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78 Articles

Founding of the UNITED STATES

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are names known around the world for their part in founding what is arguably the world’s most powerful nation. Despite its relatively short history, the U.S. has seen diverse change, from its inception as a colony of the British Crown, through revolution and a turbulent social history. Here, we take a look at how those changes happened, from the 18th Century wars that began the revolution and led to America’s independence, to the events that led to the creation of the U.S. Constitution. This landmark document, upon which modern American law is built, is examined here, including a look at the original document itself, the numerous amendments that ensure it remains relevant, and in-depth analysis of the huge part it has played in…

Founding of the UNITED STATES

The United States of America was wrenched from the core of the 18th Century—the “Age of Enlightenment.” The journey began quietly with the scratching of a quill pen and then was thrust home at the point of a bayonet. Guttering candles at writing desks bloomed into torches leading ragged troops across frozen fields in the dead of night. The scholarly treatises of John Locke and the admonitions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau were replaced with hurriedly scribbled marching orders, the simple words in soldiers’ diaries, and carefully penned documents of conscience and moral principle. The route to independence began in 1763 at the end of the French and Indian War. Britain was triumphant, but financially crippled and exhausted by the global Seven Years War. Their North American Colonies were a rich market…

A MAP OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The Revolutionary War mirrors the societies that waged the conflict. It lasted seven years and yet relatively few key battles were fought and casualties were relatively light. Smallpox and infections killed more combatants than those killed with battlefield weapons. Washington very likely saved the revolution by insisting his troops be inoculated early on in the conflict. Another reason for the few key battles was the habit of 18th century armies to go into winter quarters and come out to fight again in the spring. Roads were terrible or non-existent and communications traveled as fast as a galloping horse. Armies and their baggage trudged along at a snail’s pace, hindered by the bad quality of shoes and boots. Light casualties despite the stand-up methods of mass firepower also reveal the gross…

A MAP OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

A MAP OF THE 1812 WAR

The War of 1812 resulted from pride and suffered insult as much as a duel between two nations who still chafed over a conflict 30 years in the past. The Americans were beset by internal struggle over an economy and social issues that threatened to destroy its fragile framework, and an enemy – Great Britain – that continued to bully the young republic. The United States was unprepared for war, but aggressive “War Hawks” in Congress demanded battlefield satisfaction from their persistent nemesis. Indian raids into U. S. territories were encouraged by the British in Canada. American trade was constricted on the high seas and her sailors were impressed into the Royal Navy as it battled Napoleon. Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison’s punishment of the tribal confederation headed Tecumseh…

A MAP OF THE 1812 WAR

THE FRENCH & INDIAN WAR ENDS 1763

By 1761, most of the shooting in the French and Indian War had stopped and Great Britain held dominion over virtually all of what had once belonged to France on the continent of North America. In 1759, General James Wolfe had died on the Plains of Abraham before the fall of Quebec. In 1755, General Edward Braddock had been cut down by Ojibwa and Pottawatomie Indians near the banks of Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River. Rank upon rank of Britain’s Redcoat infantry had suffered ambush and, worse, capture by the tribes allied with France. Britain had paid in blood for its new empire. Settlers yanked arrows from their doors; charred log walls were replaced by green lumber; the dead were buried; and colonial militias snaked along forest paths toward farms, shops, and…

THE FRENCH & INDIAN WAR ENDS 1763

THE INTOLERABLE ACTS 1764-1768

The Seven Years’ War (1756-63) and the French and Indian War had achieved the desired end for Britain – expansion of its empire at the expense of France and Spain. A generation of Europeans had been slaughtered on the battlefield. To meet their debts, the British government needed to wring revenue from their subjects. From a casual state of “salutary neglect,” the North American Colonies had to be brought to heel, or at least closer to parity in taxation with the British. In 1764, George Grenville, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, pushed through the American Revenue Act – also called the Sugar Act. It reduced tax on foreign molasses coming into the colonies. However, it also added taxes on refined sugar, coffee, Spanish wine, and non-British textiles. In addition, a…

THE INTOLERABLE ACTS 1764-1768

REBELS & REDCOATS COLLIDE 1770-1774

In Boston, the year 1770 started out beneath a veneer of calm, in contrast to the five turbulent years that had preceded it. Couriers raced from town to village carrying sheaves of the latest patriot broadsides and newspapers. Behind closed doors, the colonists debated whether to stay loyal to the Crown, to join the Rebels, or to stay neutral. And in the light of day, to the relief of those “Friends of Government” who would become “Loyalists,” red-coated British soldiers strolled in pairs or marched in squads. British soldiers were poorly paid and were forced to look for odd jobs in Boston to earn extra money. The city’s local toughs and idlers had marked these “King’s men” and insulted the job-seeking soldiers, driving them from employers’ doors. Soon, bitter soldiers…

REBELS & REDCOATS COLLIDE 1770-1774

THE BRITISH FEED THE REBEL CAUSE 1775

In the early 1770s, 17 million pounds of tea sat in warehouses owned by the East India Company, which was struggling financially. To keep the venerable old firm from going under, London lawmakers passed the Tea Act in 1773, which specified that this surplus tea be sent only to approved Crown agents in the colonies. It seemed to signal the first of many possible monopolies that might be foisted on colonial merchants by the Crown. For colonists to drink this tainted tea would be a disloyal act against free trade. So, up and down the North American coast, crates of tea splashed into the Atlantic Ocean. In Boston, that hotbed of radicals, rebellion was transformed into a theatrical production on the night of December 16, 1773. Goaded on by Samuel…

THE BRITISH FEED THE REBEL CAUSE 1775

GUNFIRE AT LEXINGTON & CONCORD 1775

On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was awakened and told that two lanterns burned in the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church. This message signaled that British troops were being rowed to Cambridge for a raid on Lexington to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and then on to Concord to seize rebel stores of gunpowder, supplies, and four brass cannon. Revere was taken to a boat and rowed to the Cambridge shore where a saddled horse awaited him. He arrived in Lexington at the parsonage of Reverend Jonas Clarke where Adams and Hancock were staying. A local man acting as a makeshift sentry complained about his shouting. Revere reportedly exclaimed, “Noise! You’ll have more noise than this before long. The regulars are coming out!” William Dawes…

GUNFIRE AT LEXINGTON & CONCORD 1775

BREED’S HILL & BUNKER HILL 1775

Once again, young men on fast horses fanned out from Boston. They carried the word about the “victory” at Lexington and Concord. The King’s troops had been fired upon. Newspapers printed the casualty lists of dead and wounded patriots. Major Generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne arrived in Boston on May 25, 1775, to find 6,000 British troops bottled up by a motley collection of untrained bumpkins. The new arrivals implored General Gage to secure the Dorchester Heights above Charlestown, thereby dominating Boston and providing an attack base against the rebels gathering to the south. By June 13, the entire British plan was in rebel hands, and after much debate Artemas Ward, the militia’s general, was charged by the Committee of Safety with the defense of Dorchester Heights.…

