CHAPTER 7 Founding a Nation, 1783–1791
This chapter concentrates on the making of the U.S. Constitution and begins with a description of some of the colorful celebrations
held in cities to honor the ratification of the Constitution. The chapter explains the strengths and weaknesses of the first written consti-
tution, the Articles of Confederation. A key success of the Confederation Congress was its western land policy, including the North-
west Ordinance, while its inability to deal with financial and economic problems weakened the government. Those weaknesses as well
as Shays’s Rebellion convinced many leading Americans of the need for a stronger central government. Their push for greater national
authority resulted in the meeting of the Constitutional Convention (May–September 1787). The chapter covers the Convention’s de-
bates on separation of powers, division of powers, and slavery. Ratification of the document was not a foregone conclusion. Federal-
ists such as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay worked hard at promoting support for ratification by writing a series of
essays called The Federalist. The Anti-Federalists, concerned that the Constitution endangered liberty because it contained no Bill of
Rights, opposed them. The chapter concludes with a discussion about who was included in “We the People.” Whites clearly did not
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction: Ratification Celebrations
A. Parades celebrating the ratification of the Constitution in 1787 included a variety of American social classes.
II. America Under the Confederation
A. The Articles of Confederation
1. The first written constitution of the United States
2. The only powers granted to the national government were those for declaring war, conducting foreign affairs, and making
3. Congress established national control over land to the west of the thirteen states and devised rules for its settlement.
B. Congress and the West
2. Congress faced conflicting pressures from settlers and land speculators regarding western development.
C. Settlers and the West
1. Peace brought rapid settlement into frontier areas.
2. Leaders feared that the unregulated flow of settlement across the Appalachian Mountains could provoke constant warfare with
the Indians.
D. The Land Ordinances
2. The Ordinance of 1785 regulated land sales in the region north of the Ohio River and established the township system
3. Like the British before them, American officials found it difficult to regulate the thirst for new land.
a. Private companies and speculators benefited most from the land sales.
4. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established a policy that admitted the area’s population as equal members of the
E. The Confederation’s Weaknesses
2. With Congress unable to act, the states adopted their own economic policies.
F. Shays’s Rebellion
2. The rebellion was put down by the Massachusetts governor in 1787, and more than 1,000 were arrested.
G. Nationalists of the 1780s
2. The concerns voiced by critics of the Articles found a sympathetic hearing among men who had developed a national
consciousness during the Revolution.
4. At a meeting in Annapolis (September 1786), delegates called for a convention to amend the Articles of Confederation in
order to avoid anarchy and monarchy.
III. A New Constitution
A. The Structure of Government
1. Prominent wealthy and well-educated men took part in the Constitutional Convention.
3. The key to stable, effective republican government was finding a way to balance the competing claims of liberty and
power.
4. A compromise about the shape of Congress emerged from debates over the Virginia and New Jersey Plans.
a. Virginia Plan (favored by more populous states): two–house legislature in which a state’s population determined its
B. The Limits of Democracy
2. The new government was based on a limited democracy and the assumption that only prominent men would hold office.
4. The president would be elected by an electoral college, or, in the case of a tie in that body, by the House of
C. The Division and Separation of Powers
1. The Constitution embodies federalism and a system of checks and balances.
a. Federalism refers to the relationship between the national government and the states.
2. States could not issue money, impair contracts, interfere with interstate commerce, or levy import or export duties, but dealt
with most other daily affairs, such as education and law enforcement.
D. The Debate over Slavery
2. The words “slave” and “slavery” did not appear in the Constitution, but it did protect slavery.
4. Nonetheless, the Constitution did provide a basis for later antislavery political movements.
a. Many of the framers, including Upper South slaveholders, hoped that the institution would die out.
E. Slavery in the Constitution
1. The Constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting the slave trade until 1808.
3. The federal government could not interfere with slavery in the states.
a. Slave states had more power due to the three-fifths clause.
4. Twelve of the first sixteen presidents were southern slaveholders.
F. The Final Document
1. Gouverneur Morris put finishing touches on the final draft, adding in the preamble that the new national government
would “establish justice,” promote “general welfare,” and “secure the blessings of liberty.”
3. The Constitution created a new framework for American development.
4. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature)
a. David Ramsay, former member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina, commends representative government
IV. The Ratification Debate and the Origin of the Bill of Rights
A. The Federalist
1. Nine of the thirteen states had to ratify the document.
2. The Federalist was published to generate support for ratification.
a. Hamilton argued that government was an expression of freedom, not its enemy.
B. “Extend the Sphere”
2. Madison argued that the large size of the United States was a source of stability, not weakness.
C. The Anti-Federalists
2. “Liberty” was the Anti–Federalists’ watchword.
a. They argued for a Bill of Rights.
