,
hereditary monarchies ruled
across Europe, most with
even more power than kings
during the Middle Ages.
Enlightenment thinkers
began to question
monarchism as a rational
basis for governance. They
instead called for republics
(i.e., representative
democracy), the codification
of laws, and the most radical
of them for universal male
suffrage.

6. “Not only do I say “Sovereigns
that Christians should are bound to
“Inalienable rights are tolerate each other their subjects
life, liberty, and the but that all men are by a social
pursuit of property.” brothers.” contract.”
Locke Voltaire Rousseau
The ideas of several European Enlightenment thinkers
(philosophes) influenced American Revolutionaries such as
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin.

7. Enlightenment ideas Printing
were disseminated by presses
various means to
an increasingly literate
audience.
Secret
fraternal
organizations
Salons and coffeehouses

8. The people who consumed Enlightenment writings were often
the newly wealthy “middle class,” who found that they now had
money but little or no say in how they were governed.

9. Notice how many
Americans owned
property!
Social Classes in Colonial America

10. How ‘revolutionary’ can a revolt by the
propertied class really be?
The Second Continental Congress
Less than 1/3 of England’s inhabitants belonged to the
“middle class,” yet 3/4 of white American colonists could be
described as “middle class” for that time ( = more status than now).

11. Ben Franklin: Franklin, Paine, & Jefferson are
The First
American? the only Americans of their era
typically regarded as
Enlightenment thinkers. Franklin
was a world-class scientist,
inventor, printer, and statesman.
His Autobiography is the first
articulation of what has since
come to be known as ‘the
American Dream.’ For most of
his life, however, Franklin
thought of himself as an
Englishman--until 1774, that is,
when his role in the exposure of
a double-dealing Royal governor came to light. He was publicly
embarrassed and condemned by the British Government. From
that point forward, Franklin never again thought of himself as
English but as American. Indeed, a recent biography of Franklin
is titled The First American. (His son stayed loyal to the
English!)

12. Part Two:
The Role of Global Imperial
Conflict in American
Independence

13. From 1756 to 1763, Great Britain & France engaged in a worldwide geopolitical
struggle called the Seven Years’ War. Their conflict in N. America was called
the French & Indian War. It pitted the French and a majority of allied Ohio
Valley Indians against American colonists, British soldiers, & an Indian minority.

15. Before After
French
& Indian
War
For decades, the British and French had been on a collision course over control
of the N. American continent’s interior. Most Indians wanted to stay out of the
war but chose the French as the lesser of two evils. By the time the Iroquois
finally sided with the British in 1759, English victory was a foregone conclusion.

16. Great Britain won the
F. & I. war & became
the dominant imperial
power in North America,
BUT the costs of victory
left them heavily in debt.
Great Britain decided
to centralize control over
its empire and compel
colonists to share costs
of their defense. With
the Proclamation Line of
1763, the British closed
English off further settlement of
were now
Indians’
western territories
sole beyond the Appalachian
source of Mountains (“the
trade
goods.
backcountry”) and sent
full-time British troops to
enforce the ban, keeping
settlers and Indians
apart.

17. American colonists expected a
preferred position in the British
Empire after helping defeat the
French, but instead a series of
English govt. officials levied new
taxes on them to pay the cost of Sons of Liberty
maintaining an unprecedented attack a
standing army in America. The tax collector.
colonists responded with boycotts,
greater inter-colonial
communication, and violence. The
most objectionable taxes were on
paper and tea.

18. British Political
Cartoon Critical of
Lord North’s
Economic Policies
With Regard to the
American Colonies,
Which Are Depicted
As the “Goose That
Laid the Golden Egg.”

19. In reality, British soldiers did not fire a coordinated
volley; white men were not the only ones involved
in the incident; and Bostonians provoked the
soldiers with taunts and thrown objects. They
resented the mere presence of British troops in
peacetime.
Paul Revere’s Depiction of the Boston
Massacre. It was not an accurate representation
of what happened, but that did not stop people
from believing it was true.

20. Alonzo Chappel,
The Boston Massacre
This artistic representation probably comes nearer “the truth,” but it is still just an
interpretation and was not painted until almost 100 years after the event.

