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 podcast American History for Kids. As always, I'm your host, Amelia Hamilton. In the last episode, we talked about America's capital being established in Washington, DC. This is a podcast about America's founding and now America is well and truly founded, but that doesn't mean the podcast is over. In this episode, I'm going to tell you about five things that we didn't do a full episode on but I still want you to know about. They are the Federalist Papers, Shay's Rebellion, the Eagle being adopted as our national symbol, the Northwest Ordinance, and the seventeen ninety three Neutrality Proclamations. First up, the Federalist Papers. Now, I almost did a full episode about the Federalist Papers and then thought maybe it's just too much detail, and then so many of our other guests talked about it that you ended up learning a lot about them anyway. But here's what you need to know. These papers were a series of eighty five different essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison between October seventeen eighty seven and May 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, and that original Publius is credited with being instrumental in founding the Roman Republic. So it was a little wink to him. And these papers were published in different New 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 I know it's a little bit weird, but federalism describes a system of government where some powers belonged to the national federal government and a lot of the powers belonged to the state government. So these essays said that we had to ratify the United States Constitution, we all had to agree to it and make it law. And that was something that had been debated and drafted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven. And so to persuade these opponents of the Constitution, who were called the anti Federalists to change their minds. Those authors wanted to reassure them that those posed this proposed government wouldn't do anything against the state's right to govern themselves. Like in Federalist Essay Number forty five, James Madison said that those powers that went to the federal government under the Constitution were few and defined, and all of those that weren't listed still belonged to the states, and those were numerous and indefinite. So federal activity would almost entirely be just for foreign affairs, and the powers that went to the states, on the other hand, would be just about everything else that went on in the everyday lives of Americans. So the anti federalists in early US history was this kind of disorganized band of people, but there were still some famous names in there, like Patrick Henry, and they still really opposed this strong central government that the US Constitution created in seventeen eighty seven. And even though they didn't get their way and the Constitution was still ratified, they did get their way a little bit because it was to make them happy that the Bill of Rights was created. Next up is Shays Rebellion, which, as you might have guessed, was named after a guy named Chaise. Daniel Chaise was a 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 rebellion that took place from August of seventeen eighty six for about six months until February of seventeen eighty seven in western Massachusetts. And this happened, as you can tell, after the American Revolution was already done, but it was still opposing some of the same things, but this time against the American government, things like high taxes and difficult economic conditions. So these armed men forced the closing of several court houses to prevent things like foreclosures where they would take away property, and debt processes where they would take the money that you owed. These were mostly Revolutionary War soldiers like Daniel Schayes, who had become farmers and were opposing these economic laws and other policies that were causing poverty, that were causing people not to have any money. It all started when the government of Massachusetts decided 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 in the western part of Massachusetts who already didn't have any money. So economic conditions got really difficult, and the farmers just couldn't pay their taxes as well as pay 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 to a state arsenal that's where they were storing their weapons, and they marched on Boston. So in response, the governor thought, we're not going to allow this, and they sent about four thousand volunteers under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln 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 and ended their rebellion. This was definitely a situation where there were two sides of the story. People who had more money were really worried about this new American Republic. 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 away things from the wealthy like them. In September, the rebels forced the state Supreme Court in the town of Springfield to close. Chase's forces returned to Springfield the next month in October, hoping to capture federal weapons, but they were defeated again by the governor's army. Now, George Washington was just embarrassed with the United States. He had just taken over this noon country, and he said, I am mortified, which means extremely embarrassed. Beyond expression. He feared the United States must look ridiculous in the eyes of all Europe. He said. So he arrived in October of seventeen ninety four as president and leader of the troops in order to put down this citizen's revolt. And it was the 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 though we'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 whiskey and then distilling them into whiskey. And that tax that they were fighting it was on whiskey. Let's talk about some of the things the Second Continental Congress did. They declared independence, George Washington was put in command of the new American military, They drafted the Articles of Confederation, and they picked a new national symbol, the bald eagle. One of those things does not go on the list, but yes, the Second Continental Congress picked the bald eagle to be our national symbol on June twentieth, seventeen eighty two. Here's what happened after the Declaration of Independence was signed. 