The Constitution, the Articles, and Federalism: Crash Course US History #8

Hi, I’m John Green,
this is Crash Course U.S. History,

and today we’re going to talk
about the United States Constitution.

And, in doing so, we’re going to explore

how the American style of government
became the envy of the entire world,

so much so that everyone else copied us.

What’s that, Stan?

We’re not gonna talk about other countries
stealing our form of government?

Because no other countries
stole our form of government?

That doesn’t seem possible, Stan.

[Libertage]

No, Stan, not the Libertage.

Cue the intro!

So, today we’re going to learn why the green
areas of not-America didn’t copy us.

Alright, so as Americans may
dimly remember from history classes,

the constitutional system
we’ve been living under since 1788,

the year of the first
Presidential election,

was not the original American government.

The first government set up
by the Continental Congress

was called the Articles of
Confederation and it was,

in a word: Bad.

In two words, it was not good.
Which is why it only lasted 10 years.

The problem with the confederation is
that it wasn’t so much a framework

for a national government as it
was a “firm league of friendship,”

which unfortunately only sounds
like a team of Care Bear Superheroes.

The Articles set up a “government”
that consisted of a one-house

body of delegates,
with each state having a single vote,

who, acting collectively,

could make decisions on certain
issues that affected all the states.

There was no president and no judiciary.

You can try to tell me that John Hanson,
the president of the congress

was the first American president,
but it’s just not true.

Any decision required
9 of the 13 congressional votes,

which pretty much guaranteed that
no decisions would ever be made.

Ahh, super majorities: Always so efficient.

But besides the 2/3rds requirement,

the Congress was very limited
in what it could actually do.

The government could declare war, conduct
foreign affairs and make treaties—

basically, the stuff you need
to do to go to war with England.

It could coin money but it couldn’t
collect taxes, that was left to states,

so if you needed money to, say,
go to war with Britain,

you had to ask the states politely.

The articles could be amended,
but that required a unanimous vote,

so zero amendments were ever passed.

The government was deliberately weak,

which followed logically from Americans’
fear of tyrannical governments

taxing them and quartering soldiers
in their houses and so on.

But here’s the thing, weak government
is like nonalcoholic beer:

It’s useless.

That said, the Articles government
did accomplish a couple things.

First, it won the war.

So yay—

unless you were a slave or a
Native American, in which case,

you know, probable boo.

Second, the government developed rules

for dealing with one of the most persistent
problems facing the new nation:

Ohio.

Which was called the northwest,
presumably because it is

north and west of...Virginia.

Getting control of the land meant taking
it from the Indians who were living there,

and the Articles government was empowered
to make treaties, which it did.

Crash Course World History fans will
remember the Athenians telling the Melians

that the strong do as they can and
the weak suffer what they must,

and the Americans definitely went to
the Athenian School of Treaty-Making.

Through treaties signed at
Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh,

the Indians surrendered land
north of the Ohio River.

The biggest accomplishment
of the Articles government was

the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which
set up a process to create

5 new states between the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Two things to know about this:

First, it acknowledged that American
Indians had a claim to the land

and that they had to be treated better
if settlers wanted to avoid violence,

and second, Stan,
can I get the foreshadowing filter?

Yes, perfect.

The ordinance outlawed slavery
in all five of the new states.

Still, the Articles government was a
complete disaster for exactly one reason:

It could not collect taxes.

Both the national government and
the individual states had racked up

massive debt to pay for the war, and their
main source of revenue became tariffs,

but because Congress couldn’t impose them,
states had to do it individually.

And this made international
trade a total nightmare,

a fact worsened by the British being
kinda cranky about us winning the war

and therefore unwilling to trade with us.

In 1786 and 1787, the problem got so bad

in Massachusetts that farmers rose up
and closed the courts

to prevent them from foreclosing
upon their debt-encumbered farms.

This was called Shays’s Rebellion,

after Revolutionary War veteran
and indebted farmer Daniel Shays.

The uprising was quelled by the state
militia, but for many, this was the sign

that the Articles government, which
couldn’t deal with the crisis at all,

had to go.

But not for everyone.

Thomas Jefferson, for instance,
was a fan of Shay’s Rebellion.

“A little rebellion now and then
is a good thing.

The tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time

with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Which is all fine and good, I mean, unless
you’re the bleeding patriots or tyrants.

But to most elites, Shays’ Rebellion
showed that too much democratic liberty

among the lower classes could
threaten private property.

