AP U.S. History Goal 1: DQs

AP U.S. History Goal 1: DQs

1. What were the plans Alexander Hamilton had for organizing the new nation’s finances? What were the Jeffersonian Republicans’ major objections to those plans?
- George Washington chose the talented Alexander Hamilton, who had served with him throughout the Revolutionary War, to take on the challenge of directing federal economic policy as the Secretary of Treasury. The first issue that Hamilton tackled as Washington's Secretary of Treasury concerned the problem of public credit. Governments at all levels had taken on so much debt during the Revolution. The commitment to pay them back was not taken very seriously. By the late 1780s, the value of such public securities had decreased to a small fraction of their face value. In other words, state IOU's — the money borrowed to finance the Revolution — was viewed as nearly worthless. Hamilton's vision for reshaping the American economy included a federal charter for a national financial institution. He proposed a Bank of the United States. Modeled along the lines of the Bank of England, a central bank would help make the new nation's economy dynamic through a more stable paper currency. The central bank faced significant opposition. Many feared it would fall under the influence of wealthy, urban northeasterners and speculators from overseas. In the end, with the support of George Washington, the bank was chartered with its first headquarters in Philadelphia. The third major area of Hamilton's economic plan aimed to make American manufacturers self-sufficient. The American economy had traditionally rested upon large-scale agricultural exports to pay for the import of British manufactured goods. Hamilton thought that this dependence on expensive foreign goods kept the American economy at a limited level, especially when compared to the rapid growth of early industrialization in Great Britain. Rather than accept this condition, Hamilton wanted the United States to adopt a mercantilist economic policy. This would protect American manufacturers through direct government subsidies and tariffs. This protectionist policy would help boost American producers to compete with inexpensive European imports. Hamilton possessed a remarkably sharp economic vision. His aggressive support for manufacturing, banks and strong public credit all became central aspects of the modern capitalist economy that would develop in the United States in the century after his death. Nevertheless, his policies were deeply controversial in their day. - Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian Republicans opposed the plan that Hamilton was willing to give up New York, manipulate Virginia’s numbers, and make compromises to get his financial plan passed. Jefferson thought that not only was a bank not necessary, but that it would put all economic power in the cities, and that it was a perversion of the Constitution. Jefferson was a strict constructionist and believed that the Constitution should be taken literally. He believed Hamilton was trying to control the government and that passing his plans was going to help.

2. Explain how BOTH Presidents Washington and Adams dealt with the foreign problems facing the new nation; especially those with Britain and France.
- In 1789, the French Revolution sent shock waves across the Atlantic. Many Americans, mindful of French aid during their own struggle for independence, supported returning the favor. At the same time, the British were once again inciting Native Americans to attack settlers in the West, hoping to destabilize the fledgling Republic. American anger in response to these attacks served to reinforce sentiments for aiding France in any conflict with Great Britain. Washington was leery of any such foreign entanglement, considering his country too weak and unstable to fight another war with a major European power. He insisted that the U.S avoid foreign involvement. Within days of Washington's second inauguration, France declared war on a host of European nations, England among them. Controversy over American involvement in the dispute redoubled. The Jefferson and Hamilton factions fought endlessly over the matter. The French ambassador to the U.S., Edmond Genet had meanwhile been appearing nationwide, gathering up considerable support for the French cause. Washington was deeply irritated by this undermining, and when Genet allowed a French-sponsored warship to sail out of Philadelphia against direct presidential orders, Washington demanded that France recall Genet.
- John Adams, a Federalist and America's second president, conducted a foreign policy that was at once cautious, underrated, and paranoid. He sought to maintain Washington's neutral foreign policy stance, but increasingly found himself grappling with France in the so-called "Quasi War." Adams, who had significant diplomatic experience as U.S. ambassador to England before the adoption of the Constitution, inherited bad blood with France when he took over the presidency from George Washington. His responses kept the United States out of full-blown war, but fatally hurt the Federalist Party. France, which had helped the United States win independence from England in the American Revolution, expected the U.S. to help militarily when France entered another war with England in the 1790s. Washington, fearing extreme consequence for the young United States, refused to help, going instead for a policy of neutrality. Adams pursued that neutrality, but France began raiding American merchant ships. Jay's Treaty of 1795 had normalized trade between the U.S. and Great Britain, and France considered American commerce with England not only in violation of the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, but also lending aid to its enemy. Adams sought negotiations, but France's insistence on $250,000 in bribe money (the XYZ Affair) disabled diplomatic attempts. Adams and the Federalists began building up both the U.S. Army and Navy. Higher tax levies paid for the buildup. While neither side ever declared war, the U.S. and French navies fought several battles in the so-called Quasi War. Between 1798 and 1800, France captured more than 300 U.S. merchant ships and killed or wounded some 60 American sailors; the U.S. Navy captured more than 90 French merchant ships. In 1799, Adams authorized William Murray to make a diplomatic mission to France. Treating with Napoleon, Murray crafted a policy that both ended the Quasi War and dissolved the Franco-American Alliance of 1778. Adams considered this resolution to the French conflict one of the finest moments of his presidency. Adams' and the Federalists' brush with France, however, left them afraid that French revolutionaries might immigrate to the United States, link up with the pro-French Democrat-Republicans, and stage a coup that would oust Adams, install Thomas Jefferson as president, and end Federalist domination in the US government. Jefferson, leader of the Democrat-Republicans, was Adams' vice-president; however, they hated each other over their opposite governmental views. While they became friends later, they rarely spoke during Adams' presidency. Adams lost the presidency to his rival Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. American voters could see through the politically driven Alien and Sedition Acts, and news of the diplomatic end to the Quasi War arrived too late to mitigate their influence.

