US History I

Lecture Notes

Copyright 1989, David F. Nalle


THE FIRST AMERICANS

North America: Empty Continent
    Abundant Game for hunting, such as the mammoth
    Many Rivers with fish
    Fertile soil for farming or gathering food
    Food virtually there for the taking at a time when much of Asia was
iced under

Ice Age: 30,000 years ago
    Water Level Lowered
    Ridge of land beneath Aleutian islands exposed, making land bridge
between Alaska and Siberia
    This connection lasted until about 15,000 years ago.

First Americans: nomads From central asia
    Asia and europe iced in, but after a long, cold passage on the land
bridge, america was full of fish, edible plants and game.
    from alaska they spread to canada, america, central america, the
carribean and south america. about 15,000 years ago they were cut off when
the ice receded and the water level rose.
    ancestors of the tribes met by europeans thousands of years later and
mistakenly called 'indians'

Native American Life
    Cut off from their asian and european cousins, the peoples of the
americas did not develope along the same cultural and technological lines.
    as much variety as in Europe, with hundreds of tribes and over 1200
languages and dialects.
    Central America: highly developed technologically, with cities like
Tenochtictlan, as large as those in Europe.  Skilled artisans, very
organized society.  Mayas advanced in science and math.  Aztecs more
warlike, well organized.
    South America: many primitives, but the Incas of peru very
sophisticated, great builders and engineers, huge pyramids, complex society
and advanced administrative and military system. Incas, believed to have
huge riches because of their worked gold items.
    North America: less advanced technologically, great travellers,
farmers, hunters and traders.  Tribal confederacies showed highly developed
political systems, like the Iroquois confederacy and at the time of
European arrival they were on the verge of creating nation states.
    No native americans had learned to use the wheel for transport or
succeeded in working hard metals like iron, though they produced great
artworks in softer metals like gold.  Not all had written languages, though
some had very sophisticated ones, but many had great oral literary
traditions.
    Culturally and politically well developed, but behind the europeans in
some key areas of technological development.     This a gave Europeans the
edge they needed to conquer two vast and populous continents, though they
came with much smaller numbers.

Although there were millions of indians in North and South america at the
time of the first European contacts, the European invasion was so complete
that today native americans make up only a very small part of the
population of the United States and almost all of our language and customs
are european in origin.  Native American society was destroyed so quickly
and changed so much by early contacts with Europeans that it is difficult
to get an accurate picture of what life was like before the white man,
except for what we can extrapolate from the traditions and lifestyles of
those native americans who were still around after europeans had changed
them from  being a threat to being a local oddity worthy of occasional
study.  15 thousand  years of american history are fated to remain a
mystery, but the last five hundred years of European settlement have left
an extensive record of people, ideas and events for us to study.
    
It is likely that the great seafaring nations of Europe and Asia were
aware of the americas from the earliest times.  Greek tales of Atlantis may
be the result of accidental landfalls in America, and the experimental
journeys of Thor Heyerdall show that even the Egyptians and Phoenicians
could have crossed the Atlantic, despite the great dangers involved.
Chinese and Celtic legends suggest knowledge of the americas well before
European discovery.  In the sixth century, irish legends tell of St.
Brendan who travelled to a magical western land beyond the atlantic, a land
of magical birds and animals, all conveniently christian.  Though this tale
is rather fantastic, it does hint at an awareness that there was a land
beyond the atlantic.  None of these early new-world connections are well
documented, and while they don't all present the new world as St. Brendan's
land of talking Christian birds, they remain more valuable as myth than as
history.


THE VIKINGS

Reliable accounts of trans-atlantic exploration really begin with the
vikings, growing out of the exploits of the seagoing adventurers who
followed Eirik the Red to Greenland, particularly his son Leif.  The
wanderlust of these 10th century explorers was not satisfied by the rocky
monotony of greenland, so they set out to go farther west and thus became
the true discoverers of the new world, as well as the first to attempt to
plant colonies there.

Bjarni Hjerolfson--986
    Leif' s expedition explored the coast of of far northern Canada, naming
the major first areas he came upon Markland, Helluland and the farthest
south and most attractive Vinland for the wild grapes he found growing
there.  It is generally believed that Vinland was an area near the mouth of
the St. Lawrence river, perhaps as far south as New England, but more
likely in Nova Scotia.  Leif and his men spent a winter in Vinland before
returning to Greenland.

Thorvald Erickson
    Further inland explorations were made by Thorvald Eirikson, Leif's
brother, who may have been responsible for stone carvings along the river
basins of the northern united states and canada.  The actual extend of his
exploration is not known, but he is the first to encounter the Skraelings,
indians who were probably the ancestors of the Algonquins, at whose hands
he died.

Thorfinn Karlsefni
    Thorfinn Karlsefni was perhaps the most ambitious of the Viking
adventurers.  Around the year 1020, he tried to establish a permanent
Vinland colony with three ships, 60 men, and livestock, on what is now the
eastern shore of what is now Labrador.  This colony was called Leifsbudir
after Leif Eirikson and despite the years and rough weather of the area its
archaeological remains of this colony have been identified and excavated
fairly recently.
    Contrary to tradition, Snorri Thorfinnson, son of Thorfinn and Gudrid
Karlsefni, born in the 1020s, was the first child born to white men in the
new world, not Virginia Dare.
     Because of too much conflict with the Skraelings, Karlsfeni abandonned
his settlement by 1025.

Leif's sister Freydis lead expedition in 1026 to punish the Skraelings.

In 1121 Pope Paschal II appointed Eric Gnupsson Bishop of Vinland,
assigning him the mission of converting the natives.  They were not
receptive to Christianity.  He never returned to Greenland.

After this occasional trips were made there by settlers on Greenland who
needed timber, but no further attempts at colonization were made

The Vinland colony failed to take hold because the vikings did not have the
technological advantages which later colonists were able to use to overcome
the more numerous native population.  Extended supply lines and the decline
of norse sea power made additional colonization impractical for the
vikings, though some contact with the new world continued until the end of
the greenland settlement in the late 1400s.


THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
    In the 15th century the European economy began to expand and merchants
became more ambitious.
    Great wealth coming overland from the east, silks and spices.  This
trade dominated by Venetians, Persians and Turks.
    European merchants wanted greater profits with more efficiency,
bypassing Italian and middle- eastern middle-men.  Began to look for new
routes to the far east.
    Improvements in naval technology during in the 15th century provided
small, reliable ships which were capable of facing the open ocean in
relative security.  Increased seaborn commerce eventually led to advances
in navigation and further improvements in shop design.  Travel by sea,
which had once been a gamble, became relatively safe and European merchants
and rulers realized that the sea might  be the easy road to the rich
cargoes to be found in India, China and Japan.
    1350s: French, Spanish and Italian ships had begun to explore the
coasts of Africa in search of a route east, finding some wealth in wood and
slaves in the process.
    1420s: Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal began a program of
exploration, mapping and catalogging in the Atlantic, collecting all of the
latest ideas in nautical technology and Atlantic geography at his research
institute at Sagres.  Prince Henry died in 1460, but he established a
tradition of Portuguese exploration and had set an example for the rest of
Europe to follow.
    1488: Bartholomeu Diaz, an explorer produced by the programs of Pr.
Henry, rounded the horn of Africa and was the first European to enter the
Indian Ocean, opening the first water route to the east.
    1499: Vasco da Gama took a fleet of four Portuguese ships to India,
proving that the sea lanes were viable for eastern trade.  This broke the
Italian and Turkish domination of the flow of oriental goods and marked the
beginning of the decline of the eastern mediterranean nations and the rise
to power of those european nations which had large merchant fleets.
    Although the sea route pioneered by Diaz and da Gama was a great step
forward, the horn of africa was beset by violent storms and travel to the
east by that route was time consuming and dangerous.  This left many
explorers hoping that there might be a faster, safer route to the orient.
Navigators and scientists had suspected that the world was round since
classical times, but it was not until this need arose that living on a
spinning ball of earth begain to have a practical value.  If the world was
round, it should be possible to reach a point on the other side of the
sphere by going west as easily as by going east.  It was in the proof of
this theory that Christopher Columbus set out to find a western route to
the orient.
    Christopher Columbus was an Italian from the city state of Genoa.  Late
in his career as a successful merchant captain he turned his efforts to
exploration and began to seek funding from the French, English and
Portuguese courts for an expedition to reach the indies by going west on
the assumption that the world was round.  For five years his plan was
considered too uncertain and he campaigned in vain, until he appealed to
Ferdinand and Isabella, the rulers of a newly unified spain.  After
expelling all the jews and moslems from Spain they were ready to look for
new heathens to oppress, so they provided Columbus with three ships, and
granted him the title of 'admiral in chief of the ocean sea and viceroy and
perpetual governor of all the lands and mainlands he should discover'.
    August of 1492: Columbus set out with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria,
arriving at a series of Islands three months later which he at first took
to be Japan, his chosen destination, though they were in fact part of the
Antilles in the Carribean.  It seems that Columbus overlooked the accurate
global dimensions which had been established by Greek mathematicians two
thousand years earlier and relied on a map more to his liking and his
needs, made by Paolo Toscanelli, who had underestimated the diameter of the
earth by at least a third.  This conservative estimate of the distances
involved made fundraising easier by making his voyages seem less ambitious.
Columbus was a brave explorer and a good fundraiser, but his math left
something to be desired.
    Columbus returned to Spain, taking with him a number of captured
natives who he called 'Indians' because he thought they were from Japan,
Japan then being thought to be a part of India.  Unfortunately these
natives died during the lengthy voyage.  However, the nuggets of gold he
seized and his reports of the rich lands he had claimed for spain were
enough to provide funding for several more trips.  In the next few years he
explored throughout the carribean and along the northern coast of South
America, searching for a passage through to the orient.  He never found his
passage, though he claimed a great deal of land for Spain, and although he
is sometimes credited as the discoverer of our continent, he never in fact
set foot on North American soil.
    1497:Amerigo Vespucci: Other Spanish explorers followed after Columbus,
among them was Amerigo Vespucci, who explored the coasts of Mexico and
South America in 1497.  A few years later his name was given to the whole
region, though he never actually set foot in North America.
    1513: Juan Ponce de Leon: explored Florida, searching for fountain of
youth, as well as gold and riches of the new world.
    1521: Ferdinand Magellan: made the first trip around South America to
cross the pacific and reach the orient.
    Beginning in the 1520s the Spanish expeditions took on more of a flavor
of conquest than of exploration, with the misions of Hernan Cortes who
conquered the aztecs in Mexico in 1519 and Francisco Pizzaro who sibdued
the Incas in Peru in the 1530s.
    By the 1540s the Spanish had explored the coasts of both North and
South America and had sent expeditions throughout mexico and the southern
and southwestern parts of North America, going as far north as Kansas.
They had subdued the two most organized and powerful nations in the new
world and were already forcibly christianizing their new subjects while
diseases like smallpox and measles were destroying much of the native
population.  In only a few years these diseases which were unknown in the
new world had reduced the native population in Spanish held areas to 1/10th
of the numbers before their arrival.  In this early period Spanish
domination of Peru, Central America and the Carribean Islands was
unquestioned, and they quickly began to colonize and exploit these lands
for their mineral wealth, particularly gold and silver and later for their
agricultural products.
    The Portuguese had been the first great explorers, and as early as 1493
, in the Treaty of Tordesaillas, Pope Alexander VI had been asked to step
in and resolve conflicting claims to the new world.  He drew a line
dividing South America down the middle, and giving the western portion to
Portugal, and their main colonial efforts were centered there, with Buenos
Aires being founded in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza.
    Although the Spanish had the oldest claim to the new world and the pope
had divided the lands between spain and portugal, neither of these powers
was paying much attention to the colder lands of North America. and that is
where the French, British and Dutch explorations and colonies were
concentrated.
    1497: John Cabot: explored the northern coast of North America for
England's King Henry VII, but England was still in the process of
establishing itself as a mercantile power, so although it had a claim to
this area, only seasonal hunters and fishermen were present in the English
claimed lands for more than a century.
    Later Sir Humphrey Gilbert was to claim Newfoundland for England.  It
was important as the land area nearest to the great banks, one of the best
areas for fishing in the world.  In 1577 it was reported that there were
150 French, 100 Spanish, 50 Portuguese and 15 English boats fishing there
during the summer, but by the end of the century the English had come to
dominate fishing on the Great Banks.
    1524: Giovanni da Verrazano: explored coast of North America for
France.
    1534: Jacques Cartier: was sent to North America to find a northwest
passage to the orient, because the route around South America was too
dangerous and time-consuming.  In the process he discovered the St.
Lawrence River and explored far inland, encountering friendly indians
called the 'Hochelga', establishing trading contacts and making detailed
and extensive maps.
    The french were extremely interested in the fur trade in the north and
established many settlements in the mid 1500s, including settlements in
Quebec, Montreal, New Orleans, Florida and South Carolina.  The French sent
some farmers, but mostly traders and fur trappers over and made many good
contacts with the indians and many traders married indian wives or went
native.
    Spanish: Sought Gold (incas and Aztecs): Disappointed eventually,
though they found silver
    French: sought furs, worked well with indians, never sent many
settlers.
    English: initially sought fishing wealth off Newfoundland, eventually
found other, greater sources of profit.

    Spanish started off dominant, but eventually England became the main
power in the new world as they increased their control of the seas,
beginning with their defeat of the Armada in 1588.

    1577: Sir Francis Drake: English pirate and explorer circumnavigated
the globe, robbed spanish ships and claimed California for England.  His
exploits and those of other 'Sea Hawkes', gentlemen adventurer-prirates,
like Richard Hakluyt, opened a new era of English merchant ventures in the
new world.

    Spanish exploration funded by crown.  English ventures were supported
by joint stock companies, like the Cathay Company which sent Martin
Frobisher to find the Northwest passage to the orient in the 1570s.  Other
men like Sir Humphrey Gilbert strengthened England's claim to North America
by establishing trading posts.
    The desire to settle the new world is clear in the writings of Richard
Hakluyt, one of the first sea hawks, who wrote a  book called 'Discourse on
Western Planting', stressing the advantages of forts in North America as an
annoyance to the Spanish and as a base for ships and a source for valuable
timber and a dumping ground for excess labor.
    The first attempt at a permanent English colony in the New world was
made by Walter Raleigh, the half brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
    1584: Raleigh explored the chesapeake bay looking for the Northwest
Passage and picked Roanoke Island in Albemarle Sound as a potential spot
for a colony.  Named the region Virginia after Q. Elizabeth.
    1587: Raleigh sent over 120 people, both men and women to settle the
island.  Because of war with spain support and supply ships were delayed.
    1590: Supply ship from England arrived at Roanoke to find the colony
gone with hardly a trace.
    Generally believed that the colonists were either killed or assimilated
by local indian tribes because they needed the assistance of the indians to
survive in the harsh climate without support from home.  Remains one of the
great mysteries of American history.
      The Roanoke disaster did not put a stop to English ambitions in the
new world.  In 1605 the Virginia Company of London was founded to colonize
Virginia, with the dual purpose of christianizing the natives and 'dig,
mine and search for all manner of gold, silver and copper.'  This company
established the first permanent English colony at Jamestown in 1607.


THE EARLY COLONIES

1562 1st Permanent colony est in N. America by French Huguenots lead by
Jean Ribaut.  Est colony on Parris Island in Port Royal Sound in what is
now SC.

1565 Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded 1st permanent white colony in N.
America at St. Augustine Fl.  Menendez wiped out French colony on Parris
Isl.

1587 English colony on Roanoke Isl, VA, est by Walter Raleigh.  Gone by
1591.  Cnverted Manteo, freindly local indian, to Christianity.  First such
convert.

1604 Sieur de Monts est 1st Northern French Colony at Mouth of St. Croix
River in Maine.

1607 Jamestown colony established by England/Virginia Company of London

1612 First Dutch colony established on Manhattan Island.  Area originally
explored by Henrik Hudson.  2 Ships, Tiger and Fortune sent to establish
trading post which eventually was made into a fort.

1613 French settlement established on Mt Desert Isl, ME.  Forced off by
English forces from jamestown led by Samuel Argall.

1614 Dutch establish Albany and Ft. Orange nearby


REASONS FOR ENGLISH EMIGRATION

   War with Spain ended 1604, encouraging english merchants to invest
overseas.
   James I was more hostile to religious minorities than Elizabeth had
been.  Puritanism was growing and James was very conservative, though he
was a protestant.
   England was overpopulated, sturdy beggars wandered countryside, robbing
people, etc.
   Under James I and his son Charles I, taxation in England was high, free
speech was limited and government was somewhat oppressive.
   Emigrants were the upper poor, rich enough or skilled enough to get to
the new world and ambitious enough to be desperate for a better lot.
   All of this was made possible by Joint Stock Companies.  These were
companies in which English merchants held shares, buying a portion of the
company to provide capital for its ventures and then receiving a share of
the profits in proportion to the money they had put up.  The Muscovy
Company had been very successful in trading in Russia, and the Cathay
company had done well in the Middle East.  Companies were chartered by the
king, which gave them a legal constitution of sorts and an official right
to be the sole company trading in their designated area.
    The main way for people to get to the new world, since ship passage was
very expensive, was to get there at the expense of the company or its
shareholders.  These people would sign contracts to work for a set number
of years in the colony, working for the company or for a shareholder, or
sometimes for someone actually owning land in the colony.  After their term
of service was up (usually 7 years) they would be expected to live in he
colony, would be given some cash and some land, and would become settlers.
Most of them started out working on large estates as farmers, working their
craft, or working in mines, and they ended up as small farmers, spread
throughout western VA.  They were called Indentured Servants.   Those who
came over in the first wave of settlers got 100 acres each.  Later ones got
50 acres each. Sort of like slavery, but for poor, skilled white men and
offering pretty good opportunities at the end.  Laws protected the rights
and safety of these Bondsmen, and they were under a legal contract.
Nonetheless, they were dissatisfied, wanted more, and did cause some
disturbances and uprisings in VA.


ESTABLISHMENT OF VIRGINIA

    James I was eager to raise money when he came to the throne.  Did this
by granting land in the New World to lords, merchants and companies.
    Much of the northeastern coastal areas of N. America were granted to
the Plymouth branch of the Virginia Company of London, under the
directorship of Sir Ferdinand Gorges.  He established colony at Sagadohoc
on Kennebec R. in Maine, in Spring of 1607, but it was abandonned after
less than a year because of the harsh winter.
    Same time, the London branch of the company sent out Captain
Christopher Newport in 1606 with the Susan Constant, Godspeed and
Discovery.  After four months they reached the Chesapeake bay, which had
been explored some years before by Sir Walter Raleigh and was the site of
the failed Roanoke colony of 1587.
    They established a town at the mouth of the James River, named after
JAmes 1.  It was called JAmestown.
    This was an easily defensible location, though it was somewhat exposed
to the elements.
    Capt. John Smith: military leader of the colony, energetic, iron
willed, a bit abrasive.  Responsible for keeping the colony together during
the hard first years, when he essentially took over as miliatry dictator.
    Powhatan: local indian chief, powerful leader of local tribal
confederacy.  Liked Smith and wanted to use the colonists as a tool in wars
with other local tribes.  Provided food in an effort to gain their loyalty
and make them essentailly part of his tribal confederacy.
    Powhatan's daughter, Matoaka (Pocohontos) toured europe as if she were
a visiting noblewoman.  She was perceptive, and commented that the coming
of the English was 'not for trade, but to invade my people and possess my
country'.  These were settled, territorial indians, not the foolish
pastoral nomads sometimes depicted.  They understood ownership of land, and
perceived the English threat fairly quickly.
    With Powhatan's help they were able to survive their first winter in
Virginia.
    Some unrest in this period, including a revolt against the governing
Council of Jamestown, which Smith put down, having leader, George Kendall
shot.
    Winter 1608-1609: 'Starving Time'.  Another ship of colonists had
arived.  Unable to raise viable crops, because of inexperience as farmers
and lack of interest in farming, the colony didn't have sufficient food to
survive.  Explorations inland had aroused Powhatan's suspicions and he lost
faith in Smith, so he did not provide food.  Smith's control and harsh
rules maintained order, deaths were minimized, but everyone was VERY
unhapy.  Again, Smith had to be harsh and a number were executed, including
a band who had gone cannibal out of hunger.
    Smith was injured in 1609 and left the colony for good.  On his return
he authored a number of books popularizing his own career as a mercenary
and the Virginia colony, including A MAP OF VIRGINIA in 1612, which
described the region and the colony, and made suggestions for how best to
carry on further colonization.
    In 1622 there was a major conflict with indians of the same confederacy
that Powhatan had led some years before.  In this conflict over 1/3 of the
settlers were killed, and whole villages were wiped out.  The English
retaliated, beginning a series of bloody conflicts, culminating in an
uneasy peace in 1646, when a firm border was set and a truce established
for more than 30 years.  This ended in the 1670s when Nathanial Bacon, led
a rebellion against the government of the colony and entered a private war
against the Susquehannok indians, massacring the tribe before his rebellion
fell apart.
    Of 200 original colonists, only 60 survived three years after the
colony was established.  Deaths mostly from starvation, internal violence,
exposure, conflict with indians, and disease.
    This pattern of extreme hazard continued.  By 1624 of 6000 who had been
brough over 19 years, only 1200 survived.  In response to this James I
revoked the charter and made it a crown colony.
    He did this at just the moment when a critical mass had been achieved,
so conditions were beginning to improve significantly.


NATURE OF THE FIRST VIRGINIANS

    From the start the whole approach to colonizing Virginia was wrong.
This is why, after 20 years, Virginia could still be considered a failure,
because so many had died, even though the colony survived.
    Although Raleigh and Hakluyt had written a number of books on the new
world and how best to colonize it, the Viriginia Company did not follow
their advice.
    They suggested sending farmers and craftsmen to establish a working
community and then proceed from here to get more of a hold on the new
world.  They saw the new lands of rich game and heavy forests to be
valuable in their own right, and thought that hunting, lumbering, farming
and trade with the indians would bring in great wealth, though the process
might be slow getting started.
    Instead of heeding this advice and excited by the successes of the
Spanish, the Virginia Company wanted to bring in quick profits to please
its shareholders.  The bondsmen and freemen they sent over were mostly
trained to look for easy wealth.  They were miners, heavy laborers,
jewelers, and idle gentlemen and adventurers good for nothing but seeking
out treasure.  Most of them were from cities like London, rather than
outlying farm regions more similar to Virginia.  They were looking for a
northwest passage to the orient (hoping the chesapeake would be it) or for
gold and silver like the spanish had found.  These people were neither
willing nor able to farm and raise food which the colony needed to survive,
and did nothing but cause trouble and refuse to do necessary work.  This
made it very difficult for smith and forced him to take harsh measures.
Instead of farmers he had been given diletantes and this was no way to run
a colony, as he made very clear in his writings later.  He was particularly
upset with the Company and his criticism was probably a major factor in the
revocation of their charter, since he had become a romantic and well liked
popular figure.
    In fact, the VA Co. Didn't even send women over, so the chance of the
colony lasting as a serious settlement were pretty slim.  Fortunately, all
this changed in 1624.


THE GROWTH OF VIRGINIA

    Once under control of the crown, Virginia began to do much better.
Royal interest was more in settlement and competition with French and
Spanish than in instant wealth, and the hard times had already been dealt
with.
    One great benefit to the colony was the discovery that Virginia was an
ideal climate for growing Tobacco, which began in 1612.  It was introduced
there by John Rolfe, who later married Matoaka (Pocohontas). The English
market for tobacco was growing rapidly, so despite reservations about the
undesirability of the habit of smoking, it became the primary cash crop in
Virginia.  In 1618 Virginia shipped 30,000 pounds to England.  In 1627 they
shipped 500,000 pounds.
    Tobacco depleted the fertility of the soil, so tobacco fields were good
for only about 4 years.  The greater amount of land made virginia a logical
place to grow tobacco, since it had more arable land than the already well
established island colonies of the carribean, which had been the primary
source of tobacco before that time.
    One of the problems of Tobacco was that it was grown most efficiently
on large plantations, and these growing estates pushed smaller farmers who
were generally former Bondsmen, into the less desirable uplands areas of
western Virginia, creating some disconent and a somewhat divided society.
The estate owners in the river and coastal valleys became the 'Tidewater
Aristocracy' and were much resented by the smaller farmers.  This problem
of the conflict between the classes in Virginia can be seen as early as
1619 when laws were enacted requiring specific types of dress depending on
social rank.
    Another effect of tobacco was an increase in the need for labor to work
in the fields.  This created a need which could not really be adequately
met by the system of indentured servitude, and as the tobacco market grew,
the need grew, and this led to the beginning of slave importation into the
Virginia colony.  The first slaves arrived in the summer of 1619, and these
20 who were brought on a Dutch ship were just the first in a growing flow
of slaves to the southern colonies which changed forever the economic and
social structure of that part of the United States.


THE NEW ENGLAND COLONY

    While most settlers in VA came because they were poor and displaced or
were looking for wealth in a new world, the first settlers in New England
came because they had chosen to leave England  because their religious
beliefs were too radical.  Rather than have their children corrupted by
English religion and Education, and rather than face prejudice from the
more conservative English church and government, they first went to
holland, which also proved to be inhospitable, and then at their own
expense, financed several missions to make settlements in the new world.
    While settlers in early VA were mostly men, sent over in indenture, all
of the settlers in New England were freemen, most of them bringing wives
and children with them, generally with the specific intention of owning and
farming their own land, rather than working for someone else as the
settlers in VA were forced to do.  They hoped to establish a society much
like rural English society, but based on certain religious principles, with
society and government centering around their churches.  They did not
believe in freedom of religion, just in their freedom from the form of
religion dominant in England.  They were religious extremists, against the
established church, called Puritans.  Strict followers of the teachings of
John Calvin.
    The puritan movement in England had been strong since the split with
rome under Henry VIII.  It eventually reached its height in the period of
the English Civil War of the 1640s.  The Puritans were hard to get along
with.  They were unwilling even to conform outwardly to the English church,
scornful of those who did, and generally not liked in England, which they
saw as a corrupt environment anyway/

Many misconceptions about puritans.

Not all puritans wore drab clothes, some drank...'wine is from god,
drunkenness from the devil'...against doing things immoderately

believed in predestination believed very strongly that they were right.
sort of insufferable somewhat nosy, concerned about welfare of others.

