Chapter 8 Notes

Key Terms

Republic
Impressment
Embargo
Implied powers
Nullification
Trans-Mississippi West
Excise tax- Hamilton proposed a series of excise taxes, including one on the manufacture
of distilled liquor. This “Whiskey Tax” signaled the government’s intention to use its
taxing authority to increase federal revenue.
Agrarian society

Geography
Haiti
Washington D.C.
Louisiana Territory- Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Jefferson’s most dramatic
accomplishment, doubled the nation’s size.
Missouri River

I. Launching the National Republic

a. Beginning the New Government
b. The Bill of Rights
One of Congress’s first tasks was debate over the constitutional amendments
that several states had made conditional to ratification.
Congress argued the merits of twelve perspective amendments, which were
finally narrowed to ten, were to become the national Bill of Rights.
Ratification of the amendments: December, 1791.
c. The People Divide
d. The Whiskey Rebellion

II. The Republic in a Threatening World

a. The promise and peril of the French Revolution
b. Democratic Revolutions in Europe and the Atlantic World
c. The Democratic-Republican Societies
Political clubs served as tools of democratic reform, providing safe havens for
dissidents and intellectuals.
The Jacobin clubs in France were the most famous, but similar organizations
appeared in the United States.
As early as 1792, constitutional societies were formed to oversee the rights of
the people.
 The increase in these clubs was spurred by the visit of Citizen Edmund Genet,
French minister to the United States.

d. Jay’s Controversial Treaty

III. The Political Crisis Deepens

a. The Election of 1796
b. The War Crisis with France
c. The Alien and Sedition Acts
d. Local Reverberations
IV. Restoring American Liberty
a. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
b. The Revolution of 1800

V. Building an Agrarian Nation

a. The Jeffersonians Take Control

b. Politics and the Federal Courts

c. Dismantling the Federalist War Program

VI. A Foreign Policy for the New Nation

a. Jeffersonian Principles
Political liberty could survive only under the specific conditions of broad-
based social and economic equality.
The path to equality in a world valuing the pursuit of wealth was territorial
expansionism.

b. Struggling for Neutral Rights