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Доклад: History of the USA

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Доклад: History of the USA

Доклад: History of the USA

United States, history of the

Many peoples have contributed to the development of the United States of

America, a vast nation that arose from a scattering of British colonial

outposts in the New World. The first humans to inhabit the North American

continent were migrants from northeast Asia who established settlements in

North America as early as 8000 BC and possibly much earlier (see NORTH

AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY). By about AD 1500 the native peoples of the areas north

of the Rio Grande had developed a variety of different cultures (see INDIANS,

AMERICAN). The vast region stretching eastward from the Rocky Mountains to

the Atlantic Ocean was relatively sparsely populated by tribes whose

economies were generally based on hunting and gathering, fishing, and

farming.

VIKINGS explored the North American mainland in the 10th and 11th centuries

and settled there briefly (see VINLAND). Of more lasting importance, however,

was the first voyage (1492-93) of Christopher COLUMBUS, which inaugurated an

age of great European EXPLORATION of the Western Hemisphere. Various European

states (including Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, and Portugal) and

their trading companies sent out expeditions to explore the New World during

the century and a half that followed.

The Spanish claimed vast areas, including Florida, Mexico, and the region

west of the Mississippi River, although they concentrated their settlement

south of the Rio Grande. The French explored much of the area that became

Canada and established several settlements there. Of most significance,

however, for the subsequent development of the United States, was the English

colonization of the region along the Atlantic coast.

BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA

At the end of the period of turmoil associated with the Protestant

Reformation in England, the English people became free to turn their

attention to some other matters and to seek new opportunities outside their

tiny island. Internal stability under Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) and an

expanding economy combined with a bold intellectual ferment to produce a

soaring self-confidence. Ireland experienced the first impact: by the

beginning of the 17th century it had been wholly subjugated by the English.

Scottish and English Protestants were dispatched to "colonize" where the

savage Irish, as they were called, had been expelled, especially in the

northern provinces. Then, entrepreneurs began to look to North America,

claimed by England on the basis of the voyages of discovery of John CABOT

(1497-99).

The Chesapeake Colonies

The English had failed in their attempts in the 1580s to found a colony at

ROANOKE on the Virginia coast. In 1606, however, the LONDON COMPANY,

established to exploit North American resources, sent settlers to what in

1607 became JAMESTOWN, the first permanent English colony in the New World.

The colonists suffered extreme hardships, and by 1622, of the more than

10,000 who had immigrated, only 2,000 remained alive. In 1624 control of the

failing company passed to the crown, making Virginia a royal colony. Soon the

tobacco trade was flourishing, the death rate had fallen, and with a

legislature (the House of Burgesses, established in 1619) and an abundance of

land, the colony entered a period of prosperity. Individual farms, available

at low cost, were worked primarily by white indentured servants (laborers who

were bound to work for a number of years to pay for their passage before

receiving full freedom). The Chesapeake Bay area became a land of opportunity

for poor English people.

In 1632, Maryland was granted to the CALVERT family as a personal possession,

to serve as a refuge for Roman Catholics. Protestants, as well, flooded into

the colony, and in 1649 the Toleration Act was issued, guaranteeing freedom

of worship in Maryland to all Trinitarian Christians.

The New England Colonies

In 1620, Puritan Separatists, later called PILGRIMS, sailed on the MAYFLOWER

to New England, establishing PLYMOUTH COLONY, the first permanent settlement

there. They were followed in 1629 by other Puritans (see PURITANISM), under

the auspices of the MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, who settled the area around

Boston. During the Great Puritan Migration that followed (1629-42), about

16,000 settlers arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans set out

to build a "city on a hill" intended to provide a model of godly living for

the world. Strict Calvinists, strongly communal, and living in closely bound

villages, they envisioned a God angered at human transgressions, who chose,

purely according to his inscrutable will, a mere "righteous fragment" for

salvation. Dissidents of a Baptist orientation founded Rhode Island

(chartered 1644). In 1639, Puritans on what was then the frontier established

the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the first written constitution in

North America; the colony was chartered in 1662. The settlements in New

Hampshire that sprang up in the 1620s were finally proclaimed a separate

royal colony in 1679. Plymouth later became (1691) part of the royal colony

of Massachusetts.

The Restoration Colonies

A long era (1642-60) of turmoil in England, which included the Civil War,

Oliver Cromwell's republican Commonwealth, and the Protectorate, ended with

the restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II. An amazing period

ensued, during which colonies were founded and other acquisitions were made.

In 1663, Carolina was chartered; settlement began in 1670, and from the start

the colony flourished. The territory later came under royal control as South

Carolina (1721) and North Carolina (1729).

