Building a Republic

1775-1789

Articles of Confederation

Continental Congress reached agreement on the Articles of Confederation in November 1777

the union: a loose confederation of states with no national executive and no judiciary

Taxation Trade regulations required a paid

customs force A postal system required postmen,

horses, wagons, road maintenance Western lands required surveyors

and diplomats to deal with the Indians

Western lands The Articles had no plan for the lands

to the west of the thirteen original states;

Many states claimed those lands; Five states had no claims, and they

wanted congress to hold the land in a national domain and eventually sell the land to form new states.

Compromise and Conflict

States with claims finally compromised; any land a state volunteered to relinquish would become the national domain;

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson ceded Virginia’s huge land claim in 1781;

New Government No excitement over new government State legislatures were slow to select delegates Many politicians preferred to devote their

energies to state governments, believing the real power was at the state level;

Very often, too few representatives showed up to conduct business;

The congress had no permanent home.

Limited Authority? Why was the confederation government’s

authority so limited?o Disputes over western landso Each state desired to protect itselfo Requirements for unanimous approval to amend the

Articleso Absence of an executive

State Constitutions By 1778, all states had drawn up constitutions; Having been denied the unwritten rights of

Englishmen, Americans wanted written contracts that guaranteed basic principles;

All state constitutions stipulated that government ultimately rested on the consent of the governed;

Political writers embraced the concept of republicanism as the underpinning of the new governments

Republicanism Republicanism meant different

things to different people, but all proponents believed that a republican government was one that promoted the people’s welfare.

Bills of Rights Six state constitutions included bills

of rights, which were lists of basic individual liberties that government could not abridge;

Virginia passed the first bill of rights in June 1776. It guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and trial by jury.

Who are the People?• Limits to participation were widely agreed upon in the

1770s; in nearly every state, candidates for the highest offices had to meet substantial property qualifications;

• only property owners were presumed to possess the necessary independence of mind to make wise political choices;

• qualifications probably disfranchised from one-quarter to one-half of all adult white males in the United States; made voting class specific.

Gender and Race Few stopped to question excluding women from

voting; only three states specified that voters had to be male, as the assumption was unspoken.

New Jersey—State constitution enfranchised all free inhabitants worth more than £50; opened the door for unmarried women and free blacks.

A 1790 law used the language he or she, making woman suffrage explicit;

Small numbers of free blacks and women made their influence narrow, but a new state law explicitly disfranchised blacks and women in 1807.