The United States, Divided

The United States, Divided
The Prevailing Trend of Sectionalism from the Articles of Confederation to the End of Jackson’s Presidency


From the Articles of Confederation to the end of Jackson’s presidency, in what ways did the United States of America become more united? In what ways more divided? Which trend seems to be stronger?

From the Articles of Confederation to the end ofJackson’s presidency, the United States of America experienced periods of both unity and division. The Constitution represented a united effort to fix the failures of the Articles of Confederation and to govern and liberate the American people. However, despite many compromises throughout this historical period, partisan, economic, and geographical divisions seem to be the prevailing trend.Post-Revolutionary war conditions left Americans in distress. In fact, the “phrase ‘critical period’ has often been used to label the history of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, between 1781 and 1787” (Shi 270).This “critical period” was due in great part to the shortcomings of the Articles of the Confederation such as the lack of authority in the regulation of interstate trade andeconomy (Shi 280).
From one state to another, governments displayed inconsistencies. In this way, America was divided. Taxes and tariffs on British ships and goods varied by state and led to commercial competition between states (Shi 280). Moreover, “by 1785 the demand for new paper money became the most divisive issue in state politics” (Shi 281). Farmers were against the use of paper moneybecause it would cause inflation; debtors were in favor of the use of paper money because it would allow them to pay off debts. Because the Articles of Confederation required thirteen out thirteen states to agree on important issues, nothing could ever be resolved; a consensus was nearly impossible to reach (Ruswick). Despite the divisions, the Articles embodied a weak central government, andAmericans were united in turmoil.
The United States’ adoption of the Constitution led to a different kind of unity. “Farmers, merchants, lawyers, and bankers, many of them widely read in history, law, and political philosophy” joined together as delegates to create the Constitution (Shi 284). The Constitution represented the union of previous divisions through means of compromise.
The Virginia Planand the New Jersey Plan sparked the first disagreement of the Constitutional Convention. The Virginia Plan, proposed by James Madison, represented a true national government, balancing powers between legislative (upper and lower houses), executive, and judicial branches. Also, state representation would be determined by population size. The Virginia Plan sought to completely scrap the existingArticles of Confederation and start anew (Ruswick). On the other hand, the New Jersey Plan sought to strengthen the Articles of Confederation. The New Jersey Plan proposed to keep one body of Congress and have states equally represented with one vote each (Ruswick).
The committee voted seven to three for the fresh Virginia Plan, but with a few stipulations in the form of compromise (Ruswick). TheGreat Compromise settled the dispute over representation – the House of Representatives’ number of votes for each state would be based on population, and the representation in the Senate would be equal, two votes for each state. The delegates also compromised on how they would count the people, concluding that one slave would count as three-fifths of a vote in the House of Representatives. Thiscompromise was called the Three-Fifths Compromise (Ruswick). These instances of compromise reflected a sense of political unity in the United States.
However, the Constitution was not adopted without divisive views. Two groups existed – the Federalists who supported the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists who were against it. The Federalists, led by the authors of The Federalist, argued that “the...