United States History Chapter 7, Lesson 1

United States History Chapter 7, Lesson 1

A Government is Formed

Multiple Choice

Who won the Revolutionary War?

• The Americans

• The British

• The French

A Government is Formed

A new nation was born when the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. British control was no longer a problem, for American had won its independence. Now America had to form a government that would act as a unit for all of the states. Forming this new government of many different types of people would not be a simple task. In this chapter, you will learn how the government was formed.

A New Nation Faces Problems

• During the Revolutionary War, the states knew that they would need to come up with some kind of government, in case they won the war

• During the war, the states had been willing to unite against the British, and they needed an answer

• Their answer to this was the Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation

• The very first government ever set up by the United States

• The Articles of Confederation helped get the US through its first days as an independent nation

• Despite this, there were major flaws with it

Multiple Choice

The very first government in the United States was based around

• The Articles of Confederation

• The Constitution

Problem #1, What to do out west?

• Long before the Revolution even started, people had been settling in the west

• Most of this time, these settlers took the land from Native Americans

• Sometimes, two states claimed the same territory

Problem #1, What to do out west?

• This made it very difficult for settlers to get help fighting the Indians/Spanish, because they didn't know who to ask for help

• Thomas Jefferson's solution to this was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• Extended the government's control to the territory to the west

• Provided a way to create new states in the territory

• Provided basic rights to the people who lived there

Problem #2, Trade

• Americans had depended on trade with Great Britain for many years

• After the war, Great Britain didn't really want to trade with America anymore for some reason...

• Some British merchants were even selling products at a loss so that Americans couldn't make any money

• In addition, there wasn't much regulation on trade between the different states

Unfortunately, there was not a solution to this problem for several years.

Multiple Choice

Which country did the Americans rely on the most for trade?

• France

• Germany

• Great Britain

Problem #3, Spain

• At the time, Spain controlled Florida, New Orleans, and everything west of the Mississippi River

• They didn't care about the Treaty of Paris (because they didn't sign it, so why would they care?)

• Americans were not welcome in the south

The biggest problem the Americans had with Spain was that Spain would not let them trade using the Mississippi River.

The Articles of Confederation

• Overall, the government during this time was extremely weak

• This was intentional. Americans feared having a very strong government like England has, so they went in the other way when setting up their own government

• In the next few slides, many of the other issues with the Articles are listed out

Issues with the Articles of Confederation

• To pass a law, 9 out of 13 states had to approve it

• To change the Articles of Confederation, all 13 had to approve it

• Each state, no matter how large it was, only had one vote in Congress

• Congress had no power to collect taxes. They had to ask the states for money, many wouldn't give it to Congress

Issues with the Articles of Confederation (continued)

• States were printing their own money, which was only good in the state it was printed in

• There was no national court, which meant that if one state had an issue with another state, nobody could decide who was right or wrong

• In general, the Articles of Confederation were a trainwrech

• The only two good things it did were get the Americans through war with Great Britain, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, really