I wanted to clear up a couple of questions about Week 7’s opportunity. First, I greatly enjoyed reading your letters, there were very creative. I wanted to ensure you that I did not use your letters to withhold any points from your score. On the contrary, if you demonstrated to me knowledge of or understanding of this situation which was more clear in your letter than in your opportunity question I gave you additional credit on your score. I did not for anyone take points away based on your letters!
You may have noticed my shorthand notes in how I scored this week’s opportunity and wondered what in the world I meant by it! I was looking for four main points in your answer (described briefly below) and I awarded/withheld points of your score based on how well you addressed each area:
I. The first item I was looking for in your answer was a concise description of what the situation was – John Jay was the Secretary of State. Congress had given him the power to negotiate a treaty with Spain that was supposed to secure the navigation rights of the Mississippi River and the use of the port of New Orleans. John Jay was not able to secure such a treaty – Spain did not recognize our right to use the Mississippi or the port, we were in debt to them after our revolution and basically we had no bargaining power. Some of you went on to describe the second congressional vote that gave John Jay power to make a treaty that did not include these access/navigation rights.
II. The second important piece of information that I wanted to see in your answer was that you put the situation in context. You gave me some indication of when it occurred – just after the revolution. Even better if you described to me how the Treaty of Paris ensured Spain’s territory in Louisiana and further west and that it granted to Spain an extension of the panhandle of Florida cutting off any access to ports on our southern border. Another important piece of information was that there were people already beginning to move west into other territories and if they were not able to use the Mississippi they were essentially cut off from the rest of the states.
III. The third component of your answer that I was looking for was an understanding of the differing view points and interests of the northern and southern states as regards this treaty. The northern states were in dire economic straits after the war. England was blockading the coast and tightly controlling their trade and intimidating them by keeping soldiers in forts in the North West territory. (They had reasons for doing this, remember!) The Southern states wanted to have their own access to ports and harbors to take their crops to markets without depending on the ports and harbors of the northern states. For the more southern states this was a quicker more direct and efficient route. I was looking for you to tell me that southern states were agricultural based and the population was more spread out. Northern states were more merchant oriented, more dependent on fishing and trade for their economies.
IV. The fourth component I hoped to see in your answer was some indication of the disunion that occurred over this issue and what the cause/effects of this were. One area of concern the northerners had was the growing population in the western territories. If these territories became states would they upset the balance of free and slave states? The southern states were upset because the second vote that granted to Jay the power to make this second treaty they viewed as illegal because it did not meat a 2/3rds majority vote. A consequence of this was that they were very reluctant to ratify the constitution because they did not trust a government that had a power superior to that of the states themselves that seemed to overlook their interests. They saw it as larger states overpowering smaller states (population wise).
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