They knew they were chosen by god, so they were impatient with anyone who
stood in their way, including English government and Indians who lived in
their new promised land.  Also willing to be somewhat underhanded because
anything they did was justified by god.


MASS BAY COLONY

Groups of Puritan Separatists.  Denounced English church as corrupt and
were hounded out of England as a result.  Fled to holland in 1614 where
they weren't much better lkiked.  They got backing for a new world colony
from merchants in England who formed a Joint Stock Company to raise the
capital.

1620 35 Pilgrim families set out for NEw England in the Mayflower.  Also
coming with them were 60 'strangers', craftsmen, soldiers and more general
colonist types.

Were led by William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish (leader of the
strangers).

Originally headed for Virginia, but decided to settle on Cape Cod, which
they sighted first, because they attributed this to god.

Picked out Plymouth, on Mass Bay.  41 adult men signed a written compact of
govenment...the Mayflower Compact established a contract-based,
pseudo-democratic govenrment, providing for the governor to be elected by
the Adult males.

They barely knew anything about farming or hunting or fishing, being mostly
of a more urban background, though they valued the rural, simple life very
highly, having never experienced it.

Disease carried by European fishermen had pretty much wiped out the local
indians, and though half the pilgrims died in their first winter, the
indians who survived were fairly friendly and supportive and they survived.
A great help in this was a local indian named Squanto, who had been to
England, and acted as their liaison...they described him as 'a special
instrument sent by god'. The colony quickly became self-sufficient, through
great determination and hard work, and did well with lumber and fur which
it exported to England, so that in 1626 they were able to buy out the
merchants who had funded their expedition out of their profits.

Although early relations with the Naragansett, from which tribe Squanto
came, were good, they had clashes with many other indians, who they
generally viewed as an impediment to their holy mission.

When Smallpox killed several thousand indians in the area, John Winthrop
said 'The Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess'.  Not very
sympathetic.

They made surprisingly little effort to convert the Indians, and seemed to
wish they would just disappear.  In fact, no missionary work was done until
the mid 1630s, 13 years after the first settlement, and Indians were
forbidden from even entering the puritan settlements.

In 1637 they allied with the freindly Naragansetts to attack the
neighboring Pequot tribe, which they massacred.

The Naragansetts thought that their way of war was 'too furious and slays
too many men', and in the next major conflict they sided with a large
confederacy led by Chief Metacom of the Wampanoags which made a last stand
against the settlers in King Philips war in 1675 and 1676.  The indians
eventually lost this war, but not before destroying twelve puritan
settlements and killing a larger percentage of the white population than
was killed in any American conflict before or since.

While the Virginia economy was based on agriculture, particularly tobacco,
the New England economy which began as farm oriented, quickly became based
on trade, starting with the trade in fur and lumber from the indians to
Europe, and then moving into international shipping, particularly taking
slaves from Africa to the carribean, though few were brought back to New
England.  Fishing and smuggling also became major sources of revenue, and
ports like Boston and Salem were eventually to become famous for the
excellence of their shipwrights.  Eventually the merchants of boston were
as rich and powerful an elite as the tidewater aristocracy of Virginia.

Unique aspects of this colony were elective elements of government, with an
elected council and governor, plus the fact that instead of leaving charter
in England they took it with them, and since they landed outside of the
Virginia area where they were supposed to land, they were essentially
outside of British authority for some years.  Not necessarily by accident.
Eventually, as they were only the first of many new england colonies, they
were absorbed into the Commonwealth of Massachutsets, but their democratic
and religious legacy continued.


THE GROWTH OF VIRGINIA

From John Rolfe's first planting of Tobacco in 1612, the economy of
Virginia was based on tobacco.

At first an effort was made to grow a variety of crops in Virginia,
including grapes, silk, indigo, cotton, oranges, olives and sugar, but
although all of these things grew well there, it was tobacco which Virginia
grow and profit from Tobacco and later from other crops.  Production
increased quickly, with yearly production going from 2500 pounds in 1616 to
500 thousand in 1627 to 30 million pounds by 1700, roughly 400 pounds for
every man woman and child in VA.

Tobacco grew most efficiently on large plantations, and those plantations
required a lot of labor to harvest their tobacco, and slaves were the
cheapest source of that labor

With the consolidation of land in the hands of the 'Tidewater Aristocracy'
they also gained political power.  They restricted voting rights in
Virginia to those who held large amounts of land or property, so that the
House of Burgesses, which had originally been a unique elective council,
came to be dominated by their faction.

Smaller planters living in the mountain foothills of Virginia suffered the
most in indian raids and conflicts, and acted as a buffer state protecting
the planters.  In Bacon's rebellion in 1676 Nathanial Bacon gathered 500
small planters from the fringes of virginia and led them in raids against
the indians, wiping out the Susquehannocks, all against the will of the
Royal Governor, Sir William Berkeley.  Berkeley was a member of the 'Green
Springers' or Tidewater Aristocracy and had ruled Virginia for 30 years,
supported by his cabal of rich land owners.  He called Bacon and his men
'rabble of the basest sort' and declared Bacon a traitor and placed a price
on his head.  Berkeley marched his men to Jamestown and forced Berkeley to
recognize him as a military authority in the colony.  Berkeley rescinded
this and sent to England for troops when Bacon took his men away from the
capital to kill more indians.  Bacon returned and burnt Jamestown to the
ground, forcing Berkeley to flee to Maryland.  Before a detachment of 1100
british troops arrived, Bacon had already died from dysentry, a common
disease in he colony, and his forces dissipated.  Although Bacon was of
aristocratic background, most of his followers were the dispossessed of the
colony, and the rebellion is a symbol of the resentment felt by small
farmers to Virginia's aristocracy.

Rebelliousness and discontent were not the only problems in early Virginia.
The climate was discovered to  be unhealthy for many, and new immigrants
had to survive what came to be called 'The Seasoning Time', a period of
sickness which most encountered, a result of the hot, moist climate.
During this seasoning victims would at the least experience fevers and at
the worst catch malaria or dysentry, which would debilitate or kill.

Life remained precarious in the Chesapeake area.  In the 1700s a man of 20
in Middlesex County, VA, could expect 25 more years of life.  Much of the
disease in the area would not have been fatal if proper care and nursing
were available, but with so many sick and the life so generally hard, it
was difficult for people to take time out to care for each other. Another
problem was the shortage of women.  Even in the early 1700s the ratio was 3
women for each man.  This was great for widows, who found it easy to
remarry.  Many men remained single for their entire lives.  Others married
indian women and were adopted into indian society.  Many went native or
reverted to very primitive ways of living.

In 1728 William Byrd tells of a couple living in the region who lived in 'a
bower, vover's with Bark, after the Indian Fashion, which in that mild
situation protected them pretty well from the weather...as for raiment, he
depended mostly on the length of his bears, and she on the length of her
hair, part of which she brought decently forward and the rest dangled
behind, quite down to her rump'.

For some the rigorous life of the plantation or the small farm lost its
appeal when the alternatives of living off the abundant land or becoming
part of the simpler, healthier and easier-going indian community were a
powerful lure.

Violence in the White community was common, and those who did not overcome
and rise to the top of Virginia society were quickly demeaned and deprived
of their rights and priveleges.

As has already been mentioned, most early colonists came to Virginia as
indentured servants, with their ultimate reward including a grant of land.
When the colony went under crown control in 1624 this program was changed
somewhat, to a 'Headright' system, where it became the right of each
immigrant to have 50 acres of land, if he staked a claim to it and paid a
small fee called a Quitrent to the government of the colony.  To establish
his claim he was expected to mark out the boundries of his land, plant a
crop and build a shelter of some sort.  This system encouraged Europeans to
come to the new world as settlers, but since many could not afford it, they
indentured themselves, or else they struck a deal with a Virginia merchant
to trade all or part of their land for their passage to the new world.  As
time went by this led to new immigrants having less and less land or land
of less quality, and more and more land coming under the control of the
monied classes, widening the social and economic gaps in Virginia society.

Slavery was also a major factor in the growth and development of Virginia.
While the first few Blacks may have come to Virginia as indentured
servants, it is clear that by 1640 at least a fair portion of the black
population were slaves, and by 1660 the vast majority were slaves.
Prejudice was a strong factor in the enslavement of blacks, with all manner
of justifications, from associating them with African apes, to pointing out
(as a pamphlet did in 1704) that 'Black is the color of night, frightful,
dark and horrid.'  The spanish and portuguese had also set precedents for
slavery elsewhere in the new world.  However, almost certainly, the true
motivation  behind all the excuses and justifications was how much more
profitable it was to work land with slaves than with wage laborers or even
indentured servants.  The growth of the black popultion was slow but
steady, from 300 in 1650 to 2000 in 1670.  After 1670 the real influx of
slaves began  because improving conditions in England made emmigration less
desirable.  In addition, the formation of the Royal African Company
legitimized the exportation of slaves from Africa to the New World, and
from that point the slave trade was unchecked.

As it grew with the wealth of tobacco, the labor of slaves and the
political power of the Tidewater Aristocracy, Virginia became a major power
in the colonies and in the growing British Empire, with this strength
continuing into the period after the revolution, so that Virginia produced
many of the major colonial leaders, including George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, four of the first five
presidents of the US, plus other major leaders like George Mason and John
Marshall.  All of these leaders were part of the Tidewater Aristocracy.


MASSACHUTSETTS

The puritan settlement at Plymouth was the model for many other groups
which joined them in Massachutsetts and other parts of new England.  Many
of these settlers also came for religious reasons and to form new societies
based on faith, including the settlement at Salem which was founded by
Puritans from Dorchester, who established the Massachutsetts Bay Company in
1629, and took control of the New England colony under royal authority.
Unlike the separatists of Plymouth, they were less extreme and willing to
practice their religion in the protection of the colonies, while remaining
part of the English government and empire.  Later migrations associated
with the Salem settlement brought thousands more settlers, both puritans
and those just looking for a new life, and they established further major
settlements, including Boston.  By 1640, over 10,000 immigrants had come to
Massachutsetts, including all of the officers and investors involved in the
Massachutsets Bay Company and their leader John Winthrop, who in his speach
'A Model of Christian Charity', described the settlement in the new world
as being like a 'city upon a hill', an example for others to follow, a
communityseparated from the corruption of the rest of the world.

Winthrop, as head of the company was made Governor of the colony.  Under
his leadership an elected legislature and a general court were established.
At first election was fairly open, with voting done by all adult male
church members, though in the 1640s larger numbers who were not part of the
puritan church began to come to the colony and they were excluded from
voting  because they were not of the right faith or sect.

The colony prospered and didn't have many of the difficulties which
continued in Virginia, because there was less disease and economic
divisions were less extreme, or at least took much longer tobecome
pronounced.  There was a high birthreate, more than three times the modern
rate, and a low mortality rate.  Marriage was late and there was a good
balance between the sexes.  Family life was strict, and based on biblical
principles, but children were well cared for and generally disciplined but
not abused.

By the end of the 17th century there were more than 500 towns in
massachutsets, and the government which developed to govern them was well
organized and very paternalisti and governed with little interference from
England.  Laws were harsh and showed the peculiar prejudices of the ruling
puritans.  Church attendance was required by law.  Ministers were paid by
taxes.  The unpopular Quaker sect of protestantism was banned.  The death
penalty was the punishment for adultery and for blasphemy.  There were
fixed prices and wages, and even laws dictating how people should dress.
All of these repressive measures were done in the name of protecting the
people and the church from sin and corruption, but for those who did not
want to live in compliance with all aspects of this puritan society they
were an unwelcome burden and there was no recourse.  Despite all this, the
government remained relatively representative for the first few
generations, until additional laws passed in the 1670s added a requirement
of property ownership to be able to vote.

As time went by church membership also became more restrictive, and the
government went more and more into he hands of an elite who controlled the
church and the state.  It was only possible to get full membership in the
church through proving that you were saved and destined for heaven.  In
time this became harder and those in power became more sceptical of the
miracles of conversion which people claimed, so they admitted fewer people
to full membership in the church.  In successive generations this
increasing number of people who were not allowed full membership in the
church or participation in government led to unrest in Massachutsetts, and
eventually the government of the colony had to be reformed by the English
Crown.

The first attempt at reform in Massachutsetts came in 1684 when the Crown
under Charles II annuled the charter of the colony and sent Edmund Andros
to govern there.  He attempted to enforce religious toleration, established
some anglican churches.  He abolished many of the local assemblies and
attempted to restructure the colony on more English lines.  When James II
was expelled as King of England in 1691 Andros was recalled and 1000 armed
colonists led by a contingent of ministers forced him to flee the colony.
The old laws, systems and assemblies were restored and a new charter issued
which allowed them freedom of government, but still insisted on Religious
Toleration, which had become a cornerstone of the English system of
government.

Economic prosperity continued in the New England colonies.  All of their
farm goods were grown for domestic use, since the same crops could be grown
in England, so other routes to profit had to be found.  There were laws
against lending money for profit and for selling goods for too much profit,
so other sources of wealth had to be found.  There were attempts to start
industry and develope independent from English manufactured goods, but
these were not very successful.

Mercantile success eluded NEw Englanders until the late 1640s when they
began exporting fish to Europe.  Out of this trade and the trade in wine
and manufactured goods from Europe to New England, a healthy trade began to
grow.  Soon New England merchants were carrying all manner of goods all
over the Atlantic.  Eventually these merchants discovered that the greatest
profit was to be found in the slave trade, and despite their religious
background they had no scruples about buying or capturing blacks in africa
and selling them to their neighbors in the carribean colonies and virginia.

Mercants trading in Boston, Portsmouth, Salem, Newport and New Haven became
the driving force of the Massachutsetts economy, and their growth and
prosperity soon brought about the breakdown of the religious domination of
Massachutsets.  Boston was the third largest city in the Birtish Empire in
1720, second only to London and Bristol.  Life in Boston and the other
towns was not nearly as centered on faith as it was in the smaller villages
and by the 1720s it was the merchants rather than the puritan elders who
were coming to dominate the government and society.  Though religious
leaders saw city life as corrupt and sinful, they were force to maintain an
uneasy peace in the colony because the merchants held the purse strings of
government and had the support of the crown.


THE DISSIDENTS OF RHODE ISLAND

One of the results of this repressive system in the early years of the
Massachutsets colony was that dissidents who held slightly different
beliefs or were not happy with the system had to either stay quiet or leave
the colony.

One prive ecample is that of Roger Williams, a popular minister among the
first Pilgrims at Plymouth.  He was described by William Bradford, leader
of that colony as possessed of 'many precious parts, but very unsettled in
judgement'.  Hew was an extreme separatists and had a church in Salem, but
he felt that establishing a church based government in Massachutsetts was a
mistake and that the government would corrupt the church and that the two
should be separate.  He felt that 'forced religion stinks in God's
nostrils.'  He also believe that it was a 'national sinne' to take control
of land from the Indians without paying a fair price.  He was essentially a
libertarian and believed in free action and civil rights for everyone.  He
refused to follow the advice of pilgrim leaders that he should moderate his
views, and after he lost much of the support of his church, he was given
six weeks by the General Court to leave the colony.

In 1636 he travelled south to the head of Naragansett bay, wher he made a
deal with local indians and founded the town of Providence.  He got
acharter from parliament in 1644 and established the colony of Rhode Island
and Providence Plantations.  The government was democratic, tolerated all
religions and kept church and state separate.

Another dissenter was Anne Hutchinson, who was a very strong woman, mother
of 15 children, and a midwife.  She discussed religious and political
issues with the women in he community, and criticized the ideas of soime of
the ministers, especially a fellow named John Wilson.  She disagreed with
the principle that those who were saved by predestination had to lead pure
lives as a model for the unsaved.  She believed that those who were saved
were not obligated to follow social rules of good behavior or even the laws
of the commonwealth.  She was tried for defaming the clergy, and rejected
even the bible, because she said that if one received direct revelation
from god, that was more important than biblical writ.  She admitted to
talking to god regularly and was promptly exiled for blasphemy.

With her large family and a group of followers she moved to Rhode Island in
1637.  After her husband died in 1642 she moved on to the Dutch colony of
New Netherland which also practiced religious toleration.  Unfortunately,
she and all but her youngest daughter were killed by indians there.

The fact that Massachutsets could not tolerate these two progressive,
free-thinkers indicates that those controlling the society in Massachutsets
were afraid that it could not survive even such small dissension,
indicating that they realized that it was a weak and fragile experiment,
ultimately doomed to failure.


BRIDGE

In addition to the major English colonies, in the early period there were a
number of non-English colonies in the midst of the English lands.  New
France was along the St. Lawrence river, with the towns of Montreal and
Quebec.  New Netherlands was on the Hudson bay and along the Hudson River,
with major settlements at Ft. Orange (Albany) and New Amsterdam (New York).
It was captured by the English under the Duke of York in the 1660s and
renamed New York.  Another notable foreign colony was New Sweden, a Swedish
colony established in 1631 by Peter Minuit on the Delaware river with its
capital at Ft. Christiana (Wilmington).  It was taken over by the Dutch in
1655.

Although Virginia and New England were the largest and earliest colonies, a
number of other English colonies were established a bit later on the
Eastern Coast.  While Virginia and New England were colonized by
corporations, most of the other colonies were established by individuals or
limited partnerships who obtained charters from the crown.  These colonies
were called proprietary colonies because they were essentially privately
owned, at the approval of the king.  Once the first colonies had proven
that colonization was possible and could be profitable everyone wanted to
stake a claim in the new world, and in the 1630s a great period of
migration began.


MARYLAND

George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, had been on the boards of both the New
England Council and the London Company and had attempted to establish a
colony in Newfoundland.  He was aclose friend of Charles I, and applied to
him for a charter to create a colony as a refuge for fellow catholics in
the new world.  George Calvert died a month before the charter was granted,
but his son Cecilius took over for him in this project.

The first settlers arrived in 1634, founding St. Mary's just north of the
potomac river.  The existence of the nearby Virginia Colony across the
Chesapeake was a great help and they soon capitalized on the profitable
tobacco crop as well, though there was some conflict over land rights in
the border between Virginia and Maryland.

Lord Calvert was given rights in Maryland equivalent to those of a lord in
the old world, with the right to establish feudal manors and underlords,
hold people in serfdom, establish his own courts and make his own laws.
However, this sort of feudal set-up did not appeal to settlers and he found
that to attract a population he had to give them a stroing say in their own
government.  Lord Baltimore wisely decided to allow many legal freedoms,
and Because many of the settlers were protestant, he permitted religious
freedom to all Christians in the Toleration Act of 1649.  He made a fortune
from the maryland colony and maintained control there until the revolution.


THE CAROLINAS

The Carolinas were originally established in the 1660s as a proprietary
colony, with a huge grant of land being given to eight lords with colonial
interests, including the Earl of Clarendon, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and
Sir William Berkeley, the former governor of Virginia.  They planned to
colonize with settlers from some of the more populous colonies to the north
and from the west indies and base the economy on a variety of agriculture,
like wine, silk, oil and olives.

The charter was like that of Maryland, granting extensive power to the
lords, but they established a Fundamental Constitution, with the help of
the philosopher John Locke, which established a hereditary nobility and a
feudal system of peasants.  Everyone wanted to be a lord, but no one wanted
to be a peasant, and eventually a compromise was reached, similar to that
in Virginia and Maryland.  The first settlers came in 1670, mostly from
Barbados. Charleston was established in 1680.  A division developed between
the fur and food exporters of the Charleston area and the poorer farmers of
the Albemarle settlement to the south and in 1712 the areas were divided
into North and South Carolina.

As the colony developed they found that it was too cold a climate for fruit
and many other vegetables and too warm for tobacco, but it was just right
for rice, and it became the staple crop of the Carolinas and a source of
great wealth.  Rice, like tobacco needed much labor, so a demand for slaves
brought a large black population to the Carolinas.

There was consideable resentment of proprietary rule in the Carolinas,
which were not managed as liberally as MAryland was, and in the 1720s both
North and South Carolina were made crown colonies under royal governance.


PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania was also a proprietary colony, but rather than being given to
an English lord, it was given to the son of an English Admiral to pay off a
16 thousand pound debt to his father from king charles 2.  This man was
William Penn, and he was a Quaker.

The Quakers were protestant extremists who many regarded as dangerous
radicals.  They believed in missionary and charitable work, and did not
believe in ministers or organized churches.  They dressed plainly and would
not follow social conventions.  They were also resolved pacifists.  Earlier
in the 17th century many had been jailed in England and some were even
hanged or burnt in new england, but by 1681 when Pennsylvania was
established they had become a bit more accepted.  They had originally
started a small Quaker colony in New Jersey, but under Penn they turned
their main colonial efforts to the more desirable lands to the West.

Penn gave the right to vote in his colony to all landholders or taxpayers
and kept his own role to a minimum, giving settlers as much freedom as
possible, including freedom of religion.  He was an honest and liberal
minded man, and when colonists objected to his two-house pennsylvania
legislature, he instructed them to design a better system for themselves,
and in 1701 they issued the Charter of Liberties, which made a single-house
legislature, the only legislature in the colonies not modeled on the
English parliament.  It also provided for a separate assembly for the
Delaware region, which later separated completely from Pennsylvania.
Control of the colony remained in Quaker hands for many years, but
eventually the democratic system there spread power throughout the
population.

The colony was very successful, growing in population faster than almost
any other, though it did not have the potential of Virginia for
agricultural profit or of Massachutsets for commercial profit.  In 1685
there were 9,000 pennsylvanians, and in 1700 there were almost 20,000.  The
first settlers were English and Welsh Quakers, but Penn also advertised in
Germany and a large German population came to the colony.

Penn's preparations and planning of cities and communities made
Pennsylvania one of the healthiest and most successful colonies, with a
stable mixture of agriculture, industry and commerce and a fairly balanced
population of free men.

Penn also dealt openly and honestly with the Indians and Pennsylvania
suffered very little at their hands until after Penn's death when
non-Quaker colonists came into conflict with them.

Unfortunately, though pennsylvania became one of the most prosperous of the
early colonies, Penn himself spent time in debtors prison in England and
died in poverty, because he never attempted to take any part in the profits
made in his colony in the way that other proprietary lords did, which may
be why the colony was so successful.

ETHNIC IMMIGRATION

From the very start of the colonial period, North America was far from a
racially homogeneous society.  In addition to the English, Native American
and Negro populations, a number of different European groups settled in the
new world and made a significant contribution to the culture and political
development of the colonies.

The most notable ethnic influx was obviously that of Africans through the
slave trade.  In the colonial period more than half a million Africans made
the passage from the 'slave coast' of Africa to North America.  These
500,000 were only 5% of those exported to the New World as a whole, the
vast majority going to South America and the English colonies in the
carribean.  All told, only 5% of the Africans in the New World came to what
would later be the United States.

However, none of the immigrations to the United States were very large, and
the 500,000 Slaves brought to North America in the colonial period
represented a very sizeable ethnic group, since  migrations of other
non-english groups were generally less than 250,000 persons over that same
period.

In the protected environment of the plantations African slaves retained
much of their culture, language and religion, and though they were
conquered and enslaved they remembered their homeland and heritage, and
many reflections of their old lives in Africa carried over to the new
world.

Dutch, French and Swedish populations existed in the new world as a legacy
of colonies established before Britain came to dominate the entire Eastern
seaboard.  Of these, the Dutch in New York were the most numerous, with the
Swedes in Delaware being rapidly assimilated and the French in Acadia
eventually being removed to join the French colonies on the Mississipi.

The three major groups to come into the new world after the colonies were
well established in English control were the Germans, the Scotts-IRish and
the Scotts.  In the 17th century the English had atempted to deal with
problems in mostly Catholic Ireland by settling Ireland with protestant
lowland Scotts who were of the equally troublesome presbyterian sect.
After poor harvests and poorer treatment in Northern Ireland, the Scotts
Irish emigrated to the new world, lured by reports that they could purchase
large amounts of land for very low prices.  All told 250,000 of them
emigrated, and though much of the land they evenually settled on was in the
less fertile highlands of the southern and central states, it was as good
as or better than the lands they had left in Ireland and Scotland.  The
Scotts-Irish lived in isolated ethnic communities, and this aroused some
resentment among their English neighbors, leading to some prejudice and
persecution.  Major Scotts-Irish concentrations were in Western
Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas. (Mention ancestors in Pittsburgh
Area).  In general, they preferred to go into the rougher, less civilized
land and live fairly close to nature in surroundings much like Ireland and
Scottland.

The Second largest ethnic group to come to the new world was made up of
Germans belonging to a variety of extremist protestant sects like the
Menonites and Moravians.  These sects were unpopular in their homelands in
the Rhine Valley and migrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s.  They
settled in central and Western pennsylvania in tight-knit communities,
which retain many of their german traditions and their german language
today.  Their descendants are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.  All told
100,000 emigrated to the new world over an extended period.

Also noteworthy were the Scots who emigrated to the new world, or were
transported there as punishment.  After the Scots rebellions against the
English in 1715 and 1748 many Scots either fled the British Isles or were
forced out by the English.  These settlers, mostly highland scotts, settled
in North and South Carolina.  While they were not as large as some of the
other migrations, they played a significant role in the revolutionary war
because of their martial traditions and opposition to the English.

Anothe noteworthy group which came to the new world because of persecutioin
were the French Huguenots, protestants who were persecuted in France, but
had been under the protection of the crown until 1685 when the Edict of
Nantes was revoked.  Many of them fled to the new world, settling in
Massachutsetts, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and South
Carolina, where many of them were assimilated fairly easily, though some
Huguenot settlements still survive on the eastern shores of Maryland and
Virginia.

With all this migration, the population of the colonies grew at an
astounding rate, with the total population going from less than 25,000 in
1630 to 250,000 in 1700, to 2,150,000 in 1770, approximately increasing
ten-fold every 70 years, though after the end of the colonial period this
trend was to slow.  This sort of unchecked growth in population from
massive immigration and high birth rates made it inevitable that the
English colonies should prosper and eventually expand westward across the
continent.


SOUTHERN CULTURE

Life in the southern colonies centered around the plantation or the
household of the smaller farmers.  Most of the towns were fairly small,
with the sole exception of Charleston, with most of the population living
well spread out, in relative isolation.  Of the five major cities in the
colonies, only Charleston was in the south.  As a result gathering for
social, religious and intellectual activities was impractical.

