1. How did American women participate in the American Revolution? What was Republican Motherhood/Womanhood? 2. What majo

[answerhappygod]

1. How did American women participate in the American Revolution? What was Republican Motherhood/Womanhood?
2. What major compromises molded the final content of the Constitution?
3. How did Anti-Federalist concerns raised during the ratification process lead to the creation of the Bill of Rights?
4. How did the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 threaten government stability and the future of the republic?
108 Voices of Freedom Questions 1. Why does Jefferson declare that religious freedom is a "natural right"? 2. Does Jefferson seek to weaken or strengthen religion by prohibiting governmental enforcement of religious belief? 34. The Right of "Free Suffrage" (1776) Source: Letter by "Watchman, "Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), August 15, 1776. Among the dramatic changes in American life inspired by the War of Independence was the expansion of the right to vote. As ordinary Ameri- cans engaged in public debates, enlisted in state militias, and took part in legal and extralegal committees that enforced the orders of Congress, they demanded an end to property qualifications for voting. The essay that follows, which appeared in a Maryland newspaper in 1776, illustrates the democratic upsurge that accompanied independence. The writer challenged the decision of the colony's leaders to restrict vot- ing to those with property. The essay also shows how equality-"an equal claim to all the privileges, liberties, and immunities of citizens, includ ing the right to vote-had become linked to many Americans' under- standing of freedom. By the 1780s, with the exceptions of Virginia, Maryland, and New York, a large majority of the adult white male popula tion could meet voting requirements. WHEN DESPOTISM REARED her head, and regal power was strain- ing every nerve to ruin and enslave this country, opposition became expedient, opposition became absolutely necessary. The old govern- ment, ever treacherous and oppressive, could not be trusted, [and] the mode of government by convention was therefore instituted. But such mode of government proving extremely imperfect, attended with many
The Revolution Within 109 inconveniences, and not competent to the exigencies of affairs, and the honorable Congress having recommended that a government be formed, in each colony, under the "authority of the people," of such colony only.... the last convention resolved, that a convention be elected for the express purpose of forming a new government, by the authority of the people only, and enacting and ordering all things for the preservation, safety, and general weal of this colony. Unfortunately, in the same sitting, they passed a resolve restrict- ing the right of voting, thereby excluding nearly half of the mem- bers of this state [from] the enjoyment of their inherent right of free suffrage.... Is it not an insult to common sense to say that a govern- ment can be formed by the authority of the people only, when near half of them are excluded from any share in the election of the con- vention which is to form the government? This inequality of represen- tation, contained in the resolve, cannot be justified on any principle. Every freeman must stand amazed at it. It struck at the grandest right of a freeman.... The ultimate end of all freedom is the enjoy- ment of a free suffrage. A constitution formed without this impor- tant right of free voting being preserved to the people, would be despotic.... For a people governed contrary to their inclination, or by persons to whom they have given no commission for that pur- pose, are, in the properest sense of the phrase, an enslaved people, if ever there was an enslaved people. That a part of the people should engross the power of electing legislators for the whole community is the grossest injustice that can be imagined.... Every poor man has a life, a personal liberty, and a right to his earn- ings, and is in danger of being injured by government in a variety of ways; therefore it is necessary that these people should enjoy the right of voting for representatives, to be protectors of their lives, personal liberty, and their little property which, though small, is yet, upon the whole, a very great object to them. It would be unjust and oppressive in the extreme to shut out the poor in having a share in declaring who shall be the lawmakers of their country, and yet bear a very
110 Voices of Freedom heavy share in the support of government. Would not the rich com- plain grievously if they had no power of electing representatives?... Every member of this state, who lends his aid to the support of it, has an equal claim to all the privileges, liberties, and immunities with every [one] of his fellow countrymen; circumstances which are essential to the existence of a free state, and inseparable from the exercise and operation of a free people.... No power in the state can legally diminish this equal right, either by reducing the number of those privileges to which the whole community is justly entitled, or by imparting to men, or particular societies of men, such degrees of power and privilege that shall, in fact, render the other members less free or more subservient to the purposes of others, than the equal right of freedom can allow. If these be not the innate rights and privileges of the people, they are not free.... Let, therefore, all hateful distinctions cease, and elections [be] made open and by the free suffrage of the people stand good and valid.... And let a government be established, where equal liberty can be enjoyed, the interest of the people promoted, and the cause of America maintained. 35. Noah Webster on Equality (1787) Source: Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia, 1787), pp. 46-47. Americans of the revolutionary generation were preoccupied with the social conditions of freedom. Could a republic survive with a sizable