BREED’S HILL & BUNKER HILL 1775

WASHINGTON CHOSEN TO LEAD 1776

The militia’s adventure atop Breed’s and Bunker Hills ended in retreat, but the rag-tag band led by experienced officers had dealt the British a drubbing and then withdrawn in good order. This action seemed to justify a request made by the Massachusetts Committee of Safety before the battle. The committee had penned a letter to the Second Continental Congress sitting in the Pennsylvania State House asking that their militia be adopted as an “American Army” for all the colonies. But who could lead such a force? On June 14, John Adams rose to nominate “a gentleman whose skill as an officer, whose independent fortune, great talents and universal character would command the respect of America and unite the full exertions of the colonies better than any other person alive, a…

WASHINGTON CHOSEN TO LEAD 1776

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE JULY 4, 1776

During the spring of 1776, the words “independence”, “separation”, and “secession” were spoken in colonial meeting houses and taverns alike. George III had declared the colonies to be in open rebellion. The British garrison in Boston had been forced to decamp to Halifax, and the French were hinting at possible aid against their hereditary enemy. If the will to proceed was wanting, a two-shilling 47-page pamphlet by a recent English immigrant expressed stirring ideas that called for action. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense arrived in Thomas Jefferson’s hands that spring as Jefferson prepared to return to Congress at Philadelphia in May. Others were busy rounding up support. John Adams suggested the colonies create independent governments for themselves. North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and the New England colonies pressed acceptance of a proposal…

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE JULY 4, 1776

THE BRITISH SOLDIER

The British army of the 18th Century was very much conditioned by class. Britain’s prisons were also its best recruiting depots and, since a man would rather accept enlistment than face jail, civilians at home dismissed the British “Ranker” as a thug. A private made eight pence a day and, from this, money for clothing, shaving kits, sewing kits, and “health care” was docked. Often the money went into the pockets of the heart of any regiment: the non-commissioned sergeants and corporals, career men who had come up through the ranks and survived. Privates feared their officers and NCOs almost more than the enemy. However, the drill, harsh discipline, cruel punishment, and subordination they meted out also produced the best and most reliable infantry soldier in the traditional European world.…

THE BRITISH SOLDIER

THE CONTINENTAL SOLDIER

Congress authorized the raising of 88 regiments for a Continental Army following pleas from General Washington to not rely on a loose collection of state militias. This Continental Army was to be fashioned on the European model, initially employing British manuals. Not all militias flocked to the colors, some choosing to remain independent. Washington resigned himself to commanding two distinct armies that fought side by side. A militiaman reported for duty carrying his own smoothbore musket, a shotgun, or occasionally a hunter’s long rifle. He needed a cartridge box to hold paper cartridges, or a powder horn and bag to carry balls, and extra flints and tools. He also carried a bladed weapon such as a tomahawk since family muskets could not mount a bayonet for close fighting. A wooden…

THE CONTINENTAL SOLDIER

THE BRITISH RETURN TO THE COLONIES 1776

When he had occupied Boston on March 18, 1776, General Washington shifted five regiments of New Englanders, Virginia riflemen, Pennsylvanians, and Marylanders along with some artillery to New York. Nathanael Greene had gone ahead to scout Gravesend and the Long Island coast to map possible British landing sites. When the army arrived, they exchanged muskets for shovels and began to dig. They ringed Manhattan and its approaches with redoubts, embrasures, and trenches. Greene, Henry Knox with his big guns, and other commanders created a picture in their minds of what the British would do, and planned accordingly. Washington agreed, and so unwittingly he helped build a trap for his army. Having divided his troops and guns between Long Island and Manhattan, he left Long Island Sound, the Hudson, and East…

THE BRITISH RETURN TO THE COLONIES 1776

FROM NEW YORK TO THE JERSEY WOODS – WASHINGTON RETREATS

General Washington and his amateur army had been outthought, out-fought, and almost crushed into complete surrender. Almost. While he had the bulk of his force ready to continue the retreat toward high ground at Harlem Heights, some 4,000 remained on Manhattan near the battery commanded by Israel Putnam and Henry Knox. Able to sail with impunity, British ships shelled the city and its environs. Barges of light infantry landed alongside the enthusiastic Hessians. Neither Howe, Cornwallis, nor Clinton, who had set up a headquarters in a large house on Murray Hill, thought there was any need to rush. The shabby, untutored Americans were fleeing. Let local commanders have some sport with stragglers and then rest before scooping up the rebel survivors. Aaron Burr found himself guiding Knox, Putnam, and their…

FROM NEW YORK TO THE JERSEY WOODS – WASHINGTON RETREATS

FIRST TRENTON, THEN PRINCETON 1776-1777

The last of the flat-bottomed Durham boats crunched against a creaking pier at McConkey’s Ferry on the east bank of the Delaware River. In the early morning darkness of December 26, 1776, General Washington watched the last of his shivering men hustle ashore as John Glover’s Marblehead sailor–soldiers exchanged their oars for muskets. Silver cakes of ice flowed past in the black water his army had just crossed. Weeks earlier, he had worked out the plan to strike the Hessian-occupied village of Trenton before dawn and already that plan was falling apart. The river crossing had taken too long. His wretched army, some with rags wrapped around their feet, would face the implacable Hessians in daylight. He mounted up and trotted toward the head of the forming column, speaking to…

FIRST TRENTON, THEN PRINCETON 1776-1777

WINTER QUARTERS AT MORRISTOWN 1776-1777

As the winter of 1776-77 closed down hostilities, the ragged and exhausted Continental Army shambled into the woods surrounding Morristown, New Jersey, and established their encampment. Except for occasional raids and skirmishes, 18th Century warfare generally took a winter time-out. The expense of maintaining an army in the field was highly prohibitive considering the reduced capabilities of that force due to winter’s effect on roads, fields, communications, and morale. Powder became damp in the flintlock’s pan, slow matches (cotton wick soaked in lye) failed to stay alight for artillery. Paper-wrapped cartridges became sodden in their boxes. Winter was a time to rest, refit, and take stock. General Howe retired to New York to pick up his busy social life after the shock of Trenton and Princeton. Word of those sallies…

WINTER QUARTERS AT MORRISTOWN 1776-1777

THE FATEFUL DEFEAT OF “GENTLEMAN JOHNNY” BURGOYNE

The curiosity that had attended General Howe’s departure from New York on July 23, 1777, in frigates herding transports packed with thousands of British and Hessians was answered at last. The fleet itself arrived in Chesapeake Bay on August 22, 1777, just a mere 6 or so miles away from Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the 6,000-strong Continental Army threaded its way through Philadelphia, swinging in step to the tunes of fife and drum toward the invading redcoats amid cheers, and waving hats and kerchiefs. Howe landed his force and stepped off in the direction of Philadelphia. Both armies headed toward a confrontation at a picturesque little creek called Brandywine. Earlier, on May 6, General John Burgoyne had arrived in Quebec to command a force that eventually amounted to 7,213 soldiers and scouts,…