3. Explain the controversies that surrounded the elections of 1796 and 1800.
- The significance of the 1800 election lay in the fact that it entailed the first peaceful transfer of power between parties under the U.S. Constitution: Republican Thomas Jefferson succeeded Federalist John Adams. This peaceful transfer occurred despite defects in the Constitution that caused a breakdown of the electoral system. During the campaign, Federalists attacked Jefferson as an un-Christian deist, tainted by his sympathy for the increasingly bloody French Revolution. Republicans criticized the Adams administration's foreign, defense, and internal security policies; opposed the Federalist naval buildup and the creation of a standing army under Alexander Hamilton; sounded a call for freedom of speech, Republican editors having been targeted for prosecution under the Alien and Sedition Acts; and denounced deficit spending by the federal government as a backhanded method of taxation without representation. Unfortunately, the system still provided no separate votes for president and vice president, and Republican managers failed to deflect votes from their vice-presidential candidate, Aaron Burr. Therefore, Jefferson and Burr tied with 73 votes each; Adams received 65 votes, his vice-presidential candidate, Charles C. Pinckney, 64, and John Jay, 1. This result threw the election into the House of Representatives, where each state had one vote, to be decided by the majority of its delegation. Left to choose between Jefferson and Burr, most Federalists supported Burr. Burr for his part disclaimed any intention to run for the presidency, but he never withdrew, which would have ended the contest. Although the Republicans in the same election had won a decisive majority of 65 to 39 in the House, election of the president fell to the outgoing House, which had a Federalist majority. But despite this majority, two state delegations split evenly, leading to another deadlock between Burr and Jefferson. After the House cast 19 identical tie ballots on February 11, 1801, Governor James Monroe of Virginia assured Jefferson that if usurpation was attempted, he would call the Virginia Assembly into session, implying that they would discard any such result. After six days of uncertainty, Federalists in the tied delegations of Vermont and Maryland abstained, electing Jefferson, but without giving him open Federalist support.

4. Describe the foreign problems Thomas Jefferson faced during his 2 terms as President--include how he dealt with them.
- Although Thomas Jefferson came to power determined to limit the reach of the federal government, foreign affairs dominated his presidency and pushed him toward Federalist policies that greatly contrasted with his political philosophy. The first foreign episode involved Jefferson's war with the Barbary pirates. For the previous century or so, Western nations had paid bribes to the Barbary States, which would later become Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripolitania, to keep them from harassing American and merchant ships. When the Pasha of Tripoli raised his demands in 1801, Jefferson refused to pay the increase, sent warships to the Mediterranean, blockaded the small nation, and tried unsuccessfully to promote a palace coup in Tripoli. This was one of the first covert operations in American history. The war ended with agreements that involved one last payment of tribute, at least to Tripoli. Jefferson's action on this matter caused him to rethink the need for a well-equipped navy and halted his move to reduce the force to a mere token size.