In 1664 an English fleet arrived to claim by right of prior discovery the

land along the Hudson and Delaware rivers that had been settled and occupied

by the Dutch since 1624. Most of NEW NETHERLAND now became New York colony

and its principal settlement, New Amsterdam, became the city of New York. New

York colony, already multiethnic and strongly commercial in spirit, came

under control of the crown in 1685. New Jersey, sparsely settled by the

Dutch, Swedes, and others, was also part of this English claim. Its

proprietors divided it into East and West Jersey in 1676, but the colony was

reunited as a royal province in 1702.

In 1681, Pennsylvania, and in 1682, what eventually became (1776) Delaware,

were granted to William PENN, who founded a great Quaker settlement in and

around Philadelphia. Quaker theology differed widely from that of the New

England Puritans. Believing in a loving God who speaks directly to each

penitent soul and offers salvation freely, Quakers found elaborate church

organizations and ordained clerics unnecessary.

Indian Wars

In 1675 disease-ridden and poverty-stricken Indians in New England set off

against the whites. Almost every Massachusetts town experienced the horror of

Indian warfare; thousands on both sides were slaughtered before King Philip,

the Wampanoag chief, was killed in 1676 and the war ended. Virginians,

appalled at this event, in 1676 began attacking the Occaneechees despite the

disapproval of the royal governor, Sir William BERKELEY. Then, under

Nathaniel Bacon, dissatisfied and angry colonists expelled Berkeley from

Jamestown and proclaimed Bacon's Laws, which gave the right to vote to all

freedmen. Royal troops soon arrived to put down the uprising, known as.

Along the Mohawk River in New York, the Five Nations of the IROQUOIS LEAGUE

maintained their powerful confederacy with its sophisticated governing

structure and strong religious faith. Allies of the English against the

French along the Saint Lawrence River, they dominated a vast region westward

to Lake Superior with their powerful and well-organized armies. The FRENCH

AND INDIAN WARS, a series of great wars between the two European powers and

their Indian allies, ended in 1763 when French rule was eradicated from North

America and Canada was placed under the British crown.

18th-Century Social and Economic Developments

In the 1700s the British colonies grew rapidly in population and wealth. A

formerly crude society acquired a polished and numerous elite. Trade and

cities flourished. The 250,000 settlers who had lived in the mainland

colonies to the south of Canada in 1700 became 2,250,000 by 1775 and would

grow to 5,300,000 by 1800. Settlement expanded widely from the coastal

beachheads of the 17th century into back-country regions with profoundly

divergent ways of life.

Several non-English ethnic groups migrated to the British colonies in large

numbers during the 18th century. By 1775, Germans, who settled primarily in

the Middle Colonies but also in the back-country South, numbered about

250,000. They were members of the Lutheran and German Reformed (Calvinist)

churches or of pietist sects (Moravians, Mennonites, Amish, and the like);

the pietists, in particular, tended to live separately, avoiding English-

speaking peoples. From the 1730s waves of Scots-Irish immigrants, numbering

perhaps 250,000 by the time of the Revolution, swelled the ranks of the non-

English group. Forming dense settlements in Pennsylvania, as well as in New

York's Hudson Valley and in the back-country South, they brought with them

the Presbyterian church, which was to become widely prominent in American

life. Many of these immigrants were indentured servants; a small percentage

were criminals, transported from the jails of England, where they had been

imprisoned for debt or for more serious crimes. The colony of Georgia was

granted in 1732 to reformers, led by James OGLETHORPE, who envisioned it as

an asylum for English debtors, as well as a buffer against Spanish Florida.

Georgia, too, was colonized by many non-English people.

The Growth of Slavery

Slaves from Africa were used in small numbers in the colonies from about 1619

(see BLACK AMERICANS; SLAVERY). After British merchants joined the Dutch in

the slave trade later in the 17th century, prices tumbled and increasing

numbers of black people were transported into the southern colonies to be

used for plantation labor. Slaves were also used in the northern colonies,

but in far fewer numbers. The survival rates as well as birthrates tended to

be high for slaves brought to the North American mainland colonies--in

contrast to those transported to the West Indies or to South America.

The expansion of slavery was the most fateful event of the pre- Revolutionary

years. Virginia had only about 16,000 slaves in 1700; by 1770 it held more

than 187,000, or almost half the population of the colony. In low country

South Carolina, with its rice and indigo plantations, only 25,000 out of a

total population of 100,000 were white in 1775. Fearful whites mounted slave

patrols and exacted savage penalties upon transgression in order to maintain

black passivity.

