CHAPTER
1

The Founding Fathers and a New Form of Government

In This Chapter

• The American Revolution
• The Declaration of Independence
• The founding fathers
• The Articles of Confederation

The creation of the U.S. Constitution is a remarkable story, and it’s a remarkable tribute, not only to the intellect but also to the determination of the founding fathers and the citizens they represented, who wanted a new way of living and a new form of government.

The early Americans’ first attempt at a shared government following the Revolutionary War was the Articles of Confederation, a loose confederation. It was designed to avoid the sort of powerful central government, with its oppression and disdain for individual rights, that sparked the American Revolution and, ultimately, independence and the opportunity to create a new nation.

The American Revolution

Like many colonies throughout history, the Americans of the first half of the 1700s had a love-hate relationship with their mother country. They were proud to be British, but they resented the way their distant rulers seemed to take advantage of them.

The British, meanwhile, were at the height of their imperial power and haughtiness. Great Britain prized its American colonies for their vast natural resources and for the way the developing American middle class of shopkeepers and farmers was becoming an important market for trade. But to the British, Americans weren’t even second-class citizens because they weren’t citizens. Besides, India was the real jewel in the crown of the empire.

Taxation Without Representation

The British had handed a number of laws across the Atlantic that weren’t well received in America, largely because many Americans saw numerous crown-imposed laws as economically unfair.

For example, the British put strict limits on the colonial iron industry in order to protect sales of British iron products in America. If Americans were allowed to operate their own forges and produce their own iron tools, they wouldn’t buy them from Britain—and pay import taxes to the British, too. Similar laws restricted American production; forced Americans to buy only from Britain; and imposed high taxes on everyday items such as newspapers, playing cards, textiles, wine, beer, coffee, and tea.

We the People

Wealthy Boston merchant and patriot John Hancock, best known today for that big signature on the Declaration of Independence, was a committed smuggler who defied British tax laws. When he finally got caught, his sloop Liberty and all its cargo were seized, and a judge—the British wouldn’t allow a jury to hear the case—fined him £9,000, three times the value of the cargo.

Resentment toward British rule began to peak after 1760, when King George III assumed the throne. Parliament began taxing the colonies directly to help pay for “Mad” King George’s wars against France and Spain and for the British troops he sent to America to keep order against an increasingly rebellious colonial population. What’s more, new “quartering” laws required colonists to open their homes and kitchens to shelter and feed British troops.

The Americans organized boycotts, became enthusiastic smugglers, gave rousing speeches, and printed treasonous anti-British pamphlets. Some called themselves patriots, organized into rebel groups such as the Sons of Liberty, and launched violent attacks on the crown’s property and agents. In today’s language, we would call them freedom fighters; the British would call them terrorists.

As the British imposed more taxes, the colonists protested more. The British sent more troops to America to maintain order and then imposed more taxes to pay for the additional troops. New taxes on paper, glass, paint, and tea fueled more protests, and American juries began finding accused smugglers innocent even when they were caught red-handed. Then the British stopped allowing jury trials. In 1773, a group of patriots clownishly dressed like Mohawk Indians boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and threw the cargo of tea overboard rather than submit to new rules that said only agents of the crown could sell tea.

As Parliament moved to take away the colonies’ limited self-rule authority, the first Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. The representatives of 12 colonies (Georgia did not attend) declared their opposition to rule by Parliament and vowed to go home and promote the forming of local militia. In 1775, the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, and the colonial Minutemen (so named because they could grab their flintlock rifles and be out the door in a minute) sent the British Redcoats (so named for their crimson uniforms) fleeing back to Boston.

As full-fledged war broke out, George Washington, who had been one of the leaders of the British-Colonial military forces that defeated the French in the French and Indian War a few years earlier, assumed command of the Continental Army.

The Declaration of Independence

In June 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five to draft a statement that would explain to the British, and the rest of the world, why the Americans wanted and deserved independence. The other four members of the committee asked Thomas Jefferson to take it on and get back to them. Jefferson penned a draft in a mere 17 days. He showed what he had to two other members of the committee, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, who made a few suggestions. The full Committee of Five made a few more, and the document went before the Continental Congress on July 2. The Congress tinkered and debated that day, all the next, and into the late morning of the following day.

When the people of Philadelphia heard all the city’s church bells pealing at once on July 4, they were exhilarated and terrified. Independence had been declared. It was war.

The Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, which, for all practical purposes, changed little from Jefferson’s original draft. It opened like this:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

And then came the second paragraph, the words we all remember for their simple power:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Simply and directly, the Declaration set out the rights claimed by the colonists—rights anybody who read them would agree were natural rights that should be afforded all people.

The foundation of the Declaration of Independence, and subsequently the Constitution, was straightforward and powerful: individual rights are inalienable, natural, and cannot be granted or taken away by governments.

The Declaration went on to cite a list of wrongs by the British crown—violations of those rights. As soon as the 56 signatures on the declaration were dry—maybe before they were dry—runners carried the document to printers for copies to be made and sent to the other colonies and to the commanders of the Continental Army. Within 5 days, all 13 colonies had approved the Declaration of Independence.