THE FATEFUL DEFEAT OF “GENTLEMAN JOHNNY” BURGOYNE

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

While the articles sounded good on paper, the reality was fraught with conflicting priorities and points of view. After years of living under what they considered a tyrannical central Crown government, the state legislators and delegates to Congress had little appetite for the idea of giving up their rights to some misguided melting pot of other states’ interests. So, while the congressional delegates debated and made demands which, in varying degrees, would ensure the retention of their individual sovereignty, the Declaration of Independence committee, under Thomas Jefferson, obtained the necessary approvals for states’ signatures by July 4, 1776. That same day, unfortunately, John Dickinson’s draft of the National Constitution (later known as the Articles of Confederation) received virtually no support. To make matters worse, the undeterred British had returned. While…

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

DANIEL SHAY SAVES THE U.S.A.

In 1786, a mob of disgruntled farmers staged “a little rebellion,” as described by Thomas Jefferson while at a safe distance in Paris. This band of angry tax dodgers also managed to save the fragile United States from itself. Daniel Shay, a Revolutionary War veteran from Pelham, who fought at Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, assumed leadership of these Massachusetts farmers who felt they were footing an unjustly onerous tax bill so their state could balance its budget. In August, mobs of indignant taxpayers closed the courts of several towns such as Pittsfield and Northampton. Following Shay, they marched to the capitol at Springfield to present their grievances to the legislature. Seeing this mob turn up on their doorstep, the resident lawmakers sent for local troops. Shay and his followers…

DANIEL SHAY SAVES THE U.S.A.

INTO VALLEY FORGE 1777-1778

With Congress begging for a winter campaign to oust Howe and his occupying force from Philadelphia, Washington had to consider his army’s exhaustion and the meager supplies available to it. He marched into encampment near the village of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Though beaten at Brandywine Creek, and forced into yet another retreat before General Howe’s troops, morale among the Americans was unusually high. The army’s engineers staked out parallel streets and drill fields and employed soldiers to build 2,000 small huts, each housing 12 men. The sound of axes, hammers, and saws resonated across the rolling hills. The army was short of food, water, and clothing, but not stubborn backbone. Besides their quarters, they managed to build five earthen redoubts and put a sturdy bridge across the nearby Schuylkill River.…

INTO VALLEY FORGE 1777-1778

THE AMERICAN ARMY IS TESTED AT MONMOUTH 1778

The American alliance with France had an immediate impact. Sir Henry Clinton had just ensconced himself in Philadelphia as Howe’s replacement commanding all British forces in North America, when he received orders from London to ship 5,000 of his troops to the West Indies to fight the French. He had to transport another 3,000 troops to St. Augustine, Florida, to guard against Spain’s probable entry into the war. What remained of the Philadelphia occupation force was bound for New York. In the context of British–French global conflict, North America once again became part of a larger whole. Loyal British Tories had flocked to Philadelphia once the British had taken it. Now the city was to be evacuated and they would be abandoned to the rebels’ wrath. Clinton also feared the…

THE AMERICAN ARMY IS TESTED AT MONMOUTH 1778

FIGHT AMERICANS WITH AMERICANS

“FROM A MILITIA OFFICER WAITING TO ATTACK: MY BRAVE FELLOWS, WHEN YOU ARE ENGAGED, YOU ARE NOT TO WAIT FOR THE WORD OF COMMAND FROM ME. I WILL SHOW YOU BUT MY EXAMPLE HOW TO FIGHT. FIRE AS QUICK AS YOU CAN, AND STAND YOUR GROUND AS LONG AS YOU CAN.”General Daniel Morgan January 16, 1781 In 1779, the war moved south. General Benjamin Lincoln of Massachusetts, along with a mixed force of militia and Continentals, marched south to support a French attack on a virtually defenseless Savannah, Georgia. The French admiral, Comte d’Estaing, demanded the surrender of the small British garrison in the name of Louis XVI. He then established an elaborate siege of the city, but on October 9 botched the entire attack, incurring 800 casualties. With that…

FIGHT AMERICANS WITH AMERICANS

On December 2, 1780, Major General Nathanael Greene inherited a wretched command from the unfortunate Horatio Gates, a retired British soldier who had come over to the American side. Its paper strength was 2,500, but only 1,500 showed up for duty, and only 800 of those were equipped for the field. Greene moved the mob into a “camp of repose” 60 miles southeast of Charlotte, North Carolina. There, he and some very able officers began to whip them back into shape. Among these officers were Colonel John Eager Howard, Polish engineer Thadeusz Kosciuszko, the able cavalry commander William Washington and – drawn from his 1779 retirement – the “Old Waggoner” Daniel Morgan. Crippled by arthritis and sciatica, he accepted the rank of Brigadier General and reported for duty. Greene divided…

By 1781, the American army was, as Washington wrote, “at the end of our tether.” Washington was convinced he could not defeat the British unless by some bold stroke of luck. Curiously, the British were coming to that same conclusion regarding their own chances of victory. The simple thrashing of some ranting rabble had turned into seven years of bloody campaigning and still the American army stood undefeated. It had been beaten and beaten, chased and beaten again, but refused to capitulate. Instead, the provincials had chastened several of Britain’s finest general officers and had routed some of the finest regiments of foot and horse. And now the opportunistic French had come in with their equally opportunistic allies, the Dutch and Spanish, sniffing for plunder at Britain’s expense. With the…

AMERICA LOOKS WEST FOR ELBOW ROOM

During the tumultuous times the United States experienced under the government the Articles of Confederation, Spain was the largest landholder in North America. The King of Spain owned Florida, coastal land in Alabama, Mississippi, and the banks of the Mississippi River from Natchez to the Gulf of Mexico, everything south of Canada and west of that river. Spain wanted to control the Mississippi River and its port on the Gulf of Mexico as a barrier against any expansionist ideas their new ally, the United States, might entertain. East of the river, many of the states planned to turn the waterway open or closed to navigation – to their financial gain. But by the time the Americans had created their Constitution and the new Congress and President George Washington were taking…

AMERICA LOOKS WEST FOR ELBOW ROOM

THE UNITED STATES ASSERTS ITSELF – THE TRIPOLITAN WAR

Many things were on Thomas Jefferson’s mind as he walked the two blocks from his boarding house to the Capitol building on March 4, 1801. First off, his legs itched. He was the first president to be sworn in wearing long pants, instead of knee britches. Next, he wanted to heal the wounds of the election, the personal attacks, and harsh invective. And finally, there were the Barbary pirates. Since the end of the revolution in 1783, American shipping in the Mediterranean had been victimized by pirates. Using long galleys powered by oars and lateen sails, the corsairs staged their raids from bays and coves along the shores of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania. Armed with swivel guns mounted fore and aft, they cowed unarmed merchant vessels and steered sailors…

