History 1301- Ch. 6 - Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! Seagull Edition, ISBN 9780393614176 PDF

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History 1301- U. History 1Chapter SixI. Introduction: Abigail AdamsA. Wife of John Adams 1. Gave her political views in letters to him a. Resented the "absolute power" husbands exercised over their wives 2. Voices of Freedoma. A selection from a letter written by Abigail in (Primar...

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History 1301- U.S. History 1 Chapter Six

I. Introduction: Abigail Adams A. Wife of John Adams 1. Gave her political views in letters to him a. Resented the "absolute power" husbands exercised over their wives 2. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature) a. A selection from a letter written by Abigail in 1776 to her husband John Adams b. She asks him to "Remember the Ladies" in creating new laws of freedom for a new nation. II. Democratizing Freedom A. The Dream of Equality 1. The Revolution unleashed public debates and political and social struggles that enlarged the scope of freedom and challenged inherited structures of power within America. a. The principle of hereditary aristocracy was rejected. 2. The Declaration of Independence’s assertion that "all men are created equal" announced a radical principle whose full implications could not be anticipated. a. American freedom became linked with equality, which challenged the fundamental inequality inherent in the colonial social order. B. Expanding the Political Nation 1. The leaders of the Revolution had not intended this disruption of social order. 2. The democratization of freedom was dramatic for free men. 3. In the eighteenth century, democracy had multiple meanings. 4. Artisans, small farmers, laborers, and the militia all emerged as self-conscious elements in politics. C. The Revolution in Pennsylvania 1. The prewar elite of Pennsylvania opposed independence. a. This left a vacuum of political leadership filled by Paine, Rush, Matlack, and Young.

2. Pennsylvania’s 1776 constitution sought to institutionalize democracy in several ways, including establishing an annually elected, one-house legislature; allowing taxpaying (not just property-owning) men to vote; and abolishing the office of governor. D. The New Constitutions 1. Each state wrote a new constitution, and all agreed that their governments must be republics. 2. States disagreed as to how the government should be structured: a. One-house legislatures were adopted only by Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Vermont. b. John Adams’s "balanced governments" included two-house legislatures. E. The Right to Vote 1. The property qualification for suffrage was hotly debated. 2. The least democratization occurred in the southern states, where highly deferential political traditions enabled the landed gentry to retain their control of political affairs. 3. Most democratic new constitutions moved toward voting as an entitlement rather than a privilege. a. Vermont was the only state not to have financial considerations for suffrage. F. Democratizing Government 1. By the 1780s, with the exceptions of Virginia, Maryland, and New York, a large majority of the adult white male population could meet voting requirements. a. Until 1807, property-owning women in New Jersey could vote. 2. Freedom and an individual’s right to vote had become interchangeable. III. Toward Religious Toleration A. Catholic Americans 1. Joining forces with France and inviting Quebec to join in the struggle against Britain had weakened anti-Catholicism. B. The Founders and Religion 1. The end of British rule led to questioning the privilege of the Anglican Church in many colonies. 2. Many believed that religion was necessary as a foundation of public morality but were skeptical of religious doctrine. a. The Enlightenment influenced this skepticism. C. Separating Church and State

1. The drive to separate church and state brought together Deists with members of evangelical sects. 2. States disestablished established churches, depriving them of specific public funding and legal privileges. 3. The seven state constitutions that began with declarations of rights all included a commitment to "the free exercise of religion." 4. Many states still limited religious freedoms (e.g., barring Jews from voting and holding office, except in New York; or publicly financing religious institutions, such as in Massachusetts). 5. Catholics gained the right to worship without persecution throughout the states. D. Jefferson and Religious Liberty 1. Thomas Jefferson’s "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom" separated church and state in Virginia. 2. James Madison insisted that one reason for the complete separation of church and state was to reinforce the principle that the new nation offered "asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and religion." E. The Revolution and the Churches 1. As religious liberty expanded, some church authority was undermined. 2. Thanks to religious freedom, the early republic witnessed an amazing proliferation of religious denominations. a. Today, more than 1,300 religions are practiced. F. Christian Republicanism 1. Religious and secular language merged in the struggle for independence, creating what scholars call Christian Republicanism. a. Both religious and political leaders feared moral corruption, so personal virtue needed to be emphasized. 2. Despite a separation of church and state, public authority (Christians and Deists) continued to support religious values. 3. Leaders wished to encourage virtue—the ability to sacrifice self-interest for the public good. IV. Defining Economic Freedom A. Toward Free Labor 1. The lack of freedom inherent in apprenticeship and servitude increasingly came to be seen as incompatible with republican citizenship. 2. By 1800, indentured servitude had all but disappeared from the United States. a. The distinction between freedom and slavery sharpened.