We the People

“In America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries, the law ought to be king ….”

—Thomas Paine, “Common Sense”

The Revolutionary War was long and difficult, marked by numerous defeats, retreats, mass desertions, and a handful of mutinies for the Continental Army. The odds were against the Americans, but their cause was helped immeasurably by the shrewd generalship of Washington. In addition, the British were fighting far from home, while the Americans were literally defending their homes.

Most historians mark the end of the actual fighting with Lord Charles Cornwallis’s ignominious surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. The following year, the British Parliament voted to cease hostilities with America and urged King George III to negotiate for peace. The British troops began returning from the former colonies, and the Treaty of Paris, in which Britain recognized the United States of America, was signed in 1783.

The seven men generally acknowledged as the key founding fathers were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the undisputed leader of the founders, George Washington, sometimes called “the Father of His Country.” The framers of the Constitution were all men, all white, mostly Protestant, all well educated, and all well-to-do. (Although few of them, including Washington, were downright rich.) Most were born in the 13 colonies.

Only six men, including Franklin, signed both the Declaration of Independence and the draft Constitution. Two signed those documents plus the Articles of Confederation. Only one man, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, signed all four key documents in the founding era: the charter for the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.

Influential Women

In recent years, amid criticism that the term founding fathers diminishes the role of many women of the era, historians have pointed out how a number of women played influential but relatively quiet roles, from the first daring days of rebellion, through the bitter and bloody war, and into the early years of a weak and infant nation that had big dreams but little else. Many women provided ideas; inspiration; material support; behind-the-scenes services in kitchens and hospitals; and sometimes, the moral support to keep fighting, whether against the British or for a new democratic republic or both.

Some of those women included Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, and Deborah Read Franklin, all wives of founding fathers who supported the rise of the new national intellectually or materially or both; Mercy Otis Warren, an influential essayist whose writings promoted independence; Deborah Sampson, who dressed like a man to enlist and fight the Redcoats; Phillis Wheatley, a slave whose widely published poetry argued passionately for independence; Molly Pitcher, who may or may not have been a real person but represents the many women volunteers who provided food, water, clothing, and medical care to Continental soldiers; and Betsy Ross, a patriotic entrepreneur who ran an upholstery business and is credited with sewing the first American flag for George Washington (which is probably more legend than fact).

We the People

“The great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law.”

—Constitutional scholar Friedrich A. Hayek

A New Framework

The American founders began thinking about a framework for their government even before the Declaration of Independence. And the Continental Congress, which was formed in 1775 as war was breaking out, began working on a framework for a new government only days after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Throughout the Revolutionary War, even when things looked darkest for the American insurgents, various influential patriots continued to think and talk about what a new United States of America might look like and how it might function.

The outcome of the war was in doubt for years. Victory and independence did not appear to be a sure thing until several years into the war, when it became clear that England—the king, Parliament, the English economy, the English military, and the English people—were being worn down by the costs, in both blood and treasure, of this faraway war.

As the war wound down, the questions in the Continental Congress became more urgent. How would the relationships among the 13 former colonies change? Would independence mean 13 new sovereign nations? Or one nation with 13 states? Would there be a king? As it became clear that the patriots were going to win the war, the theoretical “what if” discussions became more real … and more heated.

Many Americans hated the idea of a king and regarded George III as a tyrant. But more than a few believed the new country needed a king, largely because they knew of no secure, successful nation that did not have a king or queen in charge. How else would a government work? All the major nations of Europe had a monarchy.

“Taxation without representation” had been a battle cry for the Revolution, and many Americans hated the idea of any government imposing taxes on them. But without taxes, how would America expand, or provide infrastructure and services to improve the quality of life for its citizens?

The Articles of Confederation

In 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, a pre-Constitution agreement that was more like an alliance among 13 sovereign nations than a charter for a new nation. The Articles were not fully ratified by the states until March 1, 1781, several months before the British surrendered on October 19, 1781. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formalized independence with England and gave the United States formal recognition with the other major nations of Europe.

The Articles of Confederation created the Confederation Congress. Each state could send between two and seven delegates to Congress, but no matter how many delegates, each state had just one single vote.

The Articles of Confederation were never meant to be a constitution overseeing a single nation. The 13 states weren’t ready for that. The Articles defined the new political entity as the “United States of America” but specifically said each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence.”

Instead, the Articles created “a firm league of friendship” that was in effect a treaty among 13 states, concerned primarily with mutual defense and foreign affairs. In many ways, the United States under the Articles of Confederation in the 1780s was more like the European Union of the twenty-first century than the United States of today.

The Articles of Confederation were in effect from 1781 until 1789, and some good things happened during those years. Congress set a standard system of weights and measures. The first bank was chartered, and the forerunner to the U.S. Mint was created. Trade with China was opened.

After the Continental Army was disbanded (the patriots were distrustful of standing armies, including their own), the Articles of Confederation required every state to maintain its own militia, although the militias were banned from waging foreign wars. The Confederation Congress soon laid the foundation of the modern U.S. Army by establishing a standing force of several hundred men to guard West Point and a handful of outposts on the western frontier.

