American Revolution
The presentation of the Declaration of Independence. Three of the men standing are John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
After the French and Indian War, the colonists began to think that they were not getting their "rights as freeborn Englishman". This meant they wanted to be treated fairly by the English government. This was mainly caused by new taxes the British made the colonies pay to pay for the war.Americans called this "No taxation without representation", meaning that the colonists should not have to pay taxes unless they had votes in the British Parliament. Each tax was disliked, and replaced by another which led to more unity between the colonies. In 1770, colonists in Boston known as the Sons of Liberty got in a fight with British soldiers. This became known as the Boston Massacre. After the Tea Act, the Sons of Liberty dumped hundreds of boxes of tea in a river. This was known as the Boston Tea Party (1773). This led to the British Army taking over Boston. After that, leaders of the 13 colonies formed a group called the Continental Congress. Many people were members of the Continental Congress, but some of the more important ones were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Roger Sherman and John Jay.
In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense. It argued that the colonies should be free of English rule. This was based on the English ideas of natural rights and social contract put forth by John Locke and others. On July 4, 1776, people from 13 colonies agreed to the United States Declaration of Independence. This said that they were free and independent states, and were not part of England any more. The colonists were already fighting Britain in the Revolutionary War at this time. The Revolutionary War started in 1775 at Lexington and Concord. Though American soldiers under George Washington lost many battles to the British, they won a major victory at Saratoga in 1777. This led to France and Spain joining the war on the side of the Americans. In 1781, an American victory at Yorktown helped by the French led Britain to decide to stop fighting and give up the colonies. America had won the war and its independence.
The Federal period (1781–1815)
See also: United States Constitution and War of 1812In 1781, the colonies formed a confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation, but it lasted only six years. It gave almost all the power to the states and very little to the central government. The confederation had no president. It could not remove Native Americans or the British from the frontier, nor could it stop mob uprisings such as Shays' Rebellion. After Shays' Rebellion, many people thought the Articles of Confederation were not working.
The United States Constitution
Some states agreed to the Constitution very quickly. In other states, many people did not like the Constitution because it gave more power to the central government and had no bill of rights.To try and get the Constitution passed, Madison, Hamilton and Jay wrote a series of newspaper articles called the Federalist Papers. Very soon after, the Bill of Rights was added. This was a set of 10 amendments (changes), that limited the government's power and guaranteed rights to the citizens. Like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution is a social contract between the people and the government. The main idea of the Constitution is that the government is a representative democracy elected by the people, who all have the same rights. However, this was not true at first, when only white males who owned property could vote. Because of state laws as well as the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments, almost all American citizens who are at least 18 years old can vote today.
In 1789, Washington was elected the first President. He defined how a person should act as President and retired after two terms. During Washington's term, there was a Whiskey Rebellion, where country farmers tried to stop the government from collecting taxes on whiskey. In 1795, Congress passed the Jay Treaty, which allowed for increased trade with Britain in exchange for the British giving up their forts on the Great Lakes. However, Great Britain was still doing things that hurt the U.S., such as impressment (making American sailors join the British Royal Navy).
John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1796 to become the second President of the United States. This was the first American election that was between two political parties.[47] As president, Adams made the army and navy larger. He also got laws passed to stop people and newspapers from saying bad things about him. These were included within the Alien and Sedition Acts.
In the election of 1800, Jefferson defeated Adams. One of the most important things he did as President was to make the Louisiana Purchase from France, which made the United States twice as big. Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to map the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson also tried to stop trade with England and France so that the United States would not become involved in a war the two countries were fighting. Fighting broke out between the United States and England in 1812 when James Madison was President. This was called the War of 1812.
Expansion, industrialization and slavery (1815–1861)
One of the problems of this period was slavery. By 1861, over three million African-Americans were slaves in the South. This means that they worked for other people, but had no freedom and received no money for their work. Most worked picking cotton on large plantations. Only a few white people in the South owned plantations. Most white people in the South owned no slaves at all. Cotton became the main crop in the South after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793.There were a few slave rebellions against slavery, including one led by Nat Turner. All of these rebellions failed. The South wanted to keep slavery, but by the time of the Civil War, many people in the North wanted to end it. Another argument between the North and South was about the role of government. The South wanted stronger state governments, but the North wanted a stronger central government.