The plantation became a community within itself, with artisans like
carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors and cobblers present to provide for the
needs of the community of slaves, masters and indentured servants.  Guests
were often invited into plantation homes and there was a fair amount of
contact with neighboring plantations through roads and rivers.  While
plantations were never the melting pots of ideas and cultures that the
larger cities in the north became, they did provide a fairly comfortable
lifestyle for those with access to their services, which eventually
included many of the small farmers who came to depend on the larger
plantations as markets for their excess produce, sources of support in lean
times, so that they eventually began to take a role as clients or
satellites of the large plantations.

Although the south produced men of great drive and ambition, southern
culture remained closely tied to England.  The wealthy planters of the
south looked to England for clothes, china, furniture, books and all manner
of luxuries.  They even sent their children abroad to be educated.

Although William and Mary College was established in 1693, there were
almost no primary or secondary schools in the south.  The rural nature of
the societies made private tutors the common source of education for the
upper classes, while what little learning came to the poorer farmers was
carried on in the home.  Tutors advertised in urban papers and sometimes
they were hired by a group of plantation families to educate their children
as a group in small, private schools.  For many smaller farmers and for the
entire slave population, education was not a possibility.  As for
literature and other intellecutal endeavors, printing and publishing were
outlawed in Virginia in 1682 by Governor Berkeley, who commented tht he
'thanked god that there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we
shall not have them these three hundred years.'  Not a great patron of the
arts.

The anglican church dominated religion in the south.  Attendance at
anglican services was compulsory in Virginia from 1619, and though the
proprietors in Virginia, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas attempted to
maintaian religious freedom and diversity, eventually Anglicans came to
dominate and were recognized as the official religion by the British
supported governors and assemblies in those colonies, though this was not
until the early 1700s in those colonies.

Despite this, the scattered southern population made organized religion as
impractical as organized education.  In addition, the Anglican church in
England paid little attention to the American parish and there was not even
an Anglican bishop for the colonies until 1783 after the Revolutionary war,
when the Episcopalian church, the American branch of the Anglican church
elected its first bishop to fill that void.  For the most part the English
pastors who came to the largely Anglican southern colonies were
second-raters who couldn't get decent positions in England.  Colonial
congregations were naturally displeased with this.

Just as the Puritans migrated to New England, later in the colonial period
a number of dissenting christian sects also sought refuge in the South.
The Presbyterians and Baptists settled the foothills of the southern
colonies and achieved significant numbers in South Carolina, though they
remained devout minorities in isolated communities in most of the south.

Southern culture focused on isolation and was extremely limited because of
the divisions of class and geography.  Opportunities for education and
intellectual exercise were limited, and though advancement was possible
through skill and ambition, the southern legacy of the colonial period
leans mostly towards military and administrative leaders like washington,
rather than the more abstract thinkers of the northern colonies, like
Franklin, Adams and Hamilton.


NORTHERN CULTURE

The society of the north centered much more closely on its towns and
cities, with Boston, Newport, Philadelphia and New York leading trend
towards urbanization.  These port cities grew as large as major European
cities, and were surrounded by smaller satellite settlements, linked by
roads and regular routes of overland trade.
Only 5% of the colonial population lived in cities.  In the north the
proportion was slightly higher, but the vast majority still lived in
smaller agricultural towns, communities of farmers and tradesmen surrounded
by the farms where they worked, with the towns providing services and a
marketplace for farm produce.

These smaller northern towns were based very much on a traditional English
model which really existed far more typically in the New World than it ever
had in England.  The New England town was sort of an idealized combination
of the English ideas of Borough (an incorporated, chartered town), Parish
(the community centered on a church) and Village (a farm-supported
community).

Life on the farms of the north was in many ways as isolated as it was in
the south, but in the north the towns offered larger, extended communities,
and the church acted as a regular focal point for the lives of the
settlers, especially in the early period when puritan zeal was at its
strongest.  Great emphasis was placed on the family, and the support of the
family was thought to  be second only to faith in god in avoiding sin and
corruption.

The existence of major cities was what really separated the north and
south.  Cities like Boston and Philadelphia were large enough even in this
early period to generate culture and industry of their own so that
colonists in the north soon  became fairly independent of English fashions
and English imports of clothing, china, books and other luxuries and
amusements.

Industry and commerce in these cities were so successful that it was not
long before many products were being produced which were cheaper and
better than those imported from England.  Ships, navigational instruments
and clocks were all made excellently in the colonies, and american
craftsmen could duplicate and improve on the latest English fashions in
apparel and furnishings.

The northern cities were also the breeding ground of the first American
intellectuals.  Among the craftsmen of these cities were printers and they
served a growing body of writers and artists.  At first much of the
publishing in New England dealt with religious tracts and pamphlets, or
with books of sermons.  The first book published in North America was The
Bay Psalm Book, published in Cambridge in 1640.  In fact, in the 1660s
there were censorship laws in New England, restricting those books that
might 'open the doors to heresy', but the fascination of the written word
soon overcame this and publishers branched out into fiction, poetry,
political philosophy and eventually even newspapers and other periodicals.
The first newspaper published was Benjamin Harris' PUBLICK OCCURANCES in
Boston in 1690, though it was shut down after 4 days because it had been
published without a permit.  The BOSTON NEWS-LETTER founded in 1702 by John
Campbell was continually published until the revolution, and led a rash of
newspaper growth.  By 1750 every major city had at least one newspaper
reporting news from at home and abroad.  Many major european books were
reprinted in american editions, very soon after their first appearance in
Europe, and a growing body of American literature also began to develope.
This created an intellectual environment which produced men of ideas and
made sure that their words reached a receptive, literate audience.

Education went hand in hand with literature.  Harvard, the first college in
north america, was established in 1636 in Cambridge, only 6 years after the
first Puritan settlements.  It started as a theological seminary, but
quickly added a full curriculum of maths, arts and sciences.  It was joined
by Yale (1701), Princeton (1746) and many others.  Tuition rates were low
enough to allow students of the middle classes to attend, and the general
spread of education in the northern colonies was greater than in England
and other european counries.  In addition, the first public school in
America, the William Penn Charter School, was established in 1689 by
William Penn in Philadelphia, with tuition charged only to those who could
afford it.  This emphasis on education shows how different the intellectual
environments of north and south were and how much more aware northerners
were of their culture, their world and their heritage.

The northern colonies led the intellectual development in the new world,
with education and imagination flourishing because of the economic
prosperity and urban proximity which made such luxuries possible.
Newspapers, books and schools which did so well in the north and were
virtually unknown in the south show how different the attainments and
natures of the two major parts of the american colonies were.


WITCHCRAFT AT SALEM

It has already  been shown fairly clearly how the dedicated, devout and
single-minded society of Puritan New England led to a fair amount of social
and political repression.  Although at its inception the Puritan experiment
seemed like a novel and creative project, it quickly became mired down in
the realities of politics and commerce in the new world and as the New
England colonies prospered and urban merchants became more successful, the
power and influence of the Puritan clergy began to wane and the entire
puritan intellectual system became weak and diluted.

In the 1680s and 1690s, under the leadership of men like Cotton Mather, a
great preacher and writer in Massachutsetts, puritan leaders attempted to
make a comeback, restoring the strength and purity of their faith, fighting
against a heretical tendancy called 'Armenianism', which had invaded many
of the churches, spreading the belief that good works and a devout life
could lead to heaven.

Cotton Mather followed in the footsteps of his father, Increase Mather, 6th
president of Harvard College, and promoted a mystical brand of revised
Puritanism which became very popular.  He wrote a number of books.  The
most famous of these is probably WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD (1692), a
defense of the belief in witchcraft and its threat to the faithful.
Although he had a reputation as a natural scientist, his interest in the
supernatural could be seen as early as 1688 when he declared it to be a
'year of miracles' because of a bizarre cabbage discovered in Boston with
three branches, which he described: 'one of them exactly resembling a
cutlass, another of them, as exactly resembling a rapier, and a thrid,
extremely like to a club used by the indians in their barbarous
executions'.  He also claimed that there had been a red snow that winter
and that a flaming sword had blazed in the sky in october of 1689, all
evidences of supernatural power in the world.  WONDERSÿÿOF THE INVISIBLE
WORLD in part chronicled and interpreted this sort of phenomenon.

Mather's belief in witchcraft and the supernatural was typical of beliefs
of the time, even among the best educated in the community.

Before the colonial period Europe had experienced what has been called 'The
Great Witch Craze', a period of widespread paranoia about witches an
witchcraft which lasted from the 15th to the 17th century, dying out in the
1650s.  Many economic and social explanations are given for this crisis,
but in the 1690s, conditions in the decaying world of Puritan New England
led to a brief and very famous resurgence of that craze after it had pretty
much died out in Europe.

The Witch Craze in Europe reached its height in the 15th century, with the
publication of the famous manual for witch hunters, the MALLEUS
MALEFICARUM, but Springer and Weyer.  England had its most active witch
hunts in the 1640s, under the leadership of self-appointed with-finder
Matthew Hopkins, and his book DISCOVERY OF WITCHCRAFT had been circulated
and widely read in the colonies after its publication in 1647.

Cotton Mather expressed the attitude of Puritan leaders towards witchcraft
when he said 'So horrid and hellish is the crime of witchcraft, that were
god's thoughts as our thoughts, or god's way as our ways, it could be no
other but unpardonable.'  He also commented that 'Witchcraft is the most
nefarious of high treason against the Majesty on high.  A witch is not to
be endured in heaven or on earth'.  While he was the most eloquent in
expressing these views, his position was typical of the puritan leadership,
and as they felt their hold on the people and their ability to control the
government slipping away, these puritan leaders became unusually
susceptible to to claims and accusation regarding witchcraft.  Mather was
not personally involved in most of the witchcraft trials in New England,
but more than anyone else he was the apologist and spokesman for those who
brought the witches to trial and punishment.

The most famous and most outrageous of the New England witchcraft trials
took place at Salem, Massachutsetts in 1692.

In 1692 the status of the New England colony was uncertain.  Taxes were
high, the government was in the midst of change, the french were
threatening from the north, there was a smallpox epidemic, a hard winter
and threats of piracy at sea.

To the mind of many puritans these problems all shared a common
source...the devil.

The Salem Witch Crisis began with a group of young women who gathered at
the house of Reverend Samuel Parris to listen to West Indian myths and lore
from his slave Tituba.  Tituba was a negro slave from the island of
Barbados, and clearly had considerable knowledge of the vodoo and magical
practices which had originated in africa and were flourishing in the black
population of the Carribean.  The two youngest girls, Elizabeth Parris and
Abigail Williams were so overcome by these tales that they literally went
into fits, though to a great extent these resembled the misbehaving of
petulant spoiled brats more than any demonic influence.  They threw bibles
around the house, shouted out in church, and generally acted outrageous.

Seeing the attention all this was getting the younger girls, the older
girls soon took up many of the same activities, though clearly from
calculation rather than hysteria.  Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary
Walcott, Mary Warren, Elizabeth Proctor, Susan Sheldon, Elizabeth Booth and
Mercy Lewis were all in their late teens, but they began to carry on as if
possessed as well.  As the situation developed, Ann Putnam, the youngest
afflicted, became the clear leader of the girls, testifying in all but one
trial, and using her strong imagination to lead the other girls in their
seizures and later accusations.

The first victims named by the girls were the obvious outsiders, Tituba,
Sarah Good (a beggar woman) and Sarah Osborne (a crippled widow).  A court
was formed in Salem and Sarah Good was charged with practicing 'certain
detestable arts called witchcraft and sorceries'.  Those others accused
were 'tortured, afflicted, pinned, consumed, wasted and tormented.'  All in
order to get a confession.  Lengthy series of tricky questions would be
alternated with torture, and when the girls were confronted with the
accused women they would go into fits and blame them on the accused.

Eventually, those first accused had no recourse but to accuse more people
in the community, picking on old enemies or those who had few friends and
allies, though eventually even prominent landholders like John Proctor and
Giles Corey were accused.  Perhaps the most surprising is that George
Burroughs, the former minister of the Salem congregation was among those
accused and hanged.

Some of the older women in the community, like Mrs Thomas Putnam, mother of
one of the girls and Sarah Bibber, joined in as well, and while they did
not affect fits, they claimed to have seen apparitions and the spirits of
witches sent out to do torments.

The trials proceeded despite the fact that 2 of the original 8 girls
confessed to their fraud, though one was frightened into changing her mind
and the other, Mary Warren, was herself accused of being a witch and
hanged.  Fourteen years later, Ann Putnam, one of the ringleaders gave a
full confession of the fraud, indicating that it had all been done, at
first for 'sport' and that it had later turned into viciousness and
revenge.

The scope of the trial was amazing.  At first it was restricted to the main
Salem settlement, but accusations eventually spilled over into outlying
regions and neighboring towns.  As the frenzy spread, those accused, seeing
the fate of death in jail or under torture which others suffered, would
confess as soon as they were accused and spread their own accusations.

The breadth of accusations was so great, partly because the judges, under
the leadership of Judge Hathorne would ask leading questions and give the
accused the names of people, asking if they had seen them in visions or at
coven meetings, and it was easier to answer yes than to deny and explain
and face torture again.

As it progressed, those who confessed early in the trials were spared
because they accused others of witchcraft, while those who held out and
honestly denied their guilt were tortured and then hanged as unrepentant
witches.  Of 150 accused, 55 confessed, 31 were condemned to death or
prison.  All in all, 19 were hanged, two died in prison and the aged Giles
Corey died under torture while being pressed beneath stones.

Eventually, pressure from people in Boston and from the government caused
the trials to come to an end.  Objections were particularly strong to
spectral evidence, claims to see visions which none but the accuser could
see.  In a speach at the time Increase Mather, father of Cotton Mather, the
main apologist for the trials, stated that 'It were better that ten
suspected witches should escape than that one honest person should be
condemned...I'd rather judge a witch to be an honest woman than judge and
honest woman as a witch.'  This sentiment of outrage at the extremities of
the trials spread, and soon public sentiment was so much against them that
the trials could not continue.

In an observation after the fact, Governor Hutchinston of Massachutsetts
pointed out that their behavior so exactly imitated that of cases of
possession earlier in that century that it was unquestionable that they had
read accounts of those possessions and were basing their actions upon them.

There is no real evidence that any of those accused had ever practiced any
form of witchcraft or magic.  In fact, the only witchcraft practiced in the
area had been practiced by the young accusers, who, under the leadership of
Ann Putnam, had made poppets, or dolls in which to stick pins to afflict
people, as well as charms and magic brews, all under the unwilling tutelage
of Tituba who revealed secrets of Aftican magic to them under threat of
being revealed as a witch to her master.

As a final note, it is interesting that most of the accusations seem to
have come from the members of the somewhat poorer, agricultural community
along the road to Ipswich, those who were part of the congregation of
Sammuel Parris.  The accused seem to have been mostly the family and
friends of John Proctor who had been at odds with Parris for some time, or
members of the wealthier merchant community in the heart of the town.
While these social and economic differences may not have been the conscious
cause of any of the accusations, they form a clear trend which is worth
considering.  While the trials seem primarily to be symptoms of misdirected
zeal, they also reflect an attempt to establish order and resist change in
a time when the puritan grip on society was crumbling.

After 1692 the hold of Puritanism on government in New England was over and
many had lost their confidence in the faith which had brought their fathers
and grandfathers to the new world.  New Englanders were aware that the
Salem trials had been an embarassing moment of madness and the next few
years saw welcome reform and improvement in the colony.

Ironically, it was not until 1957 that the State of Massachutsetts finally
reversed the conviction of those executed at Salem and exonerated them of
any crimes.

NATIVE AMERICAN LIFE

From the first, English settlers had a highly romanticized view of the
indian.  They saw him at once as something ennobled by being closer to
natiure than the European, while at the same time weaker and therefore to
be patronized, manipulated and brushed aside because he lacked the
sophistication of european society.  An oft quoted description of the
Indians made by early settlers was that they were 'of a tractable, free and
loving nature, without guile and treachery'.  This image was reinforced by
the failure of some indians to understand the nature of the Europeans.  One
chieftan in the early Virginia colony is quoted as asking 'why should you
take by force from us that which you can obtain by love'.  This inability
to undersand the settlers motivations did not stop the Indians from
resisting their active expansion.  They may not have understood why the
settlers wanted there land, but they knew better than to give it away
without a fight.  They saw the intentions of the English quite clearly, and
were aware, as Matoaka stated, that the English came 'not for trade, but to
invade my people and possess my country.'  It is clear that it was not
necessary for indians to know the Europeans very well before they realized
the plans they had for the new world and that there was no real role in
those plans for the indians.

Despite the european image of the 'Noble Savage', indians were far from the
innocents they appeared to be, and the fact that colonists were able to
prey upon them and conquer them was due more to luck and the fact that
native americans had no immunity to Smallpox and Measles than it was to any
innate European cultural superiority or higher level of greed and
aggressiveness.

Native Americans, though from a non-european culture, were still human.
Cruelty, war and betrayal existed in america long before the arrival of the
first settlers.  Their cultures and political systems were diverse, and
they lived about as harmoniously as the various nations of Europe did,
always warring, making and breaking alliances, and attempting to conquer
neighbors to build empires.  Every chief dreamed of being a 'chief of many
tribes', being warleader of a confederation of tribes, or subjecting
neighboring tribes to his will.  Before the arrival of the first Europeans,
major tribal empires had risen and fallen, and the added catalyst of
European incursion caused the rise of many more.

To get an idea of the way that indians lived and the fact that there was
history and that great events took place in N. America before the first
settlers, it is only necessary to look briefly at the histories of some of
the most successful tribes, some of whom had their rise and fall well
before the coming of the white man.

Ironically, much less is known about the tribes of the Eastern seaboard
than is known about western tribes like the Dakota and Sioux, because their
contact with Europeans began earlier and was much more destructive.  In
most cases, for every 1000 coastal indians in 1600, fewer than 10 were
alive at the start of this century.

Most of the tribes of the Eastern Seaboard were descended from the original
Algonquin tribes, which had broken up into many linquistic sub-divisions
some centuries before European settlement.  The exception to this were the
Iroquois, who were conquering invaders who had come from the Southwest in
about the year 1000, dominating many of the more settled tribes and driving
many of them north into canada, while carving themselves a powerful empire
by the 16th century.

Some of the most significant tribes in the first areas colonized were:

Iroquois (real adders/bad snakes) Lived in Upper and central lake region of
New York and n. Pa. Conquered and dominated tribes from Maine to Missisipi
    Sub Tribes- Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca.  These tribes
were directly part of the confederacy.  Others under their control included
Tuscarora, Delaware, Tutelo, Saponi, Nanticoke, Conoy, Huron, Erie,
Andaste.  These others were conquered and of lesser status.
    Controlled more than 300 Villages.  Actual population was around 35,000
in US and Canada in 1600s.  At their height, controlled areas might have
had closer to 100,000 indians.
    Around 1570 the five waring Iroquois tribes were united by Dekanawida
and Hiawatha into a federal state.  They unified all the neighboring
tribes, and when the dutch came into thea area as traders in the early
1600s they quickly took to guns and proceeded to conquer everything up and
down the coast.  Sided with the English in the French and Indian War and
were probably why they won.  Highest level of government of any tribe north
of Mexico.

Pequot (destroyers) Located in Rhode Island Very warlike, allied with
Mohegans, fought against Naragansett.  An Algonquin tribe, linguistically
In 1635 their chief ruled over 26 sub-chiefs, called Sachems, controlled
most of Rhode Island and Connecticut Their main village, Mystic, had a
population of 600 people

Narraganset (people of the small point) Algonquin tribe Chief and 8
sub-chiefs, 8 villages, 4000 people. Mostly in Rhode Island, tribe from
which Squanto came

Mohegan (wolf people) Algonquins in N. New York Led by Uncas of 'Last of
the Mohegans' at one point. 21 villges under Uncas, pop of about 2500.

Wappinger (easterners)
    Algonquin tribe.
    Divided into 17 sub-chiefdoms, with over 100 villages, mostly in
connecticut.  Highest population about 5000.
    Warred with the dutch.  Highly organized, kingdom like.

Abnaki (easterners) also Delawares
    Another Algonquin tribe, mostly in new york, Pa and NJ.
    Three sub-tribes, Munsee (5 Sub-Divisions) , Unalachtigo (16
Sub-Divisions)  and Unami (17 Sub- Divisions).  Over 150 villages, total
population around 10,000.
    Conquered by Iroquois, but later broke from them and joined with French
agains them and their English allies.

Powhatan (falls in a current of water)
    Main tribal union in coastal Virginia.  Algonquin background.
    30 sub-tribes, 200 villages, total population of around 15,000 at 1600,
150 at 1700.
    Chief, Wahunsonacock (called Powhatan) dealt with English at Jamestown.
His successor, Opechancanough led war against English in 1622 and 1644.
Wiped out all but Jamestown and nearest settlements.  Main rivals for power
in east with Iroquois.

While the indians of the Great Plains, like the Sioux and Dakotas subsisted
mostly by hunting and were therefore nomadic, the tribes of the
Northeastern coast depended a great deal on agriculture, and were therefore
more settled.  This is particularly true of those tribes who came to be
part of the Iroquois confederacy, either by choice or by force.

The climate of the coastal woodlands was temperate, and their hunting,
fishing and farming skills were well developed.

The main/staple crop in the region was Maize, which had originated in
Mexico and been traded from tribe to tribe, until it had spread throughout
the Americas (Maize is what we now know as corn).  To a large degree it was
the introduction of this crop to the first settlers which made their
survival possible.

Agricultural techniques were fairly simple.  Digging sticks were used to
break ground and create mounds in which the seeds were planted.  Women and
children weeded and tended the fields.  There was abundant land and crop
rotation was practiced.  Every few years new land would be cleared and old
fields abandonned for as much as 20 years before being replanted, a luxury
not available to European farmers.

The main form of dwelling was the Wigwam, not the tent of the plains
indian.  This was a long house with a frame of wooden arches covered with
bark and hides.  Roofs were as much as 20 feet high, and width was
generally 20 feet.  Screens of woven reeds or hides separated the wigwam
into family apartments, each with its own fireplace and smokehole.  Wigwams
were often over 100 feet long, making them, in effect, small apartment
buildings.

Many of the villages were quite large, often with half a dozen buildings,
though some of the largest had many more than this, as is shown in a dutch
report of an Iroquois village of some 20 large wigwams, presumably housing
close to 1500 people.

Until it was imported from Europe, there were no horses in north America.
Travel was by foot, with goods carried in backpacks, or on the many rivers
and lakes of the northeast, using light canoes made of birch bark, which
could be portaged through regions of mountain or forest to get from one
river to another.  Extensive trading routes were established which brought
goods from Mexico and the west all the way to Maine, trading pottery,
beads, furs, food, carved wood and shell.

The Iroquois were certainly the most significant of the northeastern tribe
and they have left behind the greatest legacy.  Their confederation was
formed in about 1500 when Hiawatha, the chief of the mohawks, met with the
councils of the chiefs of the Iroquois and convinced them to band together
for mutual protection, end their inter-tribal wars and work to eventually
unite all of the tribes of North America.  The system of military
organization and internal management through a system of councils of
'Sachems' or sub-chiefs which developed under the leadership of Hiawatha
and later Dekanawida was perhaps the most flexible and sophisticated
political system in the americas at that time.  While it was not a
democratic system it had many republican elements, with the leaders holding
power with the assent and support of the people and expected to serve the
interests of their local constituencies in the greater council of the
Iroquois.

Although the Iroquois had no real written language, they had a strong oral
tradition and well developed legends and history.  They were by no means
innocent of sophisticated beliefs, and though they were not christians,
they were strongly religious and viewed the world around them in ways which
were mystical, yet strangely logical.

Tribal history was maintained through the use of mnemonic objects, usually
strings or belts of wampum, colored shell strung together and used like
notes to key the memories of tribal historians trainined to know their
interpretation.  Wampum strings were also used as trade goods and had
universally accepted value based on the length of the belt and the type of
shell used.  Wampum was also used to convey messages from place to place
approach to the world around them.

In religion, the Iroquois were dualists.  They believed that life was a
struggle between light and darkness, good and evil.  This type of division
of good and evil is generally a characteristic of fairly advanced
societies, and does not clearly emerge even in Europe until the end of the
Roman Empire.

This good/evil duality was embodied in the twins Tsentsa and Taweskare,
sons of the earth mother spirit.  Tsentsa would create good things and then
rest, and then while he rested Taweskare would undo them.  Thus, Tsentsa
made nice, smooth fish and Taweskare put scales on them.  Tsentsa made nice
bushes with berries and Taweskare put thorns on them.  This belief shows
the balances which they saw in nature and in life in their world.

Iroquois belief also included ancestral spirits and spirits of nature, as
well as several underworlds or afterlives.  Offerings were made to the
spirits and they were said to visit people in dreams to give advice.  Above
all these spirits was the Great Manitou, not so much a god as a force of
nature, the spirit of time and existence, the motive force behind all life
and change.  The Iroquois observed a number of seasonal holidays,
surprisingly similar in timing and ritual to those observed by other
agricultural societies, including those in Europe.

The beliefs and lifestyle of the Iroquois and the other settled tribes of
the Northeast are in clear contrast to those of the other major group with
whom European settlers had contact.  Most of the other indians in the
Eastern part of the new world were of Algonquin background, belonging to
one of a number of large and disorganized tribes, like the Cree, Chippewa
or Nascopie.  These tribes had occupied the Eastern seaboard before the
arrival of the Iroquois peoples, and maintained an older indian lifestyle.

The Algonquin peoples were nomadic hunters, living primarily in the forests
and along the rivers, moving with the fish or herds according to the
season.  They supplemented their diet of deer, beaver and fish with berries
and breads made from wild grain.  They were usually organized in small
multi-family bands, and would only meet in tribal council once or twice a
year at a traditional location, though sometimes these meetings had as many
as 10,000 people in attendance

In the period of European settlement the Cree were probably the dominant
Algonquin tribe, but they had mostly migrated into Canada, while those who
had stayed behind in the coastal region had to some degree adopted Iroquois
ways and had settled and become farmers.

When these Algonquin tribes began to settle down, they borrowed many
practices from their neighbors, but maintained their mobility through the
practice of having two locations for their villages, one for summer hunting
and farming and one convenient to fishing in the winter.