THE UNITED STATES ASSERTS ITSELF – THE TRIPOLITAN WAR

A SENSELESS DUEL & THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY

The 19th Century was still young when two men faced each other bound by old-world ritual and two others stepped off into a new world of discovery. On July 11, 1804, Alexander Hamilton faced Aaron Burr at an early morning duel in a field in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton had fought with distinction in the Revolution as a captain of artillery. The intellect of the brilliant former Secretary of the Treasury was vast, and determined when challenged. Aaron Burr served four years in the Revolution, developed into a canny politician, and became Thomas Jefferson’s vice president in 1800. Also brilliant and ambitious, he was considered by Hamilton and many of his contemporaries to be a political schemer. Hamilton’s and Burr’s personal antagonism erupted in an exchange of letters so insulting…

A SENSELESS DUEL & THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY

TROUBLE WITH BRITAIN – AGAIN

By 1812, the United States had just over seven million people spread over 18 states and four large territories. In the salons of Europe, Americans were considered unlettered and vulgar. If the badly cooked food didn’t kill you, the Red Indians would. Hygiene was spotty and the roads were mud tracks. From one state to another a traveler could hardly untangle English from the local idiom, and if the villages were rough, the growing cities were raw and uncouth, teeming with foul smells. But for all that, there were opportunities not available anywhere else. Multitudes from the British Isles and Europe crowded onto sailing vessels to seek their fortune in the United States. One blemish on this Elysian state of affairs was the fact that the United States was still…

TROUBLE WITH BRITAIN – AGAIN

THE LAND WAR OF 1812

For the most part, the land battles in the poorly planned invasion of Canada constituted one American disaster after another. No sooner had Forts Detroit and Dearborn fallen than the public, Congress, and President Madison demanded new generals and victories. Tecumseh’s attempt to unite the Indians now drew previously reluctant tribes – Creek, Delaware, Cherokee, and Kickapoos – to attack frontier settlers. Ambushes and massacres of families and whole communities enraged the public back east, who had been expecting quick victories up north. William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe, raised an army of keen-eyed woodsmen from Kentucky and Tennessee, and headed north to retake Fort Detroit. Patriotic zeal was dampened by torrential rains, swollen rivers, and impassable trails. He camped to wait for winter when frozen ground would be…

THE LAND WAR OF 1812

THE WAR AT SEA & THE END OF THE BEGINNING

The large American frigate, Constitution, out-sailed the smaller British frigate, Guerrière captained by James Dacres, yet Dacres had demanded this showdown. The ships circled each other, maneuvering to gain the favorable wind, the gunner’s advantage. Captain Isaac Hull, the Constitution’s skipper, held his fire. The Royal Navy had over 600 warships, 120 of which were 50-80 gun ships of the line – two- and three-deckers. The Guerrière was one of 116 fast frigates – the greyhounds of the fleet. Still, the American ship sailed inside her, holding closer to the wind. Dacres had challenged any of the inferior American navy ships to meet him. Though rated as a frigate, the Constitution was 50 feet longer, had a wider beam and mounted 50 iron guns, 24-pounders thrust through the gun deck…

THE WAR AT SEA & THE END OF THE BEGINNING

The United States Constitution is America’s instruction book. A faded, barely legible set of parchment pages, the original signed document was handwritten in iron gall ink with a feathered quill pen. Cast in 18th Century language and preserved in archival security, it is now available for public view and contemplation. The Constitution’s presentday fragile appearance, however, masks the muscle and power of its carefully chosen words; forged at a time when life, death, and government rested in the ruling doctrine of divine right of kings. Released from these frail pages, these revolutionary words have thundered through America’s halls of justice and within its legislative bodies with a seemingly unstoppable, corporeal authority. Historians might all agree that the U.S. Constitution has been responsible for creating the most successful democratic republic ever…

CREATING A COUNTRY FROM SCRATCH

The United States of America began as a huge experiment. The European world took a long look at the motley collection of states, each scrambling for itself in a confederation held together by a set of articles so limited in its power structure that each state virtually became a nation unto itself. The Comte de Vergennes, France’s foreign minister, and the United States’ champion at Louis XVI’s court, surveyed the tragic tangle that was America’s post-war government and commented: “the American Confederation has a great tendency toward dissolution.” Each state legislature began testing the waters and either followed the passionate lead of those such as New York’s Alexander Hamilton who preached for strong central government, or held states’ individual rights to be sacred and sought to minimize the central grip…

CREATING A COUNTRY FROM SCRATCH

A DOCUMENT WHOSE TIME HAD COME

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention meeting in May 1787 had a formidable task ahead of them. Shy and soft-spoken James Madison, a Virginia legislator and delegate to the Continental Congress in 1780, became the major force in fashioning the new charter. So concerned that their efforts would not fail, he arrived two weeks before the other delegates and drafted his Virginia Plan, which became the basic outline for the final Constitution. In addition to Madison, the delegates included other influential colonial “celebrities.” George Washington, elected president of the convention, had distinguished himself in the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War) and had led the United States to victory in the Revolutionary War. Revered by his fellow delegates, he became the obvious choice to preside over the convention as they…

A DOCUMENT WHOSE TIME HAD COME

THE GREAT COMPROMISE

Two issues dominated the convention: What powers should be given to the national government, and who should control this government? They could all agree on the first question: Congress should levy taxes, control commerce, issue money, make treaties, maintain an army, and suppress insurrection. The second caused several weeks of heated discussion. Larger states favored the Virginia Plan: representation determined by population. Smaller states wanted the New Jersey Plan, which allowed for equal representation. Day after day the arguments raged on, and one delegate feared that if there were no concessions, “Our business must soon be at an end.” After the larger states threatened to walk out, cooler heads prevailed and the delegates adopted the Great Compromise. The new legislature would have the number of legislators in the lower house…

THE GREAT COMPROMISE

ONE SIZE FITS ALL

John Jay said it best: “Let Congress Legislate, let others execute, let others Judge.” Following the Constitution’s dictates in Article VII (“the Ratification of the Convention of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution…”), the document’s framers now needed ratification by state conventions. Copies were loaded into saddlebags and taken by coach down winding dirt roads for delivery to delegates in each state, who voted to accept or reject it. Those who opposed it were known as Anti- Federalists and these generally consisted of farmers, debtors, and laborers; in other words, people who valued their new liberties and feared the country might evolve into a monarchy. The Federalists, usually men of wealth and position, desired a stable, central, and efficient body of lawmakers. The promise of…

