Page 173 - American Stories, A History of the United States

minds, that they themselves might hold unrivall’d, the power and pre-eminence they persons and property, which every member in the State hath a right to expect from the
6.1 had usurped.”
During this period, women began to petition for divorce on new grounds. One
case reveals changing attitudes toward women and the family. In 1784, John Backus, an
6.2 undistinguished Massachusetts silversmith, was hauled before a court and asked why
he beat his wife. He responded that “it was Partly owing to his Education for his father
treated his mother in the same manner.” The difference between Backus’s case and his
6.3 father’s was that Backus’s wife refused to tolerate such abuse, and she sued successfully
for divorce. Divorce patterns in Connecticut and Pennsylvania show that after 1773,
women divorced on about the same terms as men.
The war itself presented some women with fresh opportunities. In 1780, Ester
6.4
DeBerdt Reed founded a large volunteer women’s organization in Philadelphia—
the first of its kind in the United States—that raised more than $300,000 for
Washington’s army. Other women ran farms and businesses while their husbands
fought the British. And in 1790, the New Jersey legislature allowed women who
owned property to vote.
Despite these scattered gains, republican society still defined women’s roles exclu-
sively in terms of mother, wife, and homemaker. Other pursuits seemed unnatural,
even threatening. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in 1807, New Jersey law-
makers—angry that women voters had apparently determined the result of a close
election—repealed female suffrage in the interests of “safety, quiet, and good order and
dignity of the state.” Even such an allegedly progressive thinker as Jefferson could not
imagine allowing women to participate in serious politics. When in 1807 his secretary
Quick Check of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, called attention to the shortage of educated people
What evidence argues that this was to serve in government jobs and suggested recruiting women, Jefferson responded
a period of significant progress for sharply: “The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public
women in the United States?
is not prepared, nor am I.”
The States: experiments in Republicanism
In May 1776, the Second Continental Congress invited the states to adopt constitutions.
The old colonial charters filled with references to king and Parliament were no longer
adequate, and within a few years, most states had acted. Rhode Island and Connecticut
already enjoyed republican government through their unique seventeenth-century
charters that allowed the voters to select both governors and legislators. Eleven other
states plus Vermont created new political structures. Their deliberations reveal how
Americans in different regions and reacting to different social pressures defined fun-
damental republican principles.
Several constitutions were experimental, and states rewrote documents that had
been drafted in the first flush of independence. These early constitutions nevertheless
provided the framers of the federal Constitution of 1787 with insights into the strengths
and weaknesses of government based on the will of the people.
Despite disagreements over details, Americans who wrote the various state con-
stitutions shared two political assumptions. First, they insisted on written documents.
This represented a major break with English practice. Political philosophers in the
mother country had long boasted of Britain’s unwritten constitution, a collection of
judicial decisions and parliamentary statutes. But this vaunted system had not pro-
tected the colonists from oppression; hence, after declaring independence, Americans
demanded that their state constitutions explicitly define the rights of the people and
the power of their rulers.
Second, the authors of the state constitutions believed men and women possessed
natural rights Fundamental certain natural rights over which government exercised no control whatsoever. So that
rights over which the government future rulers—potential tyrants—would know the exact limits of authority, these fun-
should exercise no control.
damental rights were carefully spelled out. Indeed, the people of Massachusetts rejected
the proposed state constitution of 1778 largely because it lacked a full statement of their
basic rights. They demanded a guarantee of “rights of conscience, and . . . security of
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supreme power.”
Eight state constitutions contained specific declarations of rights. The length and
character of these lists varied, but, in general, they affirmed three fundamental free-
doms: religion, speech, and press. They protected citizens from unlawful searches and
seizures and upheld trial by jury.
Stumbling Toward A New
National Government
6.2 Why did many Americans regard the Articles of Confederation as inadequate?
hen the Second Continental Congress convened in 1775, the delegates found
themselves waging war in the name of a country that did not yet exist. As the
military crisis deepened, Congress gradually—often reluctantly—assumed
greater authority over national affairs. But everyone agreed such narrow
measures were a poor substitute for a legally constituted government. The separate states
could not deal with the range of issues that the American people now confronted. Indeed,
if independence meant anything in a world of sovereign nations, it implied the creation of a
central authority able to conduct war, borrow money, regulate trade, and negotiate treaties.
Articles of Confederation
Creating a viable central government proved more difficult than anyone anticipated.
Congress appointed a committee to draw up a plan for confederation. John Dickinson,
the lawyer who had written an important revolutionary pamphlet titled Letters from a
Farmer in Pennsylvania, headed the committee. Dickinson envisioned a strong central
government. The report his committee presented on July 12, 1776, shocked delegates who
assumed that the constitution would authorize a loose confederation of states. Dickinson’s
plan placed the western territories, land the separate states claimed for themselves, under
congressional control. His committee also called for equal state representation in Congress.
Since some states, such as Virginia and Massachusetts, were more populous
than others, this fueled tensions between large and small states. Also unsettling was
Dickinson’s recommendation that taxes be paid to Congress on the basis of a state’s
total population, black as well as white, a formula that angered southerners who did
not think slaves should be counted for purposes of taxation.
The Articles of Confederation that Congress finally approved in November 1777 articles of confederation
bore little resemblance to Dickinson’s original plan. The Articles jealously guarded the Ratified in 1781, this document
sovereignty of the states. The delegates who drafted the framework shared a republi- was the United States' first
can conviction that power—especially power so far removed from the people—was constitution, providing a
framework for national
dangerous. The only way to preserve liberty was to place as many constraints as pos- government. The articles limited
sible on federal authority. central authority by denying
The result was a government that many people regarded as powerless. The Articles the national government any
provided for a single legislative body consisting of representatives selected annually taxation or coercive power.
by the state legislatures. Each state had one vote in Congress. It could send as many as
seven delegates, or as few as two, but if they divided evenly on an issue, the state lost
its vote. There was no independent executive and no veto over legislative decisions.
The Articles also denied Congress the power of taxation, a serious oversight in time
of war. To obtain funds, the national government had to ask the states for contri-
butions, called requisitions. If a state failed to cooperate—and many did—Congress
limped along without financial support. All 13 states had to assent to amendments
to this constitution. The authors expected the weak national government to handle