Meanwhile, on the basis of abundant slave labor, the world of great

plantations emerged, creating sharp distinctions in wealth among whites.

Southern society was dominated by the aristocracy; however, whites of all

classes were united in their fear of blacks. Miscegenation was common,

especially where slaves were most numerous, and mulattos were regarded as

black, not white. An almost total absence of government in this sparsely

settled, rural southern environment resulted in complete license on the part

of owners in the treatment of their slaves. Paradoxically, the ideal of

liberty--of freedom from all restraints--was powerful in the southern white

mind.

Religious Trends

As transatlantic trade increased, communication between the colonies and

England became closer, and English customs and institutions exerted a

stronger influence on the Americans. The aristocracy aped London fashions,

and colonials participated in British cultural movements. The Church of

England, the established church in the southern colonies and in the four

counties in and around New York City, grew in status and influence. At the

same time, in both Britain and America, an increasingly rationalistic and

scientific outlook, born in the science of Sir Isaac NEWTON and the

philosophy of John LOCKE, made religious observance more logical and of this

world. Deism and so-called natural religion scoffed at Christianity and the

Bible as a collection of ancient superstitions.

Then from England came an upsurge of evangelical Protestantism, led by John

Wesley (the eventual founder of the Methodist church; see WESLEY family) and

George WHITEFIELD. It sought to combat the new rationalism and foster a

revival of enthusiasm in Christian faith and worship. Beginning in 1738, with

Whitefield's arrival in the colonies, a movement known as the GREAT AWAKENING

swept the colonials, gaining strength from an earlier outbreak of revivalism

in Massachusetts (1734-35) led by Jonathan EDWARDS. Intensely democratic in

spirit, the Great Awakening was the first intercolonial cultural movement. It

vastly reenergized a Puritanism that, since the mid-1600s, had lost its

vigor. All churches were electrified by its power-- either in support or in

opposition. The movement also revived the earlier Puritan notion that America

was to be a "city on a hill," a special place of God's work, to stand in

sharp contrast to what was regarded as corrupt and irreligious England.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

By the middle of the 18th century the wave of American expansion was

beginning to top the Appalachian rise and move into the valley of the Ohio.

Colonial land companies looked covetously to that frontier. The French,

foreseeing a serious threat to their fur trade with the Indians, acted

decisively. In 1749 they sent an expedition to reinforce their claim to the

Ohio Valley and subsequently established a string of forts there. The British

and the colonists were forced to respond to the move or suffer the loss of

the vast interior, long claimed by both British and French. The French and

Indian War (1754-63) that resulted became a worldwide conflict, called the

SEVEN YEARS' WAR in Europe. At its end, the British had taken over most of

France's colonial empire as well as Spanish Florida and had become dominant

in North America except for Spain's possessions west of the Mississippi

River.

Rising Tensions

A delirious pride over the victory swept the colonies and equaled that of the

British at home. Outbursts of patriotic celebration and cries of loyalty to

the crown infused the Americans. The tremendous cost of the war itself and

the huge responsibility accompanying the new possessions, however, left

Britain with an immense war debt and heavy administrative costs. At the same

time the elimination of French rule in North America lifted the burden of

fear of that power from the colonists, inducing them to be more independent-

minded. The war effort itself had contributed to a new sense of pride and

confidence in their own military prowess. In addition, the rapid growth rate

of the mid-18th century had compelled colonial governments to become far more

active than that of old, established England. Because most male colonists

possessed property and the right to vote, the result was the emergence of a

turbulent world of democratic politics.

London authorities attempted to meet the costs of imperial administration by

levying a tax on the colonials; the STAMP ACT of 1765 required a tax on all

public documents, newspapers, notes and bonds, and almost every other printed

paper. A raging controversy that brought business practically to a standstill

erupted in the colonies. A Stamp Act Congress, a gathering of representatives

from nine colonies, met in New York in October 1765 to issue a solemn

protest. It held that the colonials possessed the same rights and liberties

as did the British at home, among which was the principle that "no taxes be

imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their

representatives." In March 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act; it passed

the Declaratory Act, asserting its complete sovereignty over the colonies.

