Whoever posts last wins! (discontinued)

[Moosetroop11]

Feel the magic of boobies.

[Ben]

i love boobies. they ARE magical.

[Bluhman]

           
GIVE US CANDY!! - - - - - - - - NEVER!!!

[FFL2and3rocks]

I fell for hours!

[Bluhman]

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks
I fell for hours!

 YOUR TERMINAL VELOCITY SUCKS!!!

[FFL2and3rocks]

 

[Bluhman]

Oh. I WON!

*Begins to sing the Doomsday Zone tune from Sonic and Knuckles*

[FFL2and3rocks]

NO DOUBLE WIN FOR YOU. Well, triple win if you count that last one. Meh.

I would have made you lose but I couldn't find time to post within that 11-minute window. ****.

[Bluhman]

Q: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

A: OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAND!!

*Gets shot*

[FFL2and3rocks]

Speaking of which...

http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=over9000licksmp6.swf

*post doesn't count lol lol*

[X_marks_the_ed]

REPLY

[Ben]

testicular cancer, ftw

[Moosetroop11]

I think it's finally time to change my sig quote. *Weeps a silent tear for Pyro's quote*

[FFL2and3rocks]

Great! I'll grab my magic balloon.

[Bluhman]

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks
Great! I'll grab my magic balloon.

Drat. Lost.... SOCIAL STUDIES ASSAULT!!

Launching the New Government
-The drafters of the constitution had left many details undecided, meaning a lot of opportunity laid in the hands of the first appointed officers to shape the nation, for better or for worse.
-The president of the United States was unanimously chosen as George Washington. John Adams was his vice president. Many of the great men that had helped lead America to independence showed up at New York in 1789 to start the new government.
-James Madison was an influential member of the House of Representatives; he served mainly as George Washington’s advisor.
-George Washington took advice from two other friends of his: Alexander Hamilton, who was analytical and talented as an administrator, as well as ambitious both for himself and the country, and Thomas Jefferson, who was interested in both welfare for the country, and also the people within it.

A Strong Executive
-Americans saw executives as no better than their king. This was reflected in their various state constitutions, which made the executive a large step below the legislature, and the articles of confederation completely passed over the subject. The Constitutional Convention corrected this by creating the office of president. President had a vast selection of powers, including…
- Command of Navy and Army
- Responsibility for foreign negotiations.
- Authority to appoint other governmental officers.
President shared some of these powers with the senate, but where one power began and another ended was ambiguous. Indeed, it was up to Washington to establish the limit of the Presidents power, and also organize it to keep it strong.
-Though the Constitutional Convention didn’t provide for any executive departments directly, besides treasury, it was written that the president would have power to call for the opinions of the principal officer in each such department. One of the first aces of the new government was to pass laws establishing the departments of Treasury, State, and War, which, together with the officers of attorney and postmaster generals, were the only executive departments under Washington. These branches could of formed the nucleus of a cabinet responsible to the legislative branch, in lieu to the emerging British system of Democracy. However, James Madison managed to persuade the House of Representatives not to allow the heads of departments, who were appointed by the president and consent of the senate, to be subject to removal by the president alone.
-Washington appointed Jefferson at State and Hamilton at the Treasury. He also appointed Henry Knox as secretary of war, and Edmund Randolph as attorney general. He didn’t regard the secretaries as his team, but instead of assistance, and in first years, they didn’t meet regularly. He allowed them to make decisions while he was absent from the seat of government, as to allow them to develop their own plans in their fields of work, but power still mainly laid in the hands of Washington.
-Washington did limit himself to an extent; he mave only very general suggestions for legislation and kept his views on specific measures considered by congress private. He only used his Veto power twice. Washington said that it was his business to administer laws; not to make them. He also took no active part in formation of public policy by legislation.
-In the absence of presidential initiative, three men guided congress: Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson. For the 1st 5 months, only Madison did it, because no other congress member had the required political talents with the imagination that the new situation demanded. He acquired a position of leadership by his appointment to Treasury on September 11th, 1789; in creating that department, Congress had provided for a close connection between the secretary and the legislature. The first thing Madison did was insist that congress authorize the secretary to prepare plans for collecting revenue and sustaining public credit, and to present them to the house of representatives, who had the sole right to initiate money bills. Washington approved Hamilton’s participation in the affairs of the house for he didn’t think it desirable that his department heads do so.
-Jefferson, on the other hand, didn’t accept secretaryship of state until Jan. 1790 and didn’t arrive in NY until 2 months later. His office wasn’t as closely linked with legislative affairs as Hamilton, and his role was often overruled by Washington’s control. Despite this, Jefferson’s close friendship and alliance with Madison gave him good influence in Congress.

