Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [3]
1782 Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris presents Congress with a comprehensive Report on Public Credit, initiating a debate over financial policy that lasts into the spring of 1783.
1783 The Treaty of Paris, negotiated by John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams and signed in April, formally ends the Revolutionary War. On November 2, Washington delivers his farewell to the Armies of the United States.
1785 On June 20, Madison publishes Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments .
1786 In September, delegates from five states attend the Annapolis Convention, called by Virginia to consider ways to grant commercial powers to Congress. The delegates instead propose that a second convention be called for May to consider the general defects of the Confederation.
1787 In February, Congress adopts a resolution approving the general convention. Thomas Jefferson publishes his Notes on the State of Virginia the same month. In May, the Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia, with every state but Rhode Island eventually attending. Instead of amending the Articles, the delegates draft a new document, the Constitution of the United States, which is signed on September 17 and sent to the states for ratification. In October, Melancton Smith publishes Letters from the Federal Farmer . Amid widespread anxiety that the proposed government insufficiently protects individual liberty, the first Federalist paper, written by Alexander Hamilton, is published in New York on October 27; it appears under the pseudonym “Publius,” a pen name
Hamilton shares with James Madison and John Jay, the other two authors of what will be, in all, eighty-five essays that promote ratification of the Constitution. In December, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey ratify the Constitution.
1788 In January, Georgia and Connecticut ratify the Constitution. Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire follow, making the nine states required for the new government to take effect. Virginia and New York soon approve. Two other states, Rhode Island and North Carolina, reject the Constitution.
1789 On March 4, the U.S. Constitution takes effect, and the first Congress of the United States convenes. On April 1, the House achieves quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg the first House Speaker; on April 6, the Senate reaches quorum and chooses John Langdon as the first Senate President (pro tempore). On April 30, President George Washington delivers his first inaugural address. On June 8, James Madison, the representative from Virginia, proposes a set of amendments to the Constitution. North Carolina ratifies the Constitution. Washington appoints John Jay the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. Hamilton is appointed secretary of the Treasury. On July 14, the French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille in Paris.
1790 After returning to America from his service as minister to France, Thomas Jefferson accepts appointment as the first Secretary of State.
1791 In England, Thomas Paine publishes the first part of Rights of Man, in part a response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). On December 15, the Bill of Rights, the name given to the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is ratified.
General Introduction
A decade after signing the Declaration of Independence, the Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush made an important observation that historians are fond of citing. “There is nothing more common than to confound the terms of the American revolution with those of the late American war,” Rush wrote in 1786. “The American war is over: but this is far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed” (pp. 308-309).
As Rush recognized, the events he consciously called a revolution had two main elements. The first, which had ended successfully