B. The Soul of a Republic 1. To most free Americans, equality meant equal opportunity rather than equality of condition. 2. Thomas Jefferson and others equated land and economic resources with freedom. C. The Politics of Inflation 1. Some Americans responded to wartime inflation by accusing merchants of hoarding goods and by seizing stocks of food to be sold at the traditional "just price." a. From 1776 to 1779, more than thirty incidents occurred where crowds confronted merchants. D. The Debate over Free Trade 1. Congress urged states to adopt measures to fix wages and prices. 2. Adam Smith’s argument that the "invisible hand" of the free market directed economic life more effectively and fairly than governmental intervention offered intellectual justification for those who believed that the economy should be left to regulate itself. V. The Limits of Liberty A. Colonial Loyalists 1. An estimated 20–25 percent of Americans were Loyalists (those who retained their allegiance to the crown). 2. Loyalists included: a. Wealthy men with close working relationships with Britain b. Ethnic minorities fearful of losing to local majorities their freedom to enjoy cultural autonomy c. Many southern backcountry farmers and New York tenants who opposed wealthy planter Patriots and landlord Patriots, respectively B. The Loyalists’ Plight 1. The War for Independence was in some respects a civil war among Americans. 2. War brought a deprivation of basic rights to many Americans. a. Many states required residents to take oaths of allegiance to the new nation. 3. When the war ended, as many as 60,000 Loyalists were banished from the United States or emigrated voluntarily. a. Ten thousand of them were slaves. C. The Revolution as a Borderlands Conflict 1. In Canada, the new province of New Brunswick was created to accommodate Loyalists who voluntarily fled the newly independent colonies.

2. Loyalists brought to Canada a commitment to self-rule that inspired rebellions in Canada in 1837. 3. The border between Quebec and New England became an international border. D. White Freedom, Indian Freedom 1. To many Patriots, access to Indian land was one of the fruits of American victory. a. But liberty for whites meant loss of liberty for Indians. 2. The Treaty of Paris marked the culmination of a century in which the balance of power in eastern North America shifted away from the Indians and toward white Americans. 3. "Freedom" had not played a major part in Indians’ vocabulary before the Revolution, but now freedom meant defending their territorial sovereignty and the right to set their own policies regarding land use and trade. VI. Slavery and the Revolution A. The Language of Slavery and Freedom 1. During the debates over British rule, "slavery" was invoked as a political category. a. Britain was a "kingdom of slaves," whereas America was a "country of free men." 2. James Otis wrote of universal freedom, even for blacks. 3. The irony that America cried for liberty while enslaving Africans was recognized by some (e.g., the British statesman Edmund Burke and the British writer Dr. Samuel Johnson). B. Obstacles to Abolition 1. Most founders owned slaves at one point in their respective lives. a. John Adams and Thomas Paine were exceptions. 2. Some Patriots argued that slavery for blacks made freedom possible for whites. 3. According to a reading of Locke, for government to seize property (including slaves) would be an infringement on liberty. C. The Cause of General Liberty 1. By defining freedom as a universal entitlement rather than as a set of rights specific to a particular place or people, the Revolution inevitably raised questions about the status of slavery in the new nation. 2. Samuel Sewall’s The Selling of Joseph (1700) was the first antislavery tract in America. 3. Benjamin Rush warned (1773) that slavery was a "national crime" that would bring "national punishment." D. Petitions for Freedom 1. Slaves in the North and in the South appropriated the language of liberty for their own purposes.

2. Slaves presented "freedom petitions" in New England in the early 1770s. 3. Many blacks were surprised that white America did not realize their rhetoric of revolution demanded emancipation. 4. The poems of Phillis Wheatley, a slave in Boston, often spoke of freedom. 5. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature) a. Two slave petitions, from 1773 and 1777, call for black freedom in the context of white revolutionary action. E. British Emancipators 1. Nearly 100,000 slaves deserted their owners and fled to British lines. 2. At the end of the war, over 15,000 blacks accompanied the British out of the country. a. Many ended up in Nova Scotia, England, and Sierra Leone, a West African settlement established by Britain for former U.S. slaves. b. Some were re-enslaved in the West Indies. F. Voluntary Emancipations 1. For a moment, the revolutionary upheaval appeared to threaten the continued existence of slavery, as some slaveholders, primarily in the Upper South, provided for the emancipation of their slaves. 2. In the Lower South, the emancipation process never started. G. Abolition in the North 1. Between 1777 and 1804, every state north of Maryland took steps toward emancipation. 2. Abolition in the North was a slow process and typically applied only to future children of current slave women. H. Free Black Communities 1. After the war, free black communities with their own churches, schools, and leaders came into existence. 2. In all states except Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, free black men who met taxpaying or property qualifications were "citizens of color" who could vote. 3. Despite the rhetoric of freedom, the war did not end slavery for blacks. VII. Daughters of Liberty A. Revolutionary Women 1. Many women participated in the war in various capacities. a. Deborah Sampson, for example, dressed as a man and enlisted in the Continental army. b. The Ladies’ Association raised funds to assist American soldiers.

2. Within American households, women participated in the political discussions unleashed by independence. B. Gender and Politics 1. "Coverture" (which meant that a husband held legal authority over his wife) remained intact in the new nation. 2. In both law and social reality, women lacked the opportunity for autonomy (based on ownership of property or control of one’s own person) and hence lacked the essential qualification of political participation. 3. Many women who entered public debate felt the need to apologize for their forthrightness. 4. Most men considered women to be naturally submissive and irrational and therefore unfit for citizenship. C. Republican Motherhood 1. Women played a key role in the new republic by training future citizens. 2. The idea of republican motherhood reinforced the trend toward the idea of "companionate" marriage. 3. The Revolution altered the structure of family life. a. In the North, hired workers were not considered part of the family as indentured servants and slaves had been. D. The Arduous Struggle for Liberty 1. The Revolution changed the life of virtually every American. 2. America became a beacon of hope to those chafing under Old World tyrannies. a. The idea that "the people" possessed rights was quickly internationalized....