The Bill of Rights
-In ratifying the Constitution, 6 states suggested amendments to specify the popular rights that the government must never invade. Many of the legislators that had been elected to the first congress under the new Constitution arrived in NY prepared to carry out the suggestions. Though Madison had opposed the bill of rights both before and during its ratification, it became clear that the people WANTED to have one, so Madison decided he’d draft it himself.
-Madison had originally opposed the bill of rights for 2 reasons:
1. He thought declarations of popular rights, while useful against a monarch, would be ineffective against a republican government where the people themselves were ultimately the lawmakers.
2. He feared that any explicit statement of rights would prove to be too narrow and might be used to limit freedom instead of authority; a wayward government might give out the image that these were the ONLY rights of the people. However, the debates over ratification had introduced another ground for fear; many advocates of amendment wanted to reduce the authority of the federal government down to that of the state government. To stop such a weakening of the federal government, Madison wanted to frame the bill himself.
-From the proposals he first presented to Congress in June 1789, the first 10 amendments to the constitution were formed, which were ratified by the requisite number of state in December 1791. This was the bill of rights and it did the following:
-Protected…
Freedom of religion
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of the press
The right to assemble
The right to petition the government
Right to bear arms
Right to be tried in a jury
And the right to enjoy other procedural safeguards of the law

-Forbade…
General Warrants
Excessive Bail
Cruel or unusual punishments,
The quartering of troops in private houses

-To prevent the government from ever claiming that those were the only rights they had specifically, the Ninth Amendment provided that ‘The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The 10th amendment reassured the state governments about their relationship to the federal by affirming, “The powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.”
-Madison fought hard for his amendments, because in preparing them, he had convinced himself that a bill of rights might be more useful than he had originally supposed. If a republican legislature proved hard to control, specific prohibitions would at least form a rallying point around which popular resistance could gather. They also would assist the executive and judiciary branches in checking legislature, as the amendments were part of the constitution, which every officer of government must swear to uphold. Even the state governments might be brought into action to resist encroachments, a thought that recurred later to Madison and Jefferson.
-Whilst Madison was guiding the Bill through Congress, the Senate passed a judiciary bill establishing the Supreme Court and 13 inferior district courts. When it came to the House of Reps, some members wanted to eliminate the provision for district courts, and leave the everyday enforcement of federal laws to the state courts, but Madison persuaded the majority that the states could not be trusted in the matter. The Judiciary Act of 1789 was passed.
-It established 13 district courts and three circuit courts with both concurrent and appellate jurisdiction.
-It also explicitly provided that the Supreme Court should review decisions of state courts and nullify state laws that violated the US constitution of laws and treaties made under it.

The Shaping of Domestic Policy
-After adopting the Bill of Rights and establishing Federal Courts to uphold the Constitution, they had cleared most of their large problems out of the way. Now what was left to do was to recover from the nation’s debt.