Algonquin religion focused much more closely than Iroquois religion on the
worship of ancestral and animal spirits, and what more sophisticated
concepts of greater spirits and good and evil were clearly late borrowings
from other tribes.  Also significant in their culture was an oral tradition
of heroic tales of popularcharacters like the Trickster Wisagatcak and the
hero Gluskap who created the world.

As they explored farther inland, European settlers would eventually come
into contact with other powerful indian nations with very different
cultures and societies, but few of these had the sophistication and
determination to make them a serious threat to European invasion.  It was
the Iroquois and Algonquin tribes which had the ability and the oportunity
to keep the English from gaining a foothold in the new world, and after
their destruction through disease and treachery the fate of the native
population of N. America was sealed.

It is clear that in the period prior to the arrival of the English settlers
on the east coast the Indian confederations of settled Iroquois and
Algonquin tribes were the beginning of a major advancement in Indian
political and social sophistication.  Had contact with Europeans been
delayed and not changed native american culture so completely, it is likely
that in a few generations a genuine Indian nation or nations might have
emerged, with the ability to meet the English dipomatically as equals and
alter the course of their conquest of a continent.  As a legacy, it seems
likely that the political system of the Iroquois, which was much admired by
18th century political thinkers may have had a strong influence on the
formation of our government.

When the Europeans arrived Indian culture was ready for change, and they
replaced change that was starting from within with changes imported from
abroad.  The Iroquois were clever warriors and politicians and could never
have passed up the guns that the dutch wanted to trade for furs.  They were
ready to learn.  From the axes of English woodsmen they learned to make
tomahawks.  From the Spanish they got the horse.  From the french they
learned to take scalps and sell them for money.  Just as the Indians had no
immunity to European diseases, they also had no immunity to the appeal of
European technology and ideas.  In return they gave the European invaders
maize and the techniques to live in the new land, plus, ultimately and
unwillingly, the land itself.

The questions remains of why Indians were not prepared to face and deal
with the threat of a much smaller body of Europeans, especially once they
had acquired guns and other weapons to help them compete.

One of the reasons is certainly that at the very first they were not fully
aware of the territorial ambitions of the settlers.  Because all of their
early contacts with europeans had been with temporary trading posts or
summer settlements of hunters and fishermen, they didn't immediately
realize that the first English settlers were planning to stay.

Once they realized this, they fell prey to the old principle of divide and
conquer.  For much of this period the French and the English were competing
for North America, and by providing arms and other support they managed to
convince indian tribes to join in that competition.  By showing them favor
and arming them, the Dutch and later the English were able to get the
Iroquois to do much of their military dirty-work for them in the New World.
In response to this the French supported many of the Algonquin tribes to
rebel against the Iroquois, and in this way the two European powers brought
their conflict from the Old World to the New World and ultimately the
Indian TRibes were its victims.  By taking advantage of old resentments and
rivalries the European powers played out their own struggle with reduced
risk and at the same time redirected the Indian threat away from their own
colonies.  More will be said about the French and Indian war in another
lecture.

Of course, the effects of disease cannot be overlooked.  Certainly of all
factors, disease was the key that opened the door to European conquest.
Estimates of indian deaths are as high as 95% in some areas, and while
things were not as bad in North America as they were in South America, the
Smallpox epedemic of 1617 which killed thousands of Indians in coastal
Massachutsets, certainly opened the way for settlers in that area.  In
addition, deaths of that magnitude from apparently natural causes led many
indians who had great faith in the spirits of nature to believe that their
spirits had turned against them and with the loss of their belief system
many lost their confidence and determination, perhaps even their will to
survive.  It should be pointed out that the European settlers had little in
the way of advanced medicine, so they were not aware of the fact that they
brought disease to the indian.  Many just thought of the indians as
unhealthy, a major reason why they did not suffer the fate of the black
slave, or they believe that these deaths were the result of a biblical type
plague visited by god.  Later, in the 18th century, when the King appointed
Lord Jeffry Amherst to clear out some troublesome Indians in
massachutsetts, the connection had been made, and he deliberately proposed
giving them smallpox infected blankets as a gift, and though this plan was
not approved, a subsequent epidemic indicates that he liked it so much that
he did it anyway.

Europeans had some very strange notions about the indian, romanticizing and
despising him at the same time.  Some believed that the indians were the
lost tribes of israel and that they were purer than other peoples and
others saw them as little more than beasts.  What was clear to everyone was
that the Indians were DIFFERENT and most Europeans saw difference as
equivalent to inferiority.  In 1622 one wrote 'Indians do but run over the
grass, as do also the foxes and wild beasts...so it is lawful now to take
land, which none useth, and make use of it.'  With this attitude it is not
surprising that most settlers had few compunctions about eliminating or
removing the indians by force or about using them to advance their own
causes.

In the end, Indian movements towards unity had not advanced far enough and
their cultures were too open to European influences, and falling under
those influences, they lost their identity and their ability to perceive
the one enemy all tribes shared in common, the white man.


ENGLISH VS. FRENCH

By the mid 1600s the French and the English had eliminated all the other
powers competing for dominance in N. America, though Portugal and Spain
still had presences in S. and Central America and the Dutch remained in the
Carribean.

The French were less populous, concentrated mostly along the St, Lawrence
River, the Great Lakes and the Western and Northern Lands they gave access
to.  There were many more English, all in the narrow strip of land between
the Appalachian Mtns and the Atlantic coast.  The land which the French
claimed was much larger, and they had the initial force to claim it, and
while the English claimed less land, they had greater military potential,
though their colonies were less stable and had internal problems.

All told, 1.5 Million English to 90K French by the middle of the 18th
century.

Conflict began very early in the 1600s on the Great Banks, off
Newfoundland.  The English controlled most of the fishing there, and the
French wanted fishing rights there.  This led to naval conflict between the
fishing fleets of the two nations, and led to French resentment of the
English.

In North America the French had early on established a close relationship
with some of the major Algonquin tribes, especially the Huron and Miami in
the midwest.  These contacts allowed them to dominate the fur trade as much
as the English dominated fishing.  They guarded theircontacts and their
territorial trading rights jealously, and English merchants in the colonies
and in London wanted more access to that trade.

European demand for furs was always growing, and the more the French and
their Algonquin friends hunted, the fewer beavers and bear and otter and
other fur-bearing creatures there were to be found in the western lands
they had staked their claim to.  In search of more pelts, they began to
hunt in lands which had traditionally been held by the Iroquois.  In doing
this, they effectively awakened the sleeping giant.

War broke out between the French and the Iroquois as early as 1609, when
the Dutch chose to support the Iroquois in hopes that they would get access
to furs from them.  From that point on the Iroquois harassed, attacked and
conquered the Algonquin tribes, capturing furs and trading them for guns so
that theycould be even more successful.  As Dutch power faded, the growing
English colonies took over for them, providing guns and support in exchange
for furs and the harassment of the French and their indian allies.

This went on for many years, sporadic conflicts in which the
English-supported Iroquois were very successful in separating the French
from what they thought of as 'their furs', a situation which made them very
unhappy.

Very few English or French colonists were actually involved in this early
conflict, with most of the fighting  being done by the indians competing
for their dominant position as hunters in the fur trade, but it brought out
harsh feelings among the colonists towards each other.

France blamed England for inciting Iroquois raids on Frend colonies.
England blames France for inciting Algonquin raids on English colonies.

In addition, the English began to see the French claim to all of the lands
west of the appalachias as an attempt to box them in and cut off their
inevitable expansion, and this feeling became more acute when the French
began to build forts along this western border.


EUROPEAN CONFLICTS

In Europe there had been a tradition of conflict between England and
France, and to some degree this mood spilled over into the new world as
tensions there increased.

In the 14th and 15th centuries the English had almost conquered France in
the 100 Years War.  In the 16th century the French had supported the Scotts
in a number of uprisings which developed into the Anglo-Scottish Wars.  In
the 1540s these carried on into the Anglo-French Wars, a series of battles
and attempted invasions of France under Henry VIII.  In the 1580s the
French supported Mary Queen of Scots in her attempt to raise Scotland
against Queen Elizabeth.

In the first half of the 17th century relations between France and England
were relatively calm, because of the English Civil War and Stuart ties to
France, as wmll as the threat of the Thirty Years War in Germany in the
1640s.

In the 1620s, under the Duke of Buckingham, the English made a number of
attempts to take and hold key towns on the French coast, particularly La
Rochelle and St. Martin, as well as to defend and expand the territory
around Calais, which they had traditionally controlled.  In these conflicts
the English were supporting French Huguenots, Protestants who were
rebelling against the French crown.

But, with the accession of William and Mary to the English throne, the old
rivalries between Protestant England and Catholic France were revived.  In
the 1690s The French attempted to support the Stuart claim to the throne
against the recently crowned monarchs, backing James Stuart, the 'Old
Pretender'.  King William III defeated them in a series of Battles in
Northern France, effectively winning what was called King Williams War or
the War of the English Succession.  This sort of carried over into Queen
Anne's War in the early 1700s, a series of battles between those who
defended the claim of Queen Anne and her designated Hanoverian successors
and French supported counter-claims.

In the 1740s the English allied with the Germans to fight the French and
Spanish in the War of the Austrian Succession, one of the earliest wars
which could be called a 'World War', because it involved so many nations.
In the colonies this was known as 'King George's War', as he was the
English king at the time.

Although every major European conflict was reflected in the new world as
interference in trade and border hostility, King George's War was the first
one in which colonists took a really serious interest because of the
potential threat to the colonies from the French and the possible
opportunities the uncertain situation offered for expansion in the west.

As the War of the Austrian Succession led into the Seven Years War in
Europe, King George's War led very quickly into the Great War for the
Empire in the New World, and it is in this war, also called the French and
Indian War, that real battle on a European scale first came to the English
colonies.


OHIO: KEY TO THE WEST

In the 1740s, during King George's War, the English colonists in Virginia
and Pennsylvania began to look westward in the hopes of expanding trade and
starting new inland colonies of their own.

Because of the geography of the Appalachian mountains, the best route west
was through the valley of the Ohio River.  Unfortunately, that land and all
the land to the west was claimed by the French.  This was only a small
deterrent to determined colonists.

In the mid 1740s George Croghan, a Pennsylvania Merchant, led a group of
traders west through Ohio to contact the Miami and Huron indians and
establish trade.  He was able to convince them to trade with him rather
than with the French, and in 1748 he built Ft. Pichawillany as a trading
post in western part of the Ohio valley.  In 1752 the French overran Ft.
Pichawillany and reestablished their claim to Ohio, chasing the merchants
out, but this had whetted the appetities of the English for western trade.

In 1747 a group of Virginia merchants led established the Ohio Co. of VA, a
joint stock company similar to those which opened up the colonies, but
established in the New World for expanding colonial merchant interests.
The purpose of this company was to make use of Ohio for trade and
settlement, and the government of Virginia granted them 200,000 acres of
land in Ohio, land that was claimed by Pennsylvania and by the French.

In 1751 Robert Dinwiddie was appointed governor of Virginia, and he became
very interested in westward expansion and a major investor in the Ohio
Company.  Under his direction George Washington, then only 23 years old,
was sent to Ohio to scout out the area and report on French activity.  The
report was that in response to the Pennsylvanian incursion, the French
under the command of Celeron de Bienville, were fortifying their border,
with three forts, Ft. Presque Isle, Ft. Le Boeuf and Ft. Venago already
built.  Plus, they were in the process of bulding a new fort, Ft. Duquesne.
He reported that when he had talked to the commander of Fort Le Boeuf about
the Virginian claims in Ohio, he had said that 'it was their absolute
design totake possession of the Ohio, and by God theywould do it.'

In 1754 Gov. Dinwiddie instructed Washington, then a Colonel in the
militia, to take 150 militia men and stop the construction of Ft. Duquesne.
Washington was militarily inexperienced, but managed to ambush a French
patrol.  He hastily retreated as the main body of French troops pursued
him, but he could not escape, and made a stand at a makeshift fort he
called Ft. Necessity.  His choice of location was poor and the French
quickly surrounded him and captured him and his men.

Because England and France were not at war, Washington and his men were
disarmed and released, but not before they were tricked into signing a
document in French, which none of them could read, in which Washington
confessed to assassinating the captain of the patrol he had ambushed.

Despite this shameful defeat, Washington was greeted as a hero in Virginia
for striking the first blow in a much hoped for war with France for the
west.


THE GREAT WAR FOR THE EMPIRE

Embarking on a war in the colonies the British were at a distinct
disadvantage.  The British had far greater number of colonists, but they
were militarily disorganized and unprepared for a serious war, compared to
the French who ran their small colony much like a military outpost.
Although there were large numbers of colonial militia, the British soon
discovered that they had a tendancy to disappear when the fighting got
serious, so they would have to rely on regular troops, who were excellent,
but in much demand elsewhere.

Since war seemed to be starting, 1400 British Redcoats (Regulars) were sent
into Ohio under General Edward Braddock, an unimaginative general who was
ambushed and routed by a much smaller French and Indian force.  Washington,
who was with him as a civilian guide with 100 or so Militiamen, led the
retreat and narrowly avoided death, saving the troops, and he gained much
further renown for this.

Other early English expeditions also did poorly.  They failed to take Ft.
Niagara in New York, and also Crown Point near Montreal.  The French also
encouraged the Algonquin tribes to raid English settlements in the west,
causing much bloodshed.  The very able French general Montcalm captured a
number of British border forts, including Ft. Oswego and Ft. William Henry.

By 1757 the war was going so badly that King George II was forced to give
over command of the war effort to William Pitt, leader of the political
opposition.

Pitt was a great organizer and realized the value of North America.  He
poured great numbers of men and militaryaid into the colonies, betting the
future of England on success in the New World.  He used the British navy to
cut the French in Canada off from France.  He allied with the Iroquois in
the west to neutralize the Algonquin threat.  Most importantly he broke
with British tradition to appoint generals based on competence rather than
seniority and influence.

His two great discoveries were the young generals James Wolfe and Jeffrey
Amherst, both in their 30s.  Together they captured the French fort at
Louisbourg in 1758 and began a string of victories across the north.

Ft. Duguesne fell and was renamed Ft. Pitt.

Ft. Niagara and Crown Point fell to Amherst, while Wolfe sailed up the St.
Lawrence to besiege the French General Montcalm at Quebec.  Wolfe defeated
Montcalm and took Quebec, and though he and Montcalm both died in that
battle, British troops took Montreal in 1760 and the French abandonned
Canada to them.

At the same time the British were fighting a war with France in Europe, the
Carribean and in India, and through superior leadership and Naval support
(moving supplies and troops and stopping french troop and supply shipments)
they were able to win on these three fronts as well.


THE TREATY OF PARIS

All of these Anglo-French conflicts around the world were settled in the
treaty of Paris in 1763.  It was this treaty and the victories which led to
it, more than anything else, which turned the British colonial efforts from
simple efforts of expansion into a true and lasting world-wide empire.

France surrendered all of Canada and all land East of the Mississipi to
England.  All of their other North American land went to Spain who hardly
deserved it, having pretty much also lost the war.  Spanish Florida also
went to England.

England returned the carribean islands of Guadalupe and Martinique to
France and Cuba and Manila to Spain.

Farther abroad, England gained conrol over almost all of India, except for
a few trading posts.

The British victory was overwhelming, s was their gain in north america.

As the historian Francis Parkman said, 'Half a continent had changed hands
with the scratch of a pen'.

FAITH VS. REASON

The era before 1700 had been one of great faith.  Faith had brought many to
the new world, first Catholic zeal to convert the heathen and later
Protestant desire to be free from the fleshpots of Europe.

Yet, at the same time that many Europeans were moving away from Catholicism
towards more 'pure' forms of protestant Christianity, many others were
abandonning traditional religion altogether and embarking upon the study
and exaltation of reason.  The inquisitive minds of this period were not
satisfied with Catholic doctrine and sought new answers.  Some turned to
new interpretations of Christianity, becoming puritans, while others found
their answer in the mind of man and became rationalists.

This trend had really begun in the renaissance, but the fascination with
reason and the role of man in nature and the systems which governed the
physical and philosophical world really came to their greatest prominence
at about the same time that Puritanism reached its height in the 1650s.

The so-called 'Age of Reason' was characterized by advancements in both
science and philosophy.  Men like Copernicus, Gallileo  and Kepler had
redefined the nature of the solar system and the stars in the 16th and 17th
centuries.  Sir Isaac Newton built on their specific work to define more
general laws of nature, learning about how the world worked and the systems
which governed all life in the world.

Reason presented a new order to the universe, with God as a remote figure
who designed a perfect, functioning system and then set it in motion.  Man
was the most significant single element in this system because he alone had
the capacity to reason.  Thus, it was natural that the proper study for
scientists and philosophers was man and his place in nature.

In the 1690s the English philosopher John Locke proposed that the goal of
man was to grow in knowledge and that the best means to do this was to see,
hear, feel and taste the world through observation and experimentation.
Locke also established that man should govern himself in accordance with
the laws of nature and that these laws should be the basis for the laws and
structure of human government.  Chief among these he place the rights to
life, liberty and property.

The 18th century, which became a time ruled by Reason, was known as the
Enlightenment, and nowhere were the new ideas of this era felt more clearly
than in America.  In Europe natural law and reason were popular themes for
parlor discussions among the intellectual elite, but in America education,
literacy and intellectual curiosity were more widespread and such elevated
themes could  be heard discussed on streetcorners, at markets and in common
taverns as well.

In the new world men of science made advances of many sorts in pursuit of
pure reason.  David Rittenhouse built the first American Orrery, a model of
the movements of the solar system, Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston
discovered inoculation as a means of preventing smallpox, and Benjamin
Franklin discovered much about electricity, including isolating positive
and negative charges and inventing the lightning rod.

Scientific advancement went hand in hand with philosophical inquiry, and
beginning with the Cartesian system of Rene Descartes in the early 1600s
European and later American philosophers used reason to understand man's
place in the universe and to try to understand and improve the human
condition.  The ideas of these philosophers found their ideal climate in
the emerging culture of the new world and America, more than any society
before it, became a land where ideas as well as practical reality were a
basis for action and government.


THE GREAT AWAKENING

Despite the rise of reason, faith had neighter vanished nor been forgotten.
In the 1740s there was a resurgence of religion in the American colonies.
Although Puritanism had been debased and discredited, the desire for faith
was still strong.

In 1741 a travelling English preacher named George Whitefield came through
the colonies, preaching fire-and-brimstone calvinism in a very dramatic
fashion.  Nathan Cole, who heard Whitefield preach sayd that he 'put me
into a trembling fear...for he looked as if he was cloaked with the
authority from the great god...and my hearing him preach gave me a heart
wound, by gods blessing, and my old foundation wa broken up."  His style
and showmanship were so effective that many people were converted on the
spot and as he travelled in the colonies his audiences grew.

Many Colonial ministers saw how successful this hellfire preaching was and
began to follow his lead, some going to great excess to outdo Whitefield's
showmanship.

However, this new style of preaching did bring many new converts into
churches which had been shrinking since the decline of puritan zeal, so
many in the new world embraced it.

The leader of the movement as it developed in America was Jonathan Edwards.
He was the most talented theologian and preacher that the new world had
ever produced, and his strict interpretation of doctrine and his forceful
presence and preaching style was exceptionally effective.  He lived by a
strict moral code similar to that of the puritans and expected purity and
morality of his followers.  He said 'I intend to live in continual
mortification, and never to expect or desire any worldly ease or pleasure.'

The success of Edwards and others in awakening the spirits of the people
led to old churches being abandonned and new more rigorously devout
congregations being established.  The collapse of many traditional churches
and the intensity of worship of these new congregations with shouts and
shrieks and running about, led many of the traditional religious leaders to
fear the emotionalism and irrationality of this new brand of christianity.
They cried that faith should be tempered with reason, and in this mood they
reexamined traditional beliefs and began to form a new version of
protestantism based on reason and logic, which eventually led to such
faiths as Unitarianism, Universalism and eventually Deism, where the
importance of god and the church in everyday life was minimized, though
Christian principles remained important.

In fact, many of the leaders of the revolution and most of the members of
Americas intellectual community were followers of an extremely abstract
version of Christianity called Deism, which believed in a remote god who
had created the world, set it in motion and then left it alone.  Deism was
the most reasonable of all forms of religion, based entirely on logic,
leaving as little credit as possible to god, and giving as much freedom as
possible to man.  Benjamin Franklin expressed the Deist creed when he wrote
'I believe in one god, creator of the universe.  That he governs it by his
providence.  That he ought to be worshipped.  That the most acceptable
service to render to him is doing good to his other children.  That the
soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life
respecting its conduct in this.'...Deism was a sort of generic
christianity, practiced mostly in the mind, without churches, or ministers
or services, the ideal faith for the Rational man of the time.

Those who followed the new, evangelical forms of Christianity came to be
called the 'New Lights', while those who followed the more rational
outgrowths of traditional beliefs were known as 'The Old Lights'.  These
two conflicting approaches to religion were able to coexist in the new
world, and both the enthusiasm of evangelical preachers and the rationality
of traditional ministers contributed to the intellectual climate at the
time of the American Revolution.


THE EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT

The political philosophies of enlightenment in Europe were one of the
greatest influences on American politics and culture in the 1700s.
Philosophers like Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau and
Burke examined human society and the world around them and discussed
solutions to the problems they saw and tried to reconcile human government
with natural law.  In their writings they developed ideas of liberty and
natural rights which eventually became the key to American government and
the American struggle for independence.

Rene Descartes (1595-1650): Sought to apply mathematic logic to the
understanding of nature and the universe.  I think therefore I am.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): Author of LEVIATHAN, theory of social contract,
obligation of rulers to ruled and of subjects to government.  His opinions
expressed the reasoning behind the kind of paternalistic government
practiced in England in the 17th century.  In LEVIATHAN he wrote...'In a
state of nature, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of
all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man,
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.'  Expressed the idea that man
needed the support of a father-like society and government for his
protection and preservation.

John Locke (1632-1704): 'The Father of English Empiricism', also credited
as the father of psychology.  Promoted experimental science.  Tried to
define the nature of reason and of human perception.

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755): Lawyer and
philosopher.  Critic of european society.  L'esprit del Lois (1748) was key
work.  Examined relationship of human and natural law, and suggested that
human law should be made to conform more closely to the laws of nature.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): French romantic philosopher.  Originated
ideas of individualism, noble savage and primitivism.  Supported rebellion
against established social order, exalted natural law and natural feelings.
Believed that private property and the political system were the source of
inequality and oppression.  In LE CONTRAT SOCIAL (1762) discussed
obligations of rulers to the ruled and of subjects to the state.  Put forth
the idea that a state was invalid if it was not formed by the will of the
people being governed.  Some quotes:
    'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'
    'The strongest is never strong enough to always be the master, unless
he stransforms strength into right, and obedience into duty'
    'As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the
citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their
persons, the state is not far from its fall'
    'Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about
worse.  As soon as any man says of the affairs of the state 'what does it
matter to me?' The state may be given up for lost.'

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): English statesman and MP.  American sympathizer.
Critic of English policies and supporter of increased freedom and looser
government for colonies and other British subjects.  Also a supporter of
natural law.  Wrote A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY (1756).  Some quotes:
    'When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one
by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle'

The basic principles laid out by these authors for natural law were simple.
Those who govern do so at the will and service of the people.  In return
the people have a responsibility to support their government and fulfill
their duties to it.  All people should have the right to life, liberty and
property without interference from other individuals or from government.
When examined from within, reason made the flaws of European society quite
clear.  And the newly emerged understanding of nature showed these men
alternate courses and simpler, better solutions which could be employed if
all the old systems were done away with.

These works, on natural law and just government by men like Montesquieu,
Rousseau and Burke, were read widely in the colonies and their ideas gave
American leaders a clear philosophical perspective from which to view their
British overlords.


THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN AMERICA

Thus, it was inevitable that the Americas should produce its own
philosophers and thinkers, men raised on the works of great European
thinkers in the relatively free and uncontrolled environment of the British
colonies, used to freedoms only written about in Europe, and accustomed to
enjoying them with minimal interference from government.

European writings and ideas reached the colonies with amazing speed in this
period and they found accepting audiences.  CATO'S LETTERS by John
Trenchard and Thomas Gordon was widely available in the new world within
months of its first publication in England in 1720.  Very quickly the
radical ideas limited to the intellectual elite in Europe became the
commonplace discussion of the typical American.

Leading Americans formed clubs and societies for political discussion and
debate.  Perhaps the most famous of these was the Junto formed by Benjamin
Franklin in 1727 where people gathered on Friday evenings to discuss 'any
point of morals, politics or natural philosophy.'  In 1743 Franklin
expanded on this idea to form the American Philosophical Society, which eh
hoped would 'cultivate the finer arts and improve the common store of
knowledge',.

The most notable of these American philosophers were Benjamin Franklin and
Thomas Paine.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was born in Boston.  He was a scientist, a
printer and a publishers, and under the pseudonym Richard Saunders he
published POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK in the 1730s- 50s, with witty sayings and
moral advice which had a great influence on his fellow colonials.  Quotes:
    'They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) born in England, but moved to America after after
going  bankrupt.  Supported himself as a political columnist for colonial
newspapers.  Most famous for writing COMMON SENSE (1776), urging separation
from England.  Most vocal in expressing natural rights and liberties.
Later wrote CRISIS and THE RIGHTS OF MAN.  His writings provided much of
the philosophical impetus for the revolution. Quotes:
    'Not a place on earth might  be so happy as America.  Her situation is
remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but trade
with them.'


IDEAS VS. REALITY

With all of these very powerful ideas of liberty emerging from Europe and
taking root in America, it is not surprising that conflict would arise when
American ideas of liberty began to conflict with the reality of British
rule in the colonies.

For all the freedoms Americans had enjoyed under loose colonial rule, they
remained British subjects and under British law.

During the French and Indian War the British had brought significant
numbers of troops over to the colonies, and at the end of the war not all
of them went home, many being left behind to protect the colonies from
indians and to protect British interests there.  All told 6000 British
Troops were left in the colonies.  With the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the
British colonial world had also gone from  being a mercantile commonwealth
to being a young empire, and this increased interest in the colonies
encouraged the British government to take greater interest in colonial
affairs and make an effort to bring them closer under direct British rule.
Inevitably this increase of British attention to the colonies brought an
end to many liberties which the colonists had acquired because of their
unique situation and which Englishmen at home did not enjoy.