One very big question was the future of the huge mass of land that made up the rest of North America. Some states wanted to be able to establish colonies of their own in what is now the Midwest, South, and West. Instead, the Confederation Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, establishing the procedures for Western Territories to become states equal in every way to the original 13 states. (An interesting historical wrinkle: Article XI made provisions for Canada to be accepted as a state if Canada was interested.)

We the People

“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the employment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.”

—Thomas Jefferson

Insufficient Powers

Despite the positive steps, the Articles of Confederation proved insufficient in a number of ways. One of the biggest problems was that Congress had little power to settle disagreements between states. This was especially important in commerce; states were imposing taxes and tariffs on each other and trying to limit other states’ use of rivers that created shared boundaries. One state would see its taxes and tariffs as economic protection; other states would see those taxes and tariffs as economic interference. Whatever the rationale, such disputes hindered economic growth.

Congress also had little power to levy taxes on the states. Congressional leaders often pleaded with state officials to provide money to expand the military, especially to counter Indian attacks or keep pirates from plundering American merchant ships. Under this largely voluntary tax system, the states often ignored Congress’s requests for contributions or offered only token sums.

Even when raising money for the central government was not an issue, it was difficult to get things done. Major Confederation rules and policies had to be approved by 9 of the 13 states, and it took a unanimous vote—all 13 states—to amend the Articles of Confederation. That meant every state had a veto.

The ineffective government contributed to widespread fear and uncertainty, along with an economic downturn. Citizens complained that the taxes imposed by the states were too high. Many people were hurt by the difficulty of getting credit and the shortage of currency following the collapse of the Continental dollar. Farmers were especially hard hit. Agriculture dominated the American economy at that time; the typical farm family included eight children; crop prices were depressed. Farmers claimed they were victims of policies that led to inequality as their income dropped and they were unable to repay their debts on time. They clamored for debt relief, for easier credit, and for a better system of paper money. The difficult economy, in the face of lagging debt repayments, led many creditors to go to court seeking foreclosures on homes and farms and forcing bankruptcies on the people who owed them money.

Historians see Shays’ Rebellion as a pivotal point. In 1786 and 1787, a Revolutionary War veteran named Daniel Shays led or inspired a series of raids, including the attempted shutdown of courts, mostly in Massachusetts, where tax and debt cases were being heard. A number of people were injured or killed in skirmishes between protestors and private militia funded by merchants, and the rebellion was eventually cut down after an attempt to take over the federal arsenal in Springfield, Massachusetts. But Shays and his followers showed the need for broader cooperation and uniform rules across the states—both in economic policy and in military readiness.

George Washington had all but removed himself from public life in the first years after the war, but he emerged from retirement to bemoan the Shays’ Rebellion and the conditions that caused it. He noted that undisciplined internal insurrections such as Shays’ Rebellion were exactly what critics in England and elsewhere in Europe had predicted for the United States without the firm hand of an established monarchy.

We the People

George Washington himself called the new nation, and its new form of government, “an experiment”: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, and perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

Washington and other influential figures, notably James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton of New York, who were both able politicians and respected public intellectuals, joined in widespread agreement: changes were needed to the Articles of Confederation. The weak central government was holding back the new nation, which needed broader regulations to build a smoothly operating economy across all 13 states.

The Federalists

In 1786, Madison and Hamilton participated in a meeting in Maryland for representatives of five northeastern states. Called the Annapolis Convention, the gathering’s original goal was to try to find a way for states to lower some of their economic barriers for each other. The delegates, led by Madison and Hamilton, came away from Annapolis intent on revising the Articles of Confederation—or scrapping the Articles completely and coming up with an entirely new constitution.

Madison and Hamilton were the political liberals of their day—in the sense that liberals wanted more change than conservatives, who were happier with the status quo or less change. These Federalists, as they were called, wanted a unified nation, a democratic republic of states rather than a looser alliance of sovereign states. Madison believed a pure democracy, ruled by the direct votes of the people, would work in a small geographic area with a relatively small, homogenous population. A republic of separate states under a strong central government, Madison thought, was much better suited to a sprawling, growing nation with a diverse population. The Federalists foresaw a single nation that allowed the states to retain many powers while following the rules and laws laid down by the national government.

But not everyone wanted a new constitution or a stronger central government. Many members of the Confederation Congress agreed that change was needed, but not too much. Madison, Hamilton, and other Federalists were seen as big-city people, concerned primarily with business, commerce, and trade. The larger states—Virginia was largest with about 400,000 residents, followed closely by Pennsylvania and Massachusetts—typically had more sentiment for a strong central government (although that could not be said for New York’s small delegation to the Constitutional Convention). The smaller states typically had more anti-Federalist sentiment. They were more likely to be concerned with the welfare of plantation owners and farmers and issues such as credit and a viable paper currency.

Lurking underneath the immediate political concerns was a larger and more ultimately wrenching economic and moral issue—slavery.

In February 1787, the Confederation Congress agreed that a convention would be held in Philadelphia, starting in May, “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.”