America Past; Do9; Articles of Confederation

[music] At the end of the last program we were talking about the peace treaty that ended the American Revolution; called the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783. A very good treaty for us. America has often been accused of winning wars and losing out of the peace treaty. Not of this one. We really got everything we asked for. When the thing was all signed, the negotiators sat down to have a portrait painted.

And you see the American negotiators here: Henry Laurens, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But on the other side there's nothing. The British are a little miffed at not getting anything out of the treaty. We've got too much and they wouldn't show up. So the picture hangs, half finished. One of the key reasons for our success there was Benjamin Franklin. One historian has said that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington come the closest to being indispensable men in American history. Franklin earlier had helped get us aid from the French. He gotten money out of them, he'd got military aid, and he was very instrumental in getting the peace treaty pushed through. They liked him. He was probably one of the most popular men in the western world. When he died, the French declared three days of mourning in honor of Benjamin Franklin. Now I want to talk about three things today. One, the results of the war other than political resolve, two, the new government that we

set up, and three, the failure of that government. Now the political results we've already looked at. But refresh your memory. Here you have a map showing what we've got. Essentially the new United States extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. And from Florida to Canada. Canada still belonged to Great Britain. Everything west of the Mississippi belonged to Spain, plus Florida and New Orleans. So we're essentially the eastern half of the United States today except for what we now would call Florida. But any great revolution has more than just political results. There's social results and economic results. We don't have as many other changes as say the French or the Russian Revolution, but there were some. I want to look at a few of those now. Incidentally, the treaty had to be bought back for approval by the Articles of

Confederation Congress. Where were they meeting? The same place people always met in those days, Independence Hall in the assembly room, the same place the Declaration had been adopted. Well, how about the social economic changes? Well for one thing, a lot more people owned land. Why? Well really they got it two ways. One was by moving west. The British had kept people out of what we call the Northwest Territory, out of the Ohio River Valley. Remember the proclamation of 1763, it kept settlers out of that area. Now they're free to move in there. So you get quite an increase in western movement. By west, I mean along the Mississippi River, not California and Washington and Oregon and those places. But between the mouth of the Mississippi that area begins to fill up. This is a time of Daniel Boone, people moving into Kentucky and Tennessee. Where they went west, they were getting land. Another way to get land

was from the Tories. Remember a Tory, also called a loyalist, was somebody who had remained loyal to Great Britain during the war. Thinking that they were patriots, thinking that they were loyal to their country, they suddenly find that they're traitors. It just wasn't a very friendly climate over here if you had supported the British. So those people tended to leave By the thousands, lots of them went to Canada. And when they left Americans moved in, carved up those huge estates, many of these people tended to be from the wealthier classes, carved up those estates and took them for themselves. Now in theory according to the peace treaty, they have the right to try to get their land paid for. The United States government was to recommend that Americans pay for this land. Well there's a great deal of difference in recommending than in saying you had to pay for it. In actuality

most of that land was simply never paid for. Now owning land meant more than just wealth and the prestige land ownership had always been a sign of being somebody. But it also meant you had the right to vote. Most states required that you own a land to vote. If you wanted to hold office, you might have to own as much as say 30,000 dollars worth of land which was a great deal in the year 1783. So owning land gave you a chance to participate more widely in the government. And you get more people in that position after the revolution than you did before it. There were some changes in manufacturing and trade. Merchants are scrambling all over the place trying to find new markets. And Britain isn't at all interested in trading with these ungrateful colonies. Eventually they decide that money can cause them to overcome their feelings of resentment.

But at first trade with Britain is cut off and Americans are searching for new markets. Manufactures benefit. We didn't have enough manufacturing to sneeze at. But what we did have will increase because we couldn't buy from England any more. Americans began increasing the amount of manufacturing. In the area of religion, two or three things there. The Church of England, well it's pretty well gone. Eventually its name will be changed to the Episcopal Church in America. The Church of England was so associated with the British and with England and the thing that we didn't like, that its membership just fell off. Plus a lot of its members have been those Tories that took off and went to Canada anyway. The Methodist church suffered a little bit. Their founder, John Wesley, had supported George the Third. So they lost some of their popularity. But the big thing is that we began to separate church and state.

