Chapter 6
The Revolutionary Republic
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Hearts and Minds: The Northern
War, 1776-1777
• Rulers of Britain felt that loss of colonies
would be fatal blow to British power
• Britain raised more soldiers and fleets
– Doubled its national debt
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The British Offensive
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Americans driven from Canada
Richard and William Howe
George Washington
Battle of Brooklyn Heights
Fall of New York City
Mass desertions from Continental army
New Jersey and Rhode Island fall to British
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The Trenton-Princeton Campaign
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Christmas attack on Hessians at Trenton
Charles, Earl of Cornwallis
Princeton
British mistakes
– Not pursuing and destroying Washington
– Abandoning Loyalists
– Hessian war crimes
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The Campaigns of 1777 and
Foreign Intervention
• British strategy
– Lacked coherence
– Howes take Philadelphia
– Burgoyne and Clinton meet in interior New
York
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The Loss of Philadelphia
• Howes march North from Maryland to take
Philadelphia
• Washington abandons Philadelphia
• Valley Forge
– Frederich Wilhelm, Baron von Steuben: drillmaster for
the Continental army
– Marquis de Lafayette
– 1/5th of Continental officers were foreign mercanaries
Saratoga
• John Burgoyne takes Ticonderoga, moves
toward Albany
• John Stark and the New Hampshire militia
• Horatio Gates
– Bemis Heights (1777)
• Saratoga: Burgoyne surrenders
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French Intervention
• French want revenge for loss of 7 Years War
• Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and
French aid
• Benjamin Franklin and Charles Gravier, comte de
Vergennes: Franco-American alliance
• Reasons for French entry
– Afraid fall of Philadelphia might weaken resolve of
colonists to continue fighting
– Saratoga convinced them that colonists could win
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Spanish Expansion and
Intervention
• Spanish want revenge for loss of 7 Years War
• Louisiana still largely French, even under Spanish
rule
• California
– Spaniards explored California coastline
– Junípero Serra
• Spain goes to war with Britain 1779
• Spanish Florida again
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The Reconstitution of Authority
• Intense debate in America on
constitutionalism
• Written constitution important
• Fuller expressions of popular sovereignty
– Power is derived from the people
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John Adams and the Separation
of Powers
• Thomas Paine and unicameral government
• Constitutional Conventions: “popular sovereignty
in its purest form”
• Adams responds with Thoughts on Government
– separation of powers
– virtue
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The Virginia Constitution
• June 1776, Virginia
– first state to adopt a permanent, republican
constitution
– Sovereign legislature
• George Mason and Virginia’s Bill of Rights
• Many states adopted variations of Virginia’s
model constitution
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The Pennsylvania Constitution
• Quaker and Proprietary Parties
• Constitutional Convention 1776
• “Constitutionalists”
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Massachusetts Redefines
Constitutionalism
• Resentment of the “River Gods”
• Berkshire Constitutionalists
– convention
• General Court
– bill of rights
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Confederation
• John Dickinson and the “Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union”
– State sovereignty and equality
– Congress must requisition money from states
• Ratification process
– All had to agree
– Stalls over western land claims
– Approved 3-1-1781
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The Crisis of the Revolution,
1779-1783
• Americans, with French assistance,
expected a quick victory
• War of attrition
• Loyalists: important to British war efforts
• British looked to Carolinas for support
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The Loyalists
• Many colonists were conflicted:
– new American union vs. part of British empire
• Risks for loyalists living in American colonies
• One-sixth of white population chose British side
of the war
– 19,000 men joined loyalist military units
• State government banished loyalists and
confiscated their property
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Loyalist Refugees, Black and
White
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Slaves outside New England sided with Britain
British government freed thousands of slaves
Loyalists refugees, mostly to Canada
American Revolution laid groundwork for 2
Western hemisphere rivals—Canada and the
U.S.A.