These rights and liberties included the right to elect their own local
assemblies and governors, which had been the practice in Virginia and
Massachusetts for over 150 years, to pass their own laws without
parliamentary approval, and to be essentially self governing except insofar
as the British Crown regulated trade and approved of governors who were
appointed.  These rights had no precedent in English law, and the British
crown saw nothing special about restricting and removing them.  Yet, to
colonists these freedoms were assumed to be a natural right.  As Thomas
Jefferson said in 1771, in a letter to Robert Skipwith--'The god who gave
us life, gave us liberty at the same time'.

British attempts to increase control on the colonies had begun as part of
the programs of mercantilism.  In the 1650s attempts had  been made to
regulate colonial trade to keep foreign ships from taking part in the rich
trade from Colonial ports to European ports.  These trade controls were not
rigidly enforced, but there were many colonial protests and eventually the
colonists just ignored trade restrictions and for various reasons they were
not punished for this at the time.   In 1660 King Charles II expanded the
British Navy and found that it was now possible to enforce regulations on
NEw World Trade, so he pass the 'Navigation Act' of 1660, limiting the
transport of valuable colonial goods (including sugar, tobacco, cotton,
ginger and dyes) to English ports and on Englioish vessels.  Further laws
in 1673 and 1696 imposed harsh fines for violations and appointed customs
officials.  Later laws also added rice, molasses, furs and copper to the
conrolled goods.  Other acts passed in this period forbade the colonies to
export goods like wool and manufactured iron, so that they would not
compete with English industries.

With these trade and Navigation Acts the British had hoped to encourage and
guide colonial trade, not stifle or discourage it.  Although there were
some protests out of personal interest and the expected amount of smuggling
violations, for the most part colonists got along well enough with these
laws.

However, after the influx of new political ideas from europe in the 1740s
and 1750s, when the English crown attempted to reissue traditional trade
regulations and establish some fairly innocuous new laws, many colonists
saw these laws as violations of the 'natural rights' which they had only
recently been informed they had, and it is in the 1760s after the
conclusion of the French and Indian War, that colonial resistence to
British rule really begins in earnest.


THE FRENCH & INDIAN WAR

In June of 1763, a large group of Ottawa indians who were playing Lacrosse
outside of Ft. Michlimackinack in Michigan produced concealed weapons and
attacked the soldiers who had been cheering them on, taking the fort and
slaughtering everyone there, burning the fort to the ground.  This was the
beginning of Pontiac's rebellion.  Pontiac led the Ottawas on to take
Detroit and soon other tribes who had formerly been french allies struck
against british forts and western settlements.  By 1764 a settlement had
been reached with most of the tribes by Sir William Johnson, one of few
whites who understood Indian needs.  The Proclamation Line of 1763 was
established as part of a treaty with the Indians, setting aside much of the
area West of the appalachias for Indian  Settlement, and in the process
boxing in those colonists who wanted to move westward.

In response to Pontiac's rebellion the British initially established a
force of 3000 men on the western border, but by 1765 this number was
increased to 10,000, still mostly in the western part of the colonies,
though garrisons were maintained in major cities. This large a body of
troops needed some 350,000L per year to be maintained.  The British felt
that it was legitimate to raise at least part of that from the colonies
that these troops were protecting, so in the following years a number of
attempts were made to pass legislation to raise revenue in the colonies.

George Grenville, Minister of the Treasury became Prime Minister in 1763
and faced the task of raising that revenue and with dealing with a national
debt that had doubled in 10 years.  He was a great foe of government
spending and an able administrator, but he thought very little of the
colonies and saw the people who lived there as little better than savages.
To erase all this debt Grenville initiated a number of new tax acts.


THE SUGAR ACT

Sugar Act (1764): Placed tarriffs on sugar, coffee, wines and many other
commodities imported into America.  In addition, taxes on various other
imports were doubled, and taxes were extended to include iron, raw silk and
potash.  However, the prohibitive 6 pence/gallon tax on molasses which had
been in effect for 30 years was halved.  At the same time, enforcement of
tax and tarriff collection was improved and measures were taken to
discourage those who had  been avoiding the taxes before that point.
Violators of the Sugar Act were to be tried in Vice-Admiralty courts,
convened by the navy, because colonial courts refused to convict colonial
merchants for smuggling, however great the evidence.  These efforts ended
corruption in the customs service, and even with lowered rates on molasses,
the actual amount collected increased 15 times.  While the Navigation Acts
had been intended to regulate international commerce, these acts were
direct taxes on the colonists, and they saw this as essentially theft of
property, the removal of what john locke had identified as one of their
fundamental rights (life, liberty and property).  Reaction was strong.  As
was said in a Boston town meeting, 'If our trade may be taxed, why not our
lands?  Why not the produce of our lands and everything we make use of?'
They feared that this was the first step in the removal of all of their
rights and the creation of a sort of slave-nation in he colonies.

Colonists felt that they were not being represented in the British
Government despite its claim to have the right to conrol and tax the
colonies.  British government worked on the basis of virtual
representation, where each member of parliament was a representative of
everyone in the empire, rather than just the specific group who elected
him.  Colonists were used to electing representatives on a regional basis
to represent their specific interests, and felt that a MP from England
cared little for the needs of colonial constituencies.  In fact, most
English subjects had little role in parliamentary elections, but colonists,
by tradition expected more.  This situation left them feeling powerless and
oppressed by a govenrment in which they had little or no voice.

Yet, british leaders believed that it was necessary to assert royal
authority and bring the colonies somewhat into line.  It was believed that
colonists were asking for liberties even beyond those enjoyed by free
englishmen at home.  They felt that if colonists would not comply they
would have to pass more acts and if necessary use the troops in the new
world to enforce them.  As a result of this attitude, further legislation
was passed in England, and the more colonists protested the more the
English saw a need to bring them in line.


THE STAMP ACT

Stamp Act (1765): Required that colonists pay for revenue stamps which were
to be affixed to purchases of newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, marriage
licenses, legal documents, playing cards and dice (refer to contemporary
use on cards and dice).  British hoped to use this tax to raise 60,000L to
pay for support of British troops on colonial borders.  These stamps were
to be sold by colonial agents appointed by the crown.

Along with he Stamp Act were passed the Colonial Currency Act, which
forbade colonial governments to issue their own paper money as had
traditionally been the practice, and the Quartering Act, which said that
British soldiers could be housed on private property when needed and should
be provided with fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, and beer, cider or
rum.  All of these things were to be paid for eventually, and it was
primarily intended to house them in barns and unused buildings, but such an
invasion of privacy still rankled.

This all coincided with a post-war depression in New England, caused
because many of the soldiers who had spent a lot of money during the French
and Indian War had been sent off to the carribean and that military revenue
had dried up.  This made the sugar and stamp acts hit extra hard.  Average
wage for a laborer was 3 shillings, and the stamp on a newspaper
advertisement was 2 shillings and on a will it was 5 shillings and on a
liquour license it was 20 shillings.  It was not so much the poor who were
effected as the middle class, clerks, lawyers, tradesmen and businessmen,
people who depended on printed documents in their work.

Patrick Henry: Spoke out against the Stamp Act in VA House of Burgesses,
declaring that only colonial legislatures had the right to tax the
colonies, bevause they were the only true, elected representatives of the
people there.  Said, in part: 'Tarquin and Caesar each had his Brutus,
Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third...' at which opoint he
was interrupted by shouts of 'treason', but carried on to say '...George
the Third may profit by their example...if this be treason, make the most
of it!'...of course, he was later hanged for treason.

Stamp Act Congress: Met in Oct of 1765 at New York City Hall in response to
debate which had started in Massachusetts and spread through a Circular
Letter (a document or idea passed from legislature to legislature through
the colonies).  28 delegates from 9 colonies.  They adopted 13 resolutions
protesting against the Stamp Act, and they resolved not to buy any imported
goods falling under the act.  London Merchants were so dependent on
colonial markets that in 1766 the Petition of London was sent from
Merchants to parliament urging the repeal of the Stamp Acts.

In reaction to the Stamp Acts a group called the 'Sons of Liberty' was
formed, the name coming from a description of the colonial population by a
sympathetic speaker in parliament.  The Sons of Liberty were headed by Sam
Adams and many other colonial rabble-rousers, though Adams was the
pamphleteer and spokesman of the radical fringe throughout the period
before the revolution.  Membership was secret, but they were a very active
unifying and organizing force in resisting British authority.  They had
their own printing presses and their pamphlets and posters were everywhere.
They had chapters in most notable towns, and though their leaders were
politicians and popular spokesmen, the membership were mostly rowdy sorts,
dock workers, sailors, apprentices, artisans, students and other
disaffected elements.

As the Stamp Act was about to go into effect, the Sons of Liberty organized
riots in Boston.  The house of Andrew Oliver, the chief customs collector
and the house of his cousin Thomas Hutchinson, the Lieutenant Governor,
were looted, torn down and burnt.  They distributed leaflets reading 'The
first man that either distributes or makes use of stampt paper, let him
take care of his house, person and effects.'  In some of the colonies the
stamps were actually seized by mobs and burnt in bonfires.

As the day that the act went into effect approached, they initiated the Guy
Fawkes Day Riots (Nov 1, 1765): Colonists in NY executed and buried effigy
of 'Liberty' and then burned an effigy of the governors, harassed soldiers
and looted the homes of a number of officials.  Riot eventually  broke up
on its own, but all this violence so frightened collection agents, that
when the act was supposed to go into effect no one was willing to enforce
it and it was essentially a dead issue.

This did not, however put an end to british attempts to get revenue out of
the colonies and to dominate colonial government.

Since the Stamp Act seemed not to be working, Parliament passed a
Declaratory Act, which had no concrete effect, except to state clearly that
the colonies were subject to Brioitish law.  The hope was that this act
would clarify the legal status of the colonies and establish a precedent
for future legislation,  but all it actually did was offend the colonists
and show how little Parliament understood the beliefs and position of the
colonists.  While Parliament continued to think that colonial unrest was
the result of some sort of misunderstanding or childish misbehavior, most
Englishmen could not see the fundamental arguments of liberty and
representative governmnet which lay behind colonial complaints.

Parliament continued to legislate...


THE TOWNSHEND ACTS

Townshend Revenue Act (June 1767): Initiated by British Treasurer,
'Champagne Charlie' Townshend.  He was an arrogant playboy, who once stated
that he would rather see the colonies turned into primitive
desertÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿs than treat a colonist as an equal.  Required import duty
on tea, glass, paints, oil, lead and paper.  Was intended to raise 40,000L
to pay royal governors and judges in colonies.  To make the act enforcable
parliament authorized the issuance of Writs of Assistance, official
documents giving very broad powers to government agents in enforcing
revenue acts, superceding laws against illegal search and seizure and
operating sort of like blanket search warrants.  They also established a
board of customs commissioners and established more vice-admiralty courts,
taking all control of the regulation of the acts away from the colonists.

In reaction to this John Dickinson wrote a pamphlet titled 'Letters from a
Pennsylvania Farmer', a very influential document which outlined the
outrages of the new British acts and urged a boycott of British goods.  He
said 'Let us behave like dutifulchildren, who have received unmerited blows
from a beloved parent.'  He urged loyalty to Britain,  but stern measures
to make them aware of their abuses.

The Massachusetts House of Reps sent a circular letter out urging
resistence.  This said in part that acts whose purpose was 'imposing duties
on the people...with the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue are
infringements of their natural and constitutional rights.'  British
government demanded that the letter be repudiated, and threatened to
dissolve any assembly expressing support for Massachusetts.  They refused
to repudiate the letter and the assembly was dissolved by the governor.

In keeping with this, the House of Burgesses in VA declared that they alone
had the right to tax their colony, and endorsed a boycott on a long list of
British imports.

Colonists had been prepared for this and a boycott of many british goods
was quickly adopted.

In reaction to this the British began to send more troops to the colonies,
with the specific mission of garrisoning the major cities and maintaining
internal order.  The first troops arrived in Boston in October of 1768.

Boston Massacre: 1770, March 5th: A small mob of colonists threw snowballs,
possibly containing rocks at a group of soldiers on Boston Common.  When
one soldier was knocked down the soldiers reacted rashly and fired on the
colonists, killing 7 of them, including Crispus Atticus, a negro.  The
victims of this massacre were 'rabble of the basest sort', but they became
popular heroes, martyrs to the cause of colonial liberty.

The troops involved were tried for murder, and in a show of colonial
cooperation and to convince the British that colonial courts could  be
objective, the law partners John Adams and Josiah Quincy defended them.
With two of the best and most prominent lawyers in Boston defending them,
the soldiers got a fair enough trial.  4 were acquitted and 2 were
convicted of manslaughter.

Despite this judgement and the moderation which leaders like John Adams
hoped it would promote, this incedent was blown out of proportion by
propaganda, particularly handbills distributed  by Sam Adams and his sons
of Liberty.  Adams continued to organize after this and began creating
committees of correspondence, groups in each colony responsible for passing
news and information to other colonies and maintaining a chain of rapid
communication up and down the coast.

Townshend Acts were repealed in 1770 at the urging of Lord Frederick North.
He realized that the colonies had  been pushed too far, and got parliament
to repeal all of the duties except the one on tea.  Colonists responded  by
lifting their embargo on all goods except tea.  Tea was retained as a duty
in the hopes that colonists would accept it and that this would establish a
precedent for future acts of taxation.  Stress importance of precedence in
English law.

Nonetheless, conflict continued in the new world.

In 1772 because the crown was uncertain about the reliability of colonial
revenues, it was decided that all royal officials would be paid by
thecrown, not the local government.

The Tea Act, was passed in 1773 as part of an effort to save the British
East India Company.  This company had invested heavily in opening up India
to trade, but now that India was beginning to become profitable, its debt
burden threatened it with bankruptcy.  While it was cash poor, it did have
17 million pounds of tea in stoage.  In order to help out the company,
Parliament authorized it as the sole legal source for tea being sold in he
colonies, cutting out all of the middle-man merchants involved in that
trade, and requiring colonial tea-sellers to buy directly from the British
East India Company, thereby increasing its revenue.  Although this brought
the retail price of tea down in the colonies, it caused enough damage to
colonial merchants to cause considerable unrest, and there was also popular
resentment because the Townshend Tea Duty was still in force.  Much of this
resentment may have been because this system allowed the British East India
Co.  to undersell merchants who were illegally smuggling in Dutch tea from
the Carribean.

In reaction, Vigelante groups threatened the tea importers.  In New York
and Philadelphia, the authorities had to turn tea-ships back to England for
fear of violence.

In Boston the tea ship Dartmouth was allowed to land.  Radicals under Sam
Adams were determined to stop it from unloading, and for several days the
Dartmouth and two other ships were kept from unloading by threatening mobs
on the docks.

On December 16th a group of men, headed by Sam Adams and disguised as
indians, boarded the ships and dumped the tea in the harbor.  It is
generally believed that this was done with the approval or at least the
compliance of the merchants involved, because the governor was about the
seize that tea for non payment of the duties anyway.

This 'tea party' was as serious crime, but popular sentiment was so
strongly in favor of it that nothing could be done.  In England there was
talking of flattening Boston with artillery, and George III said of the
colonists 'we must master them totally or leave them to themselves.'  The
British were particularly enraged by the fact that they knew that no
colonial jury would ever convict these vigelantes.


THE COERCIVE ACTS

Parliament under the command of Lord North, saw no course but to take
heavy-handed action.  In 1774 this was in the form of the Coercive or
Intolerable Acts, as they were called in the colonies.

The Boston Port Act: Closed the port of boston to all commerce until the
citizens had paid for the destroyed tea.

The Administration of Justice Act: provided that court cases would be tried
outside of Massachusetts when the governor felt that the juries would not
be impartial.

The Massachusetts Government Act: rewrote the colonies charter,
strengthened power of governor, weakened council and town meetings, made
many offices appointive instead of elective.

Quebec Act: established religious toleration for catholics in Quebec and
expanded the borders of canada into the midwest to essentially create a
catholic buffer state to halt westward colonial expansion.

Finally, the Quartering act was reissued and strengthened.

These new laws were unwise and unjust, even from the perspective of many in
Britain.

Lord North had singled out Massachusetts for persecution because he hoped
that the other colonies would stay aloof, but because of the work of Sam
Adams and the committees of correspondence, a unity had been forged between
the colonies, and when one was threatened, the others also realized that
they were potentially under attack.  Even Virginia, so different in almost
every way from Massachusetts, was ready to defend it to the death, seeing
that their fates were linked despite very different interests.


FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

In June 1774 an assembly of 55 delegates from all the colonies was called
together at the request of Massa.

The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in September.  All
colonies except Georgia sent delegates.  Many of the delegates were
conservative and only a few wanted a total split from England.  Most wanted
to present a unified front and reach a final settlement and understanding
with England in which the heavy hand of English government would be lifted.

Their position on law and control in the Empire was stated well by James
Wilson, who said 'All the different members of the British Empire are
distinct states, independent of each other, but connected together under
the same sovereign...the foundation of all free government..,is the right
of the people to participate in their legislative council...americans are
entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several
provincial legislatures'.  George III remained a popular monarch, and most
colonists who wanted change believed that they could stay within the empire
if they were allowed to retain the independent legal status that the
government seemed determined to take away from them.  Nonetheless, there
were diverse opinions represented, from Sam Adams, who urged immediate
revolution, to moderates from the middle states who preferred cautious
resistence or sensible solutions, like John Galloway, who suggested that
the colonies have their own parliament subject to the English parliament.

The continental congress assembled a list of grievances to be sent to
England, in all hopes that they would be well received and considered
fairly.  They also formed a 'Continental Association' to manage the boycott
of British goods.  The colonies had finally decided to get organized
because, as Franklin had said 'We must hang together or we will hang
separately.'


THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

With the First Continental Congress in 1774, as John Adams Said, 'The
Revolution was complete in the minds of the people and the union of the
colonies'.  It remained only to see how the colonies would settle their
differences with Great Britain and what degree of violence would be
involved in that settlement.  Their demands offered the opportunity for
compromise, if England were willing to return the colonies to the largely
ungoverned and untaxed status which they had enjoyed before the French and
Indian War.  For the most part Englishmen and the English government were
not in a receptive mood for any kind of compromise.

In response to the demands of the First Continental Congress King George
III announced that 'The New England governments are in a state of
rebellion...blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this
country or independent.'  Massachusetts was put under direct military
control, with General Gage, commander of the British forces in the colonies
as its military governor.  Interesting to note that Gage, like washington,
was a veteran of General Braddock's ill-fated mission to take Ft. Duquesne
at the start of the French and Indian War.

The general attitude in England was hostile towards the colonial demands.
Parliament authorized many additional men to be sent to New England.  One
of their commanders, General James Grant, boasted that he 'would undertake
to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the males, partly
by force and partly by a little coaxing'.

There was a limited amount of resistence in England to the idea of crushing
colonial resistence.  Edmund Burke made an eloquent speach in defense of
the colonies in parliament.  He urged a calmer more conciliatory course,
stressing the value of america to the Empire, when he said: 'There is
America, which at this day, serves for little more than to amuse you with
stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of
death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts
the envy of the world".  He went on to urge a course of compromise, saying:
'All government---indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue
and every prudent act---is founded on compromise and barter.'  Despite his
eloquence, the idea of compromise was not popular and he was outvoted 270
to 78 on the decision to send troops to put down the rebellious colonists.

William Pitt and Lord North, both former Prime Ministers, did their best to
promote a moderate course, but sentiment was so much against the colonists
that they could do little.  Pitt did get a bill passed in February of 1775
which exempted from royal tazation those colonies which voluntarily taxed
themselves and conributed that money to the crown to pay fo their
'proportion of the common defense',  but this bill was vague and
overwhelmed quickly by more hostile measures.

Many in England, like Lord North, believed that only Massachusetts was in
rebellion and that the other colonies were still basically loyal.  General
Gage tried to make it clear that this was not the case and suggested that
unless England was ready to send 20,000 troops it would be best to take a
moderate course and suspend the Intolerable Acts.  Instead of giving him
the troops or repealing the acts, no one believed his reports and his force
was reduced to 3500 men and left the intolerable acts in force, though
later more men and support were provided as the need became clear.

England was determined to put an end to rebellion and disorder in the
colonies, though most did not realize the extent of the problem.  The
colonists were equally determined to resist British oppression and
domination.  Patrick Henry expressed their position when he said 'Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery?  Forbit it, almighty god!  I know not what course others may take,
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death'.

While not everyone in the colony agreed with Patrick Henry, there were
certainly enough who had wholeheartedly committed themselves to the cause
of independence that America was indeed on the brink of open rebellion.  In
fact, only about 1/3 of the population actively supported the idea of
rebellion, while 1/3 was neutral and 1/3 was actively in support of the
British government.  As time passed and British troops stayed on colonial
soil sympathies shifted towards the rebels to some degree, but there always
remained a strong loyalist population in the colonies, until they fled
after the revolution.

News of Parliament's decision to take a stern hand in the colonies did not
reach America until April of 1775, and in the 10 months which had passed
since the calling of the First Continental Congress the colonists had been
preparing for the worst.  The Massachusetts Assembly met secretly against
Royal orders and authorized the creation of a militia to begin training
immediately, including the 'Minute Men' who were supposed to be ready to go
into battle at all times on short notice.  Companies of militia began
drilling and training throughout the colonies, and while they were not
polished and experienced like the British Regulars, they were determined
and dedicated.

Parliament's orders reached General Gage on April 14th of 1775.  They
declared Massachusetts to  be in open rebellion, ordered additional troops
to be sent to the colonies, closed all of the seaports in the colonies, and
forbade colonists to fish on the Grand Banks or to trade at any English
ports.  General Gage was also authorized to take whatever military measures
were necessary to prevent any armed resistence.

Within four days of being authorized to use force in controlling the
colonists General Gage took action.  Informants had told him that colonists
were stockpiling weapons and ammunition at Concord Massachusetts.  On April
19th Gage dispatched 700 of his best Redcoats to seize these illegal
munitions.  They were also assigned the task of arresting colonial leaders,
including Sam Adams and John Hancock.  The force left Boston before dawn,
but their mission was clearly not a secret from the colonists, since their
departure was heralded by alarm bells and signal guns set off by the
colonists.  As part of the colonial reaction, several riders were
dispatched from Boston to warn Adams and Hancock and the militia forces in
the towns along the way to Concord.  Paul Revere, a Boston silver- smith
and political cartoonist, was one of those sent to spread the word of the
British march in his famous ride.

On seeing the colonial reaction, the commanding officer sent back a request
for reinforcements, but he sent six companies of men on to Concord to seize
the colonial arms.  These men were under the command of Major John
Pitcairn.  They continued their advance towards Concord, but when they
reached the town of Lexington they found that 70 Colonial Militia had
gathered on the common there.  After an argument the Americans began to
disband peacefully before the vastly superior number of British troops.  As
they withdrew someone fired a shot, probably by accident.  The British
responded with a volley and the Minute Men fled, leaving 8 of their men
dead and 10 wounded.

The British took this in stride and marched on towards Concord, though they
had been delayed about 15 minutes by their brief encounter in Lexington.
That gave the militia in Concord enough time to remove most of their
supplies and hide them, and also gave time for more militia to gather and
prepare to attempt to stop the British advance.  When the troops reached
Concord they seized the remaining supplies, and burnt a couple of gun
carriages.  They repulsed assaults by a group of local militia, driving
them off, with two colonials and three british killed.

By noon the battles of Lexington and Concord were over, the mission
completed, though Adams and Hancock seemed to have vanished underground,
and the British troops headed back to Boston.

The trip back to Boston was not to be as pleasant as their trip out had
been.  They met a force of colonial militia at the North Bridge out of
Concord and were forced to retreat towards Boston.  As they retreated
colonial militia gathered all along the road, and for sixteen miles the
British troops were under fire from 3 to 4 thousand colonials, all hiding
under the cover of trees and rocks along the side of the road, sniping at
them accurately, like fish in a barrell.

General Gage sent out 1500 more men to meet them and escort them back to
Boston.  By the time they made it back to Boston at the end of the day, the
British had lost 273 men and the Americans fewer than 100.

In fairly short order some 16,000 Militia moved in around boston and
besieged the town, holding General Gage and his men.  Ethan Allen and his
Green Mountain Boys, militia from Vermont set out promptly and captured
Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain, key areas to protect
the rear of the Colonial forces.  Seeing these successes the other colonies
quickly send reinforcements on to Massachusetts.

Ralph Waldo Emerson immortalized the moment when Colonial militia on the
North Bridge of Concord first defeated the British, when he wrote, 'By the
rude bridge that arched the flood, their flag to April's breeze unfulred,
here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the
world.'

This romantic portrayal of the situation was essentially accurate.  A large
group of marginally trained farmers with no leaders and no government,
relying only on their cunning and desire, had managed to defeat and then
route a far better trained and equipped British force, doing what the
French, the Spanish and a dozen subject nations throughout the world had
been unable to achieve.


THE BATTLE FOR BOSTON

In June, when Boston had been besieged for almost 2 months, British
reinforcements arrived by sea.  1,100 more troops arrived, with three
generals, William Howe, John Burgoyne and Henry Clinton.  On June 17th Gage
decided to break the siege.  However, the colonists had  been warned of
this, and overnight they had placed 1600 men with cannon at the high
vantage point on Breed's hill, overlooking Boston from the south, dug into
earthworks and well protected.

Seeing this, General Howe set out with 2200 men to remove the rebels from
Breed's Hill.  Instead of landing troops by sea and attacking from the
rear, Howe chose to bombard the village of Charlestown at the foot of the
hill and then march up in a frontal assault.  The Americans held their fire
against the advance, commanded not to shoot until they saw the whites of
the British troops eyes.  When they did open fire, their barrage was
devastating and masses of British troops were slain.  Howe tried another
frontal assault and failed.  He was then reinforced with 600 more troops
and tried another assault.  By this time the americans were out of
ammunition and had to retreat.  However, the Americans had lost only 140
dead and 271 wounded, while the British lost 226 dead and 828 wounded.  The
loss of more than half his force was disastrous for Howe, even if he did
win the battle.  As Clinton commented afterwards, 'Another such victory
would have ruined us'.

Although Howe was really at fault for this 'victory', Gage ended up taking
the blame, and he was recalled and command of the troops in Boston, which
was not yet liberated, was given to the unimaginative and overly cautious
Howe.


THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

With Boston beseiged and the colonies essentially removed from British
control, at least temporarily, a Second Continental Congress met in
Philadelphia.

This was a more distinguished gathering than the congress of the year
before and included more radicals.  Among the participants were John Adams,
John Hancock and Sam Adams from MA, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and
Richard Henry Lee from VA, Christopher Gadsden from SC, and Benjamin
Franklin from PA.  Also present was George Washington, the only experienced
military leader in the colonies not in British employ.

The Second Continental Congress was not really elected, the members being
appointed by their legislatures, and had no legal authority, but it chose
to take responsibility for the emergence of a new nation and acted swiftly
to match the speed with which military events were unfolding in
Massachusetts.

Its first goal was to deal with the British military threat, so it
reorganized the militia into a Continental Army under command of George
Washington, who left immediately to take command of the siege of Boston.

In an effort to seem conciliatory, especially to please British moderates
like Burke and North, the congress then issued the Olive Branch Pettition,
offering peace and compromise to the king.  The Olive Branch petition did
not blame King George for the problems, but laid the blame on 'those artful
and cruel enemies who abuse your royal confidence and authority for the
purpose of effecting our destruction.'  The common view was that George III
was not a villain, merely ill-advised.  Nonetheless, this offer was less
than sincere, intended more to placate their allies in Britain than to
solve any problems.

Shortly afterwards the congress issued a 'Declaration of the Causes and
Necessity of Taking Up Arms', justifying their actions and condemning
everything Britain had done since 1763.  Americans were presented as a
people 'attacked by unprovoked enemies' who were forced to choose between
submission to tyrrany and resistence by force.  Resistence by force was the
option chosen...

The British response to this declaration was to authorize that 25,000 more
troops be sent to the colonies to bring the total force to 40,000.  In
addition, king George declared the colonies to be in rebellion, and
parliament issued orders to seize colonial goods and shipping.  These
actions made it clear that whatever loyalty the colonists still had for the
king was misplaced, since he was wholeheartedly behind parliament's war
plans.

Congress then ordered an attack on canada and created a special committee
to seek military and economic aid abroad, most likely from France.  In
addition, Esek Hopkins of Rhode Island was appointed Commodore and
instructed to create an American navy.

The attack on canaday went well at first, with General Richard Montgomery
capturing Montreal in November of 1775 and Benedict Arnold advancing to
Quebec after a harsh march through Northern Maine.  When montgomery and
arnold attempted to take quebec they were repulsed with great losses, but
the British were not able to drive their small force of 500 men out of
Canada until reinforcements came in the next spring.

In cooperation with the congress a number of colonies took action on their
own.  South Carolina issued its own constitution.  Rhode Island repealed
all laws requiring allegiance to the king.

Although congress was almost unanimous by early 1776 in its opposition to
England, there were still moderate voices to be heard.  PErhaps the most
significant of these was John Dickinson, who urged the preservation of some
ties to England, arguing 'Where shall we find another ?ritain?  Torn from
the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affections,
relation, language and commerce, we must bleed at every vein'.

There was also fear that a revolution would be economically disastrous and
many merchants fearred for their goods and property.  There was also great
uncertainty as to the viability of a popular government since none had ever
really been attempted before.

Despite all this, military successes continued, including the British
withdrawal from Boston, and the minds of the people were being swayed by
the inflamatory words of Thomas Paine, whose book COMMON SENSE had sold
150,000 copies in the first few months of that year, making it an all time
best seller.  The popular opposition to Britain was growing and people were
recognizing the governmental authority of congress, so the leaders were
successful in overcoming the few doubting voices to proceed with their
plans.

By July 2nd of 1776 the congress was resolved, and a motion made by Richard
Henry Lee a month before was agreed to...he had proposed that 'These United
Colonies are and of right ouught to be free and independent states, that
they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all
polioitical connection between them and the State of Great Britian is, and
ought to be, totally dissolved.'  This resolution was only adopted after it
was studied extensively by a committee including Thomas Jefferson, John
Adams and Ben Franklin who had to find justifications for the break with
Britain and defend the resolutioin to the congress and people.

Once the Resolution of Independence was adopted, the congress asked John
Adams to frame a formal Declaration of Independence to be publically
circulated.

Adams declined this honor, suggesting that Thomas Jefferson, the youngest
member of congress do the job instead, saying of Jefferson 'he can write
ten times better than I can'.

Jefferson's draft, written in less than two days, and slightly edited by
Franklin and Adams, and then made a bit more moerate by congress as a
whole, was adopted as the Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776.  It
explained the reasons for breaking with Britain in both general and
specific terms and explained the intentions of the colonists in setting out
to form a new nation.

Years later Jefferson said, 'I did not consider it any part of my charge to
invent new ideas, but to place before mankind the common sense of the
subject, in terms to plain and firm as to command their assent...it was
intended to be an expression of the American Mind.'  Clearly his idea was
to formulate the ideas of liberty originating in enlightenment philosphy as
it had been absorbed and become part of the American mindset.  However, if
Jefferson did not invent the ideas found in the Declaration, he certainly
expressed them in nearly perfect form when he said...'We hold these truths
to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...'


BRITISH MILITARY LEADERSHIP

In general British leadership suffered from the traditional weaknesses of
the British military.  Advancement was based on connections and seniority,
rather than ability and merit.

Almost all of the British generals had one or more major disabilities.
None of them were truly competent, though some, like Burgoyne and
Cornwallis, had considerable talent and intelligence.  Those who had the
skills to command were not suited to it by temperament or by nature.
American leadership was chosen almost entirely based on ability, desire to
command and natural skill, making them more dependable and more motivated.

Traditionally many of the political and military shortcomings of the
British Empire in the revolutionary war have been credited to George III.
Many people have an image of him as a mad and oppressive king, crippled by
gout and raving in the last stages of syphillis or some equally horrible
mental affliction.  In fact, at the time of the revolution he was a fairly
able leader.  His power was extremely limited, exercised mostly indirectly
through a loyal faction in parliament.  While he did eventually develop a
hard line attituted towards the colonies he had originally been generously
inclined towards them.  His gout was not crippling until well after the
Revolution, and his supposed madness, which was the result of a disease
called Porphyria, did not really afflict him seriously until much later.
It resulted in seizures of disorientation and apparent psychosis, but these
were infrequent, coming years apart, but increasing in frequency as he got
older.  It was not until the early 1800s that he was truly mad, when he was
reported to wander the halls of Windsor castle, addressing imaginary
assemblies and entertaining phantom heads of state.  In fact, in his later
years he once halted his carriage and dismounted to greet a tree by the
roadside as the French Ambassador.  However, at the time of the revolution
he was not mad, and though he was a conservative British patriot and not a
brilliant or original thinker, he governed fairly, and genuinely believed
that his colonial policies were fair, even generous, and he truly thought
that the outrage of the colonists was some sort of inexplicable, ungrateful
and unwarranted by his actions, which he saw as efforts to better provide
for their protection and wellbeing as British citizens.

For the most part George III's role in the actual war was indirect.  His
power was extremely limited by law, and his faction in Parliament declined
in influence as the war progressed.

The British war effort was actually headed by Viscount George Sackbille
Germain.  He was a former military officer who had been declared
incompetent and unfit for command during the French and Indian War.  In the
years after that he had discovered that he had more talent for politics
than for warfare.  Through his influence at court he was able to obtain
appointment as Secretary of State for the colonies.  His indecision and
unwillingness to commit British forces completely to the colonial war were
major factors in the ultimate British defeat.  He was known for his miserly
management of the army, a characteristic which made him the darling of
budget-conscious parliament, but hated by the generals who found men,
supplies and support far too scarce to carry on an effective battle.

The other major lord involved in the British war effort was John Montagu,
the 4th Earl of Sandwich.  Lord Sandwich had been involved in British
politics and expecially the navy since before the French and Indian War.
He was infamous in Britain for his corruption and for defrauding the
government by embezzling and misdirecting funds.  At the time of the
Revolution he was 1st Lord of the Admiralty, a position he had been forced
to resign from during several previous reform movements, but which he
seemed to keep getting back nonetheless.  Because he was skimming so much
out of the Navy treasury he was unable to give full naval support to the
British army in the colonies, a fact which hurt them seriously in several
battles.  His devotion to lechery and gambling were so great that he was
given the nickname Jemmy Twitcher, and the Sandwich, which was named after
him was invented so that he would never have to leave the gaming table and
could dine on meat and bread while gambling.

While the top British leaders were corrupt and ineffectual, for the most
part the generals in the colonies were weak and poorly suited to command.

Thomas Gage who was the British commander from 1763-1775 was vastly
experienced, having served with Abercrombie, Braddock and Amherst in the
French and Indian War.  He was unsuccessful in dealing with the first
outbreak of rebellion because he was not particularly imaginative, but he
was smart enough to resign in 1775 so that he could leave the colonies and
go on to earn some renown and promotions in India while others took the
ultimate blame for colonial failures.

Sir William Howe succeeded Gage as commander in the colonies.  He had
served briefly in the French and Indian War, and combined total lack of wit
or imagination with outrageous cautiousness which caused him to delay
disastrously before taking any action, though to tell the truth, once he
was decided, he tended to do the wrong thing.  Although he was successful
in taking New York in 1776, his indecission after that point stalled the
war effort so much that he resigned in 1778.  His older brother,
Vice-Admiral Richard Howe commanded the British fleet in the Revolution,
and though competent, he was hamstrung by a shortage of ships and supplies.

Sir Henry Clinton was British commander for the last part of the war, from
1778 to 1883.  He was actually a native of the colonies, having been born
in Newfoundland, where his father had been governor.  He had served in the
seven years war and done fairly well as a tactician under other generals.
Once in a position of authority his indecision and hesitation caused
serious problems.  He was also unable to control his subordinates or get
them to follow orders.  Although he came up with brilliant plans and
designs for battles, they were generally beyond his available resources or
he lacked the leadership ability to implement them and make his underlings
do what he wanted.  He was a good planner, but lacked the ability to put
those plans into action, though towards the end of the war, when it was
really too late, he began to get the hang of command and was fairly
successful in his southern campaign.  Clinton himself admitted during the
war that he was unfit for command and had been promoted to too high a level
too fast, without the experience and skills he needed to be effective.

To give an idea of the nature of the rest of the major officers in the
British army, two excellent examples are Major General John Burgoyne and
Major General Charles Cornwallis.

General John Burgoyne was exceedingly bright and knew it.  He was charming
and well liked by his troops, and was called 'Gentleman Johnny by them.  He
was excellent at planning troop disposition and arranging  battles, though
his strategic maneuvering was weak and he managed to get himself surprised
at Saratoga so that he had to surrender.  He had an inflated ego and
thought of himself as an intellectual.  He was a successful playwright in
England and looked on war as a hobby.  Two of his plays, The Maid of the
Oaks and The Hieress were produced by David Garrick, the most respected
producer of the period.  Burgoyne had the skills to be a good general, but
his heart wasn't really in it, so he was not very successful.

Charles Cornwallis also had an ego problem.  He had been a Member of
Parliament before the war, and was essentially a politician who was
appointed a general with little training or experience.  He argued with his
superiors decisions, which made a wreck of the ineffective Clinton.  He was
also a great leader of the reform movement in England, and up until the
time of the revolution had been rather sympathetic to the colonies.  Later
in his rather distinguished career he reformed British rule in India as
commander in chief there and tried to improve conditions under British rule
in Ireland during his term as Viceroy of Ireland.  Cornwallis was well
meaning and intelligent, but didn't have the skills or experience to lead
an army.

Although the British leadership seemed to consist mostly of playboys and
diletantes, the average British soldier was of high quality, and in an
effort to save money in what he thought would be a short war, Lord Germain
hired a large number of Hessian mercenaries to augment British forces, and
the Hessians, though percieved as brutal, were unquestionably the finest
soldiers of the time, coming from Hesse, a small German principality with a
great martial tradition.  The Hessians were feared and hated by the
colonists as foreign invaders who didn't even speak English, and though
they fought well, the looked with disdain on their British employers and
their presence led to unrest among colonists and British soldiers alike.


AMERICAN MILITARY LEADERSHIP

    American leadership may have consisted mostly of self-taught generals,
but they were generals who knew how to lead men and had the desire to
command and to win which encouraged them to learn the skills required to
win a war.  In addition, America enjoyed the assistance of some of the
greatest military minds of the 18th century, volunteers from European
nations who came to defend the principles of liberty and gave their lives,
their fortunes and their skills to make America free.

More than anyone else, George Washington was the force which kept the
American war effort going.  He was a Virginia planter, from the tidewater
aristocracy, and had some very limited military experience.  He was a
romantic, who had idealized the military life from childhood, and had tried
unsuccessfully to join both the British Navy and Army.  He was only barely
educated and not particularly brilliant, but he had an open, honest manner,
an imposing stature and the undefinable ability to inspire men and lead
them to do exceed their own limitations.  He was not a particularly good
tactician, but he was an able administrator and delegated authority well to
his more skilled assistants.  He was also exceedingly lucky, some thought
him charmed, and though he rode at the front of his troops in many battles,
he was never wounded.  In one encounter several of bullet holes were found
in his coat and hat, though he came through unscathed.  All told, in his
career Washington lost more battles than he won, but in the end he won the
war, and that was all that really mattered.

The most distinguished and most successful colonial general after
washington was General Mad Anthony Wayne, called mad because during early
fighting in Canada he lost part of his skull to a musket ball, and though a
metal plate was put there to hold in his brain by his personal surgeon
Absalom Baird, he was never quite right in the head after that.
Nonetheless, he was extremely successful, and if washington lost most of
his battles, Wayne won all of his, so he evened things out for the
colonists.  Wayne was a tanner by trade, and began as a colonel in the
Pennsylvania militia, but with every battle he won he received a promotion,
until he was one of the most respected military officers in the colonies,
and after the revolution he continued his successes in battles against
western indians.  Wayne was a brilliant strategist and tactician, a quick
decision maker and had a natural flare for military command.  It was Wayne
who did much of washington's actual military planning during the later
phases of the war.

The other great colonial military leader was Benedict Arnold.  Like Wayne,
Arnold had a natural talent for war, and like Wayne, he went virtually
undefeated in a series of campaigns which raised him to a high rank.  His
talent for war did not extend to managing occupied cities, and he was
forced to resign over his mis-management of the city of Philadelphia in
1779.  After that he was made commander of the Fort at West Point, and,
because he felt rejected by Washington he made arrangements to turn over
West Point to the British.  The plot was discovered, but Arnold escaped,
becoming a British officer and later dying unhappy and in disgrace, his
pride and betrayal having destroyed all the credit his victories had earned
him.  Some historians have argued that without Arnold's successes in the
early part of the war independence might never have been achieved.

While the Hessians assisted the British for payment, other experienced
foreign soldiers came to America to help the colonies win independence.
Many of these men came through the offices of Ben Franklin, who, as
American representative in Paris, contacted exiled and unemployed military
officers from a number of European nations and encouraged them to come to
America for glory, to fight in a good cause and for eventual, unspecified
rewards from the new government.  His efforts resulted in several
outstanding additions to the colonial army, including experienced but
unemployed officers from France and Germany and two great, exiled national
heroes from Russian- occupied Poland.

Johan de Kalb was a common-born german soldier who claimed to be a Baron
when he came to America.  While his birth may not have earned him titles,
his skills and experience fighting for the French in the 7 years war did,
and he was made a Major General in the Colonial Army and eventually died in
action in 1780.

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Lundolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben was a Prussian
soldier who had served in the army of Fredrick the Great and was recruited
by Ben Franklin.  He, unlike de Kalb, was a real Baron, but he liked
America so much that after the war he settled in New York as a national
hero.  He was made drillmaster of the new Continental Army, charged with
the task of installing Prussian discipline and making it more like a
European army.  He designed the first uniforms of the colonial armed forces
and was eventually made Inspector General of the Army.  He also wrote
'Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United
States', the first American military manual.

Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko was a lithuanian born pole, a great
patriot and a national hero of poland.  He was made commander of the Army
Engineers in the Continental Army, and constructed forts and defenses
throughout the revolution.  He was also placed in charge of the transport
of troops and supplies.  He was also one of the founders of the Society of
the Cincinnatus.  He later fought to free Poland from Russian rule and
ruled as dictator there for several years.

Count Kazimierz Pulaski was a polish count.  He had led the polish
rebellion against the russians from 1768-1772 and was an exile in France
where he had been advising their army.  He was recruited by Franklin and
commissioned by congress in 1778 to create a United States Cavalry Corps.
And during the revolution he worked to train American troops as cavalrymen,
eventually bringing them up to a level where they were competitive with
British cavalry.

The most famous foreign advisor of the revolution is certainly Marie Joseph
Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.  He was a wealthy
French nobleman of only 20 years, when he came to America, inspired by the
ideals of liberty to contribute 3 million dollars and his services to the
cause of the war.  He became a close friend of Washington, and though he
was never much of a military leader, he was a symbol of French support for
the rebels, and in 1778-1780 he worked very hard to raise funds and
military support in France which was invaluable in ending the revolution.
He was later a leader of the constitutional reform movement in France.


CONDITIONS IN THE ARMY

In undertaking the war, Washington had hoped to be able to follow the
European military system and develope a corps of trained, regular troops to
meet the British in pitched battle.  Instead he found that at best his
troops were never more than half trained and he never had enough of them,
so he resorted to a Fabian Strategy, adopted from the campaigns of the
Roman General Marcellus Fabianus, who had fought in brief engagements,
striking hard and fast, then withdrawing to safety and striking again when
the enemy was least prepared.  These large scale guerilla tactics offended
Washington's sense of honor and fair play, but they were effective and he
was wise enough to realize their value for a force which was outnumbered 5
to 1 at its best moments.

For most of the war conditions in the army were very bad.  Supplies were
short, victories were few and far between, retreat was common, and loyalty
among the soldiers frequently flagged.  There was a 25% rate of desertion
in the army, and at most times Washington had fewer than 5,000 men in his
command, though most of these were part of the better trained body of
Continentals or professional colonial soldiers.  With militia augmentation
colonial forces never reached more than 20,000 men, at the very  beginning
and very end of the war, less than half the British force.  For the most
part the army was filled by a draft, with soldiers only required to serve
for nine months, which barely gave enough time to get them trained before
they were discharged.  The rich and educated had ways of avoiding service
and the soldiery consisted mostly of the younger sons of farmers, laborers,
slaves, servants, apprentices and mechanics, people who weren't desperately
needed in trade and industry.  In the course of the war over 5,000 blacks
served, all of them in racially integrated units.  The American troops were
good snipers and scouts, but had a tendancy to flee under fire and desert
if things got particularly bad, and Washington had to take this into
account in planning his strategy.

During the particularly bad period early in the war, Tom Paine wrote in
'American Crisis', "These are the times that try men's souls...the summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves...love and
thanks."  The unwillingness of colonists to serve even to preserve their
own freedom was one of the greatest problems of the revolution.  Not only
did men evade the draft and desert, but merchants were unwilling to provide
supplies or support for dubious colonial money to be redeemed if the rebels
won, and this often left the army literally out in the cold, and with very
little to eat as well.

Despite these problems, Washington's magnetic leadership and the skills of
his generals managed to form ragged militiamen and the outcasts of society
into an effective fighting unit, and though there were few easy victories,
the advantages of fighting on home territory and knowing that one was in
the right eventually began to tell.


THE FORTUNES OF WAR (1776-1780)

Despite initial success at Lexington and Concord and in seiging Boston,
fortune quickly turned against the colonists.

In the Summer of 1776 General Howe took the 32,000 troops he had massed in
Nova Scotia and descended on New York City, defeating Washington at the
Battle of Long Island, and pushing him  back across Manhattan Island.
Through indecision and in an effort to spare colonial troops and keep the
war friendly, in case the colonists decided to make peace, Howe left
Washington an escape route across Harlem Heights to the north.  Washington
attempted to make a stand, but his troops kept fleeing from the British,
and though he threw his hat to the ground and stomped on it, he had to
retreat.

Thus began a lengthy and exhausting retreat across New York and into New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, over a period of several months.  Washington and
his men had  been inexperienced when they met Howe in New York, but months
later when they finally stopped in New Jersey they were seasoned troops and
ready to do battle.  When Winter came, Washington, who had camped at Newton
Pennsylvania, decided to finally make his counterattack after five months
of retreating.  Howe and his main force had retreated to winter in New
York, leaving New Jersey defended by garrisons of hated Hessian mercenaries
in Trenton and Princeton.

On Christmas night during heavy storms, washington took 2400 men across the
delaware river in small boats, marched nine miles to Trenton and attacked
the garrison of Hessians there in complete surprise in the middle of a hail
storm.  Over 900 surrendered and the rest fled.

The victory at Trenton gave the army a great boost of morale, and when
Cornwallis came down from New York with more troops, Washington met and
defeated him at Princeton.

While these two battles gained little ground, they gave the army the
encouragement it needed to prepare through the winter for the next year's
vital campaigns.

1777 opened with a flurry of British activity, with a complex plan to
secure upstate New York and the great lakes.  Washington had only 5,000
troops left and this promised little resistence to the mass of British
force.

Howe had spent the winter enjoying himself in New York and having an affair
with the wife of one of his officers.  With all this amusement, he
neglected to prepare his troops to meet General Burgoyne who was marching
south from Canada with over 7,000 troops and had captured Fort Ticonderoga.

In addition, troops from Fort Oswego had  been met by Benedict Arnold and
1000 colonials and driven back, and Howe had decided to take his main force
to capture Philadelphia, sending only General Clinton and a small force to
assist Burgoyne in taking Albany.  To make matters worse, Clinton had
realized how inadequate his force was and had turned back to New York for
reinforcements.  So, when Burgoyne reached Saratoga, just north of Albany
he discovered that none of the more than 10,000 troops who were supposed to
meet him there had arrived, and he was forced to surrender almost 6,000
troops to the colonists.

Although Washington had  been defeated at a number of battles outside of
Philadelphia, the victory at Saratoga overshadowed everything else that had
happened.

Franklin had been negotiating with the French for a year, and hearing of
Saratoga Louis XVI immediately recognized the US as a nation and agreed to
send support, eager tocause trouble for the British.  A million Livres in
aid was immediately allocated and more was added next year.  A commercial
treaty was negotiated by Franklin, Arthur Lee and Silas Deanse, agreeing
that France and the US would 'Make common cause and aid each other
mutually, should war break out between France and Great Britain...in return
France guaranteed the sovreignty and independence, absolute and unlimited
of the US.'

Hearing of this alliance, Lord North and Parliament were ready to accede to
all of the colonial demands, repeal all the acts and taxes and reach a very
favorable settlement, but they delayed and discussed, and news of their
willingness to cooperate came to congress after France had entered the war
and there was little that could be done to halt its progress.

Meanwhile, Washington and his troops were making a very hard winter in
Valley Forge, PA, eating little but 'Fire Cake', grain and water fried on a
stick, and as Lafayette reported, 'The unfortunate soldiers had neither
coats, nor hats, nor shirts, nor shoes, and their feet and legs froze until
they grew black, and it was often necessary to amputate them.'

So many of his officers resigned that washington expressed fear at being
left alone with only a few soldiers, and even they were deserting.

Fortunately, Spring brought more supplies, more recruits and news of French
{upport, and successes in the North had been so great that most of the
northern colonies were secure in rebel hands.

Britain had virtually abandonned the North, and under Clinton, the new
commander, they concentrated on trying to make progress in the south where
there were many more loyalists.  Loyalist troops had proved to be little
help in the North,  but it was hoped that in the southern colonies where
they were more numerous and  better equipped, they would provide a core of
support which would mae conquest easier.

Savannah fell in 1778 and most of the rest of Georgia fell in 1779.  In
1780 Clinton took Charleston acaptured more than 3,000 American soldiers,
the worst defeat of the war for the Americans.

Organized resistence in the south fell apart, except for very successful
guerilla campaigns led by Francis Marion, who was called the Swamp Fox, for
his technique of hiding in swamps and striking quickly against the British
who couldn't fallow him there.

Despite the nucleus of Guerilla harassment, the south fell fairly quickly
to the British in 1780 and 1781, with successful battles at Camden,
Cowpens, Kings Mountain and Guilford Courthouse, though British losses were
fairly heavy as they moved northward.

Unable to secure all of the Carolinas Clinton ordered Cornwallis to take
the British Army north into Virginia, and at Yorktown he met the combined
forces of Washington and his French allies and the string of southern
victories ended in total defeat which led to the ending of the war.


THE WAR AT SEA

The American war at sea during the Revolution is one of the more curious
aspects of the history of the period.

Originally, Commodore Esek Hopkins of Rhode Island had been appointed to
create a colonial navy to interfere with British shipping.  Hopkins had
been a successful merchant captain before the war, but congres gave him so
little money to work with that he was unable to make any progress in
creating a navy, and it was assumed that he was mismanaging,
misappropriating, and possibly embezzling the money he had been given by
congress, so he was removed from his position.  This left the colonial navy
in a shambles of nonexistance, with no real organization, but a desperate
need to disrupt British shipping to keep vital supplies from getting to the
British troops in North America.

This mission was left in the hands of privateers like Captain John Paul
Jones.  Jones had been born in Scotland and had served in the British
merchant marine before settling in Virginia in 1773.  He began his career
with a series of very successful raids on British shipping around the
English coast in his first ship, the Ranger in 1778.  The next year, with
the support of the French, he led an ambitious mission, taking 14 American
ships to England to attempt an attack on the port city of Leith.  In the
English Channel he encountered a British fleet of 41 ships.  All but three
of his ships fled, but he engaged the British anyway.  For more than 3
hours his flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, battled the British frigate
Sarapis, a much larger warship.  The two ships were grappled and fired
broadsides into each other, so both were doomed.  The British commander
Captain Richard Pearson asked Jones if he was ready to give up, and Jones
replied 'I have not yet begun to fight'.  They fought on in hand to hand
combat, with both ships sinking and on fire, and eventually it was the
British who surrendered.  This was a significant victory for morale, though
the longterm military significance of this naval encounter was small.
Despite the victory, the Bonhomme Richard was so damaged that it was barely
able to make to a safe french port, and it sank two days later.  After the
revolution Jones served in the Russian and French navies as an expert
consultant on naval warfare.

