Elizabeth Filkins Group 4

It seems like more has happened in the 24 years covered in chapter 7 of Henretta then the rest of the readings wi have had so far. The war has just ended and the country is trying to get things back into order and establish things they didn't have to worry about in the past. Almost every state sat down and wrote their new and individual state's constitution. The biggest problem with this was most likely establishing rules for slavery, how the remaining territories were going to be set up, and if/how school systems were going to be organized.
The Continental Congress made the desicion for dividing up the remaining land. The area South of the Ohio River was organized by Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. They did this because they thought the barrier of the Appilachian Mountains would make it almost impossible for Congress to deal with them. The Northwest Territory (land North of the Ohio River) would be divided into 6 states; Ohio, Indianna, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Why didn't the Northern states get to decide how the NW Territory was divided like the Southern states did? Could this be one of the contributing factors to the Civil War (jealousy)? Each state was then divided into townships of 36 square miles. This made it a whole lot easier to keep track of property boundaries.
Each individual state was able to write their own slavery laws. Yet Congress wrote a law that in 20 years the slave trade would stop. How were slave owners and newly aquired landowners feeling about this? They could keep on buying them for another twenty years but if they needed anymore after that their slaves would have to procreate or they would have to trade "used" slaves with another owner.
There were a few of the existing states that decided to make education mandatory. For example, Pennsylvania introduced an extensive elementary school system. After elementary school, most states didn't have any form of public education unless you went to a private school.
If no one went to school after elementary how was it possible for all the new universities established during or after the Great Awakening, like Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Brown, have kept in business with not many people going through a complete education and even some that do going off to fight in the Revolution? You would think these universities wouldn't be formally established until about the 1780's.

Mark Whittemore Group 4

Upon reading the Henretta Chapter 7 content, I found Adams Thoughts on Government to be quite intellectual in his idea of how the government should be run. It seems like his idea of having a dispersed system of authority through three functions of government, lawmaking (legislative), administering (executive), and judging (judicial) still continue to be practiced in our government today. Although this publication was well received, it did have some flaws. Many people did not enjoy that governors had the power to veto laws because it reminded them too much of the royal governors. Regardless, without this Adam's publication, would other men have stepped up and proposed the same ideas? Would our system of government be the same without his ideas? Also in this section, there is a discussion on why Congress would not allow free expansion across the Appalachian Mountains. It is stated that Congress feared that western settlers would set up separate republics and then would ally with Spain to gain a strong foothold on economic gain. In response to this fear, there were a number of acts passed dividing the region into territories, requiring surveying of the land, and creating separate territories. My question is, if these acts were not passed, would westerners actually have allied with Spain? Or did these people go through enough and have a general sense of nationalism for what they had just achieved by beating the British that they would have obeyed Congress regardless of the passage of these acts?

Looking at the U.S. Constitution, I found it interesting that in the Bill of Rights, that there was no mention of voting, yet there was included the right to bear arms. True, it was quite helpful that these colonists did bear arms during the period of the Revolution because many British generals did not expect this, allowing guerrilla warfare to reign supreme and provide Minutemen. Yet these men who bore arms for the defense of the nation still could not vote because of land requirements or financial prerequisites. First off, do you think that there should have been an amendment that gave more liberty to voting? Do you think that the right to bear arms was important? Is the right to bear arms important today?

study group

anybody want to get together a couple of times before the test? thought maybe we could write up some outlines. was thinking sat. round noon and/or sunday round 6. Anchutz? just reply to this post i guess.

ben farmer group 4

my first thought is about the present abilities thomas paine speaks of in his writings. one of his calls for independence is that while the colonies are in their youth, this is the perfect time since strong indiviual colonies have not yet developed to diminish the possibility of a union later. my question is, had great britian bowed to the demands of the colonies, would this have postponed the revolution long enough that it would have never happened? my own thought is that it would have eventually happened but under completely different circumstances. i think the union of some might of still have happened but that you would have had numerous small coutries much like europe. in reality his prediction was true seeing as around 80 years later we had the civil war which showed the fragility of the union.


while reading the declaration of independce one part in particular jumped out at me. a few lines spoke of how a people, when under a government that no longer serves them, should and have the right to throw off their current governing body and start a new one. my question is, if everyone becomes frustrated and fed up with our current government today, what would be the new one be?

