Us History Summer Reading

Liam Horton                                                                        9/24/15

US Honors 1                                                summer reading assignment

Ch. 1:

1.         Conditions in America before the Constitutional Convention were not particularly great. John Adams had helped fishermen in New England the right to fish in Newfoundland, but these fishermen could no longer sell to the British controlled Caribbean. The fact that the British still occupied forts in the Ohio Valley didn’t help matters either. The British soldiers occupying these forts supplied munitions to Native Americans Which caused tension between both the natives and the Confederation. The closing of the port of New Orleans also cut off Kentucky and Tennessee preventing them getting supplies necessary for survival. Relations between the states also didn’t help Conditions in America. Many states imposed taxes on goods that crossed over state lines. Sates also implemented their own currency, which drastically effected trading amongst individual states. Also hurting trade were the Barbary Coast pirates who seized American trading vessels, taking all the good onboard and holding the crew hostage, only to be freed by huge ransom fees, which the government could not afford to pay.
2.         The Articles of Confederation had many clear strengths and weaknesses. One strength of the document is that it brought the country together as a whole and gave them a unified voice. Besides that there aren’t to many strengths. Some of the weaknesses of the document include that it denied the government the right to tax which in turn gave them no source of income. Additionally the government was not split into three branches as it is today, and only had a unicameral assembly ass opposed to the bicameral assembly we have today.
3.         The Northwest Ordinance was so impressive and helpful because it gave the government an additionally source of income. By splitting up the territories they owned and helping the new territories into statehood the government was able to produce a small amount of revenue as well as expand our country.
4.         The Annapolis convention was seen as a failure because only five states showed up only because the delegates believed strongly in the nationalist ideas the convention was based around. Alexander Hamilton thought favorably of the convention because it was built around the nationalist values he strongly believed in.
5.         Shay’s Rebellion happened because of the government’s inability to let farmers stay on their farms, owned by wealthy members of society, which had been foreclosed. The farmers felt as though the government had let them down and felt the only way to respond to this was by rioting.
6.         The convention in Philadelphia was called for because many states realized the clear weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation. This point was demonstrated well by Shay’s Rebellion as it showed the government inability to satisfy its citizens under the Articles of Confederation.

Ch.2:

1.         James Madison’s goal foe steering the convention was to totally disregard the Articles of Confederation and create an entirely new constitution that would help lay the groundwork for a new government. Madison new that the first proposals offered at the convention would be the most heavily debated so he knew in order to steer the convention he would have to get his ideas out before anyone else’s.
2.         George Washington was reluctant to attend the convention for multiple reasons. One such reason was his personal health. Washington had been dealing with depression after his brother died and also had been suffering from attacks of rheumatism, which had left him debilitated. Additionally Washington felt as though attending the convention would hurt his reputation with the public.
3.         Travel to the convention itself turned out to be very difficult. Travel in the 18th century was very difficult, causing many representatives to think twice about their decision to go to the convention. Also the winter of 1787 was particularly bad causing many roads to be damaged or inaccessible preventing many representatives for attending the event.
4.         Alexander Hamilton’s political views differed from many of the other delegates. Hamilton believed in a strong central government and opposed the idea of state sovereignty.
5. Delaware worried that larger states with greater financial resources would come to dominate it its sovereignty was taken away.
6.         I think Franklin’s entrance into the convention was pretty extravagant. Personally if I were a delegate I would see it as an unwanted distraction.
7.         The rules agreed upon made the delegates feel safe in discussion because they protected their reputations as political figures. The rules made it so that preliminary votes could be changed as well as creating a civilized platform for debate.    

Ch. 3:

1.         Virtually all of the men who attended the convention were very wealthy landowners who had received a strong education. Additionally many of the men had studied law over the course of their lives so they were in tune with politics and government, and had served as representatives of their respectable states. Also all of the men who were of age risked there lives and fought during the revolution.
2.          A few men were seen as the most loquacious at the convention, they included James Madison, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Rodger Sherman, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris. These men were well respected by the other delegates and used their words to sway the opinions of others.
3.         Two of the other standouts of the convention were Virginia delegates George Mason and Edmund Randolph. These two men stood out because James Madison had chosen them to present his new for of government.  
4.         There were a few notable absences at the convention, Thomas Jefferson was away on diplomatic duties, John Jay had been banned from being a delegate by the Clinton faction due to his nationalist views, Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense was in Europe, as was John Adams who was in England. Henry Lee and Patrick Henry didn’t attend the convention because they refused to engage in any sort of nationalist discussion, while Sam Adams decided to remain in Massachusetts.
5.         The rules put in place were done so to ensure secrecy. Many of the delegates felt that if the information presented at the convention got out it could pose as a threat to their reputation. Thomas Jefferson was enraged by the set of rules. He felt as though the code of secrecy went against the ideas the new government would be built upon.
6.         Governor Randolph presented 15 resolutions that would come to be called a constitutional revolution that would help change our government entirely.  