Thereafter the transatlantic controversy was rarely quiet. The colonists

regarded the standing army of about 6,000 troops maintained by London in the

colonies after 1763 with great suspicion--such a peacetime force had never

been present before. British authorities defended the force as necessary to

preserve peace on the frontier, especially after PONTIAC'S REBELLION (1763-

65), which had been launched by the brilliant Indian leader Pontiac to expel

the British from the interior and restore French rule. In another attempt to

quell Indian unrest, London established the Proclamation Line of 1763. Set

along the crest of the Appalachians, the line represented a limit imposed on

colonial movement west until a more effective Indian program could be

developed. The colonists were much angered by the prohibition. Historical

memories of the use of standing armies by European kings to override liberty

caused widespread suspicion among the colonists that the soldiers stationed

on the Line of 1763 were to be employed not against the Indians, but against

the colonials themselves should they prove difficult to govern.

Indeed, for many years colonists had been reading the radical British press,

which argued the existence of a Tory plot in England to crush liberty

throughout the empire. Surviving from the English Civil War of the previous

century was a profound distrust of monarchy among a small fringe of radical

members of Britain's Whig party, primarily Scots and Irish and English

Dissenters--that is, Protestants who were not members of the Church of

England. As members of the minority out-groups in British life, they had

suffered many political and economic disadvantages. Radical Whigs insisted

that a corrupt network of Church of England bishops, great landlords, and

financiers had combined with the royal government to exploit the community at

large, and that--frightened of criticism--this Tory conspiracy sought to

destroy liberty and freedom.

In the cultural politics of the British Empire, American colonists were also

an out-group; they bitterly resented the disdain and derision shown them by

the metropolitan English. Furthermore, most free colonists were either

Dissenters (the Congregationalists in New England and the Presbyterians and

Baptists in New York and the South); or non-English peoples with ancient

reasons for hating the English (the Scots-Irish); or outsiders in a British-

dominated society (Germans and Dutch); or slaveowners sharply conscious of

the distaste with which they were regarded by the British at home.

A divisive controversy racked the colonies in the mid-18th century concerning

the privileges of the Church of England. Many believed in the existence of an

Anglican plot against religious liberty. In New England it was widely

asserted that the colonial tie to immoral, affluent, Anglican-dominated

Britain was endangering the soul of America. Many southerners also

disapproved of the ostentatious plantation living that grew out of the

tobacco trade--as well as the widespread bankruptcies resulting from dropping

tobacco prices--and urged separation from Britain.

The current ideology among many colonists was that of republicanism. The

radicalism of the 18th century, it called for grounding government in the

people, giving them the vote, holding frequent elections, abolishing

established churches, and separating the powers of government to guard

against tyranny. Republicans also advocated that most offices be elective and

that government be kept simple, limited, and respectful of the rights of

citizens.

Deterioration of Imperial Ties

In this prickly atmosphere London's heavy-handedness caused angry reactions

on the part of Americans. The Quartering Act of 1765 ordered colonial

assemblies to house the standing army; to override the resulting protests in

America, London suspended the New York assembly until it capitulated. In 1767

the TOWNSHEND ACTS levied tariffs on many articles imported into the

colonies. These imports were designed to raise funds to pay wages to the army

as well as to the royal governors and judges, who had formerly been dependent

on colonial assemblies for their salaries. Nonimportation associations

immediately sprang up in the colonies to boycott British goods. When mob

attacks prevented commissioners from enforcing the revenue laws, part of the

army was placed (1768) in Boston to protect the commissioners. This action

confirmed the colonists' suspicion that the troops were maintained in the

colonies to deprive them of their liberty. In March 1770 a group of soldiers

fired into a crowd that was harassing them, killing five persons; news of the

BOSTON MASSACRE spread through the colonies.

The chastened ministry in London now repealed all the Townshend duties except

for that on tea. Nonetheless, the economic centralization long reflected in

the NAVIGATION ACTS--which compelled much of the colonial trade to pass

through Britain on its way to the European continent--served to remind

colonials of the heavy price exacted from them for membership in the empire.

The Sugar Act of 1764, latest in a long line of such restrictive measures,

produced by its taxes a huge revenue for the crown. By 1776 it drained from

the colonies about 600,000 pounds sterling, an enormous sum. The colonial

balance of trade with England was always unfavorable for the Americans, who

found it difficult to retain enough cash to purchase necessary goods.

In 1772 the crown, having earlier declared its right to dismiss colonial

judges at its pleasure, stated its intention to pay directly the salaries of

governors and judges in Massachusetts. Samuel ADAMS, for many years a

passionate republican, immediately created the intercolonial Committee of

Correspondence. Revolutionary sentiment mounted. In December 1773 swarms of

colonials disguised as Mohawks boarded recently arrived tea ships in Boston

harbor, flinging their cargo into the water. The furious royal government

responded to this BOSTON TEA PARTY by the so-called INTOLERABLE ACTS of 1774,

practically eliminating self-government in Massachusetts and closing Boston's

port.

