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¶ … United States History
On April 19, 1775, a detachment of the British regular Army marched inland from Boston, Massachusetts, in search of a cache of arms and with orders to arrest certain prominent local leaders. At Lexington, they confronted and fired upon a small group of local militia, who had gathered on the town common, or "green." Further along their line of march, they confronted a much larger group of militia at a bridge in Concord, and were turned back. Retreating to Boston, the British soldiers were subjected to continual sniper attacks. The Battle of Lexington and Concord, coming after a dozen years of escalating political conflict between the colonies and the British Parliament, marked the beginning of the American Revolution.
On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, with representatives from thirteen of the British colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America, began meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Congress immediately began to organize a federal government for the thirteen associated colonies, taking over governmental functions previously exercised by the King and Parliament of Great Britain, and directed the several States to prepare State constitutions for their own governance. The Congress appointed George Washington to head a Continental Army, and dispatched him to Boston, where the local militia was besieging a British Army.
After a year...
The drafting of the Declaration was the responsibility of a committee of five, which included, among others, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, but the style of the document is attributed primarily to Thomas Jefferson. However, Jefferson's work was reviewed by Franklin at length and then submitted to the Congress where numerous changes were made, including the exclusion of his charges against George III regarding slavery.
With the help of an alliance with France, the United States (U.S.) were eventually able to win the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain, settled by the Treaty of Paris, which endowed the new country with a great wilderness empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River, and including the southern Great Lakes region.
In the aftermath of war, economic depression and the weakness of political institutions troubled the young country. The Second Continental Congress continued to act as a federal government, formalizing its own status by the Articles of Confederation, proposed and put into effect in 1778, but not fully ratified until 1781. The Articles of Confederation outlined the governance of a permanent federation of States, without fully clarifying whether the United States was to be a nation-state or a mere league of States, acting…
The diversity of the new nation was also a formidable obstacle to unity. The people who were empowered by the Constitution in the 18th century to elect and control their central government represented different origins, beliefs, and interests. Most had come from Britain, but Sweden, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Prussia, Poland, and many other countries also sent immigrants to the New World. Their religious beliefs were varied and, in most cases, strongly held. There were Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Huguenots, Lutherans, Quakers, Jews, and many more. Economically and socially, Americans ranged from the land-owning aristocracy to slaves from Africa and indentured servants working off debts.
Of all the issues confronting the Constitutional Convention, none was more contentious than the issue of slavery. There had already started to develop a divergence between North and South, based on economic realities. Southern landowners were unwilling to relinquish their prerogatives over the slaves and a compromise was finally reached which prevented Congress from banning the import of slaves before 1808. In that year, Congress acted to ban further imports, and any new slaves would have to be descendants of ones that were currently in the U.S.
Two other issues that confronted the early Americans were the fiscal policies, proposed by Alexander Hamilton, and the location of the new capital of the U.S. Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, was frustrated in his attempts to gain acceptance from southern leaders for one the key provisions of his fiscal proposal, assumption of state debts by the federal government, which would doom all his efforts for fiscal reform. A compromise was reached with James Madison during a dinner that took place on the evening of June 20, 1790, in which "Jefferson
United States History Up to 1877 The work of literature examined within this analytical book review is entitled Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. It is written by John Demos who is a professor of history at Brandeis University. Demos is largely regarded as "one of the pioneers in this field" (Rakove, 1992) and that which is based on the 17th century witchcraft phenomenon. Demos' purpose in
Market in Early Republic James Henretta is a history professor for the University of Maryland. In his article about the market in the early republic, Henretta (1998) outlines the structure of the market during that time period. He opens by pointing out that at the time there were two competing views of what the market should look like. One view, that of Hamilton and the Federalist party, was to "use the
Conservative American Presidents The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss the return to conservatism in the American presidency after the 1980s. It will compare the similarities to earlier periods in the 19th and 20th century, and discuss what relationship there is between this return to conservatism, and the continued struggle for U.S. military dominance and economic globalization. THE RETURN TO CONSERVATISM IN AMERICAN POLITICS The country emerged from World War
The Progressive Movement in the early twentieth century had a somewhat similar though less socialist-leaning agenda; regulation of business and the environment were major policies of Progressives. Theodore Roosevelt was the leading figure of the movement, along with Democrat William Jennings Bryant. In 1896, Bryant ran for President against McKinley in one of the most intense elections in United States history. Multiple parties and factions backed each candidate, and McKinley's
Reception, Perception and Deception: The Genesis of Slavery Progress has a way of making itself known to the world, even in a situation where there exists resistance. Considering Olaudah Equiano's "The Interesting Narrative, the issue of slavery throughout the colonial world was as much about assimilation as it was oppression. The conflict between cultures is shown in the nature of the cultural assumptions each makes concerning the other. The British are
Natural Resources in US History The study explores how the US has used the historical wealth of its natural resources to offer the country a strong and sustained economy for many decades. The USA is one of the greatest countries in the world, not just because of its superpower in terms of policing the entire globe, but also being with an extensive source and use of the natural resources. The country