Key Events and Figures in Early American History
Natural Aristocracy: An aristocracy which arises out of work and competition rather than birth, education, or special privilege. Jacksonian democracy emphasized the frontier ideal of the self-made person who acquired wealth and power through their competitive skill. This notion argued not for equality, but for a more open elite political system.
Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called “a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination.”
The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the administration of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to an undeclared war called the Quasi-War. The name derives from the substitution of the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of French diplomats Hottinguer (X), Bellamy (Y), and Hauteval (Z) in documents released by the Adams administration.
The Sons of Liberty was an organization of American colonists that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. They played a major role in most colonies in battling the Stamp Act in 1765. Although the group officially disbanded after the Stamp Act was repealed, the name was applied to other local Patriot groups during the years preceding the American Revolution.
The Siege of Yorktown was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British Lord and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. The culmination of the Yorktown campaign, the siege proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War in the North American theater, as the surrender by Cornwallis and the capture of both him and his army prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict. The battle boosted faltering American morale and revived French enthusiasm for the war, as well as undermining popular support for the conflict in Great Britain.
Shays’ Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts during 1786 and 1787. Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels in rising up against perceived economic injustices and suspension of civil rights by Massachusetts, and in a later attempt to capture the United States’ national weapons arsenal at the U.S. Armory at Springfield. Although Shays’ Rebellion met with defeat militarily against a privately-raised militia, it prompted numerous national leaders to call for a stronger national government to suppress future rebellions.
The Virginia Plan (or the Large-State Plan) was a proposal by Virginia delegates for a bicameral legislative branch. The plan was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Virginia Plan was notable for its role in setting the overall agenda for debate in the convention and, in particular, for setting forth the idea of population-weighted representation in the proposed national legislature.
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, were an agreement among all thirteen original states in the United States of America that served as its first constitution. Its drafting by a committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress began on July 12, 1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. The formal ratification by all thirteen states was completed in early 1781. Government under the Articles was superseded by a new constitution and federal form of government in 1789.
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. In the United States and the United Kingdom, he is best remembered as one of the leading British generals in the American War of Independence. His surrender in 1781 to a combined American and French force at the Siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America. He also served as a civil and military governor in Ireland and India; in both places, he brought about significant changes, including the Act of Union in Ireland, and the Cornwallis Code and the Permanent Settlement in India.
George Rogers Clark was a surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia and the highest-ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky (then part of Virginia) militia throughout much of the war. Clark is best known for his celebrated captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779) during the Illinois Campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Clark has often been hailed as the “Conqueror of the Old Northwest.”
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the oftentimes bitter 1787–1788 battle over ratification of the Constitution, and crafted to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add certain safeguards of democracy—specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights; clear limitations on the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings; and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved for the states or the people—to the Constitution.
Anti-Federalism refers to a movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation, gave state governments more authority. Led by Patrick Henry of Virginia, Anti-Federalists worried, among other things, that the position of president, then a novelty, might evolve into a monarchy.
Federalist statesmen and public figures supported the proposed Constitution of the United States between 1787 and 1789. The most prominent of the advocates at that time were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay; they published The Federalist Papers, which documented the tenets of the (early) federalist movement to promote and adopt the proposed Constitution.
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman’s Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It retained the bicameral legislature as proposed by Roger Sherman, along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states. Each state would have two representatives in the upper house.
The Small State Plan was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787. The plan was created in response to the Virginia Plan, which called for two houses of Congress, both elected with apportionment according to population. The less populous states were adamantly opposed to giving most of the control of the national government to the more populous states, and so proposed an alternative plan that would have kept the one-vote-per-state representation under one legislative body from the Articles of Confederation. The New Jersey Plan was opposed by James Madison and Edmund Randolph.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May 1804, from near St. Louis making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast.
The Midnight Judges Act represented an effort to solve an issue in the U.S. Supreme Court during the early 19th century. There was concern, beginning in 1789, about the system that required the Justices of the Supreme Court to “ride circuit” and reiterate decisions made in the appellate level courts. The Supreme Court Justices had often voiced concern and suggested that the judges of the Supreme and circuit courts be divided. Jefferson did not want the judiciary to gain more power over the executive branch.
Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American politician, diplomat, ethnologist, and linguist. He served as a Congressman, Senator, United States Ambassador, and was the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury. In 1831, he helped found the University of the City of New York, now New York University.
Anthony Wayne was a United States Army officer, statesman, and member of the United States House of Representatives. Wayne adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military exploits and fiery personality quickly earned him promotion to brigadier general and the sobriquet Mad Anthony. He later served as General in Chief of the Army and commanded the Legion of the United States.
The Whiskey Rebellion, also known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791, during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called “whiskey tax” was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. It became law in 1791 and was intended to generate revenue to help reduce the national debt. Although the tax applied to all distilled spirits, whiskey was by far the most popular distilled beverage in the 18th-century U.S. Because of this, the excise became widely known as a “whiskey tax.” The new excise was a part of U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s program to fund war debt incurred during the American Revolutionary War.
Tecumseh was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh’s War and became an ally of Britain in the War of 1812.
Nationalism: With the emergence of a national public sphere and an integrated, country-wide economy in 18th-century England, English people began to identify with the country at large, rather than the smaller units of their family, town, or province. The early emergence of a popular patriotic nationalism took place in the mid-18th century and was actively promoted by the British government and by the writers and intellectuals of the time. National symbols, anthems, myths, flags, and narratives were assiduously constructed and adopted. The Union Flag was adopted as a national one; Thomas Arne composed the patriotic song “Rule, Britannia!” in 1740, and the cartoonist John Arbuthnot invented the character.