It had been the common practice in all of the colonies to tax people for the support of the church. And after the revolution that begins to die out. Not immediately. If you begin to get a pattern, most states do not allow taxes to be separated to be collected for the church, and Americans been making a big point of separating church and state. That's kind of a new idea. I mean the two have been connected since ancient Egypt. The Middle Ages you didn't separate the church from the government, you wanted to connect them. To go against the government was to go against God. Let's strengthen the government. But Americans make a separation there. Okay. Pride. We were so proud, we were just downright cocky. Aren't we something? We whipped the most powerful nation in the world. Send 'em over here, we'll whip 'em again. We're really something. All Europeans commented on that. One Englishman said the Americans are even more conceited than the French. So given the English attitude towards the French, that would not be interpreted as a compliment.

Now one group that expected to benefit from the war that is going to be disappointed were the blacks. About 20 percent of our population was black. And they had heard all this talk about 'all men are created equal', 'pursuit of happiness' and 'liberty and freedom' and all that. Their assumption was that this would apply to them. That proves to be a false assumption for many many years. The British had tried to recruit blacks in their army and navy by promising them, black slaves that is, by promising them their freedom at the end of the war. And some blacks accepted that. Most did not. And Britain had not done anything to free them since they had been here, they simply didn't believe that would happen. It seemed a better chance to stay here and see if they would get freedom in the new United States government.

Probably 5,000 blacks fought in the revolution in one capacity or another. We mentioned Crispus Attucks being involved at the Boston Massacre before the war ever started. Many of them served on ships. A very famous black pilot named Caesar was rewarded with 2,000 acres of land in the Ohio River Valley after the war. James Forten. He was in the navy; later became a sail maker in Philadelphia and became quite wealthy. You can look at paintings of the Revolutionary War and you'll see examples of blacks participating at Bunker Hill. Salem Poor fought at Bunker Hill; received 14 letters of commendation after that battle. We looked once before at the picture of Washington crossing the Delaware. If you look to the left hand side of that picture, you see a black man involved in that event. Also at the Battle of Trenton. A black soldier in this painting participated in the first major American victory

in the war at the Battle of Trenton. What most states did was provide for some sort of gradual freeing of the slave. So they, they kind of made it hard. They would say, alright, if you want a slave, they'd say, if you free him ,and a lot of people were thinking of doing this, you have to be economically responsible for him. If he cannot get a job, cannot support himself, he is still your responsibility. Well given that choice a lot of people would simply say, "Well if I'm responsible for him, I might as well keep him as a slave." Or people would free them at their death. At the owner's death. Sometimes that would happen. Some states would set a date and say, "Any person born a slave after a certain date would be free." If you're born after 1781, you are free, or you'll be free at a certain age. Only Massachusetts and New

Hampshire freed the slaves completely. There was enough interest in abolition, which is the word for that, abolished slavery. The movement to abolish slavery was called the abolition movement. But there actually was an Afro-American convention held in 1794 to promote the idea. This is a matter of friendly persuasion at this point. The cotton gin is invented pretty soon and cotton begins being produced. You just can't say that the blacks benefited a great deal from the revolution. But some people's consciences were stirred up. That you could read the Declaration of Independence on one side and count your slaves on the other, something seemed wrong with that. How about the government? What are we going to do about the new government after the revolution? Now most of the states had set up new governments during the war. In some cases that was fairly easy. They had been

started with a charter from the King. They simply scratched out the King's name in reference to references to England and set up their own government. There were certain ways in which these states had very similar governments. One thing they always had a weak governor. They were tired of those old English governors going around vetoing everything and causing trouble, so they tended to have very weak governors and very strong state legislatures. We want the power in the people that we elect and we can get rid of them more easily. Not in a governor. And most of them had Bills of Rights. A Bill of Rights simply being a statement that gave you your personal rights are listed like your personal freedoms: work, freedom of speech, press, that sort of thing. But how about the national government? Well the first document to set up a national government in the United States was called the Articles of Confederation. And