Jake Sherman Group 3 (Very Late)

Division. The one theme that links the three readings together. In Skemp we see the division between William and Benjamin. In the "Concise History" reading we see the division between the colonies and the British Empire. In Henretta we get a lot of questions asking about this division, forcing us to wonder "why" and "how" it could have played out differently. It is important to note that history does indeed repeat itself in more than one form. If we look at the religious ideas that fueled the division of the colonies from each other, the British Empire, and the Native Americans and then subsequently look at the religious ideas that are fueling the division in our world today, we can see many similarities.

After finishing the Skemp reading I thought back to a book I had to read for my fourth grade or third grade class. My Brother Sam is Dead. Although this story was extremely dramatized and doesn't follow the EXACT scale of division that Benjamin and William had, it does give us a parallel to work off of. Families all over the colonies were being torn apart over this clash in political, economic, social, religious, and philosophical ideas. And we can see the same happening in the same continent, in the same country over two centuries later.

When looking at the "Concise History" reading, we draw a few other conclusions on how division based on the above ideas has formed our country, and learn how to use this information to understand how it is STILL forming our country. When the first two colonies declared independence a chain reaction throughout all the colonies took place. Those who had not been politically active in this dispute before, found themselves being presented with an ultimatum. I am of course also referring to the rest of the world after the French signed a treaty with the patriots after the battle of Saratoga. They must become politically active as a loyalist or a patriot. This is easily paralleled with a State of the Union address in 2001 by president George W. Bush in which an ultimatum was given to the world much in the same way it had happened in 1776 and 1777.


In what other ways can we parallel political divides in the American Revolution to our political divides today?

Emma Ewert Group 3

In chapter 6 of America a Concise History, I think one of the most important parts is The French Alliance. At the time, France was the most powerful European nation, so they had a lot to offer the Americans. As it says on page 178, "The alliance brought the Americans money, troops, and supplies and changed the conflict from a colonial rebellion to an international war." In my opinion, forming an alliance with France was a necessary move for the Americans to win the war. Would we have won the war if it had not been for the French?
Something else that I noticed in the Henretta reading was on page 183. This page is full of questions about events that happened. It is interesting to think about all of these "what if" questions and their answers. There are always going to be questions about what if someone had done this or that. But what if one the answers to these questions were different, such as, "Why had Howe not ruthlessly pursued Washington's army in 1776?" Would one of these minor things have changed the outcome of the war at all?
In the Skemp reading for this week, one sentence can sum up what is happening. On page 126 it says, "King and country, father and son, were about to go their separate ways." In the reading this week that is exactly what happened. Ben and Will started to drift more and more apart. Both were stubborn men who stuck to their beliefs, unwilling to back down. The same is true for the King and country; ultimately they had to part. What would have happened though, if either Will or Ben had given in and done what the other had wanted?

Ryan Sipple Group 3

In this weeks Skemp readings you can start to see how Benjamin and William start to go their serparate ways. Benjamin starts to share his harsh feelings for the empire with William, though these thoughts concern William, he could not see him and Benjamin going their serparate ways. Benjamin became greatly angered after he was removed from his post office position, two days later he wrote a letter to William revealing his pain, and asking William to resign his position as governor. Benjamin reminded William that he had no chance of promotion, and that the position was poorly funded. My question is, is Benjamin simply overreacting, or is this a desperate attempt to convince William to side with the patriots?

In chapter 6 of America a concise history, we read about how the colonies declared independence which lead to the Revolutionary war. In the first two years of the war the British army dominated the Continental army, George Washington and his men retreated time after time. In 1777 the battle of Saratoga proved to be the turing point for the war, following this victory the French signed a treaty with America, and unlitimately helped defeat the British in Yorktown in 1781. My question is, do you believe the Continental army would have eventually defeated the British without help from the French?