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 an official seal for the new country. That means a picture or an image that would be stamped onto things to show that it was official. So this is something that would represent the new America. It was important, but nothing they designed got approved, and two more groups of people tried, but they didn't get approved either. Finally, in June of seventeen eighty two. All of those failed ideas were given to the Secretary of Congress, a guy named Charles Thompson, and he picked what he thought the best ideas were from all of those designed and made something new. He really liked the eagle that a lawyer from Pennsylvania named William Barton had suggested, because eagles had meant strength since ancient times. So he made the eagle a bigger part of the design. But he made an important change. William Barton had used a traditional white eagle, but Thompson said that we should use a 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 to be our national symbol. He wanted a turkey instead, But that's not exactly what happened. He wrote a letter to his daughter saying that the bald eagle is 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 lazy to fish for himself. And then he compared eagles to turkeys. He said a turkey is quote, a much more respectable bird and a true original native of 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 the early years of America, our government had to figure out how our country was going to grow. People were already starting to explore westward by seventeen eighty seven, and the Northwest Ordinance created a government for that Northwest territory. It said how new states and territories could join the country and listed what rights those territories would have. Those rights included things like religious freedom, trial by jury, and property rights. It also said that Native Americans would be dealt with fairly, although that definitely didn't always happen. And really importantly, it said that slavery was not allowed in any new territory or state. There would be three stages to joining in the First, Congress would appoint a governor, secretary, and three judges to rule the new territory. Next, when there were five thousand free male inhabitants of full age, meaning adults. They would get an elected assembly and one delegate to Congress, but that delegate wasn't allowed to vote. And then when the population got to sixty thousand people, a state constitution would be drafted and they could officially ask to join the United States as a new state. And it's really important to think about how fast America grew in the beginning, so it was so 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 in seventeen eighty seven, but by eighteen hundred we had sixteen states already. By eighteen twenty twenty three states. By eighteen fifty there were thirty one, and by nineteen hundred there were forty five. So it was a good thing they were thinking ahead. The last thing I want to tell you about in this episode is the Neutrality Proclamation of seventeen ninety three. So when the Revolutionary War officially ended in seventeen eighty three, the last thing America wanted to do was go back to war. But ten years later a lot was happening in Europe and it was clear that people were going 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, South Carolina, and started making his way to Philadelphia. The American people were so excited to come out and greet him, but the American government was nervous. In fact, he was even trying to get Americans to fight in the French Revolution. And you might say fair is fair. We've heard all about the Marquis de Lafayette, the famous fighting Frenchman who helped America during the American Revolution. I've told you all about how France gave us support at a really important moment in the very last battle at Yorktown, which got England to surrender. And that's kind of how America 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 said America was not picking aside in the European Wars. The proclamation said the duty and interest of the United States require that they should, with sincerity and good faith, adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers. Basically, that meant we're going to be friends with everybody. That proclamation also told Americans that any American who went against the rule was going to be in big trouble, and if they went off to Europe to fight and got in trouble over there, America was not going to help them out. Some people were pretty upset. They thought that France had helped us and we should fight them back, and we had signed a treaty saying we would. But George Washington had good reason. First of all, when France killed their king, they committed to a very different kind of revolution than Americas had been. Remember that American revolutionaries had tried so hard to be fair that John Adams even represented the British soldiers accused in the Boston 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 about this in the newspaper under pen names. Alexander Hamilton wrote under the name of Pacifists, which means peaceful or against war, to defend Washington, and he said neutrality was best for the United States. He argued that we actually didn't owe France any help because they had declared war on other countries, and we had actually only said that we would help them if someone declared war on them. But James Madison disagreed and argued against him, writing under the name of Hellovidius. In July, though, Jenney lost all of the support that he had in America because he started taking ships that he had captured and turning them into French warships right there in the harbor in the United States, and even Thomas Jefferson, who was then the Secretary of State, had told him not to and he was on Jenney's side. In a meeting, Janey said that he would go to the American people and tell them to act against George Washington. When word got out, the American people had had enough. You do not mess with George Washington. And there you have it. Five more quick things that I wanted to tell you about America's founding. I can't wait to see you for the next episode. But in the meantime you can find us at Growing Patriots on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Until next time, the Great US solve the Jermy standing. And they thought so, we wouldn't America And this has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