National Credit and National Debt
-At the Constitutional Convention, it was understood that the new government would levy taxes to pay not only its own expenses, but the debts of the old one. On July 4, 1789, Congress established customs duties on all imports and 2 weeks later placed a tonnage duty on all shipping, with high rates for foreign vessels, low for American. When Alexander Hamilton took office at the Treasury, it became his task to apply the income from these duties to the National Debt.
-Hamilton found out the US owed $54,124,464.56, including interest.  It was widely assumed the amount would be scaled down, at least the amount owed to creditors who were themselves citizens of the US. Much of the domestic debt was in form of certificates that were either issued as pay to soldiers during the Revolution or brought by patriotic citizens to further the war effort. By now, though, most of the certificates were held by speculators or merchants who bought them at much less than face value when the credit of the government fell and hard times forced the owners to sell. Many Americans thought it didn’t require payment at face value to those who had themselves discounted the value. Hamilton thought otherwise. In his report on public credit, presented on Jan 14 1790, he proposed to pay the entire national debt, both foreign and domestic, at its face value. Existing certificates of indebtedness would be redeemed by interest-bearing government bonds worth the original value plus the unpaid interest, calculated at 4%
-This proposal won acclaim, and had no real opposition to the full payment of the nation’s obligations. The big question, though, was who should be paid. Here, Madison and Hamilton came to parting ways.
-Hamilton insisted the payments be made to who held the certificates. Because of this, many of his associates knew of his recommendation and begun to buy up certificates! Madison, shocked by this scramble, rose in House of Reps to offer and alternative. Madison’s alternative was to pay the face value of the certificates ONLY to original holders who still had them. This way, the government could pay back the revolutionaries and supporters without speculators making large profits at the expense of the governments original creditors. Unfortunately for Madison, most of the speculators were members of the Congress, who didn’t hesitate to wrap their own shady transactions in the national honor! His proposal was defeated in the House of Reps by a vote of 13 Vs 36.
-Greed alone wasn’t the reason his proposal lost. If accepted, it would’ve jeopardized the basic purpose of funding the debt; to restore national credit. It had to be sustained without regard to the motives or merits of its creditors, because when the government had need for more money than it could get from current taxation, it would have to rely on bankers and speculators, men with money to lend. Their confidence had to be purchased in advance.
-Another odd recommendation in Hamilton’s report was putting the responsibility of the state debts in the hands of the federal. Many didn’t see this move as necessary, or even the point of it. Another problem with it was that Hamilton’s proposition contained no allowance for states that already paid a large proportion of their debt, which included Virginia, Maryland, N. Carolina, and Georgia. The states that had the biggest debts were Massachusetts and S. Carolina. As a result, Virginians, for example, already have paid a tax by the state government would be taxed again by the federal government to help pay debts for a different colony!
-The unfairness of the scheme enabled Madison to get a sliiiight majority against it on a test vote in the House, but he didn’t are push his advantage, because the speculative interests threatened to vote against funding unless they got assumption as well. Much as he disliked Hamilton’s plan, Madison knew that the rejection of funding altogether could possibly be the death of national credit… Maybe even the entire government!
-July 1790- After Ham. And his Hammy lackeys agreed to partial allowance for states that already paid a majority of their debts, Madison and his friends agreed to a bill providing both funding and assumption. The two factions were able to reach a solution, but the line of division was ominous. Hamilton spoke for the merchants and creditors of the North, who would benefit greatly from funding and assumption. Madison and Jefferson spoke for the planters and farmers of the south, whose taxes would slowly help the north pay off their debt. The same division was evident in a simultaneous dispute about the location of the nation capital, settled by a vote of 13-12 in the Senate that moved the government for the next 10 years to Philadelphia and thereafter to a new federal district on the Potomac River, which is now Washington D.C. As Madison had perceived in 1787, the differing interest of the North and South were affecting national politics; already, it was showing that national unity was rusting a little.