Also people who held government bonds
were nervous, because without tax revenue,

they were unlikely to get paid back.

And when rich people feel like
something has to be done,

something is usually done.
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

The first attempt to do something was a meeting
in Annapolis in 1786 aimed at better regulating

international trade. Only six states sent
delegates, but they agreed to meet the next

year in Philadelphia to “revise” the Articles
of Confederation.

The delegates who met in Philly the next year
had a funny definition of “revision,”

though. Rather than make tweaks to the articles,
they wrote a new charter of government, the

Constitution, which is, with some significant
alterations, the same one that Americans live

under and argue about today.

Despite what some seem to believe, the 55
men who met in Philadelphia and hammered out

a new form of government were not gods, but
they were far from ordinary, especially for

the time.

Most were wealthy, some very much so. More
than half had college educations, which was

super rare since .001% of Americans attended
college at the time. About 40% had served

in the army during the war. But, one thing
they all shared was a desire for a stronger

national government.

The delegates agreed on many things – the
government should have executive, legislative

and judicial branches and should be republican,
with representatives, rather than direct democracy.

But the devil appeared in the details. Alexander
Hamilton, probably the biggest proponent of

very strong government, wanted the President
and Senate to serve life terms, for example.

That idea went nowhere because the overarching
concern of almost all the delegates was to

create a government that would protect against
both tyranny by the government itself and

tyranny by the people. They didn’t want
too much government, but they also didn’t

want too much democracy, which is why our
Presidents are still technically elected not

directly by regular people but by 538 members
of the electoral college.

This system is so byzantine and strange that
when American politicians speak of spreading

democracy through the world, they never actually
advocate for American-style elections.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

Yes, I know, you have
fantastic elections in Canada.

Yeah, right, okay. All that too.

I get it, okay?

It’s U.S. History, Thought Bubble.

So conflicts between competing
interests arose quickly

at the Constitutional Convention
in Philadelphia. The first being

between states with big populations
and those with small populations.

Large states supported James Madison’s
Virginia Plan, which called for

a two-house legislature with
representation is both proportional

to a state’s population.

And smaller states,
fearing that the big boys would dominate,

rallied behind the New Jersey plan.
New Jersey…

This called for a single legislative house
with equal representation for each state,

as with the Articles of Confederation.

But, of course, coming from New Jersey,
it had no chance of succeeding,

and sure enough it didn’t.

Instead we got the Great Compromise,

brokered by Connecticut’s Roger Sherman,
which gave us two houses,

a House of Representatives

with representation proportional
to each state’s population, and

a Senate with two members from each state.

House members, also called Congressmen,

served two year terms while
Senators served six year terms,

with 1/3 of them being up for
election in every 2 year cycle.

The House was designed to be
responsive to the people,

while the Senate was created
to never pass anything

and it was so masterfully designed
that it still works to this day.

However, this solution
created another problem:

Who should be counted
in terms of representation?

Slaveholding states wanted slaves
to count toward their population,

even though of course they could not vote,
because they were property.

States with few slaves argued that slaves
shouldn’t be counted as people because,

just to be clear,
none of these dudes were not racist.

This issue was solved with
the notorious 3/5ths compromise.

For the purpose of
determining the population,

the total number of white people plus
3/5ths the population of “other persons”

– the word “slave” was never used –

would be the basis for the calculation.

So…yeah. That’s still in the constitution.

The constitution also contains
a fugitive slave clause

requiring any escaped slave
to be returned to their master.

And this meant that a slave couldn’t
escape slavery by moving to a state

where slavery was outlawed,

which meant that on some level some
states couldn’t enforce their own laws.

Spoiler alert: this becomes problematic.

But except for the tyranny of slavery,
the framers really hated tyranny.

To avoid tyranny of the government, the
Constitution embraced two principles:

Separation of powers and federalism.

The government was divided
into three branches—

legislative, executive, and judiciary,

and the constitution incorporated
checks and balances:

each branch can check
the power of the others.

The legislature can make laws,
but the president can veto those laws.

The judiciary can declare laws void, too,

but that’s a power they had to grant themselves—

you won’t find it in the Constitution.
I promise. You can look for it.

And federalism is the idea that
governmental authority rests both

in the national and the state governments.

As an American, I am a citizen both of the
United States and of the state of Indiana.

And the national government,
the one set up by the constitution,

is supposed to be limited in scope
to certain enumerated powers.

Most other powers,

especially the protection of health,
safety and morals, are left to the states.

