Seminar 1
The Revolution, Constitution and New Nation
Seminar Outline.
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and Thomas Jefferson’s
Declaration of Independence were both written in 1776, at the beginning
of the American Revolution. The Federal Constitution was drafted
in 1787, and the Bill of Rights were written in the two years following:
both documents were created after independence had been won, and
after the revolution had ended.
These are some of the most important documents in American history,
for they helped to define what the new republic stood for and against,
and the ways in which the rights of citizens would be balanced against
the powers of the government. You will be able to see how original
printed and manuscript versions of the Declaration, the Constitution,
and the Bill of Rights are mounted, preserved and venerated in the
National Archives building in Washington D.C., a nuclear bomb proof
temple to America’s ‘founding documents.’
The issues raised by these documents, from individual rights to
states' rights to the power of the national government to the accountability
of political leaders remain as relevant today as they were in the
late-eighteenth century, and Americans continue to harken back to
this era and to these documents.
Topics for discussion.
By the end of 1775 the colonists and British were effectively at
war, and George III had declared the Americans to be in rebellion.
But while Americans at Lexington and Concord may have had strong
ideas about what they were fighting against, there remained much
uncertainty about what they were fighting for. Thomas Paine’s
pamphlet Common Sense changed this: short, and written in the common
sense language of ordinary people, it was the best selling document
of the revolution (selling about one copy for every five adult white
males).
Click here to go to access
these extracts from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
In these extracts from Common Sense
- What,
according to Paine, is the nature of society and of government?
- In what ways does he believe
the British government is failing?
- How does he argue against
monarchy, and fidelity to the crown?
- What arguments does Paine
make in favour of independence?
- How radical a document
is Common Sense?
In May 1776 the Continental Congress set up a small committee to
draft a declaration of independence, which would explain to Americans,
to the British, and to the people of the world why Americans had
left the British empire. The youngest member of the committee, the
Virginia planter Thomas Jefferson, drafted the Declaration, and
after some amendment Congress voted for independence on 2 July 1776,
and published the Declaration on 4 July 1776.
Click
here to go to the web page of the National Archives and Records
Administration (Charters of Freedom Exhibit). Once the
page has loaded, click on The Declaration of Independence,
The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights to see the
original documents, and then click on transcription to read the
complete text of each.
In the Declaration of Independence
- How is the document organised? What is
the purpose of the first two paragraphs, the lengthy list of grievances
that follows, and the concluding paragraph?
- What values and ideals are laid out in
the opening paragraphs?
- What is radical about the opening paragraphs?
- Which individuals and groups are attacked
in the list of grievances, and why?
- John Adams wrote that there was ‘nothing
new or original’ in the Declaration of Independence, and
that Jefferson had simply articulated what American Patriots already
knew. But for many who fought and died in the revolutionary War,
how did the Declaration explain and symbolise what they were fighting
for?
The Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the revolutionary war and secured
American independence. But some Americans worried that a weak central
government would be unable to protect the United States or foster
growth and development. In the summer of 1787 the states sent delegates
to a convention in Philadelphia to reform the national system of
government: the delegates met in secret and drafted a completely
new system of government, the Federal Constitution, and then set
out to persuade the people of the thirteen states to accept and
ratify the Constitution. It remains the basis of the U.S. government,
and is the oldest working written constitution in the world.
Who has sovereignty under the Constitution?
- How are the liberties of the citizens
protected against this stronger central government?
- How does separation of powers work in
the Constitution?
- How are the interests of larger, more
powerful states and smaller states balanced?
- How are voters represented in the new
system of government? How much power over the government did voters
have?
- Is this a counter-revolutionary document
(against the more radical values of Paine, Jefferson and others)?
- Or is it a realistic attempt to protect
liberty within a government powerful enough to survive?
- Why has this system of government lasted
so long?
The Anti-Federalists, who opposed the new Constitution, worried
that it would weaken the liberties of the individuals and the rights
of the states. In order to allay their fears the Federalists agreed
to amend the Constitution with the Bill of Rights, the first ten
amendments to the Constitution.
- What kinds of rights were protected in
the Bill of Rights?
- In protecting individual rights and liberties,
did the Bill of Rights erode the power of the national government?
- What were the disadvantages of this listing
of ten sets of rights and liberties?
Bibliography.
- In addition to the following, the GUL has a great many books
dealing with the American Revolution and the Constitution.
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