The Hamiltonian Program
-Ham believed the future of the US depended on a large-scale expansion of industry and commerce. The suspension of trade with England during the war had forced the growth of manufacture in America, and the production of hardware and textiles continued in some measure afterwards. To effect the kind of growth Hamilton wanted, the needed component was Capital, and lots of it, focused in the hands of those who were willing to invest it. By means of funding and assumption, Hamilton created just such a group of wealthy investors. Hamilton wasn’t such himself, he was too interested in power to give much attention to his own finances, but was well satisfied with the huge speculative profits that others reaped from his investment. Moreover, funding and assumption, by restoring national credit, would make investment in American enterprises more attractive to foreign capital.
-His measures were prompted not only by economic considerations, but also his determination to empower the national government to overcome the state governments. He anticipated that all capitalists created by funding and assumption would be eager to maintain the national credit and the national government, if only to protect their investments. Also, the assumption of state debts would deprive the state governments of such support. The national government, working with powerful investors, would grow strong as commerce grew.
-Hamilton’s scheme generated its own support. The opportunity to get rich easily and by methods not strictly illegal was more than congressmen could resist. Washington was disturbed by the rumor that the funding of the debt furnished means of corrupting a portion of the Legislature as such that the balance between the honest voters whichever way it’s directed. Hamilton, who was directing this, assured the president that there wasn’t a member of the legislature who could properly be called a stockjobber or paper dealer. Washington believed him.
-Hamilton’s next goal was a national bank with capital supplied partly by the government and partly by private investors. But since investors would be permitted to pay the government bonds for 3/4ths of the bank stock they purchased, the banks notes would rest largely on the national debt. With the government furnishing most of the capital and assuming most of the risk, the back could offer an irresistible invitation to wealthy citizens to invest their money. Furthermore, the national debt, if used for a bank, could be a national advantage. In arguing for funding and assumption, Ham had emphasized the fact that where a national debt is properly funded, and an object of established confidence, it answers most of the purposes of money. He intended to make it serve this purpose through the bank. Notes issued by the bank would serve as much needed medium of exchange, coins being scarce, and would greatly facilitate business and the financing of new commercial and industrial enterprise. Besides acting as a central exchange, the bank would handle government finances, and would expedite borrowing both by the government-sponsored expansion of credit; the bond between private capital and the national government would be tightened.
-When the bill to charter the bank came before the House early in Feb. 1791, Madison objected to it greatly. Though before the Constitution, he had argued that Congress should assume all the powers it needed to do its job. Now, however, he was thoroughly worried over the emerging form of Hamilton’s program and intent on stopping it. He argued that because the constitution didn’t specifically empower congress to issue charters of incorporation, it had no right to do so. Hamilton answered that the Constitution empowered the government to do anything “necessary and proper” to carry out its assigned functions.
-This was the 1st great debate over strict interpretation of the Constitution. Congress readily accepted Hamilton’s loose construction and passed the bill. Washington weighted the question more seriously, listening to Madison and Jefferson, as well as Ham. At the last minute, on Feb. 25, 1791, he signed the bill, and Hamilton gained even more ground.
-Hamilton was now ready to direct the expansion of manufacturing. In December, he presented to congress his report on Manufactures, a scheme to make investments in industry attractive by means of protective tariffs and bounties. It was ham’s aim to direct the nation towards a balanced economy that would include manufacturing as well as agriculture and commerce. Only through such a balance could the US make the most of its resources, reduce its foreign debt and its reliance on foreign nations, and obtain true independence. But Ham wasn’t allowed to add this finishing touch; Farmers and Merchants, fearing that protective tariffs would prompt retaliatory action by other countries against American agricultural exports, preferred free competition to keep down the price of manufactures. And almost everyone wondered whether the US could afford a measure that would discourage importation, since the government’s main income came from import duties. To raise them to protective levels might reduce the volume of imports so drastically as to endanger the national credit. Moved by these considerations, Congress shelved his report.
-On the other side of things, Madison and Jefferson were alarmed by the apparent intent of Hamilton’s Program. They saw that it was unfair on quite a few levels. It made national government so strong that it would endanger the individual liberties that were to be protected in the bill of rights, which Hamilton had written! Generally, it was reflected that Hamilton’s policies, and bank were made much more in favor of paying off the northern debts and aiding the northern economy and industry, instead of the southern agriculture, which Hamilton thought could do without improvement.
-At this point, its leaders had reached a fundamental disagreement over its policy. It was not as bad as it might’ve been made out to be, since both sought to set up a government and that the slave policy had been untouched. However, in 1793 they introduced a bill in Congress requiring all courts, state and federal, to assist slave owners in recovering fugitive slaves. Northern congressmen readily passed it, despite the fact it’s terms were so vague as to impede on the rights of all free African Americans.
-The gap between the views of Hamilton against Jefferson and Madison was about as wide as the constitutional government could stand; each sought more to defeat and suppress the other rather than bargain. Fortunately, Washington stood above the quarrel, and both sides could still join in persuading him to accept another term when the national elections were held in 1792. However, during the 2nd term, dissension spread from domestic to foreign affairs, increasingly open, bitter, and accompanied by a public rhetoric that grew more violent, as each side accused the other of going against the base ideas of what the Revolution was about.

Foreign Affairs under Washington
The Constitution assigned the president the conduct of relations with Euros and Indians, and Washington did this task by himself. Though he gave Ham a free hand in developing financial policy and refused to meddle in congressional enactments of that policy, he didn’t do the same for Jefferson, as secretary of state. He turned to Jeff for advice, but also sought advice from other dept. heads as well. As foreign affairs assumed greater complexity, he began the practice of calling together the tourney general and the secretaries of State, War, and the Treasury to discuss policy. During these meetings, from which the Cabinet would evolve into, Jefferson and Hamilton again revealed their different ideas of national welfare.