Virginia moved to support Massachusetts by convening the First CONTINENTAL

CONGRESS in Philadelphia in the fall of 1774. It drew up declarations of

rights and grievances and called for nonimportation of British goods.

Colonial militia began drilling in the Massachusetts countryside. New

Englanders were convinced that they were soon to have their churches placed

under the jurisdiction of Anglican bishops. They believed, as well, that the

landowning British aristocracy was determined, through the levying of ruinous

taxes, to reduce the freeholding yeomanry of New England to the status of

tenants. The word "slavery" was constantly on their lips.

The War for Independence

In April 1775, Gen. Thomas GAGE in Boston was instructed to take the

offensive against the Massachusetts troublemakers, now declared traitors to

the crown. Charged with bringing an end to the training of militia and

gathering up all arms and ammunition in colonial hands, on April 19, Gage

sent a body of 800 soldiers to Concord to commandeer arms. On that day, the

Battles of LEXINGTON AND CONCORD took place, royal troops fled back to

Boston, and American campfires began burning around the city. The war of the

AMERICAN REVOLUTION had begun.

It soon became a world war, with England's European enemies gladly joining in

opposing England in order to gain revenge for past humiliations. British

forces were engaged in battle from the Caribbean and the American colonies to

the coasts of India. Furthermore, the United Colonies, as the Continental

Congress called the rebelling 13 colonies, were widely scattered in a huge

wilderness and were occupied by a people most of whom were in arms. The

dispersion of the American population meant that the small (by modern

standards) cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia could be taken and

held for long periods without affecting the outcome.

LOYALISTS numbered about 60,000, living predominantly along the coast where

people of English ethnic background and anglicized culture were most

numerous, but they were widely separated and weak. Pennsylvania's Quakers had

looked to the crown as their protector against the Scots-Irish and other

militant groups in Pennsylvania. The Quakers were appalled at the rebellion,

aggressively led in the Middle Colonies by the Presbyterian Scots-Irish, and

refused to lend it support. London deluded itself, however, with the belief

that the Loyalists represented a majority that would soon resume control and

end the conflict.

Within a brief period after the Battle of Concord, practically all royal

authority disappeared from the 13 colonies. Rebel governments were

established in each colony, and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia

provided a rudimentary national government. The task now before the British

was to fight their way back onto the continent, reestablish royal governments

in each colony, and defeat the colonial army. By March 1776 the British

evacuated Boston, moving to take and hold New York City. Within days of the

British arrival in New York, however, the Congress in Philadelphia issued

(July 4) the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. In December 1776, Gen. George

WASHINGTON reversed the early trend of American defeats by a stunning victory

at Trenton, N.J. (see TRENTON, BATTLE OF). Thereafter, as the fighting wore

on and the cause survived, Washington became in America and abroad a symbol

of strength and great bravery.

In February 1778 the French joined the conflict by signing an alliance with

the Continental Congress. With the aid of the French fleet the British army

in the north was reduced to a bridgehead at New York City. Shifting its

efforts to the south, the royal army campaigned through Georgia and the

Carolinas between 1778 and 1780, marching to the James Peninsula, in

Virginia, in 1781. Here, in the YORKTOWN CAMPAIGN, by the combined efforts of

Washington's troops and the French army and navy, Lord CORNWALLIS was forced

to surrender on Oct. 19, 1781. The fighting, effectively, was over. In

September 1783 the Treaty of Paris secured American independence on generous

terms. The new nation was given an immense domain that ran westward to the

Mississippi River (except for Britain's Canadian colonies and East and West

Florida, which reverted to Spanish rule).

A NEW NATION

The first federal constitution of the new American republic was the ARTICLES

OF CONFEDERATION. With ratification of that document in 1781, the nation had

adopted its formal name, the United States of America.

Government under the Articles of Confederation

Under the Articles the only national institution was the Confederation

Congress, with limited powers not unlike those of the United Nations. The

states retained their sovereignty, with each state government selecting

representatives to sit in the Congress. No national executive or judiciary

had been established. Each state delegation received an equal vote on all

issues. Congress was charged with carrying on the foreign relations of the

United States, but because it had no taxing powers (it could only request

funds from the states), it had no strength to back up its diplomacy. In

addition, it had no jurisdiction over interstate commerce; each state could

erect tariffs against its neighbors.