Ch. 4:

1.         The representatives did have the power to change the constitution and many believed that a strong central government should be created.
2.         Randolph proposed that the government should have three branches the executive, legislative, and judicial
3. Morris and Sherman both posed interesting questions. Morris questioned if the country were to be turned into a nation or confederation, while Sherman questioned the right of the convention to “make great inroads on the existing system”.
4.         The debate over the Virginia Plan is that it proposed a bicameral legislature that used proportional representation based on population. This created much controversy because smaller states argued that they wouldn’t have any say.
5.          The debate concerned both the executive and legislative branches. The main issue of the debate had to do with state sovereignty vs. national power.
6.         Some of the main problems the convention had when creating the executive branch were determining what exactly its role was going to be and how much power it would actually have. Two suggestions were that the executive was to merely have a supporting role and that a man might have to do the bidding of a powerful group in congress if he was to be reelected.
7.         The electoral college was created to protect the masses from “suckers”
8.           The delegates finally concluded that there would be one strong central government. They came to this conclusion by realizing that the different branches could check each other’s powers thus making sure that one branch didn’t become more powerful than the others.  

Ch. 5:

1.         William Patterson took a strong stance against proportional representation so he decided to come up with his own way on how the legislature worked. He believed there should a unicameral congress where every state received one vote. He believed that this would prevent smaller states, like his home state of New Jersey, from being bullied politically and economically by bigger states.
2.         James Wilson suggested that if the lager states were denied a proportional representation system they would branch off and form their own separate union.
3.         Rodger Sherman’s final proposal consisted of a bicameral legislature with one house having proportional representation and the other having equal representation.
4.         The delegates were finally ready to compromise because they had been anxious to reach an agreement that would benefit both the smaller and larger states.
5.         New york didn’t vote on the compromise because Alexander Hamilton, who was head of the delegation, left and failed to show up on the day of the vote.

Ch. 6:

1.         The realization that the legislature had been given to much power resulted in the delegates compromising on the issue of the presidency.
2.         John Dickenson claimed responsibility for the creation of the Electoral College but the idea actually belonged to James Wilson who had been pushing for the idea since early June.
3.           The men feared putting power into the presidency because they ultimately knew they were going to be the ones to hold the presidential office and didn’t want any of their piers to abuse the powers they were setting forth.
4.         Many rules and requirements were set forth for citizens who wanted to become president. The president had to be a natural born citizen of the United States, and over the age of 35. It was also noted that incase of impeachment the vice president would assume the role of the president. Additionally it was noted that the presidents powers were to be situational, meaning he had the power to command the army in times of war, and could send diplomats to sign treaties to prevent war.

Ch. 7:

1.         Governeur Morris made a few changes to the preamble in order to improve it. Most notably he reworded many sentences making one that were previously very wordy short and to the point. Additionally Morris gave the preamble the emotional force it had lacked and captured the government’s new nationalist ideas well.
2.          The letter was so important to the delegates because it helped their constituents understand why the new constitution had been drafted and to show them that it was for the good of the nation.
3.         It was important to have all of the states to vote “ay” to the constitution to show that they were all one unified group and to show the people that the states had full trust in the document.
4.         The message of Franklin’s speech was that the constitution may not be perfect but it should be accepted by all of the delegates and that they should rejoice at the act that they have a near perfect form of government.

Ch.8:

1.         The small states liked the constitution because it gave them a strong voice in national affairs and because it prevented lager states from exploiting them in trade.
2.         The supporter of the Constitution claimed that the document had unanimous support, when in reality a few delegates hadn’t even signed.
3.         There were many reasons why the Anti-Federalists held a weaker position than the federalists. One such reason was that a few men, notably Alexander Hamilton and James Madison penned letters under the names the “Federalists”. In these letters they blasted the beliefs of the anti-federalists turning the public against them.  Also many anti-federalists were urging people to support a government that even they themselves recognized as unstable, further hurting their chances of gaining public support. Additionally they supported no other alternative method of government even further hurting their chances of winning over the public.
4.            The most important arguments written by “Publius” were the rebuttals to potential issues people saw within the constitution. These arguments helped the constitution gain even greater amounts of support.

Ch.9:

1.         The “strangeness’ of the first election is that Washington hadn’t even campaigned yet we still one the vote unanimously.
2.          Washington was not in very good fiscal condition when he entered office. He was known as a debtor and even had to borrow $100 just to fund his trip to be inaugurated. Even though he was in debt Washington still didn’t accept his presidential salary because he felt it was his duty and not his job to serve as president.
3.         Washington decided to have john Adams as his vice president even though the two weren’t great friends because he felt as though it would be political to have someone from new England serving alongside him.

Ch. 10:

1.         I think the president’s role in the government has continued to expand due to the fact that America as a nation has been constantly growing since its inception. As it has grown bigger it has needed a stronger leader with more control.
2.         Diplomacy and foreign affairs were the issues that made the founding fathers realize that the president needed reel power. The nation needed a strong leader who could serve as it head in situations involving other countries.     

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