What will we call the our new president?

The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that not only forbids the United States from granting titles of nobility, but restricts members of the government from receiving gifts from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress. This clause is also sometimes called the "federal" Nobility Clause,[3] because a similar clause in Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 bars the states (rather than the federal government) from granting titles of nobility.

One of the first issues that the United States Senate dealt with was the title of president. Vice President John Adams called the senators' attention to this pressing procedural matter. Most senators were averse to calling the president anything that resembled the titles of European monarchs, yet John Adams proceeded to recommend the title …."His Highness, the President of the United States, and Protector of their Liberties,"

10 Fast Facts on the Constitution

  1. The U.S. Constitution was written in the same Pennsylvania State House where the Declaration of Independence was signed and where George Washington received his commission as Commander of the Continental Army. Now called Independence Hall, the building still stands today on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, directly across from the National Constitution Center.

  2. Written in 1787, the Constitution was signed on September 17th. But it wasn’t until 1788 that it was ratified by the necessary nine states.

  3. The U.S. Constitution was prepared in secret, behind locked doors that were guarded by sentries.

  4. Some of the original framers and many delegates in the state ratifying conventions were very troubled that the original Constitution lacked a description of individual rights. In 1791, Americans added a list of rights to the Constitution. The first ten amendments became known as The Bill of Rights

  5. Of the 55 delegates attending the Constitutional Convention, 39 signed and 3 delegates dissented. Two of America’s “founding fathers” didn’t sign the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson was representing his country in France and John Adams was doing the same in Great Britain.

  6. Established on November 26, 1789, the first national “Thanksgiving Day” was originally created by George Washington as a way of “giving thanks” for the Constitution.

  7. Of the written national constitutions, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest and shortest.

  8. At 81, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania was the oldest delegate at the Constitutional Convention and at 26, Jonathon Dayton of New Jersey was the youngest.

  9. The original Constitution is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it was moved to Fort Knox for safekeeping.

  10. More than 11,000 amendments have been introduced in Congress. Thirty three have gone to the states to be ratified and twenty seven have received the necessary approval from the states to actually become amendments to the Constitution.

Source Link: The Constitution Center

SAQ - The Constitutional Convention of 1787

As part of my prepare and perform approach to working the skills necessary to be better writers, I practice short answer questions for every module in my course. Each SAQ quiz is timed for 12 minutes. Below is an example of an original SAQ I developed for Time Period #3 Module B (1783 to 1800).

Name ______________________________________
SAQ 3b The Constitutional Convention 1787

In an atmosphere of crisis, fifty five delegates met in Philadelphia and forged a radically new of government through conflict, compromise, and fragile consensus.

a. Choose TWO of the categories below and explain how each represents the ability and the willingness the Framers had for compromise when writing the new federal Constitution. Provide at least ONE piece of evidence to support each of your choices.

Representation

Slavery

Trade

b. Briefly explain how ONE of the compromises listed in Part A addressed a fundamental weakness in the Articles of Confederation.

Thesis Practice - The Constitutional Convention [1787]

In order to practice the are of thesis writing I have students work on Thesis statements for homework. The final product is shared with me via their Google Drive. Here are the explanations and expectations I shared with my students:

Crafting a Thesis Paragraph: The purpose of a thesis statement/paragraph is to clearly lead the reader through your essay. A solid thesis will clearly make a claim or argument and provide organized/categorized evidence to forecast what the essay will be about. Think of your thesis as the “road map” to your essay. It will provide the reader with the stops along the way to the final destination—the conclusion.  Be sure to make your C.A.S.E in your thesis statement!

Element #1: Set the Historical Context This should be to 2-3 sentences setting the historical context for the essay prompt

 Element  #2:  State Claim/Argument This element should tell the reader what your argument or claim that you will present or prove. 

Element #3: Organized your Categories  This element should organize your evidence and forecasting what the essay will be focusing on'

STEP #1 Generate notes to support the prompt

STEP #2 Formulate your Thesis paragraph is response to the following prompt:

Prompt: The ability and the willingness the Framers had for compromise was reflected in the creation of a constitution that successfully addressed the needs of the young republic. Explain how the following reflects the validity of this statement: Representation, Slavery  and democratic rights

 STEP #3 Create a Google Doc  - name it in the following format - your initials +  thesis statement  - REH Thesis Statements

STEP #4 Highlight each element of your Thesis paragraph using the following colors:

Element #1: Set the Historical Context This should be to 2-3 sentences setting the historical context for the essay prompt RED

Element  #2:  State Claim/Argument This element should tell the reader what your argument or claim that you will present or prove. GREEN

Element #3: Organized your Categories  This element should organize your evidence and forecasting what the essay will be focusing on BLUE

Quotable - Simon Starr

Simon Starr and the Constitutional Convention from James Michener's Legacy

“In his compact canvas saddle bags he carried four books he had come to treasure at college:  Thucydides’ account of the Greek wars, John Locke’s treatise on government, a book by Adam Smith on the political economy of nations, a saucy novel by Henry Fielding.  In his head he carried about as good an education as was then available in either the United States or Great Britain, but in both Princeton and Virginia he had been careful to mask any pretension to superiority.  He was an earnest young man of solid ability who would always show deference to his elders.  As one of the two youngest members of the Convention he would feel himself at a disadvantage, but he intended to associate himself with older men of talent and make his contribution through supporting them.”

