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Road to Independence

The principles of liberalism and democracy — the political foundation of the United
States — sprang naturally from the process of building a new society on virgin land.
Just as naturally, the new nation would see itself as different and exceptional. Europe
would view it with apprehension, or hope.

Britain’s 13 North American colonies matured during the 1700s. They grew in
population, economic strength, and cultural attainment. They were experienced in
self-government. Yet it was not until 170 years after the founding of the first
permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, that the new United States of America
emerged as a nation

War between Britain and France in the 1750s was fought partly in North America.
Britain was victorious and soon initiated policies designed to control and fund its vast
empire. These measures imposed greater restraints on the American colonists’ way of
life

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 restricted the opening of new lands for settlement.
The Sugar Act of 1764 placed taxes on luxury goods, including coffee, silk, and wine,
and made it illegal to import rum. The Currency Act of 1764 prohibited the printing of
paper money in the colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 forced colonists to provide
food and housing for royal troops. And the Stamp Act of 1765 required the purchase of
royal 12 stamps for all legal documents, newspapers, licenses, and leases

Colonists objected to all these measures, but the Stamp Act sparked the greatest
organized resistance. The main issue, in the eyes of a growing number of colonists, was
that they were being taxed by a distant legislature in which they could not participate.
In October 1765, 27 delegates from nine colonies met in New York to coordinate
efforts to get the Stamp Act repealed. They passed resolutions asserting the individual
colonies’ right to impose their own taxes

Self-government produced local political leaders, and these were the men who worked
together to defeat what they considered to be oppressive acts of Parliament. After
they succeeded, their coordinated campaign against Britain ended. During the next
several years, however, a small number of radicals tried to keep the controversy alive.
Their goal was not accommodation, but independence
Samuel Adams of Massachusetts was the most effective. He wrote newspaper articles
and made speeches appealing to the colonists’ democratic instincts. He helped
organize committees throughout the colonies that became the basis of a revolutionary
movement. By 1773, the movement had attracted colonial traders who were angry
with British attempts to regulate the tea trade. In December, a group of men sneaked
on to three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped their cargo of tea overboard.

To punish Massachusetts for the vandalism, the British Parliament closed the port of
Boston and restricted local authority. The new measures, dubbed the Intolerable Acts,
backfired. Rather than isolate one colony, they rallied the others. All the colonies
except Georgia sent representatives to Philadelphia in September 1774 to discuss their
“present unhappy state.” It was the first Continental Congress

Colonists felt a growing sense of frustration and anger over British encroachment on
their rights. Yet by no means was there unanimity of thought on what should be done.
Loyalists wanted to remain subjects of the king. Moderates favored compromise to
produce a more acceptable relationship with the British government. And
revolutionaries wanted complete independence. They began stockpiling weapons and
mobilizing forces — waiting for the day when they would have to fight for it
Revolution

The American Revolution — its war for independence from Britain — began as a small
skirmish between British troops and armed colonists on April 19, 1775. The British had
set out from Boston, Massachusetts, to seize weapons and ammunition that
revolutionary colonists had collected in nearby villages. At Lexington, they met a group
of Minutemen, who got that name because they were said to be ready to fight in a
minute. The Minutemen intended only a silent protest, and their leader told them not
to shoot unless fired on first. The British ordered the Minutemen to disperse, and they
complied. As they were withdrawing, someone fired a shot. The British troops attacked
the Minutemen with guns and bayonets

Fighting broke out at other places along the road as the British soldiers in their bright
red uniforms made their way back to Boston. More than 250 “redcoats” were killed or
wounded. The Americans lost 93 men

Deadly clashes continued around Boston as colonial representatives hurried to

Philadelphia to discuss the situation. A majority voted to go to war against Britain.
They agreed to combine colonial militias into a continental army, and they appointed
George Washington of Virginia as commanderin-chief. At the same time, however, this
Second Continental Congress adopted a peace resolution urging King George III to
prevent further hostilities. The king rejected it and on August 23 declared that the
American colonies were in rebellion

Calls for independence intensified in the coming months. Radical political theorist
Thomas Paine helped crystallize the argument for separation. In a pamphlet called
Common Sense, which sold 100,000 copies, he attacked the idea of a hereditary
monarchy. Paine presented two alternatives for America: continued submission under
a tyrannical king and outworn system of government, or liberty and happiness as a
selfsufficient, independent republic