The Confederation Congress, however, achieved one great victory: it succeeded

in bringing all 13 of the states to agree on a plan for organizing and

governing the western territories (the "public lands") beyond the

Appalachians. Each state ceded its western claims to the Congress, which in

three ordinances dealing with the Northwest (1784, 1785, and 1787) provided

that new states established in the western regions would be equal in status

to the older ones. After a territorial stage of quasi self-government, they

would pass to full statehood. The land in the NORTHWEST TERRITORY (the Old

Northwest, that is, the area north of the Ohio River) would be surveyed in

square parcels, 6 mi (9.7 km) on a side, divided into 36 sections, and sold

to settlers at low cost; one plot would be reserved for the support of public

schools. Furthermore, slavery was declared illegal in the Northwest

Territory. (The Southwest Territory, below the Ohio, was organized by the

later federal Congress in 1790 as slave country.)

The Confederation Congress, however, did not survive. Because of its lack of

taxing power, its currency was of little value; widespread social turbulence

in the separate states led many Americans to despair of the new nation. The

republic--regarded as a highly precarious form of government in a world of

monarchies--was founded with the conviction that the people would exercise

the virtue and self-denial required under self- government. Soon, however,

that assumption seemed widely discredited. SHAYS'S REBELLION in Massachusetts

(1786-87) was an attempt to aid debtors by forcibly closing the court system;

mobs terrorized legislators and judges to achieve this end. The new state

legislatures, which had assumed all powers when royal governors were

expelled, confiscated property, overturned judicial decisions, issued floods

of unsecured paper money, and enacted torrents of legislation, some of it ex

post facto (effective retroactively).

The established social and political elite (as distinct from the rough new

antiauthoritarian politicians who had begun to invade the state legislatures,

talking aggressively of "democracy" and "liberty") urgently asserted the need

for a strong national government. The influence that the London authorities

had formerly provided as a balance to local government was absent. Minorities

that had been protected by the crown, such as the Baptists in Massachusetts

and the Quakers in Pennsylvania, were now defenseless. The wealthy classes

maintained that they were at the mercy of the masses. The new United States

was so weak that it was regarded contemptuously all over the world and its

diplomats ignored.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787

A chain of meetings, beginning with one between Virginia and Maryland in 1786

to solve mutual commercial problems and including the larger ANNAPOLIS

CONVENTION later that year, led to the CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION in

Philadelphia in 1787. Deciding to start afresh and fashion a new national

government independent of, and superior to, the states, the delegates made a

crucial decision: the nation's source of sovereignty was to lie in the people

directly, not in the existing states. Using the British Parliament as a

model, they provided for a CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES that would have two

houses to check and balance one another. One house would be elected directly

by the people of each state, with representation proportionate to population;

the other would provide equal representation for each state (two senators

each), to be chosen by the state legislatures.

The powers of the national government were to be those previously exercised

by London: regulation of interstate and foreign commerce, foreign affairs and

defense, and Indian affairs; control of the national domain; and promotion of

"the general welfare." Most important, the Congress was empowered to levy

"taxes, duties, imposts, and excises." The states were prohibited from

carrying on foreign relations, coining money, passing ex post facto laws,

impairing the obligations of contracts, and establishing tariffs.

Furthermore, if social turbulence within a state became serious, the federal

government, following invitation by the legislature or the executive of that

state, could bring in troops to insure "a republican form of government."

A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES with powers much like those of the British

king, except that the office would be elective, was created. Chosen by a

special body (an ELECTORAL COLLEGE), the president would be an independent

and powerful national leader, effectively in command of the government.

Recalling the assaults on judicial power that had been rampant in the states,

the Constitutional Convention also created a fully independent SUPREME COURT

OF THE UNITED STATES, members of which could be removed only if they

committed a crime. Then, most important, the document that was drawn up at

Philadelphia stated that the Constitution, as well as laws and treaties made

under the authority of the U.S. government, "shall be the supreme Law of the

Land."

The proposed constitution was to be ratified by specially elected ratifying

conventions in each state and to become operative after nine states had

ratified it. In the national debate that arose over ratification, ANTI-

FEDERALISTS opposed the concentration of power in the national government

under the document; a key question was the absence of a BILL OF RIGHTS. Many

Americans thought that a bill of rights was necessary to preserve individual

liberties, and to accommodate this view proponents of the Constitution

promised to add such a bill to the document after ratification. With the

clear understanding that amendments would be added, ratification by nine

states was completed (1788) and the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES became

operative. The Bill of Rights was then drafted by the first Congress and

became the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Diverging Visions of the American Republic

In the first elections for the new federal Congress (1789), those favoring

the new system won a huge majority. George Washington was unanimously elected

to be chief executive, the only president so honored. He was inaugurated in

the temporary capital, New York City, on Apr. 30, 1789. The American

experiment in republican self-government now began again. The unanimity

expressed in Washington's election would prove short- lived.