But the constitution also seeks to protect

against the radicalism that
too much democracy can bring.

The mostly rich framers worried
that the people,

many of whom were poor and indebted,
might vote in congress people,

or God forbid a President, in favor of,

like, redistribution of property.

To hedge against this,
senators were elected by the states,

usually by state legislatures,

and they were supposed to be, like,
leading citizen types.

You know, the kind of good
Americans who take bribes

and have adulterous affairs in airport
bathrooms and patronize prostitutes

and shoot Alexander Hamilton.

Anyway,

the other hedge against too much democracy
is the aforementioned electoral college,

which many Americans hate because

it has the potential to elect a president
who did not win the popular vote,

but that’s kind of the point.

The electors were supposed to be
prominent, educated men of property

who were better able to elect a
president than, like, the rabble.

But, the Constitution of the United
States is a really impressive document,

especially when you
consider its longevity.

I mean, as Crash Course World History
fans will remember,

the nation-state is pretty new
on the historical scene,

and the United States
established by the constitution,

is actually one of the oldest ones.

But the Constitution would be meaningless
if it hadn’t been ratified,

which it was,

but not without a fight that helped
clarify America’s political ideology.

9 out of the 13 states were
required to ratify the Constitution

in special conventions called
for the purpose.

In order to convince the
delegates to vote for it,

three of the framers, Alexander Hamilton,
James Madison and John Jay

wrote a series of 85 essays that together
are known as the “Federalist Papers.”

Taken together, they’re a powerful
and ultimately persuasive argument

for why a strong national government
is necessary and ultimately

not a threat to people’s liberty.

Oh, it’s time for the Mystery Document?

The rules here are simple.

If I name the author of the Mystery Document,
shock as in surprise.

If I don’t shock as in...

Alright, Stan,
let’s see what we’ve got here.

If circumstances should at any time oblige
the government to form an army of any magnitude

that army can never be formidable to the liberties
of the people while there is a large body

of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to
them in discipline and the use of arms, who

stand ready to defend their own rights and
those of their fellow-citizens. This appears

to me the only substitute that can be devised
for a standing army, and the best possible

security against it, if it should exist.

Federalist papers. Alexander Hamilton.
YES.

Too easy, Stan,

although I appreciate the
opportunity for a rant..

The whole idea of the Second Amendment was
that the people could protect themselves

from a standing army by
being equally well-armed.

Which, these days,

would mean not that citizens should have
the right to buy assault rifles,

but that they should have the
right to buy, like, unmanned drones.

And arguably, suitcase nukes.

And by the way, in the Constitution,
this is not listed as a privilege,

it is listed as a right.

And, as a right,
if I can’t afford my own predator drone,

I guess the government
should buy one for me.

It’s almost as if Alexander Hamilton
had no way of knowing that weaponry

would one day advance past the musket.

P.S. you know how Alexander Hamilton died?

GUNSHOT. Sorry, I just, I had to.

I am on a roll.

So, it would be easy to ignore the people
who opposed the Constitution because,

you know, they lost.

But some of the ideas of these
so-called anti-federalists

were particularly powerful,
and they deserve a bit of attention.

Anti-federalists, unlike the mostly-
wealthy federalists,

were usually supported by common people,

small farmers who weren’t
as involved in commercial activity.

They saw less need for a
strong national government that

would foster trade and protect creditors.

And, the Anti-federalists were
very afraid of a strong government,

especially one dominated by the wealthy.

Writers like James Winthrop held that a
large group of united states would be

like an empire and

“that no extensive empire can be
governed upon Republican principles.”

As evidence, he could point to Britain,
or all the way back to Rome.

Smaller, more local governments,

are more responsive to the people and
better able to protect their rights.

To the anti-Federalists,
that meant state governments.

And while ultimately the Federalists won
out and the Constitution was ratified,

the issue of how large government
should be did not go away.

So, the Constitution was
really only a starting point.

It’s a vague document,

and the details would be
worked out in the political process.

And then on the battlefield.

Thanks for watching.
I’ll see you next week.

Crash Course is produced and directed
by Stan Muller.

Our script supervisor
is Meredith Danko.

The show is written by my high school
history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself.

Edited by
Stan and Mark Olsen.

The associate producer
is Danica Johnson.

And our graphics team
is Thought Cafe.

If you have questions about today’s video,
or anything about American history,

good news!

There are historians in comments,
so ask away.

Thanks for watching Crash Course
and as we say in my hometown,

Don’t forget to be awesome.