The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee, headed by Thomas Jefferson

of Virginia, to prepare a document outlining the colonies’ grievances against the king
and explaining their decision to break away. This Declaration of Independence was
adopted on July 4, 1776. The 4th of July has since been celebrated as America’s
Independence Day
The Declaration of Independence not only announced the birth of a new nation. It also
set forth a philosophy of human freedom that would become a dynamic force
throughout the world. It drew upon French and British political ideas, especially those
of John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government, 21 reaffirming the belief that
political rights are basic human rights, and are thus universal

Declaring independence did not make Americans free. British forces routed continental
troops in New York, from Long Island to New York City. They defeated the Americans
at Brandywine, Pennsylvania, and occupied Philadelphia, forcing the Continental
Congress to flee. American forces were victorious at Saratoga, New York, and at
Trenton and Princeton in New Jersey. Yet George Washington continually struggled to
get the men and materials he desperately needed

Decisive help came in 1778, when France recognized the United States and signed a
bilateral defense treaty. Support from the French government, however, was based on
geopolitical, not ideological, reasons. France wanted to weaken the power of Britain,
its long-time adversary

The fighting that began at Lexington, Massachusetts, continued for eight years across a
large portion of the continent. Battles were fought from Montreal, Canada, in the
north to Savannah, Georgia, in the south. A huge British army surrendered at
Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, yet the war dragged on with inconclusive results for
another two years. A peace treaty was finally signed in Paris on April 15, 1783

. The Revolution had a significance far beyond North America. It attracted the attention
of Europe’s political theorists and strengthened the concept of natural rights
throughout 22 the Western world. It attracted notables such as Thaddeus Kosciusko,
Friedrich von Steuben, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who joined the revolution and
hoped to transfer its liberal ideas to their own countries.

The Treaty of Paris acknowledged the independence, freedom, and sovereignty of the
13 former American colonies, now states. The task of knitting them together into a
new nation lay ahead
Formation of a National Government

The 13 American colonies became the 13 United States of America in 1783, following
their war for independence from Britain. Before the war ended, they ratified a
framework for their common efforts. These Articles of Confederation provided for a
union, but an extremely loose and fragile one. George Washington called it a “rope of
sand.

There was no common currency; individual states still produced their own. There was
no national military force; many states still had their own armies and navies. There was
little centralized control over foreign policy; states negotiated directly with other
countries. And there was no national system for imposing and collecting taxes.

Disputes between Maryland and Virginia over navigation rights on the Potomac River,
which formed their common border, led to a conference of five states in Annapolis,
Maryland, in 1786. Alexander Hamilton, a delegate from New York, said that such
commercial issues were part of larger economic and political questions. What was
needed, he said, was a rethinking of the Confederation. He and the other delegates
proposed holding a convention to do just that. Support from Washington,
unquestionably the most trusted man in America, won over those who thought the idea
was too bold.

The gathering in Philadelphia in May 1787 was remarkable. The 55 delegates elected to
the convention had experience in colonial and state government. They were
knowledgeable in history, law, and political theory. Most were young, but the group
included the elderly Benjamin Franklin, who was nearing the end of an extraordinary
career of public service and scientific achievement. Two notable Americans were not
there: Thomas Jefferson was in Paris as American ambassador to France, and John
Adams was in London as ambassador to Great Britain.

The Continental Congress had authorized the convention to amend the Articles of
Confederation. Instead, the delegates threw aside the Articles — judging them
inadequate for the needs of the new nation — and devised a new form of government
based on the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. The gathering had
become a constitutional convention.

Reaching consensus on some of the details of a new constitution would prove

extremely difficult. Many delegates argued for a strong national government that
limited states’ rights. Others argued equally persuasively for a weak national
government that preserved state authority. Some delegates feared that Americans were
not wise enough to govern themselves and so opposed any sort of popular elections.
Others thought the national government should have as broad a popular base as
possible. Representatives from small states insisted on equal representation in a
national legislature. Those from big states thought they deserved to have more
influence . Representatives from states where slavery was illegal hoped to outlaw it.
Those from slave states rejected any attempts to do so. Some delegates wanted to limit
the number of states in the Union. Others supported statehood for the newly settled
lands to the West.