Although the American navy was never a really significant military factor
in the revolutionary war, it did succeed in harrassing British shipping and
achieved some striking successes with French aid.  Perhaps its greates
value was in shocking the British, because for the first time they
encountered vessels which, though smaller and less well armed, could
outfight them.  The British navy had been supreme at sea, because of
superior ships and discipline.  They were able to fire their guns twice as
fast as the french and three times as fast as the spanish, and their ships
were of the best and most versatile designs.  However, most colonial
sailors had spent time in the British navy and had British training, so
they could fire their guns as fast as the British could.  In addition,
colonial ships were as good as the best the British had at sea.  For some
years the British had actually been buying many of their merchant and
military ships from shipwrights in Boston.  Since colonial ships were
usually adapted merchant vessels, they were smaller, but often faster,
though they were not as heavily armed as British warships.  Finally, the
colonial navy had an advantage when combat came down to boarding, since
many British sailors were serving against their will, having been
impressed, they were unwilling to give their all in hand to hand combat.
Most colonial privateers had free, volunteer crews, dedicated to he
revolution and to their own profit through shares of any plunder, so they
were eager to fight with vigor when it came down to boarding.

All of these factors made the colonial ships the most serious threat to
face the British at sea in centuries.  Unfortunately, these ships were only
a threat on an individual level, since the colonies didn't have the
manpower or resources, even with French aid, to maintain a fleet large
enough to be a real threat to the British, impressive though the quality of
their few ships twas.


LOYALISTS

Although the American Revolution was, at heart, a popular movement for
independence from Great Britain, a great many Americans remained loyal to
the Britishcrown throughout the revolution and suffered for their loyalty.
These British supporters were called Loyalists or Tories.

At least a fifth and at most a third of the colonial population continued
to support England throughout the revolutionary war, providing supplies and
aid for the British troops.

While many of the educated people in private business or skilled trades
tended to side with the rebels, people in mercantile trade, in government
offices and in the clergy remained tied to england because of their close
connections through business and government.  Despite these divisions most
Americans took a live and let live philosophy, and tended to profess
loyalty to whoever had the most troops in their neighborhood.

Tory strength was greatest in rural New York and in the back country of
North Carolina, and among minority groups and non-English speaking ethnic
groups who looked to the English crown for protection from the persecution
of their anglo-colonial neighbors.

Many Tories remained loyal to Britain because they had little faith in the
success of the revolution, or because they believed that democratic
government was impractical.  Others just disliked change, or thought that a
less violent and complete solution could be reached.  Some did not
understand why it was necessary to shed so much blood just to avoid a few
taxes and trade restrictions, and saw the benefits of membership in the
powerful empire as worth a few sacrifices.  One loyalist complained that
'The annals of no country can produce an instance of so virulent a
rebellion originating from such trivial causes.'

While patriots had been cleverly and efficiently organized by Sam Adams and
the Sons of Liberty and Committees of Correspondence, the Tories had looked
to England for their organization and leadership, and had no real cohesion
or structure.  They had no governments of their own, no committees, no real
leaders.  Some fled the colonies during the revolution, to Canada or
England, others went underground or pretended rebel sympathies, some sought
the protection of the Broitish Army, and others chose to take up arms as
fairly inneffective militia support for the British troops.

For the most part the tories were fairly passive, disorganized and
generally just expressing their opposition to radical change.  The more
active and more organized rebels in many communities took advantage of this
to abuse and harass Tories, jailing them, destroying or confiscating their
property, beating them, tarring and feathering them, whipping them through
the town before driving them out into exile.

Battles between rebel and tory units in the course of the war were
particularly bloody and personal.  As one Tory reported, these battles
placed 'Neighbor against neighbor, father against son and son against
father...he that would not thrust his own blade through his brother's heart
was called an infamous villain.'  The intensity of this hatred was clearest
in 1778 when a group of Torries and Indians led by Colonels Butler and
Brant surrounded a rebel stronghold at Ft. Kingston in Wyoming Valley, PA,
and massacred the inhabitants, scalping 200 and burning many others alive.

Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts at the start of the
revolution, was the one real leader that the Tories had.  He had been the
only colonial leader willing to support the Stamp Act, had suffered for
this by having his house burnt down, but remained loyal to the crown.
During the revoltion he exiled himself from America, taking a number of
Tories with him to England where they lived as a small isolated community
for some years, never really accepted as Englishmen, missing their American
homeland and never really able to return.  He died in 1780.

Once the revolution was over, many Loyalists settled in communities in
Canada, as a fiercely anti- american buffer community specifically designed
by the British to discourage American expansion in Canada, and Loyalists
played a significant role in Canadian fighting in the War of 1812 when
America attempted to invade Canada.


THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN

Once the British had realized that the war was with all the colonies, not
just Massachusetts, a major part of their war effort was directed towards
the southern colonies.

As early as 1776 the British carried on operations in virginia in
cooperation with Tory forces there.  When the Tories in Virginia were
defeated and driven out, the British evacuated them and assisted in the
burning of the city of Norfolk.

The real southern campaign began after 1778 when the British under Clinton
had abandonned Philadelphia for fear of a French blockade, and decided to
leave the north to the colonists and concentrate on recapturing the south,
with the aid of Tory factions there.

On December 29th, 1778 the British landed at Savannah, GA, under the
leadership f Colonel Campbell.  The rest of Georgia fell during the coming
year, with General Ashe defeating the main American force in Georgia at
Brier Creek in March of 1779.  In October of 1779 the Americans tried an
unsuccessful counterattack to recapture Savannah, under the leadership of
Count Casimir Pulaski, but it failed, and the British proceeded northward
facing limited resistence.

In South Carolina the British, under General Cornwallis, were victorious at
Camden where General Gates was defeated because his militiamen fled before
the british advance, at Cowpens where they defeated General Morgan, but
took heavy losses, at Guilford Courthouse where casualties on both sides
were heavy, and at Eutaw Springs.  The only British defeat in this advance
through the south was at King's Mountain South Carolina, where they lost
150 men killed and another 800 wounded, though it was a relatively small
encounter.

The crowning victory of the British Southern Campaign was the capture of
Charleston on May 12th of 1780, the greatest British victory of the war,
where General Clinton earned considerable honor for his command, the pesky
General Cornwallis being absent at the time.  More than 2,000 American
soldiers were captured when Charleston surrendered.

All told, these southern battles were costly in men and in time, and
considerable forces had to be left behind to deal with mountain and swamp
based guerrillas in SC and GA.  However, had the British been able to
reinforce and resupply their army from the sea, the British onslaught might
have gone unchecked.


THE FRENCH ALLIANCE

Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin had  been in France for over a year,
persuading the French that they should support and aid the colonies.

He was a very popular figure in France, seen as the ideal rustic
philosopher, well regarded for his wit and his scientific theories, and
trusted because of the facade of honesty and simplicity which he presented
(always dressed in brown homsepun, etc).  Behind this simple facade,
Franklin was a clever and manipulative politician who knew exactly how to
get the French to give him what he wanted.

He used his time in France to recruit leaders like Pulaski, Kosciusko and
Von Steuben to fight in America, and also to get private funding from men
like Lafayette and Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.  Beaumarchais was
an interesting supporter of the American cause.  He was a notable French
playwright (the original author of the Barber of Seville and the Marriage
of Figaro), a militant supporter of French reform, and a publicizer and
promoter of the American revolution in France.  He also helped the colonial
cause more concretely, by using his considerable wealth to buy food,
munitions and other supplies for the colonial army, and while he could not
supply 3 million dollars in cash as Lafayette did, he did much to further
the war effort.

Franklin was able to use his skills to play on the fears of the French
foreign minister, Charles Granier Comte de Vergennes, to get Vergennes to
give support to the Americans.  Vergennes was rabidly anti-English, and
Franklin used the threat of peace with England and a possible English
American alliance against France to goad Vergennes into at first providing
covert support and then eventually providing open support and alliance to
the colonists.

All of Franklins efforts really came to fruition after the battle of
Saratoga, which, although it was mostly the result of luck and bad british
planning, convinced the French that the colonists had a chance and that it
would not be unwise to ally with them openly.  This made direct French
military involvement possible, increased the flow of money to the colonies,
and with the trade treaty negotiated between Franklin and Vergennes it
reopened colonial ports to international trade, with France taking on
England's profitable role as a trading partner.

French military aid came in 1780, in the form of 7,000 French regular
troops under the command of Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de
Rochambeau, and a sizeable French fleet as well, under the command of
Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse and his two sub-commanders, Jean
Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, Comte d'Estaing, and Paul Francois Jean
Nicolas, Vicomte de Barras.  Rochambeau was the outstanding French general
prior to Napoleon.  He had earned great honor in the War of the Austrian
Succession and the Hundred Years War, and in 1791 he was elevated to the
highest post in the French army, Marshall of France.  De Grasse was one of
the ablest French naval officers of the day, and though he was later
defeated by the English Admiral Rodney in the West Indies, he executed his
role in the colonial war perfectly.  d'Estaing and de Barras were both
skilled naval officers and went on to have distinguished careers.
D'Estaing was made Admiral of France in 1792, and de Barras, who was in his
20s during the American Revolution,  was later one of the military leaders
of the French revolution.

It took the French forces about a year to get mobilized, and when they did,
they arrived in White Plains New York in 1781, where Washington met
Rochambeau and the combined army of 7,000 French and 9,000 Americans
marched south to meet the British.  Meanwhile, the French Fleet under de
Grasse established a base of operations on Rhode Island, and began to
prepare to cut off British supply lines and to support and protect the
French and Colonial land forces.


YORKTOWN

With South Carolina more or less secure, general Cornwallis regrouped his
men at Wilmington to prepare to move on into Viriginia.  Because of the
losses during this year long campaign, Cornwallis had only 8,000 men left
to work with, and for the first time the Continental Army had the potential
to outnumber the British.

Under orders from General Clinton, Cornwallis marched north into Virginia
and joined up with troops under Benedict Arnold, who had been raiding in
the north.  They also joined with a group of Viriginia Tories, who
Cornwallis found to be as useless as colonial militia had the reputation
for being.  As he dcommented, 'When a storm threatens, our friends
disappear'.

Clinton ordered Cornwallis and his troops to take up a defensive position
at Yorktown where the English fleet would be able to reinforce and supply
him from the sea.  Cornwallis complained that Yorktown was 'an unhealthy
swamp', where his army would be 'liable to become a prey to a foreign enemy
with a temporary superiority at sea', but Clinton insisted, though he had
good reasons, Yorktown being the only easily accessible port in Eastern
Virginia.

Although the British Navy in the Americas vastly outnumbered the combined
French and American fleets, their force was spread out defending the
Carribean from French raids and patrolling the American coasts, and because
the fleet was spread out, its response to a threat would be slow.

De Grasse had part of the French Fleet in the West Indies, and de Barras
and d'Estaing had the rest of the fleet based out of Newport, RI,
patrolling the colonial coast and prepared to transport additional FRench
troops and supplies from their base in Rhode Island.

De Grasse avoided direct conflict with Admiral George Rodney and the
British fleet in the Carribean, and as Rochambeau, Washington and their
troops marched south towards Virginia, de Grasse broke away from Admiral
Rodney and headed north toward the Chesapeake Bay.  Rodney sent only about
a third of his fleet after de Grasse, under the command of Admiral Thomas
Graves.  Under the cover of small inlets, islands and rocky shores, De
Grasse was able to ambush Graves and defeat him soundly in the Battle of
the Virginia Capes.  With Graves driven off, the coast and the chesapeake
were temporarily in complete French control, and while Cornwallis and his
men at Yorktown were cut off, the Fleet from Newport was able to bring down
more men under Lafayette and reinforce and resupply Washington and
Rochambeau.

While Washington, Rochambeau and Lafayette surrounded Cornwallis and his
men on land, De Grasse cut him off at sea, and it would be weeks before
Admiral Rodney could come and relieve the siege.

Cornwallis held out from early September until October 17th, despite having
less than half the number of men of the combined colonial/french forces.
He then asked for terms of surrender, and in desperation, he was willing to
surrender totally, giving up his command and 7,000 British soldiers to
general Washington.

Washington dispatched his Aide de Camp, Tench Tilghman to inform the
Congress of this Victory, and from this point, America was for all intents
and purposes a free nation.


THE PEACE TREATY

Although the British gave up their war efforts after Yorktown, American
independence was not official until a treaty was signed between the parties
involved.

England was eager to make peace.  Just as it had during the French and
Indian War, the British debt had doubled during the Revolution, and this
financial crisis had forced Lord North out of power, and brought in Lord
Rockingham who was eager to negotiate.

America and France had agreed with each other to make peace in unity with
England, but this was made difficult, since Spain was still at war with
Britain, but was an ally of France and not of America. The spanish hoped to
use this leverage to limit  American expansion in the west.

At the same time, France was not eager to see America get too much power
and tended to support Spanish claims in the west.

Congress appointed John Adams, Ben Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson and
Henry Laurens as the commission for the peace talks.  They had been
instructed to trust the Comte de Vergennes and follow his advice, but they
soon discovered that his distaste for the English extended to English
colonists as well.

Adams commented that Vergennes 'means to keep his hand under our chin to
keep us from drowning...but not to lift our head out of the water.'

Seeing that Vergennes was not going to allow a totally favorable
settlement, Franklin and Jay took action, and contacted the British
representative, Richard Oswald in secret, and suggested that they might
make a separate peace with Britain, cutting out the French and the Spanish,
and working to the mutual benefit of both England and America.  They were
essentially breaking their commercial treaty with France and preparing to
ally with England who had been their enemy only a few months before,
because they knew that England was better equipped to be a beneficial
trading partner for the US than France was.

The British government authorized Oswald to make a treaty with the
Americans, and talks began in Paris, primarily between Franklin, Jay, Adams
and Oswald.  Oswald was very conciliatory and cooperative, doing his best
to allay American fears...

OSWALD: We can never be such damned sots as to distub you. ADAMS: Thank
you...but nations don't feel as you and I do, and your nation, when it gets
a little refreshed from the fatigues of the war, and when men and money
become plentiful, and allies at hand, will not feel as it does now.
OSWALD: Wecan never be such damned sots as to think of differing again with
you. ADAMSl Why, in truth, I have never been able to comprehend the reason
why you ever thought of differing with us.

The result of this was that a treaty was signed in which England
'Acknowledged the united states to be 'free, sovereign and independent'.
It also set the boundaries of the US to be the Great Lakes in the north, 31
degrees latitude in the south (n. of florida), the Mississipi in the West.
In addition, American rights to fish on the Grand Banks were recognized.
The British agreed to withdraw their troops from America with 'all
convenient speed'.  America agreed to 'earnestly recommend that the states
provide for the restitution of all estates, rights and properties that have
been confiscated', a provision the British insisted on to protect the
interests of Tories and British companies trading in the colonies.  The
colonists also agreed not to persecute tories who stayed in America and not
to interfere in the collection of debts in the US.

Vergennes was outraged...he commented...'The English buy the peace more
than theymake it...their concessions exceed all that I should ahave though
possible.'

The Americans had capitalized on the rivalries between FRance and England
to get the best settlement possible, and the shrewd diplomacy of Franklin,
jay and Adams made Britain realize at last that it was more important to
have the economic potential of America as a trading partner than it was to
have domination over the colonies and the military and administrative
headaches that entailed.  With the colonies free they would provide for
their own defense and maintenance, and with such an amicable treaty they
would still be a valuable market for British goods.

With the treaty of Paris the American and British ideals of Free trade and
open government had triumphed at last, and the French, who had done much
and hoped to gain much, had underestimated the will and cleverness of the
colonists and ended up with nothing.


Next class we'll see if the colonists could take all they had gained and
make a working nation out of it, a democratic nation like none ever
attempted before in the western world.


A CHANGING SOCIETY

With the end of the revolutionary war the American colonies found
themselves free of British rule and outside of the structure of the British
legal system.  The independent colonies very quickly began to make changes
in their own governments and the ways that they lived to fit their special
needs.

General desire in many colonies to abolish slavery.  Many felt that the
freedoms won in the revolution should extend to all men regardless ofcolor,
though most felt that it would be better for free blacks to live apart from
the white community, preferably returning to Africa.

The northern states were the most active in eliminating slavery.  Southern
states were reluctant to take such action because of their reliance on
slave labor and the large sizes of their slave populations.  In the north,
where most slaves were household servants and they were not very numerous
it was no big change to grant freedom to blacks.

In March of 1780 Pennsylvania passed a law which made all slaves born after
that date free, though it did not free those already enslaved.

In 1783 the Massachusetts courts made slavery illegal in their
interpretation that the statement that 'all men are born free and equal' in
the state constitution applied to black men as well.  In the same year
slavery was abolished by a statute in Maryland and Connecticut and Rhode
Island followed with similar laws in 1784, as did New York in 1785.

Under the urging of Thomas Jefferson, even Virginia, the northernmost of
the heavily slave- dependent states, made some effort towards freeing
slaves, when the legislature passed a  bill making it possible for any man
'by last will and testament or other instrument in writing sealed and
witnessed to emancipate and free his slaves.'

Many southern masters went ahead and freed their slaves privately, though
many more were unwilling to give up the easy labor that slaves provided,
and many felt that conditions would be better for slaves in the plantation
community than they would be outside it.

Thomas Jefferson himself continued to own slaves throughout his life,
though he freed them in his will at his death.  The principles of the
revolution urged many to free their slaves, but quite often commercial and
practical considerations overrode moral impulses.

The revolution also saw a restructuring of the relationship of church and
state in many areas.

In New York and many of the southern states the Anglican Church lost its
official status as a government sponsored religion, being cast out with the
English state which had brought it to the new world.  In 1783 the Anglican
Church in America reformed itself as the American Episcopal Church,
preserving the traditions of Anglicanism, but breaking all ties to England
and appointing its first Bishop by election of its ministers.

Despite these reforms, most states continued to use taxes to support the
church, and the congregational churches in New England retained special
priveleges well into the 19th century.

Only Virginia, under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson and James MAdison,
completely separated Church and state.

The revolution had also led to much change in the economy of the colonies,
with many merchants losing considerable wealth to the ravages of war and
others profiting by supplying one or both of the armies.  Land was
considerably redistributed, as land siezed from Loyalists was sold cheaply
at auction, and many propertyless colonists began to look to the west to
fulfill their need and their natural right to hold property.  Land was seen
as the one sure source of wealth and standing in a new nation where birth
and station meant very little.

Another trend in this period was towards the liberalization of attitudes
regarding women in the colonies.  Womens rights were expanded and they
began to gain a larger role in society.  In 1791 a South Carolina judge
went so far as to say that male domination in marriage was 'the offspring
of a rude an barbarous age' and that 'the progress of civilization has
tended to amerliorate the condition of women, and to allow even to wives,
something like personal identity.'  Traditionally, wives had been treated
much like property, but the principles of liberty seem to have even been
entering into the home as American women gained more of a place for
themselves.  As Abigail Adams commented to her husband John, 'If the men do
not remember the ladies when reforming society, the women might foment a
rebellion of their own.'

With men involved in fighting the war, many women became more involved in
business and managing farms, and they retained many of their
responsibilities after the war.  Many schools for girls were opened, and
women began to attend university in small numbers not long after, and
eventually a number of womens colleges were founded.  The result of all
this was a rise in womens literacy and to a greater role in commerce and
government.

What is surprising about the social changes of the revolutionary period is
that although they were widespread and had long term significance, they
were not all that radical, and by no means made up the kind of social
upheaval and chaos many had expected in the wake of the revolutionary war.


EMERGING STATE GOVERNMENTS

With the end of English rule many feared the new states would be plunged
into lawless anarchy.

Very quickly the state governments stepped in to take a more active role in
government.

By 1777 all of the states except Connecticut and Rhode Island had formed
constitutions on which to base their governments.  These new governments
were not drastically different from the way that the colonies had been run
by the English, but instead of being responsible to the English crown, the
new state governments were responsible to the people of the state.  The
constitutions provided for elective legislatures, court systems, a governor
of some sort and placed limits on the powers of these officials, for as one
colonist put it, 'all men are tyrants enough at heart.'  Most power in
colonial governments rested in the legislature, with governors being mostly
figureheads.

Interesting to note that when the Massachusetts legislature attempted to
draft a state constitution in 1778, many people in the state objected,
especially in Concord, and insisted that a special congress be elected to
create the constitution.  When the legislature went ahead and made a
constitution it was rejected 5 to 1 in a popular vote, and in response to
that a special convention was convened under John Adams which quickly
created an acceptable constitution.  The general fear among the people in
this instance was that sitting legislators would create a constitution
which favored their vested interests while outsiders whose only task was to
make a constitution would be more objective.  Later this same principle was
the basis for summoning a special convention to create a national
constitution.

Most state constitutions included a bill or declaration of rights, a
listing of the rights to which all citizens of that state were entitled,
generally including freedom of speech, worship and assembly, moderate bail,
prompt trials, trial by jury, no excessive punishment, protection from
unreasonable search and invasion of privacy, and prohibitions against
standing armies or any kind of draft.  One constitution stated that 'when
any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to the people's
wishes,  a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and
indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it.'  To make this process
of renewal and reform possible, it suggested that elections be 'free,
frequent, certain and regular' and that all 'men having sufficient evidence
of permanent common interest with and attachment to the community, have the
right to sufferage.'

Most bills of rights were on this level of vagueness and they were later
interpreted to abolish imprisonment for debt, establish public schools,
remove public funding fromchurches, reform the courts and jails and broaden
voting rights in the colonies.

These early state constitutions are important as examples of government by
contract between the people and the state.  They were unique documents
which stated in print what had previously at best been only a general
philosophical understanding and they made clear, once and for all, the
principles of free elective government in a concrete way which could not be
distorted or easily abused without someone pointing to the constitution and
raising objections.


THE FIRST NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

At the time of the revolution no one was really sure what kind of a nation
america would turn out to be.  Each of the states had a large measure of
independence.  With English rule gone, they were essentially independent
entities, free states which were cooperating together in their war with
britain, but had little else, other than geography to hold them together.

Nonetheless, most of the leaders of the states realized that for the states
to be successful in the years to come they would have to be united in some
way, under some form of national government, though it might be anything
from a loose hegemony of diplomatic allies and trading partners to a
single, fully formed national unit.

The first formal national government was formed by the Second Continental
Congress in 1777.  This government was formed under the Articles of
Confederation, which John Dickinson, their author, described as forming 'a
firm league of friendship.'  As this implies, the government authorized by
the articles was a very loose superstructure with little power to compel
the states to do anything or give it any real support.

Under the articles each state elected its own delegates to the national
assembly and paid them and had the right to recall them.  The legislature
had one house, and each state had only one vote, regardless of its
population or the number of delegates it sent.  Important legislation had
to be passed by a two thirds majority, or 9 of 13 states, making it
difficult to pass any national laws. In addition, the articles could only
be ammended by unanimous vote of the legislature.

Weak though this new government, known as the Confederation Congress, was
legislatively, the articles did give it the power to make treaties and
carry out wars.  While it could not tax directly, it could demand money
from the states for these purposes, issue coinage, appoint military
officers and borrow money.  Most of these powers were needed so that it
could carry on the revolutionary war.

The articles were innovative, in that they established a government of
divided powers between the states and the central congress.  This
government was a very loose confederation, and carefully avoided
threatening the rights of the states, though this ultimately made it a very
weak instrument of national policy which had to be replaced.  All told, the
Articles were the basis of American government for the 10 years from 1777
to 1787.


THE EMERGING FRONTIER

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 had given America a great deal of land west of
the Appalachias, reaching all the way to the mississipi river, land which
many americans wanted to exploit and settle.  All of the states laid claim
to at least some land in the north and west, even when those lands didn't
actually border on them in any way, as with Massachusetts claims to most of
what is now Michigan and Wisconsin.

Several groups went directly to work and formed their own independent
states in these western and northern lands.

The Allen family had encouraged settlement in Vermont, and during the
revolutionary war, they and their 30,000 settlers had supported the rebel
cause, though Vermont existed from 1775 to 1791 as an independent state
which was not part of America or Britain and was essentially the private
domain of Ethan Allen and his family, though in 1791 Vermont decided to
join the union.

During the 1770s James Robertson and John Sevier from Virginia led settlers
into the valley of the Watauga river west of the Carolinas and extablished
the independent nation of Franklin, which was eventually absorbed into the
United States as part of Tennessee.

Similar, informal, independent settlements took place throughout the new
territory in the period from the start of the revolution to the 1790s when
much of this territory began to be aborbed into the union and made into new
states.  The early, active expansion into the west is not surprising,
though it is surprising that all of these little western republics were
absorbed so easily and willingly into the expanding American nation.

In 1784 the Confederation Congress negotiated for all of the different
state claims in the west to be given over to the national government which
would administer western settlement.

In 1785 Thomas Jefferson authored the Northwest Ordinance, a law governing
the settlement of the new territories.  It was probably the most important
piece of legislation issued under by the Confederation Congress.  It was
expanded and amended in 1787 to provide for the transition of the western
territories into statehood.

The Northwest Ordinance applied specifically to the Northwest Territory
(the largest area of the new lands, all that area north of the Ohio, West
of the Appalachian Mountains, East of the Mississipi and South of the Great
Lakes).  Under the ordinance this territory had a governor appointed by
congress, and as soon as at least 5000 free males holding 50 acres of land
each, had settled in the territory they had the right to elect a
territorial legislature to govern the territory subject to veto by the
governor.  They would also be able to send a non-voting representative to
congress.  No less than 3 and no more than 5 states would be established in
the new territory.  When a potential state had 60,000 inhabitants it would
be admitted to the union.  Slavery was also prohibited in the territory.


THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

In 1786 New England entered into an economic slump, and taxes were raised
extremely high, to a level of as much as a third of the average income.
Many farmers faced going to jail for debt, and they found leadership in the
form of Daniel Shays, a veteran of the revolution who was about to lose his
farm to his creditors.

Shays and other leaders organized meetings and petitioned the Massachusetts
government for some sort of economic reform and control, but they cautioned
their followers to 'abstain from all mobs and unlawfull assemblies until a
constitutional method of redress can be obtained.'

Nonetheless, mobs formed and attacked courts where foreclosure proceedings
were going on, attacked the courts where rioters and protesters were on
trial, and threatened to seize the army arsenals.

In October of 1786 General Benjamin Lincoln was sent to put down the
rebellion, and after five months of fighting between the national army and
well-armed, enraged veteran farmers, the rebellion ended and Shays fled to
Vermont.