5. Discuss the reasons that the U.S. went to war with Britain in 1812--be sure to include the role of the War Hawks.
- The War of 1812 was a 32-month military conflict between the United States on one side, and on the other Great Britain, its colonies and its Indian allies in North America. The outcome resolved many issues which remained from the American War of Independence, but involved no boundary changes. The United States declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions brought about by Britain's continuing war with France, the impressment of American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy, British support of American Indian tribes against American expansion, outrage over insults to national honor after humiliations on the high seas, and possible American interest in annexing Canada.
- The War Hawks were a coterie of about twenty Democratic Republicans who persuaded Congress into supporting a declaration of war against Britain. These young, vocal members from the South and the western U.S. were voted into the House during mid-term congressional elections in 1810. They were united by outrage regarding the British practice of impressment (or abduction) of American sailors, and the British Orders in Council which were crippling the American economy.

6. Describe the events of the War of 1812--include the American strategy, key battles with the British and Native Americans, the Hartford Convention, and the Treaty of Ghent.
- The immediate causes of the War of 1812 were a series of economic sanctions taken by the British and French against the U.S. as part of the Napoleonic Wars and American outrage at the British practice of impressment, especially after the Chesapeake incident of 1807. In response to the 1806 British Orders in Council, which crippled American trade, the U.S., under Jefferson, first tried various retaliatory embargoes. These embargoes hurt the U.S. far more than they did Britain, angering American citizens and providing support to War Hawks in Congress like Henry Clay. In 1812, with President Madison in office, Congress declared war against the British. The war began with an attack on Canada; both as an effort to gain land and to cut off British supply lines to Tecumseh's Indian confederation, which had long troubled the US. The initial battles in Canada were not as easy as the War Hawks hoped, and the inexperienced American soldiers were pushed back rapidly. In fact, only by virtue of clutch naval victories by Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie and Thomas Macdonough on Lake Champlain was a serious northern- front invasion of the United States, including New York, prevented. General William Henry Harrison's forces did manage to kill Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, in the midst of a decisive victory against the British General Isaac Brock's smaller force. On the Mid-Atlantic Coast, British troops landed in the Chesapeake Bay area in 1814, and marched towards Washington. US General William Winder made an attempt to stop the British forces, commanded by General Robert Ross, at Bladensburg. The U.S. troops were badly routed. The city of Washington was evacuated, and the British burned the Capitol and the White House, along with most of nonresidential Washington. The British pressed onward, and Admiral Cochrane sought to invade Baltimore. General Ross was killed as his forces advanced towards the city, and their movement stalled. Cochrane's forces bombarded Fort McHenry, which guarded Baltimore's harbor, but were unable to take it. This event inspired Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer detained on one of Cochrane's ships, to write the Star-Spangled Banner. Unsuccessful at Baltimore, Cochrane's damaged fleet limped to Jamaica for repairs, and made preparations for an invasion of New Orleans, hoping to cut off American use of the Mississippi River. By mid-1814, the War of 1812 was turning out to be tougher fighting than either side expected. Britain, caught up in the costly Napoleonic Wars, began to look for a way to exclude itself from its American commitment. In the Belgian city of Ghent, American negotiators (including John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay) met with British diplomats. After considerable bickering, the negotiators signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, officially ending the war. The treaty returned U.S.-Britain relations to the same status as they had been before the war. The U.S. neither gained nor lost any territory. Impressment went unaddressed. The war was officially over, but news traveled slowly across the Atlantic Ocean. In New Orleans, Cochrane landed the British troops, who were still waiting for their replacement commander for Ross, General Packenham, to arrive from Britain. On January 8, 1815, Andrew Jackson's ragtag army soundly defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Even though this battle had been fought unnecessarily, (the treaty was already signed) the U.S. celebrated wildly, manifesting an upsurge in American nationalism. Although the war had sheltered New England manufacturing from British competition, New England merchant shipping had been seriously hurt, and a group of Federalists met at the Hartford Convention in late 1814 to discuss their grievances. A few talked of secession from the Union, but most just wanted to make it hard for the U.S. to declare war or impose embargoes in the future. When the news of the treaty from Ghent arrived, it made the Federalists look silly, or even treasonous. The Hartford Convention spelled the end of the Federalist Party.