James Monroe made Americans feel that it was the "era of good feelings"
The Erie Canal
After the War of 1812 the Federalist Party faded away, leaving an "Era of Good Feelings" in which only one party was important, under Presidents James Madison and James Monroe.[58] Under Monroe, the United States' policy in North America was the Monroe Doctrine, which suggested that Europe should stop trying to control the United States and other independent countries in the Americas. Around this time, Congress called for something called the "American System".The American System meant spending money on banking, transportation and communication. Due to the American System, bigger cities and more factories were built. One of the big transportation projects of this time was the Erie Canal, a canal in the state of New York. By the 1840s, railroads were built as well as canals. By 1860, thousands of miles of railroads and telegraph lines had been built in the United States, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
In the early 19th century, the industrial revolution came to America. Many factories were built in Northern cities such as Lowell, Massachusetts. Most of them made clothes. Many factory workers were women, and some were children or people from Ireland or Germany. Despite this industrialization, America was still a nation of farmers.
Francis Preston Blair founded the Republican Party to help free slaves
In the early and mid-1800s, there was a religious movement called the Second Great Awakening. Thousands of people gathered at large religious meetings called revivals. They thought they could bring about a Golden Age in America through religion. New religious movements such as the Holiness Movement and the Mormons started, and groups like the Methodist Church grew. The Second Great Awakening led to two movements in reform, that is, changing laws and behaviors to make society better. One of these was the Temperance Movement, which believed that drinking alcohol was evil. The other was abolitionism, which tried to end slavery. People such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison wrote books and newspapers saying that slavery should stop. They also formed political movements, which included the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party and the Republican Party. Some abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, were former slaves. By 1820, slavery was very rare in the North, but continued in the South.
In the 19th century, there was something called the “cult of domesticity” for many American women. This meant that most married women were expected to stay in the home and raise children. As in other countries, American wives were very much under the control of their husband, and had almost no rights. Women who were not married had only a few jobs open to them, such as working in clothing factories and serving as maids. By the 19th century, women such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton thought that women should have more rights. In 1848, many of these women met and agreed to fight for more rights for women, including voting. Many of the women involved in the movement for women’s rights were also involved in the movement to end slavery.
Jackson was the first Democratic President
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected President. He was the first president elected from the Democratic Party. He changed the government in many ways. Since many of his supporters were poor people who had not voted before, he rewarded them with government jobs, which is called "spoils" or "patronage". Because of Jackson, a new party was formed to run against him called the Whigs. This was called the “Second Party System”. Jackson was very much against the National Bank. He saw it as a symbol of Whigs and of powerful American businessmen. Jackson also called for a high import tax that the South did not like. They called it the "Tariff of Abominations". Jackson’s Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, was from the South. He wrote that the South should stop the tariff and perhaps leave the Union (secession). These words would be used again during the Civil War.
People started to move west of the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains at this time. The first people who moved west were people who caught and sold animal skins such as John Colter and Jim Bridger. By the 1840s, many people were moving to Oregon by wagon, and even more people went west after the California Gold Rush of 1849. Many new states were added to the first thirteen, mostly in the Midwest and South before the Civil War and in the West after the Civil War. During this period, Native Americans lost much of their land. They had lost military battles to the Americans at Tippecanoe and in the Seminole War. In the 1830s, Indians were being pushed out of the Midwest and South by events such as the Trail of Tears and the Black Hawk War. By the 1840s, most Native Americans had been moved west of the Mississippi River.
The Mexican–American War
The Alamo was the site of a battle between Texans and Mexicans in 1836.
In 1845, Texas, which was a nation after it left Mexico, joined the United States. Mexico did not like this, and the Americans wanted land Mexico had on the West Coast (“Manifest Destiny”).This led to the U.S. and Mexico fighting a war called the Mexican-American War. During the war, the U.S captured the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Monterrey, Veracruz and Mexico City. As a result of the war, the U.S. gained land in California and much of the American Southwest. Many people in the North did not like this war, because they thought it was just good for Southern slave states.
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