HTY 233: Notes on the Constitution

 

Politics and Ideologies of Founders: New Directions

The Constitution

Federalists v. Anti-Federalists

Ratification
           
            The challenge from Anti-Federalists did not produce a convention nor an alternative constitution, but the torrent of publications did establish a national dialog.  It laid the ground work for the development of a loyal opposition in political dialogue, and the context in which political parties could disagree without being labeled as traitors.  It continued the popularization of politics: in VA it was noted that everyone from the governor to the doorman were caught up in constitutional debates.

ratification map

POWERS to new national government. WORKSHEETS

   To Congress:

            Levy and collect taxes, borrow money.

            Coin money.

            Establish Post Offices.

 Patents

            Regulate commerce, foreign and between states

            Determine citizenship and naturalization

            Declare War; Raise armies

            “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper”

 

To the President

            Commander in chief

            Make treaties with “Advice and Consent of the Senate”

            Veto power.

 

To the Judiciary:

           Criminal trials by state

Federal courts: original jurisdiction on international, interstate, admiralty;  appellate jurisdiction on all constitutional issues.

To Federal Government:

Supreme Law of the Land

Debts and Contracts

 

Issues:

Slavery:
Deal with the devil?  In his "Notes on the State of Virginia," which Jefferson wrote at Monticello in 1781, he considered the question of slavery in connection with the broader liberties of free citizens. He there raised a question that continues to surprise those who believe that Jefferson's views were entirely secular:

                      And can [Jefferson asked] the liberties of a nation be thought secure
                      when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of
                      the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to
                      be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I
                      reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

Despite concerns, slavery was not constrained, under cover of states’ rights, but the political power of slave holders was bolstered by 3/5s clause. The slave trade was unregulated , but the right to abolish the slave trade after January 1, 1808 granted to Congress.  A fugitive clause guaranteed the rights to slave holders to reacquire runaway slaves.

While the revolutionary generation may not have done enough, after the revolution slavery was essentially a regional institution rather than nationally sanctioned, and the importation of slaves was slated for extinction. Pre-Revolutionary objections were raised, e.g. Benjamin Rush (1773):

Ye men of sense and virtue—Ye advocates for American Liberty, rouse up and espouse the cause of humanity and general liberty.  Bear a testimony against a vice which degrades human nature and dissolves the universal ties of benevolence which should connect all the children of men together in one family.  The plant of liberty is of so tender a nature that it cannot long thrive in the neighborhood of slavery.  Remember all the eyes of Europe are fixed upon you, to preserve an asylum for freedom in this country, after the last pillars of it are fallen in every other quarter of the globe…Slavery is a Hydra sin, and includes in it every violation of the precepts of the Law and the Gospel…Remember that national crimes require national punishments.
           
Women and Gender: republican assumption that a citizen must be male; see Norton, Kerber on republican patriotic motivations/ involvement of women in war;  war heightened practical and moral contributions of women but did not translate into political equality.  See emergence of ideology of Republican motherhood (precursor to separate spheres, cult of true womanhood); certain aspects of legal status improve--sole femme laws relaxed, divorce options expanded.
 
Class:  Maybe not gone forever, but knocked down a peg in the public life:  Virginian Devereux Jarrett, a self-professed patriot, but conservative in his advanced years, complained that “In our high republican times there is more levelling than ought to be, consistent with good government…a due subordination is requisite in every government. At present there is too little regard and reverence paid to magistrates and persons in public office…An idea is held out that our present government [is] superior to the former when we were under the royal administration; but my age enables me to know that the people are not now half so peacefully and quietly governed as formerly, nor are the laws so well executed.  And yet I know the superiority of the present government.  In theory it is certainly superior, but in practice it is not so.  This can arise from nothing so much as a want of a proper distinction between various orders of people.” Even apprentices in the shops of hard masters appropriated the lexicon of individual rights.

Economics:

Land

Powers

 

 

The Revolution of 1800: Ascendence of the Jeffersonian Republicans

“I am not a friend to energetic government.  It is always oppressive.” Thomas Jefferson