ONE SIZE FITS ALL

ESTABLISHING A FINANCIAL SYSTEM

As with all nations, the United States needed money. The country had accumulated some $52 million in debt to foreign countries and other Americans, not including state debts, which added about $25 million to the total. Congress set up a system of tariffs on imported goods and the Tonnage Act, which, while taxing Americans a small amount, set much higher rates for foreign ships. Alexander Hamilton proposed a complicated funding structure to pay back American speculators who had purchased IOUs to help finance the revolution. Essentially, the IOUs would be exchanged for interest-bearing bonds. He felt that if a federally chartered banking corporation received capital from the Treasury and private investors, it could then lend money to businessmen, which in turn would stimulate commerce and manufacturing. Hamilton envisioned an industrial…

ESTABLISHING A FINANCIAL SYSTEM

IT’S PERFECT – LET’S CHANGE IT

The Constitution’s working structure, at times complex when one is forced to interpret certain passages, is also one of the shortest written constitutions in the world at a little over 4,000 words. It is also the oldest written constitution of any major government that is still in use today. It consists of a preamble (introduction), seven articles, and twenty-seven amendments, the first ten of which are known as the Bill of Rights. The Constitution works because it has the flexibility to allow for changing times, attitudes, and even technology. Our leaders add to it, after much deliberation, following the guidelines that were set out by the Founding Fathers. A bill (a proposed law) is introduced in the House of Representatives and given a name and number, then given to committee.…

IT’S PERFECT – LET’S CHANGE IT

MARBURY VS. MADISON

The first challenge to the Supreme Court came in 1801, in the Marbury vs. Madison case. Shortly after taking office, President Thomas Jefferson discovered that John Adams, in the last hours of his presidency, had pushed through appointments for judges sympathetic to Federalist causes. However, Adams had neglected to distribute a few of the judges’ appointment certificates. Chief Justice John Marshall felt James Madison, Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of State, should have the “honor” of delivering the remaining documents, but Jefferson, angered at Adams’s tactics, made certain that the deliveries were delayed, hoping to void the commissions. One of the appointees, William Marbury, petitioned the court to direct Secretary of State James Madison to give him his appointment. Chief Justice Marshall knew that Marbury had a strong case, but he also…

MARBURY VS. MADISON

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

Now that the country had its essential government machinery in place, Congress met to draft the constitutional amendments, the first ten of which are known as the Bill of Rights. At the time, most leaders felt these rights were assumed, and didn’t need further explanation. Years later, it is obvious that they are essential to interpreting the Constitution. Amendment I – Freedom to practice religious beliefs, the freedom of speech and the press, plus the freedom of people to form peaceful assembly. Amendment II – A well-regulated militia, being necessary to give security to the people, provides for the right to bear arms. Amendment III – No quartering (hosting, lodging) of soldiers without the consent of the homeowner. Amendment IV – No unreasonable search or seizure of a person, his…

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

DISTRIBUTION OF POWER

It had been relatively easy to choose the country’s first president. George Washington was loved by the populace and retained respect within the halls of power. By 1800, however, the political climate reflected two points of view: Republicans (those who followed Jefferson’s philosophy of a limited central government, with more power to the states) and Federalists (the Hamiltonians, including John Adams, who believed a stronger central government was essential to preserving national unity). John Adams had been elected president in 1796 over Thomas Jefferson, winning by a narrow margin of seventy-one electoral votes over Jefferson’s sixty-eight. Jefferson served as Adams’s vice president, and at this point it became obvious that a president and vice president with opposing philosophies created a somewhat unstable governing body. During Adams’s administration there had been…

DISTRIBUTION OF POWER

GROWING THE COUNTRY

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, believed in an agrarian economy, states’ rights, and small government. He was a scholar, an inventor, architect, and bibliophile who had an old-shoe lifestyle, answered the door if someone knocked, and made the unconventional decision to walk from his Washington apartment to his first inauguration. He was also, more notably, largely responsible for the biggest land grab in United States history – an action that appeared to challenge the powers of the president in the freshly minted Constitution. For Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase (the “grab”) of 1803 was a colossal leap of faith for a small accretion of former colonies huddled largely on the eastern seaboard of the vast North American continent. The whole shady business began with the vaguely disreputable…

GROWING THE COUNTRY

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

The Louisiana Territory gradually opened to settlement through a steady and growing westward flow of Americans from the crowded eastern seaboard. Along with their elected governments, these settlers brought their skills, commerce, and customs with them. The realities of an entrenched economic culture also traveled west. The United States’ agrarian economy was largely slave-based. Shiploads of Africans had been literally kidnapped and brought to the U.S. packed into the holds of sailing ships to be sold in southern state markets like cattle and horses. And, like cattle, slaves were property to be traded, bought, sold, and worked without pay. While the Southern states controlled the slave market, Northern states benefitted from the low-cost labor of slaves who worked the Southern plantations – farms which provided profitable cotton and tobacco yields…

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

HOW A TERRITORY BECOMES ONE OR MORE STATES

An incorporated territory is a specific area over which the U.S. Constitution is applied to the territory’s local government in the same manner as it applies to citizens and local governments that are part of the U.S. – an integral part rather than being “possessions.” In the case of the Louisiana Territory the Supreme Court eventually ruled: “Owing to a new war between England and France being upon the point of breaking out, there was need for haste in the negotiations, and Mr. Livingston took the responsibility of disobeying his (Mr. Jefferson’s) instructions, and, probably owing to the insistence of Bonaparte, consented to the 3d article of the treaty (with France to acquire the territory of Louisiana), which provided that ‘the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the…

BIRTH OF THE “GRAND OLD PARTY”

The GOP, or Republican Party, came into existence during the battle over the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Its base was composed of Northern antislave supporters who wanted a stronger political voice in federal and state legislatures, and whose stated goal was both the emancipation of all slaves and nothing short of an end to that cruel institution. By 1858, they had won over members of the scattered Whig Party and the Free Soil Democrats. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican candidate for the presidency, won the 1860 election in a period when Southern states were beginning to secede from the Union. Lincoln led his party and the Union to victory in a bloody Civil War and the GOP went on to dominate American politics until the Great Depression and the 1932…

ACQUISITION BY CONQUEST

Even by presidential standards, James K. Polk was a go-getter. He made it perfectly clear when he ran for office in 1845 that, if elected, he would remain as president for exactly one term and then leave for home. And that’s what he did. His four-year record as the United States’ eleventh president won him respect as the strongest pre-Civil War chief executive. Having come up through Southern gentility as a slave owner and master of a cotton plantation, he married well and chose, as his mentor, the indomitable Andrew Jackson. So close and successful was his relationship with “Old Hickory” that he came to be known as “Young Hickory.” A wide flock of candidates ran for president in the 1844 election, but when the dust settled only Polk remained…