that is the group that met in here, in Independence Hall, that has to deal with these various problems. Now it's kind of common to criticize the government under the Articles of Confederation. But you've got to realize that they had to throw that thing together in the middle of a war. If someone came to you and said, "Hey, we want you to fight the most powerful nation on earth and defeat them, and we want you to create a new government all at the same time." That would be a pretty good chore. It's not surprising that things didn't work out all that well for them. One thing about it, the government under the Articles of Confederation was simple. If you had to draw a chart showing what the government looked like that wouldn't be very hard. The government consisted of Congress. That's all there was: Congress. They came in here. Each state had one vote. Oh you can send as many delegates

around as you want. You want to have five or six men sitting here, that's fine, but you only get one vote. They've got to get together and decide how to cast it. Well who's cheated right off? The large states. They didn't have any more say than the little dinkus's. The little Rhode Islands and all had as much power as Virginia or New York or Pennsylvania. One vote per state. Congress. They had 26 other employees. Anybody want to hazard a guess at how many employees the government has now? They had 26. Well, what was the government like? Well it's going to be too weak. That's the main thing you want to remember, but what could it do? Well we'll let it declare war. And it can make peace treaties. And it can make treaties with the Indians. And it can run a post office. And it can borrow

money. Now that all seem fairly safe to them. We don't want this to be too strong. And we just overthrew a strong government. We don't want to set up a, a monster of our own. So we'll let it declare war, but since it really can't get any money, that's no big threat. Let it make peace treaties with the Indians because we don't want to fool with that. They can do that for us. The post office, that's no big threat. And borrow money, which was a great laugh, who's going to loan them money? They were 40 million dollars in debt already. But they could try to borrow money. That was their power. What couldn't they do? Remember again the big weakness is the national government is too weak. The states had all the powers. They didn't trust a strong national government. They were unwilling to give up power to it. That great abiding fear it will be too much like England. You see, most people they didn't think of themselves

really as American, citizens in the United States. If you asked somebody what he was he would probably say I'm a Pennsylvanian, I'm a Virginian. That's the way they felt. European nations knew we would never get it together. One Englishman said that it was one of the silliest notions ever conceived to imagine that the United States would ever form one country. That they were destined to be the United States forever. Well, what was wrong? One thing, the national government could not tax. They could ask for money, but they did not have the power to tax. We didn't want them to. England had driven us crazy with all those taxes. We're not going to set up a government and let them start swarming around with tax collectors just like the English had done. They could ask. Well, how do you think that would work? How'd that work today, if the government asked me for money on April the 15th instead of just demanding it? Well if I was pleased with

the president and what was happening, I would give them something. I appreciate the roads and things they do for me. But not everything they do with my money. I can guarantee you I wouldn't give them as much as they take out. But that's all they can do is ask. On one occasion they did that. They asked for 10 million dollars. They got one and a half million. And you're not going to make it that way. There were no national courts. If two states had a quarrel there were no courts to go to settle that. What if Pen - Pennsylvania and Maryland argue over a boundary? Who settles the quarrel? There were no national courts. There was chaos. There was no President. They were afraid he might turn into a king. So nobody charged with the responsibility of carrying out the laws. They could not regulate trade between states. That's called interstate trade. They could not regulate that. States taxed each other's goods. It went from one state to another

you stop and pay the tax. You imagine doing that clear across the United States today? That didn't lead to unity. It was chaos. Terrible. Well in this situation how do they accomplish anything? Well, you kind of wonder. They do have some successes. We'll look at that. Their big success with dealing with land in the West. What we call the Northwest Territory, the Ohio River Valley. That area was a mess at first. Several different states can claim that area. So the same land might be claimed by Connecticut and New York both. The first thing they had to do was convince all states on the east coast to give up their land in the west. Give it to the national government. That was not easy, but that was accomplished. Now what do you do with it? You sell it. You turn it into states. Well there are two laws that are passed here I'd like you remember. One is called the ordinance of 1785.

