CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

After you finish reading and studying this chapter, you should be able to:

Summarize some major demographic and economic features of the new nation as it launched the new government. Explain the challenge that confronted the Washington administration in creating a new government. Name and summarize the three major proposals presented by Alexander Hamilton for establishing the new government on a sound financial basis. Analyze the conflict of philosophy between Hamilton and Jefferson over the constitutionality of the National Bank and explain how that conflict led to the development of two political parties. Account for the diplomatic problems with Britain, France, and Spain that buffeted the new nation, and explain the resolution of each. Explain the differing roles played by Adams, Hamilton, and Washington in Federalist politics and describe their effects on Adams’s administration. Explain the significance of the elections of 1796 and 1800. Explain the importance of the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions as parts of continuing conflicts between individual liberty and governmental authority, and between states’ rights and national governmental authority.