Still, many prospered -- visitors such as Alexis de Tocqueville from France marveled at American's drive to acquire wealth, American faith and sociability, as well as the profound racial divisions that characterized American society. American society was poised in continual paradoxes -- religious yet money-hungry, disdainful of social hierarchies yet dependant upon oppressing or disenfranchising races to secure advancement of poorer whites. America was also land-hungry in a way that

noble savage..." etc. The Noble, Savage Age of Revolution When Europeans first came to America, they discovered that their providentially discovered "New World" was already inhabited by millions of native peoples they casually labeled the "savages." In time, Europeans would decimate this population, killing between 95-99% of the 12 million plus inhabitants of the Northern Continent, and as many in the south. Before this genocide was complete, however, the culture of

Aside from the practical considerations provided by the system which split the federal and local authorities, there was also the matter of the limitation of powers. In this sense, the central government was built in such a manner as to express the boundaries of the influence even the elected office representatives had on the particular issues concerning each state. Thus, the Congress and the House of Representatives were established and

Colonial America was a diverse hodge-podge of religious communities. The Quakers had been given Pennsylvania by William Penn, whose father had held ties with the King of England (Fantel). The Puritans were in New England. Baptists established themselves in the South. Catholics had been in the Northern territories and in the Southwest well before the Protestant surge, and they also established the first Catholic state in Maryland—before it was later

In a democratic society, however, the responsibility for making governmental decisions is transferred to the citizenry and it is incumbent that the citizenry be provided with at least a rudimentary education so that they are in position to make such decisions. Although the original U.S. Constitution did not initially grant women the right to vote and otherwise participate in the government, women were afforded, on a limited basis, to

The Injustice of the Indian Removal Act 1830 Introduction The Indian Removal Act signed by Andrew Jackson in 1830 was meant to establish peace in the nation and to give the Native Americans their own territory where they could practice their own activities, traditions and culture without interference from the American government. However, the Act resulted in the forced migration of thousands of Native Americans from their traditional homelands to a region