ACQUISITION BY CONQUEST

THREE STAR-CROSSED GENERALS

The Mexican War (1846-1848) consisted of several short, sharp fights – brutal and bloody tests of courage on both sides. While the Mexican soldiers fought bravely, their officers and tactics were no match for the Americans. In almost every conflict the Mexicans outnumbered the American invaders who, despite heat and disease, always managed to maintain the offensive. General Santa Anna, who had presided over the massacre of Texans and volunteers at the Alamo in 1836, was up against America’s finest young and veteran commanders. At the battle of Cerro Gordo, Santa Anna was routed by Major General Winfield Scott with the help of a party of engineers led by Captain Robert E. Lee. Together they hacked a path through the jungle which ultimately surrounded the Mexicans. A second lieutenant of…

THE HOMESTEAD ACT

The Homestead Act of 1862 (granting acreage of federal lands to resident applicants) was nothing new. The practice of redistributing land to a growing population of small farmers dated back to 1787. In this case, however, timing was everything. Since the 1850s, slavery issues were heating up, and Southern congressmen saw government land distribution into the growing West as a threat to their slave-based agricultural economy. In 1858, the South rallied to defeat a proposed Northern, Republican-driven homestead bill by one vote, and in 1859, President James Buchanan killed a version of the Homestead Act with a veto, even though it had passed in both houses. The secession of the Southern states during the 1861-1865 Civil War handily eliminated this opposition and, with Abraham Lincoln’s blessing, the Homestead Act passed…

THE HOMESTEAD ACT

RAILROADS: KEY TO EXPANSION OF THE WEST

The Pacific Railway Act floated through Congress in 1862 on palms greased with land speculators’ cash as the Civil War reached its most dangerous year. The South had achieved several victories, leaving the Union army stalled and European powers preparing to aid the Confederacy. With a southern route across the continent out of the picture, a northern route favorable to the Union became a reality. Passing this act through the Republican Congress only two months after passage of the Homestead Act was no coincidence. The two acts were conjoined to undermine the South’s grip on the agrarian economy and to allow an explosion of northern capital to flow west on the shoulders of private enterprise while government dollars were tied up in the war. This show of Union confidence in…

THE POLAR BEAR GARDEN

It might have appeared as if the United States in the 19th Century possessed sacks of mad money while European superpowers were merely looking, by comparison, to clean out their front closets of dust. First, Napoleon unloaded a vast slab of “unproductive” land – called Louisiana – to finance a war and then the Russians began shopping an equally huge plot of ice, snow, and woods to shore up their treasury. They called this large, forbidding, and unforgiving land “Alyeska.” The Russians had claimed the 600,000-square-mile landmass in the early 18th Century following explorations by Captain Commander Vitus Jonassen Bering to determine if Russia and the North American continent were connected by a land bridge. No bridge was found, but they did discover the far northern coastline that ended at…

THE POLAR BEAR GARDEN

GOLD FEVER GROWS ALASKA

Just four years after the purchase of the Alaska Territory, gold was discovered near Sitka in 1872. Another strike came in 1876 near Windham Bay, and the big bonanza of 1880 brought hordes of prospectors into Juneau. A pair of prospectors, guided by a local Native American, found two “large pieces of quartz, black sulfite and galena all spangled over with gold.” Their find in what became known as “Gold Creek” was just the first of the thousand pounds of ore they recovered in that initial dig. The miner, Joseph Juneau, gave his name to the town that emerged nearby, and his partner Richard Harris named the area the Harris Mining District. Gold-seekers flocked to Alaska’s Klondike, and strikes near Nome in the 1890s. By steamship to Skagway and Valdez,…

GOLD FEVER GROWS ALASKA

In the modern era, “growing the country” takes on a new meaning. The last time the flag of the United States was unfurled over an unexplored landscape and saluted by representatives of the government was July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent about eight total hours on the moon, not to claim it as a possession but to announce that humankind had made their first explorer’s steps into space beyond Earth. At the conclusion of their walk on the surface, they returned to their space vehicle, piloted by Michael Collins, and navigated back to their home planet. This was the first major act of the United States’ space program, spreading the work and concepts of the world’s best and brightest back into the cosmos from which we first…

NASA VISITS THE CIRCUS

Following the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the NASA Act, an open competition was initiated to pick the nation’s first astronauts to explore space. Much scientific and psychoanalytical work was done to narrow down the supposed requirements for working and traveling in a space environment. Mice, dogs, and apes were tested, but the effect of an airless, gravity-free environment subject to high-speed entry and claustrophobic living conditions for long periods of time offered many challenges requiring human reactions. Circus performers who were fired from a cannon or whirled on a trapeze were considered along with deep-sea divers, long-distance swimmers, parachutists, acrobats, and race-car drivers. Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided the one profession that covered the most situations was the military test pilot. It was 1959,…

OUR CONSTITUTION DIVIDED

Of all the threats to the United States of America, the Civil War came the closest to permanently dividing the country into two sovereign nations. The conflict that began with the shelling of Fort Sumter off the coast of South Carolina in 1861 had been simmering since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. The cause was both a moral/cultural divide involving the institution of slavery and an economic one based on agrarian states’ rights against industrialized federalism. Slavery was the labor support base of the Southern states. The status quo yielded high revenue for all concerned – except, of course, the slaves themselves. They received no wages, formal education, or citizen’s rights; were considered property like horses or cattle; and were subject to severe punishment should they attempt to…

OUR CONSTITUTION DIVIDED

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln signed a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation with the final version signed on January 1, 1863, which declared, “…all persons held as slaves … shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free” – but it applied only to states designated as being in rebellion, not to the loyal slave-holding border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri or to areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. This executive order, permitted by the Constitution in time of war, also allowed freed slaves to enlist in the Union army, swelling its ranks by 20,000 volunteers. When word of the proclamation reached Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, he reversed his earlier opinion on the Union’s chances of winning, as did the British public, even as they were starved…

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

CHALLENGES TO THE CONSTITUTION

“We the people” is there for a reason. Those who lead the country must continually interpret and reframe the Constitution as they take on the challenge of guaranteeing justice and freedom for all who live under it. Over the past two centuries, presidents, houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court have studied constitutional rhetoric and examined ways to add amendments that address current needs and agendas. The Constitution’s basic tenets have not changed; Americans still look to this document for guidance in providing a secure future for generations to come. Andrew Jackson embodied the image of a forceful, often opinionated, demanding, and intractable leader of the country. He was the first president to use federal troops to break a strike when, during a violent labor dispute near the Chesapeake and…

CHALLENGES TO THE CONSTITUTION

THE SOUTH SKIRTS AROUND THE CONSTITUTION

The post-Civil War era brought its own set of constitutional issues. Although slavery had been abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, black citizens still suffered a virtual slavery in the coming decades and well into the twentieth century. Now that former slaves would receive pay for their labor, southern (and even northern) politicians and businessmen feared their own erosion of political power and job loss. Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson, sought to carry on Lincoln’s policy of “malice toward none” by supporting states’ rights for the South. To that end, Johnson agreed with southern officials that blacks needed guidance to more easily acclimate themselves into the free white society and not be granted too much freedom too quickly. He further proclaimed that individual states should decide whether or not…

