{"id":206,"date":"2015-08-21T17:59:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T17:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/ushistory1os2xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&p=206"},"modified":"2015-08-21T17:59:32","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T17:59:32","slug":"introduction-11","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-ushistory1os2xmaster\/chapter\/introduction-11\/","title":{"raw":"Introduction","rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"raw":"
\n\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"295\"]\"A John Trumbull, Washington\u2019s aide-de-camp, painted this wartime image of Washington on a promontory above the Hudson River. Just behind Washington, his slave William \u201cBilly\u201d Lee has his eyes firmly fixed on his master. In the far background, British warships fire on an American fort.[\/caption]\n\n<\/figure>

After the Revolutionary War, the ideology that \u201call men are created equal\u201d failed to match up with reality, as the revolutionary generation could not solve the contradictions of freedom and slavery in the new United States. Trumbull\u2019s 1780 painting of George Washington\u00a0hints at some of these contradictions. What attitude do you think Trumbull was trying to convey? Why did Trumbull include Washington\u2019s slave Billy Lee, and what does Lee represent in this painting?<\/p>\n

During the 1770s and 1780s, Americans took bold steps to define American equality. Each state held constitutional conventions and crafted state constitutions that defined how government would operate and who could participate in political life. Many elite revolutionaries recoiled in horror from the idea of majority rule\u2014the basic principle of democracy\u2014fearing that it would effectively create a \u201cmob rule\u201d that would bring about the ruin of the hard-fought struggle for independence. Statesmen everywhere believed that a republic should replace the British monarchy: a government where the important affairs would be entrusted only to representative men of learning and refinement.<\/p>\n\u00a0","rendered":"

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\"A<\/p>\n

John Trumbull, Washington\u2019s aide-de-camp, painted this wartime image of Washington on a promontory above the Hudson River. Just behind Washington, his slave William \u201cBilly\u201d Lee has his eyes firmly fixed on his master. In the far background, British warships fire on an American fort.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

After the Revolutionary War, the ideology that \u201call men are created equal\u201d failed to match up with reality, as the revolutionary generation could not solve the contradictions of freedom and slavery in the new United States. Trumbull\u2019s 1780 painting of George Washington\u00a0hints at some of these contradictions. What attitude do you think Trumbull was trying to convey? Why did Trumbull include Washington\u2019s slave Billy Lee, and what does Lee represent in this painting?<\/p>\n

During the 1770s and 1780s, Americans took bold steps to define American equality. Each state held constitutional conventions and crafted state constitutions that defined how government would operate and who could participate in political life. Many elite revolutionaries recoiled in horror from the idea of majority rule\u2014the basic principle of democracy\u2014fearing that it would effectively create a \u201cmob rule\u201d that would bring about the ruin of the hard-fought struggle for independence. Statesmen everywhere believed that a republic should replace the British monarchy: a government where the important affairs would be entrusted only to representative men of learning and refinement.<\/p>\n

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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