Introduction

Chapter 8 continues the theme of the emerging American identity. The revolutionary experience shaped the new republic and engendered the first crucial experiments in republicanism—the state constitutions. These written constitutions and the Articles of Confederation reflected the belief that executive power needed to be curbed to allow the people to rule. Yet, in less than a decade, as ordinary Americans struggled to define themselves and republican society, the new governments proved inefficient in dealing with either international crisis or local unrest. The turmoil brought fifty-five men to Philadelphia to construct an entirely new frame for government and to create the longest lasting constitutional republic in the history of the world. Traditional republican beliefs were compromised, but not without a fight.

What were the republican beliefs embedded in the first state constitutions? How was the role of religion in American life understood? How did the Federal Constitution reshape republican values? How did the revolution change assumptions about slavery? Why was being "an American" such a difficult thing? The Web Activities and research links below guide you through the transformation of American society from thirteen separate state republics to "We the People." The additional research links encourage you to further explore online resources for the era.

Web Activities

1. The new state governments shaped the first republican political experiments. Review the following state Constitutions. What common ground in language do the documents share? Where have you seen similar phrases? What is the relationship between government and citizen? Do you think these documents reflect widespread acceptance of republican beliefs or simply the political philosophy of their framers? 

• The Constitution of Virginia; June 29, 1776 and Bill of Rights; June 12, 1776 
• The Constitution of New York : April 20, 1777 
• Constitution of South Carolina: March 26, 1776
• Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780

2.  Americans were not only concerned with the rights of individuals and their relationship with government, they also worried about the relationship between the state and religion. As you visit the following sites consider how religion continued to shape American society.

• Return to the Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780. Read article II and the first paragraph of III. What is the attitude toward religion and how does the state intend to deal with religion? 
• Next go to Religion and the State Governments and read the church-state debates in Massachusetts and Virginia in order to understand the disestablishment of religion issue. Reflecting on your studies of religion in America to this time, why do you think proposals for religious taxes, or "general assessment schemes," to be laid on all citizens were so controversial? 
• Although the Articles of Confederation mention religion only once (Article III), according to the exhibit Religion and the Congress of the Confederation, 1774-89, religion was significant for the first national government. Scroll through the text. What evidence do you find that religion was assumed necessary for the maintenance of public morality? 
• To explore the ways this debate continued at the Philadelphia convention, tour the next exhibit Religion and the Federal Government, Part I, then move on to Part II, The State Becomes the Church: Jefferson and Madison. Read through the documents on the separation between church and state debate. Why does Jefferson's argument for "a wall of separation between church and state," remain controversial? 

3. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 produced a new frame of government that was truly national in scope. In this activity you will examine some of the materials and exhibits found at the Library of Congress and the National Archives relating to the Constitution. 

• Go to Founding Fathers: Delegates to the Constitutional Convention. From the delegate list select one  from each state for review (be sure to include some, indicated by an *, who did not sign the Constitution). What do those selected have in common? What assumptions about American society might they share? On what points might they disagree and why? Next go to Creating a Constitution. Visit each of the four links to review the work of the Constitutional Convention.
• A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution is a narrative provided by the National Archives. You need not read the entire essay, but scroll down to the end and read "The Document Enshrined." How has the Constitution become an American icon? 
• Read The Constitution of the United States: Preamble and compare it with the first three articles of the Articles of Confederation. How does the Constitution's brief "We the People" statement reflect the new frame of government agreed to in Philadelphia?
• Visit the Treasure of Congress Web site, you need not view all the links there, just the first and third items in the index, "Creating a Legislature" and the "Bill of Rights." View the images and click on read more. Do so, then return here and read the Bill of Rights. How does the language reflect that of the Virginia Bill of Rights considered in activity one? What does the bill's passage tell you about the effectiveness of the new legislature?
• After reviewing these sites, do you agree with the text's statement, "The Constitution represented both a triumph of imagination and common sense and a rejection of some older, long-cherished republican beliefs" (220). Why, or why not?

4. After the Revolution slavery ceased to be a national institution and became instead the "peculiar institution" of the American South.

• An exhibit on Slave Voices suggests the dilemma republican ideals causes one Virginia slaveholder. Find at The Age of Revolutions: Two Kinds of Freedom in documents 15 and 16, brief descriptions of letters indicating the response in 1781 toward slaves who joined the British. What changes in attitude by 1791 is suggested by document 17? Do you think such altered views were widespread among southern slave owners?
• Legislatures of most northern states provided for the abolition of slavery. Read the first three sections of the Pennsylvania Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, 1780. What key words are used to extend republican virtues to African Americans?
• Congress extended republican government to the west in 1787 when it issued The Northwest Ordinance. Read Section 2, and in Section 14, articles 3 and 6. What congressional objectives, regarding Indian peoples and slaves do you think are indicated in these items? What do you think will be their long term consequences, increasing recognition of the rights of all Americans, or deepening differences?

Additional Research Links

Republicanism and Slavery

• The Constitution and the New Nation section of the PBS series Africans in America includes excerpts from primary sources (see the exchange of letters between Jefferson and Banneker, 1791), and examines southern success in winning a constitutional guarantee for slavery.

Republican Motherhood

• Site that provide further insight on the struggle to define republican society and the concept of Republican Motherhood (see Nation of Nations 4e, 211) are Republican Motherhood and Eliza Pinckney.. 

From Confederation to Constitution

• For more insight on an event that threatened the Confederation, Shays's Rebellion. See also Charles Pinckney's speech on the treaty, delivered in Congress, August 16, 1786.
• The Tax History Museum site On Taxes 1777-1815: The Revolutionary War to the War of 1812,  notes that, "fiscal matters continued to loom large during and subsequent to the war for independence." The site presents tax issues related to the efforts to revise the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution debates and includes useful internal links.
• The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, may be found in digital format at Emory University, and the Avalon Collection at Yale. These papers are interesting to compare with the series The Spirit of American Constitutionalism: John Dickinson's Fabius Letters, which also had a powerful influence in tipping the scales in favor of ratification of the new Constitution.

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Mary Woolstonecraft

• Mary Woolstonecraft wrote A Vindication of of the Rights of Womenin 1792. She called for educational as well as civil and political rights for women and her work received a hostile reaction on both sides of the Atlantic.
• The Modern History Sourcebook: Mary Woolstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women provides the complete text, and the site Mary Woolstonecraft includes related links.