21. Relations between Great Britain and the thirteen colonies
continued to deteriorate.
These are not
real Indians.
The Boston Tea Party led to the Intolerable Acts (1774)

22. Battles of Lexington and Concord, 04/19/1775
In fact, actual fighting ‘on the ground’ between American patriots and
British Army ‘redcoats’ had begun over one year BEFORE the
revolution’s political leaders approved a formal ‘declaration of
independence’ in July 1776.

23. Part Three:
Independence

24. Thomas Paine

25. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
• Appeared in January,
1776.
• Attacked King George
III directly.
• 100,000 copies sold in
less than three
months.
• Made independence
seem the next logical
step.

26. Did Jefferson mean to include African-Americans
and women when he wrote “All Men are Created
Equal?”
Yes, but how ‘natural rights’ were understood in the
1700s and even later is complex. From a
philosophical standpoint, Jefferson believed all
humankind possessed rights of “life, liberty, and pursuit
of happiness,” but, at that time, it did not follow that
“liberty” meant the right to full political participation in
society. People in the 21st century assume that
natural rights and civil rights mean the same thing but
not back then. Of course, slaves and many women did
not in fact possess “liberty” even as it was defined in
that day, i.e., the ability to move about freely and enjoy In 1998, DNA
the fruits of one’s own labor. Jefferson was remarkably evidence
enlightened given his social situation as a Virginia showed
slaveholder, BUT he was undoubtedly a species of that Jefferson
fathered at
racist and a walking contradiction. “All men are
least one child
created equal” is arguably the most radical political with his slave
statement ever made, however, and it has inspired Sally Hemings.
many revolutions other than the American.

27. The American Revolution was never
Patterns
a single, unified movement whose
of
members all agreed on what they
Allegiance:
wanted. Not even all Britons living Loyalist &
in America agreed that they wanted Rebel
independence from King George III. Support
The Revolution was not only a
revolt but also a civil war between
Patriots (Rebels), who took up arms
against King and Parliament, and
Loyalists (Tories), who remained
loyal to the British Crown. When the
war was over, an estimated 100,000
Loyalists left the United States for
Canada or the British isles--
including Benjamin Franklin’s son
William and the Penn family,
founders of Pennsylvania.

28. British Surrender at Saratoga, NY
American independence could not have been achieved without the aid of
foreign allies. Victory at Saratoga convinced the French to form an alliance
with the American rebels & declare war on Great Britain. Spain and Holland
soon followed suit, making the British defend other parts of their empire.

29. Gen. Benedict Arnold –
Hero of the Battle of
Saratoga, but who later
betrayed the Patriot
cause by falling in
love with a Loyalist
woman and selling
out to the British.

30. Oct. 1781 -- After General Cornwallis’ forces were bottled up at Yorktown, VA,
by Washington’s troops & the French navy, his surrender all but ended the war.
The world’s superpower had been defeated by its own colony!!! For the British,
it was the 18th century equivalent of the Americans’ 20th-century experience in
Vietnam.
Cornwallis Surrenders to Washington

31. As a military commander,
Washington knew when to
cut his losses, beat a retreat,
& fight again another day.
He was also an outstanding
spymaster. He walked away
from political power TWICE
after the war, and herein lies
his greatness. After most
revolutions, a military
dictator emerges as ruler.
That did not happen in
America thanks to George
Washington. Of course, he
was a slaveholder. He even
used govt. resources to hunt
down runaways from Mount
Vernon. He freed the slaves
in his power upon his
death--unlike Jefferson,
Gen. George Washington who was too indebted to do
so.

32. The political Nov. 1775, British At the time the
rhetoric of the offered freedom Revolution started,
Patriot cause to any slave slavery existed in all 13
confused who could
many join them; colonies. In 1780, citing
blacks. 1000s the “All-men-are-
did. created-equal”
language from the
Declaration,
Massachusetts became
the first state to free
slaves; Vermont soon
followed. NY & PA
offered only gradual
.
abolition--whereby all
At first,
Washington Northern slaves eventually
was reluctant free blacks became free by the
to use black were 1820s. Most northern
soldiers, but a lack especially states ended slave
of manpower left him welcome
to enlist.
trade during or right
little choice.
after the Revolution.
“The Bucks-of-America” all-black unit service badge

33. Native Americans in the Revolution
Most Indians fought for the
British, including the powerful
Iroquois. While Americans
consider G. Washington the
“father of our country,” the
Iroquois know him as “town
burner.” Some small Indian
tribes already surrounded by
whites fought on the American
colonists’ side.
Individual acts of bravery by
Indians were rewarded by
states, but tribes fared poorly
overall. The British simply
Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) abandoned the Iroquois at the
Iroquois leader Paris peace talks.