4. Anti-Federalists drew support from small farmers in more isolated rural areas (e.g., New York’s Hudson Valley, western
Massachusetts, the southern backcountry).
6. Madison won support for the Constitution by promising a Bill of Rights later.
8. Only Rhode Island and North Carolina voted against ratification, but they eventually joined the new government.
(1787).
D. The Bill of Rights
2. Still, to satisfy the Constitution’s critics, Madison introduced a Bill of Rights to the first Congress.
a. In a sense, the Bill of Rights defined the “unalienable rights” of the Declaration of Independence.
4. Not until the twentieth century would the Bill of Rights be revered.
5. Among the most important rights were freedom of speech and freedom of the press, vital building blocks of a democratic
public sphere.
V. “We the People”
A. Who Belongs? The Constitution and American Citizenship
2. The Constitution was initially vague on the qualifications for citizenship and allowed states to define it.
4. In the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Mexican War (1848), the federal government offered citizenship to the
population in the purchased and conquered territories.
6. Although slaves and Indians were noncitizens, the rights of free blacks remained in question.
B. National Identity
1. The Constitution identifies three populations inhabiting the United States:
2. American nationality combined aspects of both civic and ethnic nationalisms.
3. Who Is an American? (Primary Source document feature)
C. Indians in the New Nation
1. Indian tribes, seen by most white Americans as savages, had no representation in the new government.
3. The U.S. victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers led to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.
4. Some prominent Americans believed that Indians could assimilate into society.
D. Blacks and the Republic
1. The status of citizenship for free blacks was somewhat indeterminate.
3. Many white Americans excluded blacks from their conception of the American people.
E. Jefferson, Slavery, and Race
1. John Locke and others maintained that reason was essential to having liberty.
2. Jefferson did not think any group was fixed permanently in a status of inferiority.
4. Jefferson saw the slave trade as immoral and tried to avoid selling his own slaves.
a. Ironically, upon his death, more than 200 of his slaves were sold to pay his large debts.
F. Principles of Freedom
1. The Revolution widened the divide between free Americans and those who remained in slavery.
3. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, acknowledged the wrong of slavery but also owned slaves.
a. He hoped abolition would come but did not free slaves in his will.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• What were the primary weaknesses and strengths of the Articles of Confederation?
• Why was ratification of the Constitution not a foregone conclusion? What were the basic arguments for and against ratification
put forth by Federalists and Anti-Federalists?
• Were the fears of the Anti-Federalists realistic? How did the Federalists deal with the Anti-Federalists’ concerns?
• What does “republicanism” mean? Why was America a republic and not a democracy?
• How did the Constitution define American citizenship prior to the Reconstruction era?
• How did blacks and Indians fit into the new political order created by the Constitution of 1787? What liberties were extended or
denied them?
SUPPLEMENTAL WEB AND VISUAL RESOURCES
The Articles of Confederation
The Bill of Rights
The Constitution
African-Americans, Slavery, and the Constitution
Slavery and the Making of America (PBS, 240 minutes, 2005)
African-American Odyssey
SUPPLEMENTAL PRINT RESOURCES
Amar, Akhil Reed. America’s Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2005.
Beeman, Richard. Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution. New York: Random House, 2009.
Brandon, Mark. Free in the World: American Slavery and Constitutional Failure. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
INTERACTIVE INSTRUCTOR ACTIVITIES
1. Group Debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists
• Use Chapter 7 in Give Me Liberty!, including the “Agrippa” essay by James Winthrop.
Federalists
1. Where do most Federalists live? What are their occupations?
2. How will the new Constitution affect the economic situation in the United States?
Anti-Federalists
1. Where do most Anti-Federalists live? What are their occupations?
2. What are the primary fears of the Anti-Federalists about the Constitution?
Discussion Activities:
After each group presents, give the other a few minutes to provide rebuttals. Follow up the debate with a summary that includes the following
general questions:
1. Which group is more radical in the late 1780s? Explain.
2. Which group’s predictions came more to fruition in today’s United States? Explain.
3. Does this debate about government ideology still exist today? Explain.
2. Group Website Analysis:
Design an assignment whereby each student is asked to locate three websites and annotate them as homework to turn in the following week. The web-
sites should reveal different aspects/ideas/concepts of the constitutional era. How do the websites connect to the main ideas of the chapter? After the
Questions include:
1. How does this website connect to the main ideas of the chapter?
2. Which websites are your favorites for revealing the main ideas of the chapter?
3. Which websites do you feel require improvement? How so?
4. Are any subjects in the chapter not covered by the websites we have looked at today?