Ep. 96 – 5 More things about our founding

Here are 5 things that happened during America's founding period that didn't get a full episode, but I still want you to know about!

Episode Transcript

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Now this is the FCB podcast Network. They're great us solve the Jeremy Everything,
and they thought so we were America. Welcome back to the Growing Patriot

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podcast American History for Kids. Asalways, I'm your host, Amelia Hamilton.
In the last episode, we talkedabout America's capital being established in Washington,
DC. This is a podcast aboutAmerica's founding and now America is well
and truly founded, but that doesn'tmean the podcast is over. In this

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episode, I'm going to tell youabout five things that we didn't do a
full episode on but I still wantyou to know about. They are the
Federalist Papers, Shay's Rebellion, theEagle being adopted as our national symbol,
the Northwest Ordinance, and the seventeenninety three Neutrality Proclamations. First up,

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the Federalist Papers. Now, Ialmost did a full episode about the Federalist
Papers and then thought maybe it's justtoo much detail, and then so many
of our other guests talked about itthat you ended up learning a lot about
them anyway. But here's what youneed to know. These papers were a
series of eighty five different essays writtenby Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James

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Madison between October seventeen eighty seven andMay seventeen eighty eight. But they didn't
have their own names on them.They were written under a pen name of
Publius, which means of the people, and that was in honor of the
great Roman Publius Valerious Publicola, andthat original Publius is credited with being instrumental

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in founding the Roman Republic. Soit was a little wink to him.
And these papers were published in differentNew York state newspapers at the time.
Now, it's also important to say, and this is a little bit confusing,
but federalism doesn't really mean federal Iknow it's a little bit weird,
but federalism describes a system of governmentwhere some powers belonged to the national federal

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government and a lot of the powersbelonged to the state government. So these
essays said that we had to ratifythe United States Constitution, we all had
to agree to it and make itlaw. And that was something that had
been debated and drafted at the ConstitutionalConvention in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven.

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And so to persuade these opponents ofthe Constitution, who were called the anti
Federalists to change their minds. Thoseauthors wanted to reassure them that those posed
this proposed government wouldn't do anything againstthe state's right to govern themselves. Like
in Federalist Essay Number forty five,James Madison said that those powers that went

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to the federal government under the Constitutionwere few and defined, and all of
those that weren't listed still belonged tothe states, and those were numerous and
indefinite. So federal activity would almostentirely be just for foreign affairs, and
the powers that went to the states, on the other hand, would be

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just about everything else that went onin the everyday lives of Americans. So
the anti federalists in early US historywas this kind of disorganized band of people,
but there were still some famous namesin there, like Patrick Henry,
and they still really opposed this strongcentral government that the US Constitution created in

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seventeen eighty seven. And even thoughthey didn't get their way and the Constitution
was still ratified, they did gettheir way a little bit because it was
to make them happy that the Billof Rights was created. Next up is

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Shays Rebellion, which, as youmight have guessed, was named after a
guy named Chaise. Daniel Chaise wasa farmer and a former soldier who had
fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and he was just one of several
leaders. So this was a rebellionthat took place from August of seventeen eighty
six for about six months until Februaryof seventeen eighty seven in western Massachusetts.

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And this happened, as you cantell, after the American Revolution was already
done, but it was still opposingsome of the same things, but this
time against the American government, thingslike high taxes and difficult economic conditions.
So these armed men forced the closingof several court houses to prevent things like

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foreclosures where they would take away property, and debt processes where they would take
the money that you owed. Thesewere mostly Revolutionary War soldiers like Daniel Schayes,
who had become farmers and were opposingthese economic laws and other policies that
were causing poverty, that were causingpeople not to have any money. It

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all started when the government of Massachusettsdecided to raise taxes instead of just printing
more money to pay off their debts. The taxes were mostly up to the
farmers to pay, particularly farmers inthe western part of Massachusetts who already didn't
have any money. So economic conditionsgot really difficult, and the farmers just

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couldn't pay their taxes as well aspay the bills for their house and all
of the other bills that they owed. January of seventeen eighty seven, Shays
and about twelve hundred farmers headed toa state arsenal that's where they were storing
their weapons, and they marched onBoston. So in response, the governor