Jeffersonian Neutrality
-The discord in foreign affairs first showed up in 1790, when war between Spain and England was eminent. This offered the US an opportunity to press American claims against both countries. Spain had seized 3 of their trade ships in Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island. England demanded they return the ships, and also demanded reparation for damages and recognition of British trade rights in the area. It seemed likely that Spain would fight rather than surrender.
-All of Wash’s advisors agreed that they should stay neutral in this battle, but they couldn’t agree on what should be done if England decided to march troops through American territory in the Mississippi valley to get to Spanish Florida and Louisiana. While Hamilton had sought to tie trade duties on British Trade, he was reluctant to do anything that would offend the Brits, and decided that Americans should declare at once. Jefferson, on the other hand, had been in France for five years as ambassador, and during his stay, he took every opportunity to gain national advantages. He wanted to bargain now, to keep both warring countries guessing about America’s intentions and not to make them bid high for assurance of American neutrality. In particular, he hoped to make England open its West Indian ports to American Ships.
-It turned out that the Spanish give in to British demands. No war occurred, and the ports remained closed, with Ham giving the British secret assurances against retaliatory regulations by the US. But another Euro war was clearly in the brewin’, and mounting tensions in Europe made a notable increase in the friendliness of European countries toward the US. In 1791 England sent a minister plenipotentiary, George Hammond, to reside in Philly, and the US in turn sent Thomas Pinckney to London. Full diplomatic relations had thus been established between England and the US. When war finally did break out in 1793 between England and France. Problem was, Jefferson was mostly with the French, and Hamilton with the English during this time… Uh oh.
-As it turned out, Jefferson had great admiration for the French, even though they had been ruled by the king. His admiration was not destroyed either, even with the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 or the reign of terror that followed. In contrast, however, Hamilton was horrified by the French Revolution, and with their war of all peoples against kings, with England and Spain as targets. England’s King George III seemed a better ally to Hamilton than the French Revolutionaries. He also sided with England because he saw them as stronger allies, what with their ultra-powerful navy. If they were to go against the English, their navy could eradicate the American oversea trade routes.
-Hamilton and the Advisors all agreed to stay out of the war, but Hamilton wanted to use the crisis as an opportunity to scrap the French alliance. He argued that the treaties had been made with the French monarchy, and, since they were now dead, the treaty was no dissolved, and the US should declare its neutrality and refuse to receive the minister, Edmond Genet, sent by the new French republic early in 1793.
-Jefferson argued that the treaties had been made with the Nation, not the monarchy, and were still binding. He too was with the neutrality policy, but wanted it to be done without public announcement. A declaration would affront the French and destroy the possibility of bargaining with the Brits, who still had troops stationed in the American NW, and still withheld trading privileges in the empire. Washington decided the matter on Apr. 22, 1793, by issuing a proclamation of neutrality addressed to American citizens only and not actually mentioning the word ‘neutrality’. France’s treaty was not removed, and Genet was welcomed into the US, but the bargaining power that Jefferson sought was gone. Shortly after, he announced he would retire at the end of the year.
-Genet was an idiot, assuming powers that no independent country could permit to a foreign envoy. He commissioned American ships to sail as privateers under the French Flag, set up courts to condemn the ships they captured, and arranged an expedition of Western frontiersmen to attack Spanish New Orleans. Jefferson TRIED To like him, but he gave up in disgust. Finally, Washington demanded Genet be recalled.
-Whilst Genet was failing miserably to gain allies for France, so was Britain failing to get itself its own. Americans claimed the right as neutrals to carry non-contraband goods to and from the ports of belligerents. The problem with this, however, was that Britain had a non-trading policy, established in 1756, stating that trade closed in peace time couldn’t be opened to neutrals in wartime. Then, in December of 1793, without warning, British naval ships began seizing American trade ships with the French West Indies.
-The seizures combined with an Indian episode in the NW to bring the US, in spite of Hamilton, to the brink of war with England. Generally, the record of Washington’s government in dealing with hostile Indians wasn’t going well. Americans had attempted to sign peace treaties with Indians, but they quickly broke the treaties when made.
-In Feb. 1794, the governor general of Canada, Lord Dorchester, made a speech to the Indians in which he in effect asked them to do their worst. Reports of the speech reached congress along with the news of the Caribbean Seizures. During that time, the House of Reps was debating whether restrictions against British commerce, suggested by Jefferson shortly before resigning, might lead England to reduce its own ones against American commerce. However, news of the seizures created an overwhelming demand for much stronger anti-brit measures, to which Ham felt sure England would react by declaring war on the US, if indeed the US didn’t do so first. To prevent a plunge into actual warfare, Ham urged Washington to send a special mission to England. Hamilton seems to have thought of heading it himself, but Washington gave the job to Hamilton’s alter ego, John Jay.