Under the leadership of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander HAMILTON,

Congress pledged (1790) the revenues of the federal government to pay off all

the outstanding debt of the old Articles of Confederation government as well

as the state debts. Much of the domestic debt was in currency that had badly

depreciated in value, but Congress agreed to fund it at its higher face

value; at one stroke, the financial credit of the new government was assured.

Southerners, however, mistrusted the plan, claiming that it served only to

enrich northern speculators because the southern states had largely paid off

their debts. Many southerners feared, too, that the new nation would be

dominated by New Englanders, whose criticism of southern slavery and living

styles offended them. Before assenting to the funding proposal, the

southerners had obtained agreement that the national capital (after 10 years

in Philadelphia) would be placed in the South, on the Potomac River.

In 1791, Hamilton persuaded Congress to charter the BANK OF THE UNITED

STATES, modeled after the Bank of England. Primarily private (some of its

trustees would be federally appointed), it would receive and hold the

government's revenues, issue currency and regulate that of state-chartered

banks, and be free to invest as it saw fit the federal tax moneys in its

vaults. Because it would control the largest pool of capital in the country,

it could shape the growth of the national economy. Hamilton also proposed

(with limited success) that protective tariffs be established to exclude

foreign goods and thus stimulate the development of U.S. factories. In short,

he laid out the economic philosophy of what became the FEDERALIST PARTY: that

the government should actively encourage economic growth by providing aid to

capitalists. Flourishing cities and a vigorous industrial order: this was the

American future he envisioned. His strongly nationalist position gained the

support of the elites in New York City and Philadelphia as well as broad-

based support among the Yankees of New England.

On the other hand, southerners, a rural and widely dispersed people, feared

the cities and the power of remote bankers. With Thomas JEFFERSON they worked

to counteract the Federalists' anglicized vision of the United States.

Southerners rejected the concept of an active government, preferring one

committed to laissez-faire (that is, allowing people to act without

government interference) in all areas--economic and cultural. Jefferson

declared that close ties between government and capitalists would inevitably

lead to corruption and exploitation. In his view, behind-the-scene schemers

would use graft to secure special advantages (tariffs, bounties, and the

like) that would allow them to profiteer at the community's expense.

The Middle Atlantic states at first supported the nationalistic Federalists,

who won a second term for Washington in 1792 and elected John ADAMS to the

presidency in 1796. However, many of the Scots-Irish, Germans, and Dutch in

these states disliked Yankees and distrusted financiers and business

proprietors. The growing working class in Philadelphia and New York City

turned against the Federalists' elitism. By 1800 the ethnic minorities of the

Middle Atlantic states helped swing that region behind Jefferson, a

Virginian, and his Democratic-Republican party, giving the presidency to

Jefferson. Thereafter, until 1860, with few intermissions, the South and the

Middle Atlantic states together dominated the federal government. Although

the U.S. Constitution had made no mention of POLITICAL PARTIES, it had taken

only a decade for the development of a party system that roughly reflected

two diverging visions for the new republic. Political parties would remain an

integral part of the American system of government.

During the 1790s, however, foreign affairs became dominant, and dreams of

republican simplicity and quietude were dashed. A long series of wars between

Britain and Revolutionary France began in that decade, and the Americans were

inevitably pulled into the fray. By JAY'S TREATY (1794) the United States

reluctantly agreed to British wartime confiscation of U.S. ship cargoes,

alleged to be contraband, in return for British evacuation of western forts

on American soil and the opening of the British West Indies to U.S. vessels.

Under John Adams, similar depredations by the French navy against American

trading ships led to the Quasi-War (1798-1801) on the high seas. Federalist

hysteria over alleged French-inspired subversion produced the ALIEN AND

SEDITION ACTS (1798), which sought to crush all criticism of the government.

The Democratic Republic

As president, Jefferson attempted to implement the Democratic- Republican

vision of America; he cut back the central government's activities, reducing

the size of the court system, letting excise taxes lapse, and contracting the

military forces. Paradoxically, in what was perhaps Jefferson's greatest

achievement as president, he vastly increased the scope of U.S. power: the

securing of the LOUISIANA PURCHASE (1803) from France practically doubled

American territory, placing the western boundary of the United States along

the base of the Rocky Mountains.

In 1811, under Jefferson's successor, James MADISON, the 20- year charter of

the Bank of the United States was allowed to lapse, further eroding the

Federalists' nationalist program. Renewed warfare between Britain and France,

during which American foreign trade was progressively throttled down almost

to nothing, led eventually to the WAR OF 1812. The British insisted on the

right freely to commandeer U.S. cargoes as contraband and to impress American

sailors into their navy. To many Americans the republic seemed in grave

peril.