34. Women in the Revolution
Women took on a variety of roles in
Abigail Adams,
the Revolution, from sewing to serving
future First Lady
in combat. As the quote below by
Abigail Adams to her husband, John,
shows, they hoped for nothing less
than a voice in the new nation:
"...In the new Code of Laws
which I suppose it will be
necessary for you to make I
would desire you would
Remember the Ladies.... Do not
put such unlimited power into
the hands of the Husbands.... If
particular care and attention is
not paid to the Ladies, we are
determined to foment a
Rebellion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any Laws in
which we have no voice, or
Representation.” (March 1776)

35. Part Four:
Establishing a Republic:
The U.S. Constitution

36. We Won the Revolution! Now What?
The Articles of Confederation, which had created a weak
central government in 1778, proved to be an unsatisfactory
plan of government to those Americans who were thinking
in national terms rather than just locally.

37. The solution was to write a new Constitution, largely the work of James Madison.
There was no republic (a form of representative democracy) anywhere in the world at
that time to use as a model, so the Founders turned instead to examples from classical
antiquity (Greece, Rome); their English legal & constitutional heritage; local
experiences with colonial legislatures; & the ideas of the Enlightenment. What they
came up with did not meet with universal approval but instead sparked debates over the
possible direction of the country’s future. A notable contribution to these debates were
The Federalist Papers, a series of essays mostly written by Madison & Alexander
Hamilton. People did not think a large republic could exist because of the competing
interests of merchants & farmers. Madison argued that a large republic was best because
among so many differing viewpoints no one dominant “faction” could emerge.

38. What is “Faction”?
• The Founders were concerned about controlling “factions” and
preventing mob rule without forfeiting liberty.
• Madison would acknowledge that making the new central
government as “democratic” as possible was not the Framers’
overriding motive. In fact, they feared “democracy” could possibly
lead to mob rule & endanger the property rights of the minority (i.e.,
wealthy citizens). Madison was so wary of mob rule that he placed
the greatest number of ‘checks and balances’ on the House of
Representatives, the most democratic U.S. institution.
• The Founders also stressed that a republic could not survive without
“virtue” [i.e., participating in civic affairs for the common good] on the
part of both leaders and citizenry.
• For us, an election without party competition is no election at all. But
the Founders equated parties with factions, which they saw as evils.

39. Two Forms of Popular Government
• Madison [Fed. 10] distinguishes between two types of popular
government [i.e., “government by the people”]:
– “a [pure] democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a
small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the
government in person [e.g., “town meeting” or “participatory
democracy”], and
– “a republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme
of representation takes place.”
• The two great points of difference between a democracy and a
republic are:
– “first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small
number of citizens elected by the rest;
– “secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of
country, over which the latter may be extended.”
• Clearly, we mostly use the term “democratic” today to
refer to systems that Madison would call “republican.”

40. What Was Revolutionary about the
Constitution?
• New and different type of state: Only republic in
the world at that time.
• Despite failing to secure political rights for
women and blacks, there was far greater social
mobility in the early republic than at present. Ben
Franklin called the USA the “best poor [white]
man’s country in the world.”
• Flexible document; ability to add amendments is
the beauty of the Constitution.
• Universal white male suffrage (by 1820s). (Not
even the British could say the same until the
1870s!)
• Official state churches were abolished; freedom
of religion and freedom from religion.
• Civic nationalism in theory: Every citizen gets to
vote.

41. Weaknesses of Constitution
• Went as far as it could go (but not far enough)
toward limiting the sovereignty of the states.
• What if some states like federal govt.’s tariff
policy and others do not? How will issue of
slavery be determined in new territories and
states? North will come to believe it gave up too
much power to the South by allowing them to
count 3/5 of their slaves for purposes of
determining proportional representation in the
House of Representatives and Electoral College.
• Ethnic nationalism in practice: States get to
decide who qualifies as a “citizen”; the USA will
be a “White Man’s Democracy” & a
“Slaveholding Republic” (although briefly some
New England states actually allowed free blacks
and women of property to vote).