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Alien Acts
A group of acts passed in 1798, designed to restrict the freedom of foreigners in the United States and curtail the free press in anticipation of a war with France. The Alien Acts lengthened the residency time required for foreigners to become American citizens from five years to fourteen years and gave the president the power to expel aliens considered dangerous to the nation. It was passed simultaneously with the Sedition Act, and together they provoked the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, written the same year in protest. These resolutions stated that individual states had the right to nullify unconstitutional laws passed by Congress.
Bank of the United States
A plan proposed by Alexander Hamilton for a treasury for federal money funded by private investors. The Bank sparked a debate between “strict constructionists” and “loose constructionists” regarding interpretation of the Constitution.
Anti-Federalists
Anti-federalists rose up as the opponents of the Constitution during the period of ratification. They advocated a governmental structure that granted power to the states.
Bicameral
Name for a legislative system composed of two complementary houses. Congress, like its model the British Parliament, is bicameral; the Senate and the House of Representatives make up its two houses.
Bill of Rights
Though the Anti-federalists were not able to block the ratification of the Constitution, they did make progress in ensuring that the Bill of Rights would be created. The Bill of Rights, drafted by a group led by James Madison, was the collection of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which guaranteed the civil rights of American citizens.
Checks and Balances
The Constitution set forth a government composed of 3 branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial. Each branch was given certain powers over the others to ensure that no one branch usurped a dangerous amount of power. This system, known as checks and balances, represented the solution to the problem of how to empower the central government, yet protect against corruption and despotism.
Congress
The bicameral legislative body set up by the Connecticut Compromise. The two houses of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, accorded to both the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan, in that membership numbers in the House were determined by state population, and representatives in the Senate were fixed at two per state.
Connecticut Compromise
Ending weeks of stalemate, the Connecticut Compromise reconciled the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan for determining legislative representation in Congress. The Connecticut Compromise established equal representation for all states in the Senate and proportional representation by population in the House of Representatives.
Constitution
The document produced by the Constitutional Convention, and ratified by the states in 1789. As opposed to the Articles of Confederation, the document the Constitution replaced, the Constitution created a strong central government with broad judicial, legislative, and executive powers, though the extent of these powers were purposely reined in by the Constitution itself.
Democratic-Republicans
Often just called the “Republicans,” the successors of the Anti-Federalists who formed a party under Thomas Jefferson’s leadership during Washington’s and Adams’s presidencies. They fought to overturn Alexander Hamilton's measures and distribute greater power to the states. The Democratic-Republicans generally favored westward expansion, the formation of an agrarian republic, and an alliance with France, and were strict constructionists and advocates of states’ rights. Political battles between the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists were frequent during the 1790s and into the first years of the 19th century. Though the Federalist Party died out during the War of 1812, the Democratic-Republicans lived on during the Era of Good Feelilngs and eventually were the political antecedents of what became the Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.
Elastic Clause
Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution...powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States." This clause, known as the elastic clause, was the point of much contention between those who favored a loose reading of the Constitution and those who favored a strict reading.
Excise Tax of 1791
A liquor tax proposed by Alexander Hamilton in 1790 to raise revenue so that Congress could pay off all national and state debts. The excise tax was immensely unpopular with western farmers, whose protests eventually culminated in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.
The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers contain a series of newspaper articles written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton which enumerate the arguments in favor of the Constitution and against the Anti-federalists.
Federalists
First rising to national attention during the process of ratification, Federalists remained an important influence on the government throughout the Washington administration. Led by Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists believed in a strong central government at the expense of state powers.
Indian Intercourse Acts
A series of acts passed in the 1790s that attempted to smooth relations between the United States and Native American tribes along the western frontier. The act attempted to regulate trade between these groups and promised that the United States would acquire western lands only via treaties. Most American settlers ignored this bill, which produced bloody clashes between tribes and settlers.
Loose Constructionists
People such as Alexander Hamilton, who believed that the Constitution allowed the government to take any actions that were not expressly forbidden in the document. The loose constructionists’ interpretation was challenged by Thomas Jefferson and other strict constructionists, who believed that the Constitution must be read literally.
Jay's Treaty
Jay's Treaty provided for the removal of British troops from American land, and avoided the outbreak of war with Britain. While seen as unsuccessful by the majority of the American public, Jay's Treaty may have been the greatest diplomatic feat of the Washington administration, avoiding the outbreak of war.
New Jersey Plan
The New Jersey Plan was presented at the Constitutional Convention as an alternative to the Virginia Plan. The New Jersey Plan favored small states in that it proposed a unicameral Congress with equal representation for each state.
Northwest Ordinance
The 1787 Northwest Ordinance defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union from the Northwest Territory. It forbade slavery in the territory, but allowed citizens to vote on the legality of slavery once statehood had been established. The Northwest Ordinance was the most lasting measure of the national government under the Articles of Confederation, in that it established the model which would be used for admission of new states well into the future.
Sedition Act
A 1798 act (passed simultaneously with the Alien Acts) that banned all forms of public expression critical of the president or Congress. President John Adams approved the act, fearing the influence of French immigrants in the United States and also hoping the free speech ban would harm his political opponents, the Democratic-Republicans. Ironically, the act only made the opposition party stronger. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions the same year in protest, arguing that individual states had the right to nullify unconstitutional laws passed by Congress.
Society of Cincinnati
The Society of Cincinnati was a fraternal order of Continental Army officers, which instated a system of hereditary membership. Despite the fact that many political luminaries, such as George Washington, were members, republicans often clashed with the society, fearing that it would eventually become a hereditary aristocracy akin to the British nobility.
Strict Constructionists
Strict constructionists favored a strict reading of the Constitution and especially of the elastic clause, in order to limit the powers of the central government. Led Thomas Jefferson, strict constructionists embodied the ideological core of the Republican Party.
Supreme Court
The highest judicial body in the United States, as created by the Constitution.
Three-fifths Clause
During the framing of the Constitution, Southern delegates argued that slaves should count toward representative seats, while the delegates of northern states, most of which had or would soon abolish slavery, argued that to count slaves as members of the population would grant an unfair advantage to the southern states. The result of this debate was the adoption of the Three-fifths Clause, which allowed three-fifths of all slaves to be counted as people.
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
Two resolutions, passed in 1798–1799 and written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, that declared that the individual states had the right to nullify unconstitutional acts of Congress. The resolutions stated that because the individual states had created the Union, they also reserved the right to nullify any legislation that ran counter to their interests.
Virginia Plan
The Virginia Plan was the first major proposal covering representation presented to the Constitutional Convention. It proposed the creation of a bicameral legislature with representation in both houses proportional to population. The Virginia Plan favored the large states, who would have a much weightier voice than the small states under this plan. The small states proposed the New Jersey Plan in opposition.
XYZ Affair
A bribery scandal that caused public uproar during the Adams administration in 1798. After several naval skirmishes and French seizures of American merchant ships, Adams sent ambassadors to Paris to try to normalize relations. When the emissaries arrived, however, French officials demanded $250,000 before they would even speak with the Americans, let alone guarantee a truce. These officials, whom Adams dubbed X, Y, and Z, outraged Congress and the American public. Adams’s popularity skyrocketed, and Congress braced for war. Although no war declaration was ever made, the United States and France waged undeclared naval warfare in the Atlantic for several years.