With reluctance and against unanimous Federalist opposition, Congress made

the decision to go to war against Britain. Except for some initial naval

victories, the war went badly for the Americans. Western Indians, under the

gifted TECUMSEH, fought on the British side. In 1814, however, an invading

army from Canada was repelled. Then, just as a peace treaty was being

concluded in Ghent (Belgium), Andrew JACKSON crushed another invading British

army as it sought to take New Orleans. The war thus ended on a triumphant

note, and the republic was confirmed. The Federalists, who in the HARTFORD

CONVENTION (in Connecticut, 1814) had capped their opposition to the war with

demands for major changes in the Constitution, now were regarded as disloyal,

and their party dwindled down to a base in New England and in the 1820s

dissolved. Robbed of their enemy, Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans broke

into factions, effectively disappearing as a national party.

AN AGE OF BOUNDLESSNESS: 1815-50

The volatile and expansive years from 1815 to 1850 were, in many ways, an age

of boundlessness when limits that had previously curbed human aspirations

seemed to disappear.

Economic and Cultural Ferment

After 1815 the American economy began to expand rapidly. The cotton boom in

the South spread settlement swiftly across the Gulf Plains: the Deep South

was born. Farmers also moved into the Lake Plains north of the Ohio River,

their migration greatly accelerating after the completion of the ERIE CANAL

in 1825. Practically all Indians east of the Mississippi were placed on small

reservations or forced to move to the Great Plains beyond the Missouri River.

Canals and railroads opened the interior to swift expansion, of both

settlement and trade. In the Midwest many new cities, such as Chicago,

appeared, as enormous empires of wheat and livestock farms came into being.

From 1815 to 1850 a new western state entered the Union, on the average,

every two and one-half years.

The westward movement of the FRONTIER was matched in the Northeast by rapid

economic development. National productivity surged during the 1820s; prices

spurted to a peak during the 1830s and dropped for a time during the 1840s;

both prices and productivity soared upward again during the 1850s, reaching

new heights. A business cycle had appeared, producing periods of boom and

bust, and the factory system became well developed. After the GOLD RUSH that

began in California in 1848-49, industrial development was further stimulated

during the 1850s by the arrival of $500 million in gold and silver from the

Sierra Nevada and other western regions. A willingness to take risks formerly

thought wildly imprudent became a national virtue. Land values rose, and

hundreds of new communities appeared in the western states.

Meanwhile, property tests for voting were disappearing, white manhood

suffrage became the rule, and most offices were made elective. A

communications revolution centering in the inexpensive newspaper and in a

national fascination with mass education (except in the South) sent literacy

rates soaring. The Second Great Awakening (1787-1825), a new religious

revival that originated in New England, spread an evangelical excitement

across the country. In its wake a ferment of social reform swept the northern

states. The slave system of the South spread westward as rapidly as the free

labor system of the North, and during the 1830s ABOLITIONISTS mounted a

crusade to hammer at the evils of slavery.

Expansion of the American Domain

The years 1815-50 brought further expansion of the national domain. In the

Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the 49th parallel was established as the

border between Canada and the United States from the Lake of the Woods to the

Rockies, and in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded Florida and its

claims in the Oregon Country to the United States. During the 1840s a sense

of MANIFEST DESTINY seized the American mind (although many individuals,

especially in New England, were more restrained in their thinking).

Continent-wide expansion seemed inevitable. Texas, which had declared its

independence from Mexico in 1835-36 (see TEXAS REVOLUTION), was annexed in

1845. Then a dispute with Mexico concerning the Rio Grande as the border of

Texas led to the MEXICAN WAR (1846-48). While U.S. armies invaded the

heartland of Mexico to gain victory, other forces sliced off the northern

half of that country--the provinces of New Mexico and Alta California. In the

Treaty of GUADALUPE HIDALGO (1848), $15 million was paid for the Mexican

cession of those provinces, more than 3 million sq km (roughly 1 million sq

m).

In 1846, Britain and the United States settled the OREGON QUESTION,

concluding a treaty that divided the Oregon Country at the 49th parallel and

bringing the Pacific Northwest into the American nation. In addition, by the

GADSDEN PURCHASE of 1853 the United States acquired (for $10 million) the

southern portions of the present states of New Mexico and Arizona. By 1860

the Union comprised 33 states, packed solid through the first rank beyond the

Mississippi and reaching westward to include Texas, as well as California and

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