Chapter 6: Revolutionary Republic

Chapter 6: Revolutionary Republic

1. Why did many Indians and Blacks side with Britain during the Revolutionary War?
During the war Americans began to think in crude racial categories. Racial inferiority began to conflict with the claims of universal rights and human equality. They redefined their differences and resorted to racial stereotypes.

2. How did Shay's Rebellion provoke a change in perspective, for many Americans, regarding the need for strong central government?
1787 protestors organized by Captain Shay threatened the federal arsenal at Springfield. Benjamin Lincoln led an army of volunteers to march west with artillery and scattered the shaysites. They won enough assembly elections to pass a stay law and converted many gentleman and artisans into nationalists whom supported strengthening the central government.


Terms:

Stay Laws: A law that delays or postpones something. 1780s's many states passed stay laws to delay the due date of debts because of the serious economic problems of the time

Federalists: Supporters of the Constitution during the ratification process. Anti-feds resisted ratification

Publius: The signature of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay when they wrote the most comprehensive body of political thought by the Revolutionary generation, "The federalist papers".  They wrote a series of 85 essays defending the constitution clause by clause that was published first in New York newspapers and widely printed elsewhere during the struggle over ratification.

Virginia Plan:
Drafted by Madison. Proposing a bicameral legislature, "the large state plan", apportioned according to population with representation in both houses. The legislature would choose the executive and the judiciary. It would possess all powers currently lodged in Congress and the power "to legislate in all cases to which the separate states are incompetent." It could "negative all laws passed by the several states, contravening in its opinion... the articles of Union."

New Jersey Plan:
William Patterson proposed. Gave the existing congress power to levy import duties and a stamp tax to regulate trade and to use force to collect delinquent requisitions from the states. As under the articles, each state would have one vote. As another alternative designed to terrify small states into accepting the Virginia plan, Hamilton suggested a government in which both the senate and the executive would serve "on good behavior". To him the British constitution still seemed the best in the world, but he never formally proposed his plan.