Every question raised new divisions, and each was resolved by compromise.

The draft Constitution was not a long document. Yet it provided the framework for the
most complex government yet devised. The national government would have full power
to issue currency, levy taxes, grant patents, conduct foreign policy, maintain an army,
establish post offices, and wage war. And it would have three equal branches — a
congress, a president, and a court system — with balanced powers and checks against
each other’s actions.

Economic interests influenced the course of debate on the document, but so did state,
sectional, and ideological interests. Also important was the idealism of the men who
wrote it. They believed they had designed a government that would promote individual
liberty and public virtue.

On September 17, 1787, after four months of deliberation, a majority of delegates

signed the new Constitution. They agreed it would become the law of the land when
nine of the 13 states had ratified it.

The ratification process lasted about a year. Opponents voiced fears that a strong
central government could become 27 tyrannical and oppressive. Proponents responded
that the system of checks and balances would prevent this from happening. The debate
brought into existence two factions: the Federalists, who favored a strong central
government and who supported the Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists, who favored
a loose association of states and who opposed the Constitution.

Even after the Constitution was ratified, many Americans felt it lacked an essential
element. They said it did not enumerate the rights of individuals. When the first
Congress met in New York City in September 1789, lawmakers agreed to add these
provisions. It took another two years before these 10 amendments — collectively
known as the Bill of Rights — became part of the Constitution.

The first of the 10 amendments guarantees freedom of speech, press, and religion; the
right to protest, assemble peacefully, and demand changes. The fourth protects against
unreasonable searches and arrest. The fifth provides for due process of law in all
criminal cases. The sixth guarantees the right to a fair and speedy trial. And the eighth
protects against cruel and unusual punishment.

Since the Bill of Rights was adopted more than 200 years ago, only 17 more
amendments have been added to the Constitution .
Early Years, Westward Expansion, and Regional Differences

George Washington was sworn in as the first president of the United States on April
30, 1789. He had been in charge of organizing an effective military force during the
Revolution. Now he was in charge of building a functioning government.

He worked with Congress to create departments of State, Treasury, Justice, and War.
The heads of those departments would serve as presidential advisors, his cabinet. A
Supreme Court composed of one chief justice and five associate justices was
established, together with three circuit courts and 13 district courts. Policies were
developed for administering the western territories and bringing them into the Union
as new states.

Washington served two four-year terms and then left office, setting a precedent that
eventually became law. The next two presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson,
represented two schools of thought on the role of government. This divergence led to
the formation of the first political parties in the Western world. The Federalists, led
by Adams and Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, generally
represented trade and manufacturing interests. They feared anarchy and believed in
a strong central government that could set national economic policies and maintain
order. They had the most 29 support in the North. Republicans, led by Jefferson,
generally represented agricultural interests. They opposed a strong central
government and believed in states’ rights and the selfsufficiency of farmers. They had
the most support in the South.

For about 20 years, the young nation was able to thrive in relative peace. Its policy
was to be friendly and impartial to all other nations. However, it was not immune
from political developments in Europe, particularly in Britain and France, which were
at war. The British navy seized American ships headed to France, and the French navy
seized American ships headed to Britain. Various diplomatic negotiations averted
hostilities during the 1790s and early 1800s, but it seemed only a matter of time
before the United States would have to defend its interests.

War with Britain came in 1812. Fighting took place mostly in the Northeastern states
and along the east coast. One British expeditionary force reached the new capital of
Washington, in the District of Columbia. It set fire to the executive mansion —
causing President James Madison to flee — and left the city in flames. But the U.S.
army and navy won enough decisive battles to claim victory. After two and a half
years of fighting, and with a treasury depleted by a separate war with France, Britain
signed a peace treaty with the United States. The U.S. victory ended once and for all
any British hopes of reestablishing influence south of the Canadian border.

By the time the War of 1812 ended, many of the serious difficulties faced by the new
American republic had disappeared. National union under the Constitution brought a
balance between liberty and order. A low national debt and a continent awaiting
exploration presented the prospect of peace, prosperity, and social progress. The
most significant event in foreign policy was a pronouncement by President James
Monroe expressing U.S. solidarity with the newly independent nations of Central and
South America. The Monroe Doctrine warned against any further attempts by Europe
to colonize Latin America. Many of the new nations, in turn, expressed their political
affinity with the United States by basing their constitutions on the North American
model.

