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Modern World History 2.8 Early American Democracy 34 Views


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Transcript

00:04

The revolution is over. Yay.

00:07

The British have been banished from the

00:08

US of A. Yay. Time for a new nation to set

00:12

up a government that actually works. Yay?

00:14

Well, contrary to what grandpa might tell

00:17

you at the dinner table, governing a

00:19

country is hard work, especially when

00:21

you're building a democracy from scratch

00:23

and, well Martha Stewart wasn't exactly

00:25

around with an easy-to-follow recipe. And

00:28

the founding fathers did not get our

00:30

government right the first time around...

00:31

surprise surprise. They set out to create

00:34

a country with the Articles of

00:36

Confederation in 1777. Well, this document

00:39

was problematic from the beginning.

00:41

Because the writers of the Articles were

00:42

terrified of having a too-powerful

00:45

central government for obvious reasons,

00:47

they made the central government of the

00:49

new United States too weak. Flimsy,

00:52

almost. Well, the American government

00:53

couldn't tax its citizens, couldn't raise

00:55

an army. There was no president, no

00:57

national court, and no national strategy

00:59

for combating the restrictive trade

01:01

policies put in place by various

01:03

European nations. Well that thing was so

01:05

weak, you'd think it was on muscle relaxants.

01:07

It became clear pretty quickly that the

01:09

Articles of Confederation needed a do-

01:11

over. The document had been ratified by

01:13

all 13 States by 1781, but just six years

01:16

later, America's leading brainiacs

01:18

were in Philadelphia working on what

01:20

would become the US Constitution. Hey,

01:23

practice makes perfect, right? There were

01:25

some huge differences between the

01:27

Articles of Confederation and the

01:28

Constitution. First off, the Constitution

01:31

called for three branches of government.

01:32

Makes for a boring tree but a strong

01:35

democracy. There was the Executive branch,

01:37

which would soon become home to George

01:39

Washington and his wooden teeth, the

01:41

Legislative branch, or the Congress, and

01:43

the Judicial branch, or the court system... now that's a tree worth hugging. Second,

01:48

the Constitution was careful to ensure

01:50

that no one branch of the government had

01:52

too much power. Enter checks and balances,

01:55

which unfortunately had nothing to do

01:57

with tightrope walkers paying their

01:59

bills. It worked a little more like this:

02:01

the Senate and the House of

02:02

Representatives may pass a bill that the

02:04

judiciary then declares unconstitutional.

02:08

Wah, wah. Or, the Senate and the House of

02:10

Representatives may pass

02:12

a bill that the president then vetoes. Wah, wah. Or,

02:15

the legislative branch may in certain

02:17

circumstances impeach the president or a

02:20

member of the judiciary, and we don't

02:22

need to tell you which circumstances

02:24

those are. *Cough* Clinton. The idea of a central

02:28

authoritative government made many

02:29

Americans nervous... very nervous. Some say

02:33

that those guys are still nervous today.

02:34

They just live in Idaho now. At any rate,

02:37

two-thirds of the states needed to say "aye"

02:40

in order for the Constitution to be

02:42

ratified. Well, the founding fathers knew

02:44

that they would need to be persuasive in

02:46

order to get the necessary votes. Enter

02:49

James Madison, also known as father of

02:51

the Constitution and the fourth

02:52

president of the United States, and our

02:54

personal favorite, J-Mads, yeah. J-Mads

02:57

wanted his fellow Americans to

02:59

understand that, while the Constitution

03:00

would create a stronger central

03:02

government than the one that had existed

03:04

under the Articles of Confederation, the

03:06

individual rights that had been at the

03:08

center of the American Revolution would

03:10

also be central to the new United States.

03:12

Our country was like a tootsie roll pop,

03:14

except instead of candy at the center,

03:16

it was state liberty. Well, with help of

03:18

John Jay, who would become the first

03:20

Chief Justice of the United States, and

03:23

Alexander Hamilton, who would become the

03:25

first secretary of the Treasury and the

03:27

subject of a super successful Broadway

03:29

musical, well, James Madison produced the

03:31

Federalist Papers for publication in New

03:34

York's newspapers. While the Federalist

03:36

Papers made for a compelling read,

03:37

several states, including New York,

03:39

Virginia, and Massachusetts, refused to

03:42

ratify the Constitution until the

03:44

founding fathers agreed to the inclusion

03:45

of a bill of rights that would protect

03:47

specific individual rights. So you've got

03:50

New York and company to thank for your

03:52

freedom of speech... no big surprise there.

03:54

The Constitution was ratified in 1788,

03:57

and when the first US Congress met in

03:59

1789, Madison got busy composing the

04:02

first ten amendments to the Constitution,

04:04

also known as, yes, the Bill of Rights. Not

04:06

to be confused with our right-handed

04:08

friend, Bill. The American Revolution

04:10

ended at Yorktown in 1781. It took

04:13

another eight years for America's

04:15

political leaders to get a functioning

04:17

system of government in place, and well, you know,

04:19

next time grandpa tells you that he

04:21

could run D.C. from the comfort of his

04:23

armchair, perhaps you

04:24

should consider breaking out the James

04:25

Madison cosplay and giving Gramps a

04:28

lesson in American history, which you now

04:30

know thanks to us. You're welcome.

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