The Revolution Within 111 dependent class of citizens? In the excerpt that follows, from a pamphlet published in 1787, the educator and political writer Noah Webster identi- fied equality as essential for the stability of republican government. Citing and amending the teachings of the French political theorist Montesquieu, Webster proclaimed, "A general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property is the whole basis of national freedom." "Equality," he added, was "the very soul of a republic." To most free Americans, "equality" meant equal opportunity, rather than equality of condition. Many leaders of the Revolution nevertheless assumed that in the exceptional circumstances of the New World, with its vast areas of available land and large population of independent farmers and artisans, the natural workings of society would enable all free Ameri- cans to acquire land and achieve, if not complete equality, at least the eco- nomic independence necessary for political "virtue." IN AMERICA, WE begin our empire with more popular privileges than the Romans ever enjoyed. We have not to struggle against a mon- arch or an aristocracy-power is lodged in the mass of the people. On reviewing the English history, we observe a progress similar to that in Rome-an incessant struggle for liberty from the date of Magna Charta, in John's reign, to the revolution. The struggle has been successful, by abridging the enormous power of the nobility. But we observe that the power of the people has increased in an exact proportion to their acquisitions of property. Wherever the right of primogeniture is established, property must accumulate and remain in families. Thus the landed property in England will never be suffi- ciently distributed, to give the powers of government wholly into the hands of the people. But to assist the struggle for liberty, com- merce has interposed, and in conjunction with manufacturers, thrown a vast weight of property into the democratic scale. Wher- ever we cast our eyes, we see this truth, that property is the basis of power; and this, being established as a cardinal point, directs us to the means of preserving our freedom. Make laws, irrevocable laws in
112 Voices of Freedom every state, destroying and barring entailments; leave real estates to revolve from hand to hand, as time and accident may direct; and no family influence can be acquired and established for a series of generations-no man can obtain dominion over a large territory- the laborious and saving, who are generally the best citizens, will possess each his share of property and power, and thus the bal- ance of wealth and power will continue where it is, in the body of the people. A general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property is the whole basis of national freedom: The system of the great Montesquieu will ever be erroneous, till the words property or lands in fee simple are substituted for virtue, throughout his Spirit of Laws. Virtue, patriotism, or love of country, never was and never will be, till mens' natures are changed, a fixed, permanent principle and sup- port of government. But in an agricultural country, a general pos- session of land in fee simple, may be rendered perpetual, and the inequalities introduced by commerce, are too fluctuating to endan- ger government. An equality of property, with a necessity of alien- ation, constantly operating to destroy combinations of powerful families, is the very soul of a republic-While this continues, the people will inevitably possess both power and freedom; when this is lost, power departs, liberty expires, and a commonwealth will inev- itably assume some other form. The liberty of the press, trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus writ, even Magna Charta itself, although justly deemed the palladia of freedom, are all inferior considerations, when compared with a gen- eral distribution of real property among every class of people. The power of entailing estates is more dangerous to liberty and republi- can government, than all the constitutions that can be written on paper, or even than a standing army. Let the people have property, and they will have power-a power that will for ever be exerted to prevent a restriction of the press, and abolition of trial by jury, or the abridgement of any other privilege. The liberties of America, therefore, and her forms of government, stand on the broadest basis. Removed from the fears of a foreign invasion and conquest, they are
37. Petition of Slaves to the Massachusetts Legislature (1777) Source: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Series 5, Vol. 3 (1877), pp. 434-37. The revolutionary generation's emphasis on liberty inevitably raised ques- tions about the future of slavery in the new republic. The first concrete steps toward emancipation were "freedom petitions"-arguments for lib- erty presented to New England's courts and legislatures in the 1770s by enslaved African-Americans. As the petition that follows indicates, the slaves used the language of the Declaration of Independence-unalienable rights, the laws of nature, etc.-in the cause of abolition. Many slaves did gain their freedom during the era of the Revolution. The northern states enacted laws modeled on the one proposed by these petitioners (freeing