The United States doubled in size with the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from
France in 1803 and Florida from Spain in 1819. From 1816 to 1821, six new states
were created. Between 1812 and 1852, the population tripled. The young nation’s
size and diversity defied easy generalization. It also invited contradiction.

The United States was a country of both civilized cities built on commerce and
industry, and primitive frontiers where the rule of law was often ignored. It was a
society that loved freedom but permitted slavery. The Constitution held all these
different parts together. The strains, however, were growin.
Sectional Conflict

The United States in 1850 was a huge nation stretched between two oceans. Wide
differences in geography, natural resources, and development were obvious from region
to region.

New England and the Middle Atlantic states were the main centers of finance,
commerce, and manufacturing. Principal products included textiles and clothing, lumber,
and machinery. Maritime trade flourished. The Southern states were chiefly agricultural,
producing tobacco, sugar, and cotton with slave labor. The Middle Western states were
agricultural, too, but their grain and meat products came from the hands of free men and
women.

In 1819, Missouri had applied for statehood. Northerners objected because there were
10,000 slaves there. Congressman Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed a compromise:
Missouri would enter the Union and continue to permit slavery, while 32 Maine would
enter as a free state.

Regional positions on the issue hardened in the decades following the Missouri
Compromise. In the North, the movement to abolish slavery was vocal and grew
increasingly powerful. In the South, the belief in white supremacy and in maintaining the
economic status quo was equally vocal and powerful. Although thousands of slaves
escaped north through a network of secret routes known as the Underground Railroad,
slaves still comprised a third of the population in the slave states at the time of the 1860
census.

Most Northerners were unwilling to challenge the existence of slavery in the South, yet
many opposed its expansion into the western territories. Southerners felt just as strongly
that the territories themselves had the right to decide their status. A young politician
from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, felt that the issue was a national, not local one. “A house
divided against itself cannot stand,” he said. “I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved … but I do
expect it will cease to be divided.”

In 1860, the Republican Party nominated Lincoln as its candidate for president on an
anti-slavery platform. In a fourman race, he won only 39 percent of the popular vote but
a clear majority of votes in the Electoral College. The Electoral College is the group of
citizens who directly elect the U.S. president, following the popular vote.
The storm that had been gathering for decades was about to explode with brutal force.
Southern states had threatened to leave the Union if Lincoln were elected; the secessions
started even before he was sworn in. It would be up to the new president to try to hold
the Union together

Civil War and Post-War Reconstruction

North and South went to war in April 1861. The Southern states had claimed the right
to secede and had formed their own Confederacy. Their forces fired the first shots . The
Northern states, under the leadership of President Lincoln, were determined to stop
the rebellion and preserve the Union.

The North had more than twice as many states and twice as many people. It had
abundant facilities for producing war supplies, as well as a superior railway network.
The South had more experienced military leaders and had the advantage of fighting
mostly on its own territory.

For four years, ground battles involving tens of thousands of soldiers and horses were
fought in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Georgia. Naval battles were
fought off the Atlantic coast and on the Mississippi River. In that area, Union forces
won an almost uninterrupted series of victories. In Virginia, by contrast, they met
defeat after defeat in their attempts to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital.

The single bloodiest day of the war was on September 17, 1862, when the two armies
met at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Confederate troops led by General
Robert E. Lee failed to force back the Union troops led by General George McClellan,
and Lee escaped with his army intact. McClellan was fired. Although the battle was
inconclusive in military terms, its consequences were enormous. Britain and France
had been planning to recognize the Confederacy. They delayed their decisions, and the
South never received the aid it desperately needed.

Several months later, President Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation

Proclamation. It freed all slaves living in Confederate states and authorized the
recruitment of African Americans into the Union army. Now the North was no longer
fighting just to preserve the Union. It was fighting to end slavery.

Union forces gained momentum in 1863 with victories at Vicksburg in Mississippi and
Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, and then with the scorched-earth policy of General
William T. Sherman as he marched across Georgia and into South Carolina in 1864. By
April 1865, huge Union armies under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant had
surrounded Robert E. Lee in Virginia. Lee surrendered, and the American Civil War was
over.