The ordinance of 1785. It dealt with selling land in the west, the selling of land. They went into that area and it surveyed it and it divided it up into townships. That's why when you fly over that section of the United States you see the roads turning at right angles. They don't just squiggle and wiggle around like in other states. They divided it into townships and they divided that on down, subdivided that into sections. And you could go and you could buy a section of land. They numbered them, 1 through 36. Section 16 was reserved for schools. So the first time the government gets in the business of providing money for education. They didn't have to build their school there, but they can sell it use the money. And then they arranged to sell this land at a dollar an acre. That's pretty cheap, except the kick was that you had to buy a whole section. A dollar an acre, but you had to buy 640 acres. Most people who wanted to move into the

west didn't have $640 or they'd have been happy in the east. I'll sell you a car for $10 but you've got to buy 10,000 of them. The second part kind of diminishes the value of the first offer. But that worked pretty well. The surveying of the land and providing an orderly way of selling it. Then they came up with what's called the Northwest Ordinance, 1787. The Northwest Ordinance. It provided for how a territory can become a state. We're going to let this western area come in the United States as states. How? Well first of all, they're going to come in equal to the old states. They're not going to be colonies. They're going to come in as full, equal partners. When they have 5,000 people they can send a delegate to Congress, you don't need to necessarily remember that, he couldn't vote but he could argue and debate, take bribes, and whatever. When you have 60,000 people you may apply for statehood. And if Congress wants to

let you in, you may be admitted. The Northwest Ordinance also forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory. Let me recap those laws for you. The ordinance of 1785 dealt with the selling of land. It provided an orderly way to survey and sell western lands. The Northwest Ordinance, two years later, provided a system by which a territory could become a state. They could apply for statehood when it had 60,000 people. Now that is the success of the government under the Articles of Confederation. It was dealing with land in the west. Now how about their failures? Well economics was a disaster. Every state could print its own money. Connecticut dollars and Delaware dollars and Massachusetts dollars and the Delaware dollar was worth two Connecticut dollars but only half as much as a Pennsylvania dollar. Or maybe that's true. But then anyway, they weren't worth the same things. That's the point. And there

is no national money and none of it was worth anything. People didn't want that paper money. And there wasn't much hard money, and we were 40 million dollars in debt, and people didn't want to loan us money. And aside from that, things looked really good. But economically it was just a disaster. And they are unable to deal with it. In foreign affairs, well England is a problem. She still had a bunch of forts up in the Northwest Territory around the Great Lakes and there were troops in there. She was supposed to take them out after the revolution but they were there. Westerners were absolutely convinced the British were stirring up the Indians. Which may have been the case. The Spanish, they were a problem too. They control the Mississippi River because they control the port of New Orleans. Westerners wanted to ship their goods down the Mississippi and out through New Orleans. Spain could close that anytime she wanted to.

And the government was unable to make a treaty with them. So westerners are upset over that. Now the thing that really brought the articles down was the problem of the farmer. The farmer didn't have much money. He didn't have much hard money. He was used to exchanging his crops for things he needed to buy. He had borrowed money and he had to pay that back for his land in cash. And he couldn't do it. If you can't pay your debts you're taken in to court. If taken to court they foreclose on your farm and you lose it. And that was happening very extensively. For the farmers decided they would just do something about that. If the courts can't meet, they can't take you to court. So in Massachusetts you get what is called Shays' Rebellion. It was led by an old Revolutionary soldier named Daniel Shays. And Shays told his men, he says, "My boys are going to fight for liberty.

I'll tell you what liberty is. It's to do whatever you want. And to make everybody else do what you want." And that's kind of a curious definition when you get to thinking about it. But he got around 2,000 men together and just surrounded these courthouses and wouldn't let the courts in. Well the rebellion is put down. But people are scared by that. Does democracy mean mob rule? Some people never trusted it in the first place. And they really begin to worry now. Are we just going to have one Daniel Shays after another? Or are we going to do something about it? Well, some states decided they'd better do something about it. You get Maryland and Virginia having a meeting at Mount Vernon to discuss some quarrels over the Potomac River. You have a meeting at Annapolis to try to do something about it. Those weren't

successful. But eventually they're going to come to the point where they feel they have to have a general Congress, a general convention to try to strengthen the national government. Nobody is very happy with it. Bankers don't like the bad money. Westerners are worried about the British in the north and the Spanish in the south. Farmers are concerned because they're in debt and they can't pay their debts. And the money is all worthless. So who is really happy with this government? Essentially, no one. I mean you get to that situation you have a groundswell of support that we need to make a change.