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The Indian Struggle for Unity
and Survival
• Most Indians believed only hope to stop colonist’s
expansion was British victory
• Iroquois
– Mohawks
– Joseph Brant
– Wyoming Valley
• Shawnees
– Cornplanter
• Indian unity
• George Rogers Clark
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Attrition
• British war weary after 1778
• British army is desperate for soldiers
– Recruited many Irish Catholics
– Resulted in Protestant violence: Gordon riots
• Attrition weakened American forces and
undermined economy
• Continental dollar collapses
• Continental soldiers left unpaid, ill-clothed,
poorly fed, and mutinous
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The British Offensive in the
South
• British success in Georgia
• George Clinton
– Benedict Arnold
– Banastre Tarleton
– Failure of Northern attacks
• Cornwallis
– Carolinas
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The Partisan War
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King’s Mountain (1780)
Nathanael Greene
Francis Marion “the Swamp Fox”
Battle of Cowpens
Battle of Guilford Court House
Cornwallis back to Wilimington
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Mutiny and Reform
• Mutinies in New Jersey
• Congress abandons wartime economic controls
and restores market
• Robert Morris
– Bank of North America
• Congress still weak, no laws, only ordinances
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The Ravaging of Virginia to
Yorktown and Peace
• British invade Virginia
• Voluntarism falters
• Yorktown: Britain’s final defeat
– Washington’s plan: trap Cornwallis at Yorktown
– François, comte de Grasse and Battle of the Capes
– Jean Baptiste Donatien, comte de Rochambeau
• Lord North resigns
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Independence
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Treaty of Paris (1783)
British recognize United
States independence
Mississippi as Western
boundary of United States
Prewar debts still valid
Congress must urge states
to restore confiscated
loyalist property
• Post war problems
• Indians don’t accept
Treaty
• Army discontent and
near mutiny
A Revolutionary Society
• Independence transformed American life
• Biggest winners: free householders
– Gained enormous benefits from democratization of
politics and chance to colonize Great West
• Biggest losers: loyalists and Indians
• Winner when their interests coincided with
winners
– Slaves
– Women
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Religious Transformations
• Anglican Church “disestablished” in Southern
states
• Thomas Jefferson
– Statute for Religious Freedom
• Congregational church “established” in New
England
• Office holding generally restricted to Christians or
Protestants
• Toleration extended to Catholics and Jews
– Bishop John Carroll 1790
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The First Emancipation
• Revolutionary Era: freedom for many slaves
• Some freed because of Revolutionary War
• Courts say Massachusetts and New Hampshire
slaves can walk away to freedom
• Pennsylvania 1780: first gradual emancipation
statute, model for slave emancipation in North
• Manumission of slaves allowed in Virginia and
Maryland
• Slaves were essential to plantation economy and a
valuable asset in the South
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The Challenge to Patriarchy
• War gave women more responsibility and
power
• Coverture
• Philadelphia Ladies Association (1780)
– Esther de Berdt Reed
• Republican Motherhood and the spread of
women’s education
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Western Expansion, Discontent,
and Conflict with Indians
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Daniel Boone and the Cumberland Gap
Postwar settlement boom
Spain and Britain fuel Indian resistance
Secessionist Movements
– Franklin
– James Wilkinson
– Green Mountain Boys
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The Northwest Ordinance
• Land Ordinance of 1785
– Surveyed and divided land into townships
– Ohio Company and apparent speculator triumph
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787
– 3-5 states equal to original 13
– Congressionally appointed governor, locally elected
assembly after population of 5000
– At 60,000 population, could apply for statehood
– Public funded education
– No slavery
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A More Perfect Union
• Difficult times: 1780s
– Failing economy
– Debtors vs. creditors
– Bitter state politics
• Demand to amend the Articles of
Confederation
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Commerce, Debt, and Shays’s
Rebellion
• Depression and debt
• Paper money and debt “stays”
• Massachusetts, high taxes, and Governor
James Bowdoin
• Daniel Shays
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Cosmopolitans versus Localists
• Cosmopolitans
– Urban classes, large scale farmers and planters, Continental Army
officers
– Aggressive trade policy, hard money, payment of public debts,
high salaries for appointed officials
• Localists
– Rural classes
– Paper money and debt relief
• Localist win, but speculators thrive
• Jay-Gardoqui Treaty
– John Jay
• Washington and other cosmopolitans call to strengthen
central government
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The Philadelphia Convention
• Virginia Plan
• New Jersey Plan
– William Paterson
• Connecticut Compromise
• Government of laws enforced on individuals
through federal courts
• Electoral College
• 3/5ths compromise
• Necessary and Proper clause
• State ratification conventions
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Ratification
• Federalists
• Anti-Federalists (localists)
• The Federalist
– Federalist No. 10
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Conclusion
• White America affirms liberty and equality rarely
extended to Indians and blacks
• Discontent of postwar years led to Federalist
coalition
• New national Constitution replaces Articles of
Confederation
• Federalists endowed new central government with
greater power
• American Federalist system
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