History of the USA

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The chastened ministry in London now repealed all the Townshend duties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

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