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thought, we're not going to allowthis, and they sent about four thousand
volunteers under the command of General BenjaminLincoln to defend the arsenal and make sure
they couldn't get to those weapons.But before they arrived, Shays attacked and
the militia defending the arsenal opened fire. Four of those farmers died, and
the next day Lincoln's troops arrived andended their rebellion. This was definitely a

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situation where there were two sides ofthe story. People who had more money
were really worried about this new AmericanRepublic. They were worried that state legislatures
were becoming more responsive to poor people, and as they became more democratic and
everyone had more of a voice,there would be fewer property rights, and
that they would vote to take awaythings from the wealthy like them. In

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September, the rebels forced the stateSupreme Court in the town of Springfield to
close. Chase's forces returned to Springfieldthe next month in October, hoping to
capture federal weapons, but they weredefeated again by the governor's army. Now,
George Washington was just embarrassed with theUnited States. He had just taken

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over this noon country, and hesaid, I am mortified, which means
extremely embarrassed. Beyond expression. Hefeared the United States must look ridiculous in
the eyes of all Europe. Hesaid. So he arrived in October of
seventeen ninety four as president and leaderof the troops in order to put down

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this citizen's revolt. And it wasthe first and only time that the sitting
president has led troops into battle,even though he didn't really see any fighting.
I should also say that even thoughwe're calling at Shay's rebellion, some
people called this the Whiskey rebellion,and that's because a lot of these farmers
were growing the crops to make whiskeyand then distilling them into whiskey. And

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that tax that they were fighting itwas on whiskey. Let's talk about some
of the things the Second Continental Congressdid. They declared independence, George Washington

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was put in command of the newAmerican military, They drafted the Articles of
Confederation, and they picked a newnational symbol, the bald eagle. One
of those things does not go onthe list, but yes, the Second
Continental Congress picked the bald eagle tobe our national symbol on June twentieth,
seventeen eighty two. Here's what happenedafter the Declaration of Independence was signed.

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I bet you know when July fourth, seventeen seventy six, Continental Congress gave
a big job to Benjamin Franklin,Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. And
that big job was to design anofficial seal for the new country. That
means a picture or an image thatwould be stamped onto things to show that
it was official. So this issomething that would represent the new America.

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It was important, but nothing theydesigned got approved, and two more groups
of people tried, but they didn'tget approved either. Finally, in June
of seventeen eighty two. All ofthose failed ideas were given to the Secretary
of Congress, a guy named CharlesThompson, and he picked what he thought
the best ideas were from all ofthose designed and made something new. He

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really liked the eagle that a lawyerfrom Pennsylvania named William Barton had suggested,
because eagles had meant strength since ancienttimes. So he made the eagle a
bigger part of the design. Buthe made an important change. William Barton
had used a traditional white eagle,but Thompson said that we should use a

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bald eagle instead because they're American.And now you see that bald eagle emblem
everywhere, all thanks to mister Barton. Now, legend has it that Benjamin
Franklin didn't want the bald eagle tobe our national symbol. He wanted a
turkey instead, But that's not exactlywhat happened. He wrote a letter to

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his daughter saying that the bald eagleis quote a bird of bad moral character,
meaning that they're kind of naughty.He said he does not get his
living honestly, he is too lazyto fish for himself. And then he
compared eagles to turkeys. He saida turkey is quote, a much more

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respectable bird and a true original nativeof America. He is, besides,
though a little vain and silly,a bird of courage and quote. So
that's where the myth comes from,even though he never suggested that we have
a turkey on our national Seal.Number four is the Northwest Ordinance. In

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the early years of America, ourgovernment had to figure out how our country
was going to grow. People werealready starting to explore westward by seventeen eighty
seven, and the Northwest Ordinance createda government for that Northwest territory. It
said how new states and territories couldjoin the country and listed what rights those
territories would have. Those rights includedthings like religious freedom, trial by jury,

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and property rights. It also saidthat Native Americans would be dealt with
fairly, although that definitely didn't alwayshappen. And really importantly, it said
that slavery was not allowed in anynew territory or state. There would be
three stages to joining in the First, Congress would appoint a governor, secretary,