The Revolution Within 115 the children of slaves after they reached adulthood). Far more slaves became free by running away to British lines. But the stark fact is that slavery survived the Revolution and, because of the natural increase of the slave population, continued to grow. The first national census, in 1790, revealed that despite all those who had become free through state laws, voluntary emancipation, and escape, the number of slaves in the United States was 700,000-200,000 more than in 1776. TO THE HONORABLE Council and House of Representatives for the State of Massachusetts Bay in General Court assembled, January 13, 1777 The petition of a great number of blacks detained in a state of slav- ery in the bowels of a free and Christian country.... Your petitioners apprehend that they have in common with all other men a natural and unalienable right to that freedom which the Great Parent of the Universe has bestowed equally on all mankind and which they have never forfeited by any compact or agreement whatever, but... were unjustly dragged by the hand of cruel power from their dear- est friends and some of them even torn from the embraces of their tender parents, from a populous, pleasant, and plentiful country and in violation of laws of nature and of nations and in defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity brought here either to be sold like beasts of burden and like them condemned to slavery for life, among a people professing the mild religion of Jesus, a people not insensi- ble of the secrets of rational being nor without spirit to resent the unjust endeavors of others to reduce them to a state of bondage and subjection. Your honors need not to be informed that a life of slav- ery like that of your petitioners, deprived of every social privilege, of everything requisite to render life tolerable is far worse than non- existence. In imitation of the laudable example of the good people of these states your petitioners have long and patiently waited the event of petition after petition by them presented to the legislative body of this state.... They cannot but express their astonishment that it has
116 Voices of Freedom never been considered that every principle from which America has acted in the course of their unhappy difficulties with Great Britain pleads stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of your petition- ers. They therefore humbly beseech your honors to give this petition its due weight and consideration and cause an act of the legislature to be passed whereby they may be restored to the enjoyments of that. which is the natural right of all men--and their children who were born in this land of liberty may not be held as slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty-one years. So may the inhabitants of this state no longer [be] chargeable with the inconsistency of acting themselves the part which they condemn and oppose in others....
40. James Madison, The Federalist, NO. 51 (1787) Source: E. H. Scott, ed., The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers (2 vols.: Chicago, 1894), Vol. 1, pp. 285-90. Scott attributes this essay to Alexander Hamilton, but modern scholars have determined that James Madison was the author. The question of ratifying the new national Constitution produced a fierce public debate. Hundreds of pamphlets and newspaper articles discussed the pros and cons of the new frame of government. To generate support for the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay com- posed a series of 85 essays that appeared in newspapers under the pen name Publius and were gathered as a book, The Federalist, in 1788. Again and again, the authors of The Federalist repeated that rather than posing a danger to Americans' liberties, as critics charged, the Constitu- tion in fact protected them. Madison's essays, including Federalist no. 51, excerpted below, insisted that the security for liberty lay in the way power balanced power in the structure of government, and in the nation's size and diversity. The division of political authority between the state and national governments, and within the latter between the president, Con- gress, and judiciary, prevented any one branch from accumulating exces- sive power. The large size of the republic, he continued, was a source of stability, not, as many feared, weakness. The larger the republic, the more distinct interests would exist, and no single one would ever be able to take over the government and oppress the rest. Madison cited the example of American religion, where the very "multiplicity of sects" gave security to
Founding a Nation, 1783-1791 123 all. In arguing that the size of the republic helped to secure Americans' rights, Madison reinforced the tradition that saw continuous westward expansion as essential to freedom. To WHAT EXPEDIENT, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several depart+ ments, as laid down in the Constitution?... The members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not indepen- dent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal. But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same depart- ment, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.... There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view. First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a
124 Voices of Freedom division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and sep- arate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. Second. It is of great impor- tance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppres- sion of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in dif- ferent classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. ... Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplic ity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of inter- ests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same gov- ernment. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and conse- quently the stability and independence of some member of the gov- ernment, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until lib- erty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the