Unit 1 Notes 3: American Revolution: Part 2

Course of the War

The American Revolution was a war fought by the 13 colonies for independence from Great Britain. The began in 1775 in Concord and Lexington and ended in 1781 with the battle of Yorktown. A formal peace treaty was signed in 1783. This was known as the Treaty of Paris

Declaration of Independence
In 1776 the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain The document, primarily written by Thomas Jefferson, outlined the reasons for the United States to declare independence, as well as listing several crimes against the British monarchy The Declaration of Independence has served as an inspirational document for democracy in countries all over the world

Articles of Confederation
Now that the US was free from British rule, it set out to create its own government Their main goal was to avoid creating a new monarchy in the Untied States In 1781, the Articles of Confederation was signed into law.

Articles of Confederation
The articles made the individual state governments very strong

and the Federal Government very weak

Problems With the New Government

States could sign individual treaties Every state has an equal vote regardless of size No executive branch States could ignore the congress Congress cannot regulate trade
Each state had different currency

Changes need unanimous vote No Federal power to tax

No money to pay debts, no money to maintain a military

Ratifying a New Constitution

In 1787 the states got together to form a new constitution Many states had different demands they wanted placed into the new document As a result many compromises had to be made

Connecticut Compromise
One of the great debates was over whether states should have equal votes in congress Small states wanted equal representation, larger states wanted representation based on population The solution was to create two houses of congress, one based on population (House of Representatives) and one with equal membership (Senate) This became known as the Great Compromise

Compromises over Slavery

3/5 Compromise
The South wanted slaves to count toward their population numbers (even though slaves couldnt vote and werent considered citizens) The North said slaves should only count toward taxes and not toward population The result was that slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person

Slave trade could exist until 1808

Federalist Papers
Even with all of the compromising it took heavy debating by Federalists to get the constitution ratified To help persuade others to accept the document James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay published several documents known as the Federalist Papers

One More Addition

The Federalists were successful and in the years 1787-1790 all 13 states agreed to ratify the US Constitution In 1791, a Bill of Rights were added to the constitution which limited the power of the government and guaranteed certain basic individual rights for the people. The Bill of Rights make up the first 10 amendments of the US Constitution