American History: A Survey

During and immediately following the Revolutionary War, each state was represented in a quasi-national government called the Continental Congress. This group evolved after the war into the weak and ineffectual Confederation Congress. Few people saw a need for a true national government, but wealthy businessmen thought it would streamline trade and provide defense against uprisings of all types. Throughout 1787, colonial-era leaders met in Philadelphia and drafted a plan for their new system of federal administration, which eventually became the US Constitution. The Constitution promised equal rights for all (white) men, but outside the government itself and its wealthy allies, the framers found that many new American citizens did not trust the promises of its vision. Within the government, conflict arose between the Federalists and the Republicans, two factions with differing views on how patriotism to the government and its constitution should be won. One thing all agreed on almost inherently was that the representative government would only represent white men and, by proxy, white women. Black enslavement was still allowed in the all states, and the Constitution defined each slave as three-quarters human for representative and tax purposes. The Constitution hardly mentioned Indigenous Americans at all, and each tribe was left to try to secure their lands via treaties and agreements with the ever-expanding white population. White people, despite no longer being British colonists, still had a strong colonial urge. White women had more rights than anyone not white but lacked any real power in choosing who would represent them.

Federalist George Washington was president of the new US for eight years. Under his leadership, 16 states joined the union, and several potential rebellions were crushed. The rivalry between Federalists and Republicans continued to brew, and the groups slowly morphed into the ancestors of modern political parties. The parties dominated US elections until 1800, when Thomas Jefferson’s defeat of John Adams took power from the Federalists, who were portrayed to the public as no better than the British—a belief accelerated by the unpopular Alien and Sedition Acts during Adams’s presidency, which allowed the Federalist-run government to control immigration to the country and made sweeping bans on undefined “treasonous“ activity.

In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, governing elites focused primarily on using the new Constitution to entice the former colonies to join the US—and on debating Federalist versus Republican ideology. By the dawn of the 19th century, the country had settled many early hiccups of starting a new government and was well on its way to becoming a dominant world power. Skirmishes with the British occurred later, in the second decade of the 1800s, but Thomas Jefferson’s presidency began as a time of hope and expanding national pride.

One of Jefferson’s primary focuses as president was to expand education. He mandated a national public school system for all white men, in hopes that an educated voting class would be able to pick sensible representatives in both local and national government. This plan was slow to take hold, however: By 1815, no state yet had a universal public education system. Instead, private schools and tuition-based universities sprang up around the country. These institutions were often at the forefront of contemporary academics, but the expense meant that only the children of wealthy people were well educated. Education for women became less taboo; girls’ education was intended to produce mothers who could train their sons to be worldly American citizens. Indigenous American children were given opportunities to access Western education in hopes of assimilating them. Education for Black children was typically avoided at all costs.

Cities throughout the North grew larger and more complex, and began to gain respect throughout the world as centers of culture. Jefferson’s government was the first to govern from the city of Washington, DC, which was chosen for its central location between the North and the South. Although it did not become a major city for many years, centralizing the federal government and its neo-Classical infrastructure in Washington helped show both Americans and the world that the US would be a lasting institution.

Peace was not long-lasting during Jefferson’s presidency. Napoleon Bonaparte had taken control of France and vowed to regain power in the Americas. Powerful Indigenous American leaders like Tecumseh made new attempts to unite tribes against white invaders. At the same time, leaders around the country pushed to expand their territory and eliminate competitors. This drive increased after the US gained vast new territories from France through the Louisiana Purchase. The already tense relationships between American, British, French, Indigenous American, and Spanish forces eventually grew into the War of 1812. The US was victorious in many important aspects of this war, which solidified its status as an important trading partner with Europe. The war inspired yet more western expansion by white people and further weakened Indigenous American resistance to such invasion.