The Birth Of The Republic 1763-1789

The American people were fighting their most formidable enemy that they would face, the British. At stake was the greatest thing that the Americans could have ever dreamed of, their freedom. The colonists had a heightened amount of interaction among themselves and the British, but along with this heightened amount of interaction, came quarrels among the two sides. The colonists soon coined the term "no taxation without representation" and soon after "no legislation without representation." These would be the two major, defining arguments among the British and the American people. The Americans went from an unorganized, group of vigilantes into well trained, grouped military forces. These forces would be the main strength that the American colonists would use to fight, win, and defend their freedom.

The creators of the Declaration of Independence had some foresight into its success, even though their country had to face the strongest military power at the time. The main part of the American army was militia men. Even though the Americans had lacked a formalized Army, the militia that it possessed was very effective in the determent of the British troops. The battle at Bunker Hill in

1775 proved this. The uncoordinated militia had met the British forces and overwhelmed them. Later in 1776, Washington was able to use the militia men to push the British out of Boston, forcing them to retreat to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The greatest asset that the Americans had was their desire to be free.

s more readily transformed into blood and death than it is dollars and cents.” (p. 106). The printed dollar was losing its value more and more as time went on. Congress stopped issuing the bills to stop the rate of decline, it didn’t work, and they were put into printing again. By the spring of 1781, the bills cost more to produce than they were worth.

The American people needed a constitution. The people decided to have a convention on what they would do to make one. In Philadelphia in 1787, the representatives from the states convened to make recommendations that would help the American government. On this note, twenty-nine of the most well-known men descended upon the Philadelphia State House on May 25, 1787. These men agreed on that they had to come up with a working plan on their national government, otherwise the union would dissolve, and with Spain and Britain waiting on the outskirts for it to happen, the men tried to keep the union from collapse. The men wanted a form of equality among them, but also a way of keeping one another from getting to powerful. These people then drafted the constitution and the last step was the ratification of it by the states.

The ratification came from each state slowly, but surely. Pennsylvania ratified it, and Delaware, seeing that the Constitution gave the smaller states what they wanted, had ratified it, and New Jersey soon followed. By the beginning of 1788, two-thirds of the ratifications had occurred, and in January 1788, Georgia and Connecticut also ratified it. Maryland later ratified it unconditionally, followed by South Carolina, and Virginia. After that, not many states were left to ratify the constitution. New York soon ratified it, which left only North Carolina and Rhode Island as the only states without ratification. In November 1789, North Carolina ratified it and in May 1790, Rhode Island was the last state to ratify the constitution.

That period that the United States was governed by the Articles of Confederation, 1781 to 1789, is known as the “critical period.” Even though it was thought of as a dark time, the feats that were achieved under the Articles are incredible. When the nation took on the Articles, it was fighting for its existence, when the Articles were abandoned, the nation existed in peace, a postwar depression had been endured effectively, and the national income and population were on the rise. The people of the country started to form states among themselves. The states all had to follow certain guidelines. There must be a freedom of religion, representation among legislatures, trail by jury, habeas corpus, and common law privileges, and in all states, slavery was to permanently forbidden. The economic aspect of the critical period is sketchy. The Americans were used to the British Empire providing them with goods. The colonists were content with how their economy worked and were adapted to the pre-wa

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