Ap Us History Outline

Review for test #3                                          APUSH

1. Washington’s Presidency

• Members of the first congress under the new constitution was elected in 1788.

1. Organizing the Federal Government

1. Executive departments: Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson (state), Alexander Hamilton (treasury), Henry Knox (War), and Edmund Randolph (justice).  These four men formed a cabinet of advisers. The cabinet became a precedent.
2. Federal court system: established the Supreme Court. Enacted Judiciary Act of 1789 established the Supreme Court with one chief justice and five associate justices, as well as 13 district courts and three circuit courts of appeals.

1. Hamilton’s Financial Program

1. Pay off the national debt at face value and have the federal government assume the war debts of the states.
2. Protect the nation’s new industries and collect revenues at the same time by imposing high tariffs on imported goods.
3. Create a national bank for depositing government funds and for printing banknotes that would provide the basis for a stable US currency.
4. Opposition from the anti-federalists: 1. Debt: Anti-federalists agreed to pay off the national debt at face value and also assume payment of the war debts of states; in return the federalists will have to establish the nation’s capital in the South along the Potomac River. 2. Tariffs and excise taxes: Hamilton persuaded congress to pass excise taxes, especially whiskeys, to raise revenues. 3. National Bank: Hamilton’s counterargument that attacked Jefferson: “the national bank is necessary and proper”.

1. Foreign Affairs

1. The French Revolution: In 1793 Washington issued a proclamation of US neutrality in the conflict of France and Britain.
2. Te Jay Treaty (1794): Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay on a special mission to Britain to talk that country out of its offensive practice of searching and seizing American ships and impressing seamen into the British navy. The treaty agreed to evacuate its posts on the US western frontier but said nothing about British seizures of American merchant ships.
3. The Pinckney Treaty of 1795: Thomas Pinckney, the US minister to Spain, negotiated a treaty in which Spain agreed to open the lower Mississippi River and New Orleans to American trade. Us claimed Florida’s northern boundary should be at the 31st parallel, Spain agreed.

1. Domestic Concerns

1. Native Americans: supported by British arms, Native Americans began to intrude American citizens whom moved further into Ohio valley and beyond. Led by General Anthony Wayne, the Shawnee and other Native American people at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in northwestern Ohio were defeated in 1794. The chiefs of the defeated peoples agreed to the Treaty of Grenville: they surrendered claims to the Ohio Territory and promised to open it up to settlement.
2. The Whisky Rebellion (1794): Protesting excise on whiskies, southern farmers from western Pennsylvania attacked revenue collectors. Washington responded to this crisis by federalizing 15000 state militiamen, causing the Whisky Rebellion to collapse without any bloodshed on either side. Proved the new constitution to be effective.
3. Western Lands: through Jay Treaty and victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, the federal government gained control of vast land. Congress encouraged settlement by passing the Public Land Act in 1796, established orderly procedures for dividing and selling federal lands at reasonable prices.

1. John Adam’s Presidency

1. The XYZ Affair

1. French also began to seize American ships and impressed people to army. Adams sent delegates to Paris to negotiate peace treaties; however certain French officials, X, Y, AND Z requested bribes as the basis for entering into negotiations. This infuriated many Americans, who now clamored for war against France.

1. The Alien and Sedition Acts

1. Naturalization Act: increased from five to fourteen the number of years required for immigrants to qualify for US citizenship.
2. Alien Acts: authorized the president to deport any aliens considered dangerous and to detain any enemy aliens in time of war.
3. Sedition Act: made it illegal for newspaper editors to criticize either the president or congress and imposed heavy penalties for editors who violated the law.

1. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

1. Both resolutions declared that the states had entered a “compact” in forming the national government, and if any act of the federal government broke the compact, a state could nullify the federal law.
2. The federalists lost their majority in Congress after the election of 1800, and the new Republican majority either allowed the acts to expire or reapled them.
3. The Supreme Court under John Marshall asserted its power as the court of last resort in deciding whether or not a certain federal law was constitutional.