THE SOUTH SKIRTS AROUND THE CONSTITUTION

THE ROAD TO BLACK SUFFRAGE

The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to any persons born or naturalized in the United States and as such, those persons were given all rights of liberty, life, and property. In addition, states were forbidden to make laws denying these rights. The amendment still did not, however, clearly emphasize that all citizens had the right to vote. Congress hoped, with the Fourteenth Amendment, that black suffrage would be assumed by the states. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, clearly spelled out that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by…any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Yet, it gave states the right to enact their own voting laws, and soon many states pushed through measures designed to…

THE ROAD TO BLACK SUFFRAGE

THE FIRST IMPEACHMENT

In 1867 Congress had passed the Tenure of Office Act, which forbade the president from firing officials appointed through the Senate without first getting permission from the Senate. In 1868, Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a radical sympathizer, who opposed Johnson’s post-Civil War policies. The House of Representatives, following the Constitution’s guidelines, impeached Johnson, charging him with misconduct in the Stanton affair. (Impeachment means that the House finds the president may have committed a crime and should be brought to trial by the Senate, but at that point, he is not convicted.) Johnson’s lawyers contended he had done nothing against the law, and removed Stanton only because he felt the Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional. The lawyers further maintained that Johnson was within his rights to remove Stanton,…

THE KU KLUX KLAN ACT AND JIM CROW LAWS

Athough the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments secured equal rights for blacks, they also created a backlash among middle-class southern whites who saw the rise of blacks in industry and politics as a threat to their own economic status. To counteract the radicals, who used whatever means possible to encourage blacks to exercise their voting rights, defiant whites in the South formed secret societies, aimed at protecting their own “rights” while attacking those of blacks. The most notorious of these was known as the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, established in 1866, started out as a harmless social club, but soon evolved into a vigilante organization designed to terrorize blacks into submission and force them out of politics and the work force. Their tactics included dressing in sheets and passing themselves…

THE KU KLUX KLAN ACT AND JIM CROW LAWS

TESTING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND ITS POWER

To win the presidential election, a candidate must have the majority of electoral votes, a total of 270. Each state appoints a certain number of electors equal to the number of its senators and representatives in Congress. With the two-party system, a party needs to win the majority of the votes in a state to win the whole state. When voters cast a ballot, they are in effect voting for their state’s electors as well. The exceptions are Nebraska and Maine, whose residents still vote for their electors. Electoral disputes are settled by the states. Congress counts the votes (usually just a formality) on January 6. Over the years, politicians and the public have objected to the Electoral College because a candidate may win enough electoral votes but not a…

TESTING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND ITS POWER

THEODORE ROOSEVELT TAKES OVER

Few, if any, presidents ignored the Constitution’s presidential limits of power as much as Theodore Roosevelt. He had served as vice president under William McKinley and took office in 1901 after McKinley’s assassination. The new president barely had his large family settled into the White House before he imprinted his own brand of imperial rule on the executive branch. In 1902, he mediated in a strike brought by the United Mine Workers against the anthracite coal companies, which were owned by the railroads. The strike had gone on for several months with no end in sight. The miners demanded a 19-20 per cent raise and shorter hours, plus fringe benefits, but the owners said no. Roosevelt brought the parties together and asked for concessions on both sides. This served only…

THEODORE ROOSEVELT TAKES OVER

PRESIDENTS, CONGRESS, SUPREME COURT & CIVIL RIGHTS

In the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, the issue of civil rights gained a foothold. Other countries had begun to take notice that nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks still did not enjoy the same privileges as whites. Separate schools and facilities for blacks were common throughout the South and resentment and anger were rising within black communities across the country. Eisenhower did little to force legislation granting equal rights, but after he appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, things slowly began to change. Warren felt it was time to help advance the cause, and in 1954 the court took on the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the “separate but equal” decision by the court in the 1896…

PRESIDENTS, CONGRESS, SUPREME COURT & CIVIL RIGHTS

LEGISLATING HUMAN BONDAGE

They were called the five “Civilized Tribes,” proposed in 1790 by George Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox as models for the “cultural transformation.” Washington and Knox suggested that when indigenous people (such as these) learned American customs and values, they would be able to merge those customs with their own tribal traditions and join society. They viewed this as the best possible future for Native Americans and the Anglo-European settlers of North America. While living alongside one another, these five – the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole – also simultaneously maintained their status as autonomous nations. As “civilized” peoples, many lived in houses, educated their children in U.S. schools, and wore the same clothes as their white neighbors. The Cherokee, for example, had even developed a written…

LEGISLATING HUMAN BONDAGE

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

Slavery dominated politics, the economy, and was an eroding force in American society from the colonial era to the late 19th Century. It continued to taint much of the United States’ identity through the 20th as well. But the friction between free and slave interests began striking sparks in the mid-19th Century. Ever-increasing awareness of the entrenched cruelty and inherent contradiction of legal, commercialized human bondage in a country founded upon lofty ideals concerning basic, individual human rights fostered an aggressive and growing force for abolition. Though northern industries made profits off the products harvested and processed by unpaid slaves, religious and social organizations sought freedom for the millions bound to the southern plantations, fields, and mills. Their objections, however, ran counter to the U.S. Constitution as it was originally…

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT & JAPANESE INTERNMENT

Unlike the out-and-out slavery of the Deep South, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was its own version of extreme racial discrimination. At a time in U.S. history when the country’s growth and opportunities were outstripping the population’s ability to extract the available bounty, three solutions arrived. Each provided a massive influx of the cheap labor power needed to grow the country’s infrastructure. In the South, up to the year 1820, slaves had been kidnapped from Africa and sold like cattle to plantation owners. In the East, thousands of Irish were fleeing the potato famine and those who survived the ocean crossing arrived poor but eager to work. On the West Coast, the 1849 gold rush brought an explosion of commerce; strong hands and strong backs were much in demand.…

THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT & JAPANESE INTERNMENT

LEGISLATING MORALITY

War with France, a former ally, seemed imminent. The Federalist Congress and their champion, President John Adams, feared internal conflicts within our new government as minority congressmen rose to speak against his policies and his “imperial” style that stifled freedom of dissent. Specifically, the Federalists considered any civilian protest which ran counter to holding the Union together in a time of potential war to be treasonous. In response to this internal threat, a series of four laws – the Alien and Sedition Acts – were speedily pushed through Congress and signed by Adams. To halt the rush of immigrants, particularly “hordes of Wild Irishmen, nor the turbulent and disorderly of all the world, to come here with a basic view to distract our tranquility,” the Naturalization Act was passed on…

