Nathan "I should have ducked" Buss, Group 6

Well as I'm sure you're all aware, Chap. 10 of Henretta is all about the economic revolution. Henretta outlines how America went from being completely reliant on Britain for production, to being not only self-reliant, but feared competition to Britain. What strikes me is how the revolutionary spirit seemed to carry over from the war and into our economic attitude. The American North seemed to grasp the potential of America at a very early time. While the South was clinging to the increasingly archaic ideals of slavery, the North was clawing its way to become the economic power-house of the western world. Northern venture capitalists were doing whatever it took to seize the American dream and take advantage of opportunities, including stealing British technology and improving upon it. Their fervor was so compelling that they were even able to entice British defectors to illegally immigrate to America and contribute to the industrial technology. Not all technology came from Britain, but much of it was invented in America. Instead of being comfortable in their ways, Americans not only jumped on the bandwagon of the industrial revolution, but were pivotal in contributing to that revolution. During the early stages of the textile movement, women (often young girls) were exploited and used for cheap labor in textile factories. This exploitation and cheap labor made it possible for factories to compete with established British manufacturers and gave some women a feeling of independance rarely experience in this time. Was this exploitation justified? Would the industrial revolution been possible without it?

Thanks to these new technologies, a new class of workers was created and nurtured by the Labor Movement. Skilled workers went on strike and demanded higher pay and better conditions. The industrial revolution and technology gained also led to the transportation movement and rapid growth in industrial towns. What cased the South to be largely left out during the Industrial Revolution? Without slavery would the South have balanced its agricultural economy with production? Was the conflict with the North over the slavery issue what caused Southerners to be short sighted and not persue a more production based approach? It seems to me that a circular logic crippled the South's ability to adapt to a changing world and would eventually not only pass them by, but leave them unequipped to deal with the future of their lifestyle.

In the first half of chapter 9, the book focuses on slavery. The ideals of the North and South are growing farther apart. The Northern states are starting to gradually stray away from slavery, while new technologies, such as the cotton gin increased the need for slavery in the South. The American Colonialization Society argued that freed slaves should be sent back to Africa. Interestingly enough, Henry Clay believed that if slaves were emancipated, conflicts between the two races would lead to a civil war. Clay obviously predicted a civil war would break out, but should he have predicted that it would have been between the north and the south, instead of the two races? Many slaves did not support the idea of being sent back to Africa. America was their homeland and African Americans were developing a strong cultural society of their own. Although some slaves were being freed, most of them were still considered second class citizens and were not given the same rights as whites. During the Missouri Crisis, southerners were angered by the fact that the Northern majority of the House blocked Missiouri's admission into the union. Southerners stated that slavery was an internal affair that should be left to the states. Do you agree with this statement? Or should the government have control?
The second half of Henretta deals with the arrival of the Second Great Awakening. During the Second Great Awakening the Methodist and Baptist churches gained many more followers. These two churches became very evangelical and reached out to many different cities. One thing that came out of the awakening was the new roles of women. Female education was becoming greater. Women also started to replace men as public-school teachers, and were becoming more recognizable in public life.

Matt Pickerel, Group 5

This week's Henretta reading (chapter 9) begins by describing how slavery was becoming a much bigger issue in America at this point. While the North largely had hopes that slavery would start to decline and die out as tobacco and slave trading became less profitable, the South had a massive boom of cotton business and the demand for slaves sky-rocketed. The South also integrated slavery into their public image, as southern aristocratic republicans were usually big slave-owners. As some Northerners such as President Monroe and Henry Clay tried to turn the tide and free slaves, the American Colonization Society was formed to emancipate slaves and get them back to Africa. This organization didn't work out, however, because even after arguing about how slavery is immoral, unreligious, and that many aristocrats were rich enough to free their slaves anyway, few people freed any slaves, and the organization could only buy the freedom of so many.

The view of the organization was that slavery would end up making America lack advancement and lack respect for fellow men and races. They also feared that only freeing the slaves would create even more problems because then America would have racial war and discrimination with the freed slaves still around.

Was this idea of freeing the slaves and getting them back to Africa a good idea? Was it realistic? What do you think would've happened if the South had freed their slaves, and this organization tried to get most of them back to Africa? Would it have prevented or changed anything for the future?

Also, what do you think the slaves would have wanted most?

Scott Oliver, Group 4

Henretta chapter 7 discribes how the newly independent America is shaped into a democratic nation run by the three governmental branches; the judicial, executive and legislative. Todays government is very much like the government run by our the founding fathers. Although America stil had many problems to solve.
Land was still to be distributed, which was settled by "national domain" and by land division in the north west. A continental currency was to be stabalied and control. Which Robert Morris developed a financial system that handeled army expenditures, apportioned war expenses among the states, and centralized the growing foreign debt. These and other problems America faced led to our strong government today. But the big political crisis was what would determine the future of the United States; either following Thomas Jefferson, who perferred an agricultural nation, or Alexander Hamilton, who advised it would used the national government to stimulate trade and industry. How did both of these men effect the future of America, and how did this change the government?

Bryan Mostaffa, Group 4

Chapter 7 in Henretta is probably the most interesting chapter we’ve read in my opinion. I find it interesting to see how this group of colonist handles independence after its struggle against British control.

After a revolution fighting to gain power for the people, they question how much power the people should really have, they questioned how democratic America should be. This debate drew on for most of the rest of the 18^th century. In 1787 delegates from everywhere but Rhode Island gathered in Philadelphia, where they debated between the use of the Virginia Plan or the New Jersey Plan in their discussion. After a month of debate, the delegates chose the Virginia Plan by a slim margin. With the differences between the two plans in mind, how would the choice of the New Jersey Plan affect the final shape of the U.S government?

Also I the uprising of women in this post war America caught my attention as well. Women like Abigal Adams that accused men of having tyrant like control much. I found it interesting that America went through an entire revolution based on enlightenment philosophies but yet still gave women so little rights. Its not until the 1790's any of the state governments would even allow girls to attend public schools. America uses John Locke’s philosophies of unalienable rights to shape the constitution, giving Americans the right to choose the their own government, but yet these rights extend only to white males. What would an enlightenment philosopher like John Locke say on the subject? In the early 1800's New Jersey allows property owning women to vote. Why do you think that New Jersey is alone in this change?

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?