History of the United States (1776–1789)
The history of the United States from 1776 to 1789 was marked by the nation's transition from the American Revolutionary War to the establishment of a novel constitutional order.
As a result of the American Revolution, the thirteen British colonies emerged as a newly independent nation, the United States of America, between 1776 and 1789. Fighting in the American Revolutionary War started between colonial militias and the British Army in 1775. The Second Continental Congress agreed to the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, which formally created a new nation, and then issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 to form the Congress of the Confederation. Under the leadership of General George Washington, the Continental Army and Navy defeated the British military, securing the independence of the Thirteen Colonies. The Confederation period continued until 1789, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States, which remains the fundamental governing law of the United States.
The 1780s marked an economic downturn for the United States due to debts incurred during the Revolutionary War, Congress' inability to levy taxes, and significant inflation of the Continental dollar. Political essays such as Common Sense and The Federalist Papers had a major effect on American culture and public opinion. The Northwest Territory was created as the first federal territory in 1787, and a border dispute in this region prompted raids that escalated into the Northwest Indian War. The Revolution and the Confederation period are placed within the American Enlightenment, a period in which Age of Enlightenment ideas grew popular and prompted scientific advancement.
Background
During the 17th and 18th centuries, British colonies in America were given considerable autonomy under the system of salutary neglect. This autonomy was challenged in the 1760s by several acts of the Grenville ministry, including the Stamp Act 1765 and the Quartering Acts. These acts provoked an ideological conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies regarding the nature of the Crown's authority over colonists. Protests by the colonists began as a demand for equal rights under the British constitution, but as the dispute progressed, they took a decidedly republican political viewpoint.From the Stamp Act of 1765 onward, disputes with London escalated. Committees of correspondence were formed between 1770 and 1773 to organize colonists that opposed British authority. Riots occurred in opposition to British taxation on tea, culminating in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, that saw dozens of men dumping massive amounts of British tea into the Boston Harbor. Great Britain responded with the even more controversial Intolerable Acts that enforced penalties on the colonies, and on Massachusetts in particular. This prompted the colonists to convene the First Continental Congress on September 5, 1774, as a unified body to oppose British authority. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the aftermath of armed clashes in April. With all thirteen colonies represented, it immediately began to organize itself as a provisional government with control over the diplomacy and instructed the colonies to write constitutions for themselves as states. In June 1775, George Washington, a charismatic Virginia political leader with combat experience, was unanimously appointed commander of a newly organized Continental Army. The Boston campaign continued with the Continental Army besieging British-occupied Boston until the British retreated by sea to Halifax, Nova Scotia in March 1776. The Invasion of Quebec in the northeast and southwest was also carried out by the Continental Army in the 1770s.
American Revolution
Declaration of Independence
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, voted unanimously to declare independence as the "United States of America". On August 2, 1776, Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. The Second Continental Congress was not initially formed to declare independence, but to demand their rights as Englishmen. Support for independence had grown gradually in 1775 and 1776 as Great Britain refused the colonists' demands and hostilities became more pronounced. The political pamphlet Common Sense further popularized support for independence. In May 1776, the Continental Congress recommended that the colonies establish their own governments independently of Great Britain.The drafting of the Declaration was the responsibility of a Committee of Five, which included John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin; it was drafted by Jefferson and revised by the others and the Congress as a whole. It contended that "all men are created equal" with "certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", and that "to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed", as well as listing the main colonial grievances against the crown. Thus what had begun as a rebellion demanding English rights developed into a revolution based on universal rights that was to overthrow the entire political and social order of the Americans. Jefferson expressed that he did not wish to create new arguments, but rather to present those of previous philosophers, such as those of John Locke.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were highly educated and wealthy, and they came from the older colonial settlements. They were largely Protestant and of British descent. In the following century, the signing of the Declaration of Independence would be commemorated as Independence Day.