Full Excerpt

Quotable - Adam Smith

“To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790)
the Scottish “Father of Modern Economics”

Our Sacred Honor

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr, noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These men were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education.

REEL History Series - John Adams (HBO)

John Adams (2008) John Adams is a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling most of U.S. President John Adams's political life and his role in the founding of the United States.LEARN MORE

This is a powerful scene on the vote to declare independence from Great Britain. Use the four screen grabs bellow to illustrate the importance of this historic vote.

Congress approves the Declaration of Independence, brilliant scene from John Adams mini-series.

John Adams HBO.JPG



 

Quotable - Joanne Freeman

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense summed up the feelings of many Americans about Britain. In it, Paine urged open revolt against the “Royal Brute of England.” Within months, 100,000 copies of Common Sense had been sold in the colonies, which had a population of two and a half million – many of them illiterate.

“Thomas Paine has the audacity to speak about the necessity and possibility of Independence 
and stupidity and lack of legitimacy of Monarchy.”

Quotable - David Blight

"This disorder that the indentured servant system had created made racial slavery to southern slaveholders much more attractive, because what were black slaves now? Well, they were a permanent dependent labor force, who could be defined as a people set apart. They were racially set apart. They were outsiders. They were strangers and in many ways throughout the world, slavery has taken root, especially where people are considered outsiders and can be put in a permanent status of slavery."

 

REEL History - The New World

The New World is a 2005 British-American romantic historical drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, depicting the founding of the Jamestown, Virginia, settlement and inspired by the historical figures Captain John Smith, Pocahontas of the Powatan Native American tribe, and Englishman, John Rolfe.

Plot Summary:  1607, Pocahontas, the spirited and adventurous daughter of Chief Powhatan, and others from her tribe witness the arrival of three ships sent by English royal charter to found a colony in the New World. Aboard one of the ships is Captain John Smith, below decks, in chains. While initially sentenced to death by hanging for his mutinous remarks, once ashore, Smith is pardoned by Captain Christopher Newport, the leader of the expedition.

John Smith - Effectively saved Jamestown when the colony was on the verge of collapse in 1608, its first year of existence. Smith's initiatives to improve sanitation and hygiene and to organize work gangs to gather food and build shelters dramatically lowered mortality rates among Jamestown colonists.

 'New World' Offers New Take on Pocahontas (6:30)

Despite Similarities, Pocahontas Gets Love, Malinche Gets Hate. Why? (Reading)

Quotable - Russell Shorto

“It was no coincidence that on September 11, 2001, those who wished to make a symbolic attack on the center of American power chose the World Trade Center as their target. If what made America great was its ingenious openness to different cultures, then the small triangle of land at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is the New World birthplace of that idea, the spot where it first took shape. “

Russell Shorto
Island at the Center of the World

Different Feelings On Columbus Around The World

Americans tend to think that in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he claimed this land for Spain, and simply went home. But Columbus played a huge role in the history of the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Columbus Day is one of celebration and protest in Latin America. Host Michel Martin speaks with author Timothy Kubal about how the holiday has turned from a day praising Columbus as the colonizer to the Day of Indigenous Resistance.

Mission Statement

Here is a fantastic mission statement for an Advanced Placement U.S. History course. These are the words of  award winning documentary film maker Ken Burns.  I first heard the following quote on a National Constitution Center podcast about Mr. Burn’s film Prohibition.

“I am in the business of history. It is the avocation I have chosen to practice my craft of film making. Over the many years of practicing, I have come to the realization that history is a not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is an inscrutable and mysterious and malleable thing. Each generation rediscovers and re-examines that part of its past that gives its present, and most important, its future new meaning and new possibilities.

I am interested in that mysterious power of history, and I am interested in its many varied voices. Not just the voices of the old top-down version of our past, which would try to convince us that American history is only the story of Great Men. And not just those pessimistic voices that have recently entered our studies, voices which seem to suggest that our history is merely a catalog of white crime. I am interested in listening to the voices of a true, honest, complicated past that is unafraid of controversy and tragedy, but equally drawn to those voices, those stories and moments, that suggest an abiding faith in the human spirit and particularly the unique role this remarkable and sometimes dysfunctional Republic seems to play in the positive progress of mankind. That, quite simply, has been my creed, my mantra, the lens through which I have tried to see our shared past, to understand its stories, for more than 30 years”.   Source Link