A Hamiltonian Treaty
-Jay had abundant experience as a diplomat, but his history was not all that successful. Most of his failures didn’t result from lack of experience, just that the odds were stacked way against him. This time, with England engaged in a major war, Jay was in a strong position to play the game Jefferson had recommended all along, namely to convince the English that unless they made concessions they couldn’t count on continued American neutrality. Edmond Randolph, the new secretary of state, agreed with the strategy. He instructed Jay to consult with Russia, Sweden, and Denmark about the possibility of an armed neutrality agreement to bring pressure on England to stop seizures of neutral shipping.
-As luck would have it, Jay was once again on the losing side. It was once again bad fortune. Denmark and Sweden, who shared the American view of the rights of neutral ships, took the initiative, and just after Jay’s departure for Europe, the US received an invitation from them to join in forming an alliance of neutrals! Randolph wanted to accept, for he felt that such backing would help strengthen Jay’s hand, but Hamilton persuaded Washington to decline, on the grounds the alliance would jeopardize Jay’s mission by antagonizing the brits. Not content with rejecting the assistance of other neutrals, and eager to create a friendly climate of opinion in England, Hamilton weakened Jay’s position still further by informing George Hammond, British minister in the US, of Washington’s decision.
-With that info to guide him, Lord Grenville, British foreign minister, decided he’d make a deal:
-He promised again to surrender the Northwest posts, provided the US permitted the continuation of the English Fur trade with the Indians in the area.
-He promised recompense for the American ships that had been seized in Dec. 1793, provided the US compensated Brit. Creditors for pre-revolutionary debts whose collections were impeded by state government.
-He refused to compensate American slave owners for slaves kidnapped or liberated by the British during the revolution
-He refused to give any guarantee against the British navy’s practice of stopping American vessels to impress alleged British subjects as seamen. Instead of stopping the seizure of neutral ships, he required the US give up its own view of neutral shipping rights for the duration of the war with France and the two years after it.
-He consented to reciprocal trading rights between England and America, but restricted American trade with the British West Indies to vessels of no more than 70 tons, and even these he allowed only in return for an American promise to ship no molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton from the islands or from the US to any other part of the world.
-Finally, He said the Americans and British subjects should have rights to navigate the Mississippi through Spanish territory at sea.
-When the treaty with these terms reached Washington on March 7th, 1795, Hamilton was no longer at the Treasury, as he resigned at the end of January, bust still retained as much influence over the president out of office as in. His replacement was Oliver Wolcott Jr., and he consulted to Hamilton, and often offered Hamilton’s advice to Washington. Hamilton saw the treaty as satisfactory, as not to anger the British into war. Washington reluctantly agreed, but he saw how other Americans might not. To avoid a premature hardening of opposition, he tried to keep the terms secret until he could present the treaty for ratification at a special session of Senate called for June 8. It was impossible. By that time, rumors of the contents had produced wide public hostility, which increased as the details became known. Despite this, the senators accepted the treaty by the exact 2/3rds majority required.
-As the treaty came before Washington for his signature, the press was denouncing Jay, the Treaty, the Senate, and the president. Popular meetings in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and other cities urged Washington to reject it, but in cabinet, everyone but Randolph urged him to sign. Dismayed by public antagonism, Washington hesitated. In the meantime, the Brit minister handed to Oliver Wolcott some intercepted dispatches written by the French Minister, Jean Fauchet. In them, Fauchet, referring to some transactions with Randolph, Had turned over state secrets to him for money. Though the dispatches had nothing to do with the treaty, the discredited the only cabinet member who opposed it, causing Washington to sign the treaty, and after confronting Randolph with the dispatches, refused his explanations and accepted his resignation.

The Winning of the West
-Jay’s treaty was the low point of foreign affairs under Washington. Gen. Wayne had defeated the Indians of the Northwest at the battle of fallen timbers and had gone on to devastate their settlements. However, with the Treaty of Grenville, they gave up most of the territory that was to become the state of Ohio. In the next year the Brits at last honored their agreement to evacuate their posts in the Northwest.
-Meanwhile, Spain had become fearful that the US would throw its small weight on the Brit side in the precarious Euro balance. The clause about the Mississippi in Jay’s Treaty suggested England and the US might be contemplating joint action against Louisiana. Taking advantage of the fear, Thomas Pinckney, who was sent to negotiate a treaty, won for the US everything it had been seeking from Spain:
-Free navigation of the Mississippi
-Permission for American traders to deposit goods for shipment at the mouth of the river
-Acknowledgement of the American southern boundary at the 31st parallel and the western boundary at the Mississippi
-An agreement by each country to prevent Indians within its territory from making incursions into the territory of the other.
-Senate accepted Pinckney’s Treaty unanimously on Mar. 3, 1796. With it the danger of secession in Kentucky and Tennessee disappeared. With the Mississippi open to trade, any attachment to Spain lost its charm for the Americans of the Southwest.