American Revolutionary War
Northern theater (1776–1777)
The task of organizing the Continental Army fell to General Washington, and the Second Continental Congress oversaw military action through war boards. At the onset of the war, the army had little equipment or formal training. Washington assigned Prussian Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to train the army, and the baron's military experience produced a strong military for the United States. To supply the army, Washington pressured Congress for additional supplies, but Congress had no power to tax, and funding from each state was not compulsory and there was never a sufficient amount.The New York and New Jersey campaign began in July 1776 as British reinforcements landed in New York City. The British counteroffensive won the Battle of Long Island, and subsequent battles resulted in alternating American and British victories. The port of New York City and its strategic harbor remained the British political and military headquarters in America for the remainder of the war, and became the destination for Loyalist refugees from throughout. The Continental Army was routed to New Jersey, and the British army failed to take control of New England. The campaign shifted to Washington's favor after he led a crossing of the Delaware River that resulted in a victory in the Battle of Trenton, followed immediately by another victory in the Battle of Princeton, boosting American morale.
In early 1777, a grand British strategic plan, the Saratoga campaign, was drafted in London. The plan called for two British armies to converge on Albany, New York from the north and south, dividing the colonies in two and separating New England from the rest. General John Burgoyne led British soldiers from Montreal in June 1777, engaging in skirmishes with American forces. American General Horatio Gates was appointed as Northern Army commander. The forces of Burgoyne and Gates fought in the Saratoga campaign, with the British forces surrendering after the Second Battle of Saratoga. The forces of British commander William Howe were supposed to provide reinforcements from the south, but he instead engaged in the Philadelphia campaign, taking the capital city of Philadelphia.
The American victory at Saratoga led the French into a military alliance with the United States through the Treaty of Alliance in 1778. France was soon joined by Spain and the Netherlands, both major naval powers with an interest in undermining British strength. Britain now faced a major European war, and the involvement of the French navy neutralized their previous dominance of the war on the sea. Britain was without allies and faced the prospect of invasion across the English Channel.
Western theater (1776–1782)
Throughout the Revolutionary War, smaller battles and ambushes were fought west of the Appalachian Mountains along the southwestern area of Canada and in American territories. Fearing the expansion of the United States and encouraged by the British, several Native American tribes launched attacks against Americans. Battles and massacres took place between the Continental Army and Native American fighters as well as against non-combatants and farms. In the final years of the war, Great Britain stopped providing much of its support for Native American tribes, and the United States won in the western theater with strict terms of surrender.Southern theater (1778–1781)
Except for an attempt to take Charleston in 1776, Great Britain did not attack the southern states of Georgia or South Carolina in the early years of the war. Most fighting in the South had been carried out by the Cherokee. Following the failure at Saratoga, however, Great Britain moved its focus to the South, and the Capture of Savannah occurred in 1778. The United States had not been prepared for a campaign in the South, and American General Benjamin Lincoln was appointed to the South to raise a militia. The Siege of Charleston took place in 1780, and the British captured this city as well. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had higher Loyalist populations than other states, further contributing to British victories in the southern theater. After the Siege of Charleston, British General Lord Cornwallis took charge of the British forces in the Southern United States. Victory in the Battle of Camden in 1780 reiterated British control over the South.Cornwallis advanced his forces into North Carolina, depending on Loyalists to join his forces as he went, but few joined him. General Nathanael Greene routed the British forces, preventing them from taking North Carolina. Against his instructions to defend the occupied South, Cornwallis moved his forces north to Virginia. Greene's forces moved south and reclaimed Georgia and South Carolina. Cornwallis positioned his forces in Yorktown, Virginia in hope of defeating the forces of the French General Lafayette. The French navy prevented the British navy from providing assistance in the Battle of the Chesapeake, and Washington and Lafayette's forces laid siege to Yorktown. Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War. King George III and Prime Minister Lord North wished to mount another campaign, but Parliament overruled them, forbidding any further conflict.