The terms of surrender were generous. “The rebels are our countrymen again,” Grant
reminded his troops. In Washington, President Lincoln was ready to begin the process
of 36 reconciliation. He never got the chance. Less than a week after the South
surrendered, he was assassinated by a Southerner embittered by the defeat. The task
would fall to Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson, a Southerner who favored
quick and easy “Reconstruction.

” Johnson issued pardons that restored the political rights of many Southerners. By the
end of 1865, almost all former Confederate states had held conventions to repeal the
acts of secession and to abolish slavery, but all except Tennessee refused to ratify a
constitutional amendment giving full citizenship to African Americans. As a result,
Republicans in Congress decided to implement their own version of Reconstruction.
They enacted punitive measures against former rebels and prevented former
Confederate leaders from holding office. They divided the South into five military
districts administered by Union generals. They denied voting rights to anyone who
refused to take a loyalty oath to the Union. And they strongly supported the rights of
African Americans. President Johnson tried to block many of these policies and was
impeached. The vote fell short, and he remained in office, but Congress would
continue to wield enormous power for the next 30 years.

The divisions and hatreds that had led to the Civil War did not disappear after the
fighting stopped. As Southern whites regained political power, Southern blacks
suffered. They had gained their freedom but were prevented from enjoying it by 37
local laws denying them access to many public facilities. They had gained the right to
vote but were intimidated at the polls. The South had become segregated and would
remain so for 100 years. The postwar Reconstruction process had begun with high
ideals but collapsed into a sinkhole of corruption and racism. Its failure deferred the
struggle for equality for African Americans until the 20th century, when it would
become a national, not just a Southern, issue.

Growth and Transformation

The United States came of age in the decades following the Civil War. The frontier
gradually vanished; a rural republic became an urban nation. Great factories, steel
mills, and transcontinental railroads were built. Cities grew quickly. And millions
of people arrived from other countries to begin new lives in a land of opportunity.

I
nventors harnessed the power of science. Alexander Graham Bell developed the
telephone. Thomas Edison produced the light bulb and, with George Eastman, the
moving picture. Before 1860, the government issued 36,000 patents. In the next
30 years, it issued 440,000.

It was an era of corporate consolidation, especially in the steel, rail, oil, and
telecommunications industries. Monopolies denied competition in the
marketplace, which led to calls for government regulation. A law was passed in
1890 to prevent monopolies from restraining trade, but it was not vigorously
enforced at first.

Even with the great gains in industry, farming remained America’s basic
occupation. Yet it, too, witnessed enormous changes. Farmland doubled and
scientists developed improved seeds. Machines — including mechanical planters,
reapers, and threshers — took over much of the work that had previously been
done by hand. American farmers produced enough grain, cotton, beef, pork, and
wool to supply the growing domestic market and still have large surpluses to
export.
The western region of the United States continued to attract settlers. Miners
staked claims in the ore-rich mountains, cattle ranchers on the vast grasslands,
sheep farmers in the river valleys, and farmers on the great plains. Cowboys on
horses took care of the animals and guided them to distant railroads for shipment
east. This is the image of America that many people still have, even though the
era of the “Wild West” cowboy lasted only about 30 years.

From the time that Europeans landed on the east coast of America, their
migration westward meant confrontation with native peoples. For many years,
government policy had been to move Native Americans beyond the reach of the
white frontier to lands reserved for their use. Time and again, however, the
government ignored its agreements and opened these areas to white settlement.
In the late 1800s, Sioux tribes in the northern plains and Apaches in the
southwest fought back hard to preserve their way of life. They were skilled
fighters but were eventually overwhelmed by government forces. Official policy
after these conflicts was well-intentioned but sometimes proved disastrous. In
1934, Congress passed a measure that attempted to protect tribal customs and
communal life on the reservations.

The last decades of the 19th century saw a race by European powers to colonize
Africa and compete for trade in Asia. Many Americans believed the United States
had a right and duty to expand its influence in other parts of the world. Many
others, however, rejected any actions that hinted at imperialism.

A brief war with Spain in 1898 left the United States with control over several
Spanish overseas possessions: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
Officially, the United States encouraged them to move toward self-government,
but, in fact, it maintained administrative control. Idealism in foreign policy existed
alongside the practical desire to protect the economic interests of a once-isolated
nation that had become a world power.