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and three judges to rule the newterritory. Next, when there were
five thousand free male inhabitants of fullage, meaning adults. They would get
an elected assembly and one delegate toCongress, but that delegate wasn't allowed to
vote. And then when the populationgot to sixty thousand people, a state

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constitution would be drafted and they couldofficially ask to join the United States as
a new state. And it's reallyimportant to think about how fast America grew
in the beginning, so it wasso smart that they put those rules in
place. Think about it this way. We know we had thirteen original colonies
that then became thirteen original states inseventeen eighty seven, but by eighteen hundred

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we had sixteen states already. Byeighteen twenty twenty three states. By eighteen
fifty there were thirty one, andby nineteen hundred there were forty five.
So it was a good thing theywere thinking ahead. The last thing I

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want to tell you about in thisepisode is the Neutrality Proclamation of seventeen ninety
three. So when the Revolutionary Warofficially ended in seventeen eighty three, the
last thing America wanted to do wasgo back to war. But ten years
later a lot was happening in Europeand it was clear that people were going

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to ask America to take sides.France was already fighting Austria and Prussia and
a revolution in their own country.In January of seventeen ninety three, the
people of France killed their own king, and ten days later they declared war
on England, Holland and Spain.Then in April, the new French minister,
which is kind of like an ambassador, Edmund Janet, arrived in Charleston,

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South Carolina, and started making hisway to Philadelphia. The American people
were so excited to come out andgreet him, but the American government was
nervous. In fact, he waseven trying to get Americans to fight in
the French Revolution. And you mightsay fair is fair. We've heard all
about the Marquis de Lafayette, thefamous fighting Frenchman who helped America during the
American Revolution. I've told you allabout how France gave us support at a

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really important moment in the very lastbattle at Yorktown, which got England to
surrender. And that's kind of howAmerica won the war. But President George
Washington wasn't having any of it.So on April twenty second, seventeen ninety
three, not long after Jeanette arrived, he issued a Neutrality Proclamation that officially

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said America was not picking aside inthe European Wars. The proclamation said the
duty and interest of the United Statesrequire that they should, with sincerity and
good faith, adopt and pursue aconduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers.
Basically, that meant we're going tobe friends with everybody. That proclamation

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also told Americans that any American whowent against the rule was going to be
in big trouble, and if theywent off to Europe to fight and got
in trouble over there, America wasnot going to help them out. Some
people were pretty upset. They thoughtthat France had helped us and we should
fight them back, and we hadsigned a treaty saying we would. But
George Washington had good reason. Firstof all, when France killed their king,

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they committed to a very different kindof revolution than Americas had been.
Remember that American revolutionaries had tried sohard to be fair that John Adams even
represented the British soldiers accused in theBoston massacre. He represented them at trial
and some were found not guilty,And like we've seen so many times before,
our founding fathers ended up arguing aboutthis in the newspaper under pen names.

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Alexander Hamilton wrote under the name ofPacifists, which means peaceful or against
war, to defend Washington, andhe said neutrality was best for the United
States. He argued that we actuallydidn't owe France any help because they had
declared war on other countries, andwe had actually only said that we would
help them if someone declared war onthem. But James Madison disagreed and argued

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against him, writing under the nameof Hellovidius. In July, though,
Jenney lost all of the support thathe had in America because he started taking
ships that he had captured and turningthem into French warships right there in the
harbor in the United States, andeven Thomas Jefferson, who was then the
Secretary of State, had told himnot to and he was on Jenney's side.

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In a meeting, Janey said thathe would go to the American people
and tell them to act against GeorgeWashington. When word got out, the
American people had had enough. Youdo not mess with George Washington. And

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there you have it. Five morequick things that I wanted to tell you
about America's founding. I can't waitto see you for the next episode.
But in the meantime you can findus at Growing Patriots on Instagram, Facebook
and Twitter. Until next time,the Great US solve the Jermy standing.

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And they thought so, we wouldn'tAmerica And this has been a presentation of
the FCB podcast Network where real talklifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts
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