LEGISLATING MORALITY

When our soldiers returned in 1919 from World War I in France, they came off the troop ships to a country where, by the end of that year, it would be illegal to buy a mug of beer at their neighborhood saloon. First appearing in the 1820s, a campaign of religious revivalism proclaiming that alcohol addiction was “destroying American lives and values” had been gathering steam and political support. The voting power of the Anti-Saloon League and crowds of rural Protestants saw to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution on January 29, 1919, which “prohibited the manufacturing, transportation and sale of alcohol within the United States.” Twenty-three of the forty-eight states had already passed “dry” laws by 1916 and their representatives had won a two-thirds majority in…

INTERPRETING THE VOLSTEAD ACT – NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The actual length of the Eighteenth Amendment was only 111 words. By comparison, the Volstead Act, which in fact explained the amendment, consumed twenty-five pages. As a public service, the New York Daily News interpreted the act for their readers as follows: • You may drink intoxicating liquor in your own home or in the home of a friend when you are a bona fide guest. • You may buy intoxicating liquor on a bona fide medical prescription of a doctor. A pint can be bought every ten days. • You may consider any place you live permanently as your home. If you have more than one home, you may keep a stock of liquor in each. • You may keep liquor in any storage room or club locker, provided…

DESEGREGATION OF THE MILITARY

Ever since the 54th Massachusetts Infantry fixed their bayonets and charged across the open sands of Morris Island, South Carolina, into the blazing guns of Confederate Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, the African American soldier’s ability and desire to fight bravely has never been in question. The combat glory won by those freshly minted Union troops was passed on to the Buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry who patrolled the West in the 1870s and 1880s, battling Apaches, Comanche, Sioux, and other great Native American tribes. Black army regulars followed Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in the 1898 Spanish-American War. In World War II, the Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group escorted B-17 bombers over Europe. They never lost a Flying Fortress to…

DESEGREGATION OF THE MILITARY

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

Ironically, the fight for women’s rights in the United States began during the London Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott joined forces after being ousted from the conference, which had ruled against women’s participation. This set the stage for the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848. Cady crafted the Declaration of Sentiments, using the Declaration of Independence as her guide, but changed the phrase to “all men and women are created equal.” The Sentiments document included eleven resolutions indicating the rights that women should enjoy as well as men. The ninth, the right to vote in all elections, proved to be the most shocking – even for some of the women in attendance. “Thee will make us ridiculous,” Lucretia Mott told Stanton. It took the…

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

FDR ATTACKS THE DEPRESSION

Determined to bring the country out of the worst depression in its history, President Franklin Roosevelt, like his distant cousin Theodore, used his presidential powers to skirt around the Constitution’s edicts. During the unbridled optimism of the 1920s, middle-class investors, anxious for instant wealth, dipped into their savings to get in on the stock-buying frenzy sweeping the nation. In October 1929, stock values tumbled and shareholders, seeing their stock certificates turn into worthless paper, rushed to sell. Manufacturing declined as companies across the nation declared bankruptcy, sending hundreds of thousands to the unemployment lines. Banks failed when jobless homeowners could no longer pay on loans and mortgages, and unemployment reached 25 percent. Farmers lost their land to foreclosure. In an effort to contain the damage and get the country back…

FDR ATTACKS THE DEPRESSION

WHAT SORT OF MAN LED THE COUNTRY OUT OF THE DEPRESSION?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a charmer, a leader at a time when the country needed not only a problem-solver but a source of inspiration and optimism. It’s fair to say he redefined the presidency and he set the nation toward a new consciousness by enacting legislation designed to address the basic needs of America’s jobless, poverty-stricken, and depressed citizens. History has shown, however, that in spite of all the massive legislation put forth and passed, he lacked an in-depth knowledge of economic principles. Strictly speaking, the New Deal did not end the Depression, but Roosevelt’s actions most likely helped to offset a far worse scenario of increased poverty, homelessness, and despair. In his take-charge manner, he redefined the presidency, believing that the government should provide not only personal rights as…

WHAT SORT OF MAN LED THE COUNTRY OUT OF THE DEPRESSION?

THE LEND-LEASE ACT & WORLD WAR II

As Roosevelt’s New Deal struggled, he turned his attention to foreign policy. War erupted in Europe when German soldiers stormed into Austria, Czechoslovakia, and later Poland in 1938-39. Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France fell to Adolf Hitler’s armies by mid-1940. On the one hand, Roosevelt declared a neutrality policy, yet, because his sympathies lay with Britain, which now was threatened with an invasion by German forces, he ignored Congress and gave the British old American destroyers in exchange for British bases in the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt knew that a British victory was essential to American security and commercial interests, but above all, Germany simply needed to be stopped. Americans, however, were sharply divided on whether to get involved in any conflict. In the 1930s, Congress had passed several…

THE LEND-LEASE ACT & WORLD WAR II

VOTING AT EIGHTEEN & THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

Although eighteen was the age designated for military service, those men who were drafted to fight for their country were not allowed to vote until they reached twenty-one. During the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s, young men and women protested that if they were old enough to die for their country, they were old enough to vote. As an extension of the Voting Act of 1965, Congress passed the Twenty-sixth Amendment, lowering the voting age to eighteen. Oregon appealed and the Supreme Court upheld the appeal, saying that Congress could establish the voting age only in federal elections, not local ones. This ruling meant that eighteen-year-olds were allowed to vote for president but had to reach twenty-one before casting ballots for governor, state representatives, or any…

VOTING AT EIGHTEEN & THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

AND YET SHE STANDS

After the Constitution was approved in 1789, Congress still had twelve amendments to consider. Of these, Amendments Three through Twelve were ratified. One and Two were tabled, and, as a result, Amendment Three became One, Four became Two, and so on. As previously mentioned, these ten became the Bill of Rights. The tabled Second Amendment (specifying that Congressional pay raises go into effect after the start of the next congressional session) was ratified in 1992. It is now the Twenty-seventh Amendment. Other amendments still technically open to consideration, proposed prior to the seven-year limit for an amendment to remain viable, are: THE CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATION AMENDMENT: This would have been Amendment One in the Bill of Rights. It stipulated that the House of Representatives would never have less than 200 members.…

AND YET SHE STANDS

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of the following people who went the extra mile helping us accumulate the immense amount of research required for this book: Marc Honorof, First Person Productions; Joan Bachrach, National Park Service (Valley Forge pictures); Jude Pfister, Morristown National Park Archives; Bill Tropeman, Valley Forge National Park Service; Scott Hauting, Valley Forge Archives; Michelle Ortwein, Valley Forge National Park Service; Yvonne Brooks, Library of Congress; Dolly Pantelides’ U. S. Naval Academy Museum; Nick Crawford – The Granger Collection, Amie McKee, Editor, Carlton Books Ltd; Stefan Morris, Designer, Carlton Books Ltd; Russell Porter, Designer, Carlton Books Ltd. The publishers would like to thank the following sources for their kind permission to reproduce the pictures in this book. PART 1 – PHOTOGRAPHS The publishers would like…

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All About Space Annual (2024): $8.99

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