The rebels who were captured were freed, and in a subsequent election
Governor Bowdoin and most of the Massachusetts legislature were put out of
office.  Taxes were reformed to some degree and household goods and
workmans tools were exempted from confiscation for debts.

Shays rebellion shocked many colonial leaders who saw the Confederation
Congress as weak for not  being able to control the excesses of
Massachusetts government or bring a swift end to the rebellion.  Washington
described congress as 'a half-starved, limping body, always moving on
crutches and tottering every step.'

Clearly the emerging nation would need a more serious and organized
government than was provided for in the ARticles of Confederation.

A number of movements started to reform the government and factions
developed, supporting a stronger confederacy, an abolishment of national
government and strengthening of state government, and even a monarchist
faction.  To the monarchists and statists, Washington responded, on hearing
that they wanted him as their king, 'What a triumph for our enemies, to
verify their predictions!  What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to
find we are incapable of governing ourselves.'

Washington used his position of leadership to discourage radicalism and
promote a rational solution and a reasonable, equitable strengthening of
the national government.

A small group of delegates from Maryland and Virginia met in Alexandria to
discuss a solution, then moved to Washington's home at Mount Vernon.  They
had originally met to discuss the navigation rights in the Potomac River
and Chesapeake Bay,  but they quickly expanded their discussion and sent
out an invitation for representatives of all of the states to meet in
Annapolis in September of 1786.

Only five of the states showed up in Annapolis, but under the leadership of
Alexander Hamilton they resolved to reconvene in Philadelphia in May to
ammend the ARticles of Confederation.

Shays Rebellion had made people more aware of the problems with the current
government, and in May attendance was much better.

Seventy Four delegates from all 13 states were sent to the convention.
Only 55 actually attended, including 8 signers of the declaration of
independence.  Several prominant leaders did not attend, including John
Adams and Thomas JEfferson who were serving as ambassadors to France and
England, Sam Adams who was not named as a delegate, and Patrick Henry who
refused to attend and objected to the national government on principle.

Among the prominent people attending were Ben Franklin, Gouvernor Morris
and James Wilson from Pennsylvania, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, James
MAdison, Edmund Randolph George Mason and George Washington from Virginia,
John Dickinson from Delaware, Charles Pinckney from South Carolina and
Alexander Hamilton from New York.  Pennsylvania had the largest delegation
with 8 representatives, and somehow Rhode Island, with the smallest group,
managed not to have anyone show up.

The average age of the delegates was 43.  The oldest was Franklin who was
81 and the youngest was Jonathan Dayton who was 27.  Many were veterans and
27 of them belonged to the Society of the Cincinati, the honorary group
formed to look after the interests of army officers.  31 of them had
attended college, 10 of those at Princeton.  Lawyers, Businessmen and
Planters were the largest professional groups represented.  In actuallity,
over a third of the delegates were lawyers who owned farms.  There were
also several doctors and several professional politicians.  17 of the
delegates were slave owners, owning a total of 1400 slaves.  George Mason
of Virginia owned the most, with over 300, followed by John Rutledge of
South Carolina with 243 and George Washington with 216.

How's that for trivial figures...

In short, they were 43 year old farm owning, college educated lawyers with
25 slaves...

Once enough delegates had reached philadelphia on May 25th George
Washington was unanimously elected presiding officer.  They also voted
unanimously to keep their discussions secret, though James Madison kept a
diary which recorded discussions and was later made public.

Alexander hamilton quickly persuaded them not to 'let slip the golden
opportunity', and they abandonned their plan to merely amend the Articles
of Confederation, and accepted Edmund Randolph's resolution 'that a
national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme
legislative, executive and judiciary.'

In making this decision to form a national government, it should be
remembered that both Jefferson and Patrick Henry were absent, and they were
the strongest supporters of individual and states rights, and would have
objected strongly to the hard line nationalist flavor of the constitution,
and in the years to come, they would be the founders of the anti- federal
Republican party.  With these two leaders gone, the leadership of their
faction was left in the hands of the less ell known and less influential
Luther Martin.

They then undertook the task of creating a government, taking into account
the fact that people were (in hamilton's words) 'ambitious, vindictive and
rapacious', and could only be governed by a system of balances, as madison
said, 'Ambition must be made to counteract ambition'.

Many plans for the formation and structuring of the government were put
forward.  Everyone had their own ideas and some sort of settlement had to
be reached between the special interests of all the states, keeping in mind
the basic principles of limited democracy and checks and balances, and with
a desire to provide a reasonable amount of strength and effectiveness.  As
John Adams said:  A legislative, an executive and a judicial power
comprehend the whole of what is meant and understood by government.  It is
by balancing each of these powers against the other two, that the efforts
of human nature towards tyrranycan alone be checked and restrained, and any
degree of freedom preserved in the constitution.'

Several major compromises were key to the formation of a working
constitution.

The first of these was designed to resolve the conflicts between the large
and small states.

The large states proposed the Virginia plan, formulated by Edmund Randolph,
which based representation in a two-house legislature on the population of
the states, with members of the upper house elected  by the members of the
lower house, who were elected by the people.          The smaller states,
who felt that this would leave them in a powerless minority, proposed a
counter plan called the New Jersey Plan, which was expressed by William
Paterson.  It suggested a single-house congress with each state having one
vote an equal say.

Both of these plans were rejected as too unfair to too many people.
Several states threatened to walk out, so a special committee was
appointed.  Led by Franklin, this committee came up with a compromise.
This 'Great Compromise' established a two house legislature, with the lower
house based on population and the upper house with an equal number of votes
for each state.  The members of the upper house would be appointed by their
state legislatures and the members of the lower house would be elected by
the people.  It was expected that the lower house would be more populist in
sentiment, while the upper house would represent the interests of the
wealthy and landholding lcasses.   After a great deal of debate this Great
compromise was accepted.

The other major conflict which emerged was between northern and southern
states.  The north had eliminated slavery, but he south still depended on
it.  Although the south would not free its slaves, they wanted the slaves
to have votes, though without being able to vote.  Basically, they wanted
the slave population to be counted in determining the number of
representatives each state would have, but wanted them not to count in
determining the taxes for the southern states.  The northern state rejected
this idea, saying that slaves were property and should not count at all
unless they could go to the polls, though they wanted them counted fully in
determining the tax burden for southern states.  Both sides were adamant,
but a compromise, called the Three-Fifths Compromise, was reached.

Slaves would count 3/5ths both for both representation and taxes.  As a
concession, the northern states also allowed the southern states to push
through a provision against any kind of export duties, and gave a guarantee
for slavery to not be abolished before 1808.

These issues resolved, the convention wrapped up its work, establishing the
constitution as we now know it.  This document was approved by 39 out of 55
votes, with 13 representatives absent, and Elbridge Gerry, George Mason and
Edmund Randolph voting against the constitution, though officially they
announced the vote as unanimous, though their signatures were absent from
the document itself.


RATIFICATION

All that remained for the constitution to go into law and establish a new
government was approval by 9 of the 13 states.

Opposition by anti-federalist forces was growing, so in a quick effort to
appease them, the Congress added 10 key amendments to the constitution,
which came to be called The Bill of Rights.

Most state constitutions had Bills of Rights in order to guarantee the
freedoms of the people to hold property, vote, assemble freely, speak in
public and worship as they chose.

Anti-Federalists felt that with the strength of the government proposed in
the constitution and its potential for tyrrany, a national bill of rights
was necessary.

Desperate to get the nation off to a good start, the Bill of Rights was
approved, and the first 10 amendments provided for all the traditional
American rights and freedoms.

Over 2 years and in a storm of argument and debate, mostly between Hamilton
and Jefferson, the Constitution was eventually ratified by all of the
states except RI and NC.  However, the voting was close enough that 24
votes in the state legislatures might have halted ratification.  With
ratification in NH on June 21 1788, 200 yrs ago this yr new govt launched.


THE FIRST CABINET

April 30, 1789: Washington Inaugurated.

Washington and Congress began creating the various executive departments of
the government.  Congress created the departments, Washington appointed
their heads.

July 27, 1789: State Department established.  Thomas Jefferson sworn in as
first Secretary of State in Feb of 1790.

August 7, 1789: War Department created.  Washington named General Henry
Knox as first Secretary of War.  Standing army consisted of 840 men
guarding the indian frontier.

Sept 2, 1789: Treasury Department created, Alexander Hamilton 1st Secretary
of Treasury.

Sept 26, 1789: As provided for in Constitution, Washington appointed John
Jay first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Sept 26, 1789: Edmund Randolph appopointed Attorney General of US.  Later
Secretary of State, after Jefferson resigned.

The position of Attorney General was created in the Judiciary Act of 1789,
which also established lower courts and the circuit court system and
detailed the process of judicial election and appointment, as well as
establishing the idea of federal and constitutional supremacy and the
principle that cases could be appealed from lower courts to the supreme
court.

These major officers, heads of their departments, made up the cabinet, a
body intended to advise the president and administer the government.


FINANCIAL PROBLEMS

Now that it was established, government faced the problem of dealing with
the debt left over from the revolution and financing the national
government.

All told, 50 Million dollars in debt left over from Revolutionary War.

Alexander Hamilton, as secretary of the Treasury, was faced with most of
the work in finding a way to erase all this debt.

Congress made the first efforts at raising money by the very safe and
generally accepted means of establishing Tarriff and Tonnage duties,
charges on all goods entering or leaving American ports.

The Tarriff Act of 1789 placed a 5% duty on products like hemp, glass and
nails which were imported into the United States.  It also placed heavy
fees on foreign ships, based on their size, or tonnage, a measure designed
to encourage the growth of untaxed American shipping.

These measures were not really enough to raise the revenue needed, so
Congress instructed Hamilton to come up with a more comprehensive plan for
raising revenue.  Hamilton was not capable of introducing legislation,
merely of making suggestions to congressional legislators, but with all but
7 of the members of Congress in the Federalist camp, his suggestions almost
held the weight of law.  When he submitted it, his plan consisted of
several reports, the most important of these being the REPORT ON THE PUBLIC
CREDIT and the REPORT ON MANUFACTURES.

The REPORT ON THE PUBLIC CREDIT proposed to deal with the $40 million owed
to US citizens and the $11 million owed to foreign powers.

In his Funding Proposal Hamilton suggested recalling all the debts and
issuing new, federal bonds to replace them, plus in his Assumption Proposal
he recommended assuming all of the individual state debts as federal debts.

The idea of issuing new bonds was a good one, but the original bonds, which
had been devalued, had been bought up at as little as 1/100th of their face
value by speculators.  Under Hamilton's plan, those bonds would be bought
at full value and the speculators, many of whom were Hamilton's friends and
former business associates, would make a killing.  In response to
complaints, Hamilton, ever the businessman, responded 'The speculator paid
what the commodity was worth in the market, and took the risks.  He ought
to reap the benefit of his hazard.'

Hamilton and many others felt that the nation would be strong only so long
as the wealthy classes maintained a strong position in the economy, and the
congress, mostly federalists of wealthy background, went along with this
element of the plan.

There was greater opposition in congress to Hamilton's plan to have the
federal government assume state debts.

Most of the southern states had already paid off their war debts, and they
saw the assumption of the state debts as more beneficial to the more
indebted northern states.  For months congress was deadlocked, until a deal
was worked out between Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison.     Jefferson and
Madison swung southern votes behind the Assumption Proposal on the
agreement that the new national capital would be located in the South, on
the banks of the Potomac River, which they assumed would ultimately benefit
the southern states.

With both of these plans passed, the United States was very quickly put on
an even financial keel and the stability of the debts was such that foreign
countries were eager to invest in America.

Hamilton's next Public Credit proposal was that Congress charter a National
Bank.

Such a bank would provide for safe storage of national funds, manage the
collection of taxes, and issue bank notes, replacing the various unreliable
state-issued paper monies.  The Bank of the United States would issue $10
Million in stock, 80% of which would be sold to private individuals, and
20% of which would be held in reserve by the government.  The bank would be
stable because of government involvement, a great aid and resource to
investors, and yet remain primarily in public hands, since 20 of the 25
directors would be private citizens.

The bill passed both houses of congress with ease, but Washington was
unsure about it and had Jefferson and Hamilton present him with their
arguments regarding the constitutionality of the Bank.

Hamilton argued that the bank was a natural extension of the constitutional
right to tax, Jefferson countered that the constitution authorized only the
creation of new laws which were necessary, and since the Bank was not
vitally necessary, merely a pet project of Hamilton, it should not be
allowed.

Washington gave in to Hamilton and signed the Bank into law.

The Bank was a success from the start and every share was bought up by
investors in a matter of hours.  The currency it issued was strong and
stable.  The lending practices of the bank encouraged expansion of
business.  Soon the states began to start their own government sponsored
banks and by 1801 there were 32 such banks.

The REPORT ON MANUFACTURES was more radical than Hamilton's other proposals
and less readily accepted.  His plan was to use government regulation and
programs to change America from an agricultural nation to an industrial
nation.  He suggested the chartering of joint-stock companies, government
tariffs, subsidies, awards to successful manufacturers and restrictions on
foreign trade.

These programs would benefit and stimulate industry, but would be a burden
on the smaller businessmen and farmers, though Hamilton argued that
everyone would profit in the long run.  Since the taxpayers who would bear
the brunt of the expense of these bills were also the voters, congress
shelved this report, though many of the tarriffs were later enacted in
Tarriff Acts in 1792.


EMERGING FACTIONS

The fact that Washington had Jefferson and Hamilton argue the merits of
many of the new programs before he made his decision shows to some degree
the two very different political philosophies which wwere emerging in the
new nation.  Despite Washington's active discouragement of factionalism
these two groups were beginning to develop structure and leadership and
were turning into the first political parties.

Hamilton was the acknowledged leader of he dominant political force, a
group which was becoming increasingly organized and active.  Hamilton's
followers called themselves Federalists, and very quickly they acquired
loyal newspapers, pamphletteers like John Fennow, and a clear agenda for
the nation.  They believed in a diverse economy and an increase in
industry.  They wanted to concentrate power in he federal government and to
keep order in the country to avoid anarchy.  They had a dim view of human
nature, preferred indirect forms of electoral government, and generally
represented the monied classes.  Their strongest support was among the
farmers and merchants of the Northeastern states, in the Shenandoah valley
and around Charleston.  Most of the representatives in both houses of
Congress during Washington's first administration were Federalists.  Only 7
were generally against Hamilton's plans.  Washington and Adams can
generally be seen as Federalist presidents and Federalist power reached its
height in their administrations.

Hamilton was the leader of the Federalists, and was the archetypical
example of a new world success story.  He was the bastard son of a West
Indian woman and was abandonned at age 11.  He made a small fortune as a
teen and was able to emigrate to New York at age 17 and pay his way through
Kings College.  He served successfully in the Revolution, and had risen to
the rank of Colonel as Washington's Aide de Camp.  He had a great
admiration for the aristocracy, and felt that the common man could 'seldom
judge or determine right.'  He had a strong self-destructive streak, an
enormous ego, and was self admittedly given to extreme, even dangerous
ambition.  He had a sharp wit, and was probably the greatest financial mind
of his time.  He knew how to make money jump through hoops, and was willing
to do that for the government as well as for himself and his friends.

The party which was forming around Jefferson and in opposition to Hamilton
and his wealthy elite, was first identified merely as being the faction of
the Anti-Federalists, though they soon developed their own programs, grew
in power and took on the name Republicans.  They believed in the diffusion
of power to individuals and to the state.  They were in favor of popular
election for almost every issue, and wanted to restrict government power
and resist the forces of tyrrany.  They were populist and  believed in the
inherent goodness of man.  They were against the growing cities of the
northeast, against overdeveloped industry and in favor of public education
and agriculture.  Their power base was among southern and western planters
and farmers, plus free-willed frontiersmen in maine, the religious
minorities of the north east, and the ethnic minorities which had settled
around New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  For the most part they were
genuinely the party of the common man, and as such, it took them a long
time to get the power and influence to compete effectively with the
Federalists.  Jefferson and Madison are the two most notable Republican
presidents, and their administrations were the height of Republican
programs and administration.

In contrast to Hamilton, Jefferson was far from a self-made man.  He came
from a background in the Tidewater Aristocracy of Virginia.  He was a poor
public speaker, sort of a slob, but amiable and well spoken in small
gatherings.  He was a good persuader and delegated authority well, and he
led with his ideas, as expressed in his writing rather than with his
personal magnetism.  He tried to avoid political conflict and was very
sensitive to criticism.  He managed to be in politics for 35 years and
serve as president without ever making a campaign speech and making almost
no official speeches while in office.

The political culmination of Federalist-Republican conflict was to come in
the elections of 1800 and 1804, and the low point in their conflict was in
1804 when Aaron Burr, leader of the New York republicans challenged
Alexander Hamilton to a duel and killed him.

Much more to be said about factions and parties in later lectures.

It may be enough to mention that the perceptive George Washington saw these
emerging factions as the single greatest threat to the new nation, and in
his farewell address he begged the people to remain politically unified and
to avoid breaking into warring camps.


DOMESTIC PROBLEMS

The one real domestic crisis of Washington's first administration was
brought on by Hamilton's financial planning.

In March of 1791 Congress passed the first law designed to raise revenue
internally, essentially the first direct tax in the new nation.

This law established 14 tax revenue districts and placed a tax of between
20 and 30 cents a gallon on distilled spirits.  The legislatures of
Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina objected strongly, but the government
went ahead with plans to collect this tax, and appointed tax agents in the
various districts.

In many rural areas paper currency was not available, and whiskey was a
common commodity with a well established value.  Excess corn was turned
into whiskey to preserve it and make it realize some profit, and many
farmers had taken to trading this relatively transportable commodity and
using it as a standard medium in trade.

When a tax was placed on whiskey, this was seen not only as an attack on
their livelihood, but as an effort to actually tax money, or to derive
profit from every step in their barter system.  If a gallon of whiskey were
traded from person to person, the tax would have to be paid with each
exchange, immediately making such trading impractical and unprofitable.
Hamilton assured those who objected that the new Bank of the US would make
money more widely available,  but this promise did little for the immediate
needs of the farmers.

After almost 3 years, with no easing of the situation, many farmers were
ready to take up arms in 1794.

When government agents attempted to collect the tax in Western Pennsylvania
citizens met in Pittsburgh to register their protest that 'it is insulting
to the feelings of the people to have their vessels marked, houses
ransacked and to be subject to informers.'

The federal court in Philadelphia issued warrants against 75 western PA
distillers and sent marshalls to arrest them.  Mobs attacked the marshalls
and drove them back to Philadelphia.

Hamilton interpretted this attack as an open rebellion.  He convinced
Washington to raise 13,000 militia against the farmers and rode west
himself at their head.  They discovered no organized resistence,  but still
rounded up about 100 men whowere tried.  Two were sentenced to death, but
were later pardonned by Washington.

One of the results of this was that it proved that the whiskey tax was
uncollectable and also cost the government considerably for the military
expenses involved.  Hamilton went ahead and persisted in the same vein, and
instituted taxes on salt, coal, boots and shoes.  He wanted to prove the
skeptics wrong and make it clear that such taxes could and would be
collected, by force if necessary.

Perhaps the most important result of theWhiskey Rebellion and Hamilton's
attempted suppression of it, was that it goaded the Anti-Federalist forces
into action and gave them a person and specific programs to make the target
of their objections in congress and in the press.

Other federalist domestic programs also faced problems and aroused
opposition.  In 1791 a very unsuccessful war was carried out against
Indians in the Northwest, beginning with the humiliating defeat of Governor
St. Claire of Kentucky and 2000 militia, and dragging on for four years,
until General 'Mad' Anthony Wayne was brought out of retirement to defeat
the Indians at Fallen Timbers in 1794 and negotiate the Treaty of Ft.
Greenville in 1795, releasing much of the northwest which was held by
indians to the US.

Although Federalist domestic programs raised necessary funds, they caused a
great deal of unrest in the union, and at the end of Washington's second
term there were some who feared that the union might dissolve alltogether
without his firm and moderate leadership.


FOREIGN PROBLEMS

During Washington's administration major foreign policy developments also
took place.

The new United States faced many problems, from western expansion to allies
who seemed less and less desirable.

America wanted to expand west, but found Spain on its southern border in
the Mississippi Valley and England in the North at the Great Lakes.
England was also causing problems because of their policy of impressment
(seizing crewmen off colonial ships) and France was becoming a liability as
an ally because of its unstable revolutionary government.

In the wake of the American revolution, France had gone out of control in a
revolution of its own, and although many Americans embraced this revolution
at first, they quickly became disenchanted as it turned nasty.

In 1790 Lafayette sent the key to the Bastille to Washington and he hailed
it as 'a token of victory gained by liberty over despotism', but approval
declined in America from that point on, with the Federalists turning
against the new French government very quickly, and even the Republicans
eventually losing their faith after the execution of Louis XVI.

In 1792 the Girondist government in frace sent citizen Edmond Genet to
America to get support and aid under the alliance treaty of 1778 which they
claimed was still in force.

Genet was also authorized to organize American privateers and to promote
jacobin clubs in America, political clubs designed to promote 'Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity', on the model of the new French society.

Genet was an enthusiastic and inspiring young revolutionary and was
welcomed warmly at first, and went to work without even presenting his
credentials to the president.

With Jefferson's support he tried to convince washington to support France
under the treaty of 1778, but Washington, who hated foreign alliances
almost as much as he hated factionalism, denied any alliance, and issued
the Neutrality Proclamation, which stated that America had no foreign ties
or alliances and should have no ties to European powers, and should, as a
neutral party, be allowed to trade anywhere it wanted.

Meanwhile, Genet had commissioned a number of privateers to attack British
shipping, and had organized private American expeditions to attack the
French in Louisiana and Florida.  He was so well received by the people,
that when Washington specifically forbade him to comission any more
Privateers, he ignored him completely.  When the 'Little Democrat' out of
Charleston was commissioned, even Jefferson voted to ask for Genet's recall
to France.

Meanwhile, the Girondist government in France had fallen, and Genet had to
ask for asylum against the new regime and stayed in the US, eventually
marrying the daughter of the governor of new york and settling down as a
gentleman farmer.

Their initial support of Genet and the French had lost the Republicans a
fair amount of popular prestige, and in the wake of the Genet affair,
Jefferson resigned as secretary of state and temporarily retired to
Monticello to lick his wounds.

At the same time, relations with England were far from perfect as well.

In the period from 1793 to 1794 English vessels stopped and searched some
600 US ships, seizing sailors and forcing them to serve in the British
Navy.  This outraged Amrican merchants.

John Jay was sent to England, ostensibly to negotiate over trade in the
West Indies.  He took advantage of the opportunity, and on his own
authority he negotiated a wide-ranging treaty which, among other things,
ended the American Embargo of British goods, got the British to agree to
end Impressment (though it took a while for this to become an actuality),
got the British to recognize America's neutrality and right to trade
freely, and established the northern border with Britain and arranged for
their final withdrawal from the northwest.

On the whole, the treaty was not really all that had been wanted, and was
not received very well, but some of the provisions were vital to American
trade, and after much indecision, Washington submitted the treaty to the
Senate, they passed it in near secrecy, and it was signed into law.

The public was outraged.  Jay was hung in effigy, and the common toast in
the taverns was 'Damn John Jay, DAmn Everyone who won't damn John Jay, damn
everyone who won't sit up all night damning john jay!'

People felt that Jay had betrayed America to the British and that America
was one step away from being absorbed back into the British Empire, though
in fact, that was far from being the case, and Jay's treaty was a
necessary, if impotent diplomatic arrangement.

In response to Jay's treaty, in 1795, Spain became very paranoid, in the
fear that the treaty had contained a secret clause arranging for an
American/British alliance against spain in the new world.  Thomas Pinckney,
the US Ambassador to Spain, took advantage of this fear, and proceeded to
negotiate the Treaty of San Lorenzo or Pinckney's Treaty.  This treaty
settled the northern boundry of Florida at 31 degrees, and most
importantly, gave Americans free and unrestricted access to the mississipi
and the port of New Orleans, essentially giving all the new northern and
western lands access to the sea.

Pinckney was praised as a hero in America after his treaty was announced,
and it was approved unanimously by the senate in 1796.


CONCLUSION

In 1796 George Washington left office and prepared to yield the presidency
to his chosen successor, John Adams, who had beaten out Jefferson and
Hamilton in the election as a compromise, moderate candidate.

In his farewell address Washington stressed the two great problems of his
administration, which he saw as the greatest threats to the nation, party
factionalism and foreign involvements.

He said:

'I had no conception that parties would...go to the length i have been
witness to...' he warned against 'the baeneful effects of the spirit of
party' and also the 'insidious wiles of foreign influence', and he advised
that 'the jealousy of a free people should be always awake.'

Despite the veneration in which Americans held washington, he might as well
have been shouting in the wind, and to a great extent, the history of
American politics from that point forward focuses on party factions, though
to our credit, we managed to avoid permanent foreign alliances for almost
150 years, until the formation of NATO.


ELECTION OF 1796

Jefferson was Republican candidate.

Hamilton was discouraged from running because he was seen as too
controversial.

Federalists nominated Vice President John Adams for President and Thomas
Pinckney, on the strength of his treaty for VP.

Hamilton tried to take indirect control by bringing Pinckney in ahead of
Adams in the electoral college.  He arranged for electors from South
Carolina to vote for Pinckney and not Adams.  New England electors
counteracted this by not voting for Pinckney.

All the republicans voted for Jefferson, so the result was that Jefferson
came in second and was made Vice President, while Adams won.

Hamilton was further discredited, and it turned out that Adams and
Jefferson liked each other just fine and shared a distaste for Hamilton.

Adams was a good administrator and a skilled politician, with extensive
legislative and ambassadorial experience.  He was a bit abrasive and
outspoken, and he tended to put the good of the country above the good of
his Federalist party, so it was difficult for the federalists to unite
behind him, a serious problem since the Republicans were rising in power
and influence.  He was a moderate, really halfway between the federalists
and the republicans.

Because he was moderate, Adams was sometimes attacked  by both the
republicans and the federalists,  but he steered an even, effecitive course
for the country, though his policies really pleased neither faction.  He
was known in the press as 'His Rotundity', and described as 'blind, bald,
toothless and querulous', but these slightly exagerated qualities did not
make him much less effective as president.


CONFLICT WITH FRANCE

From before the election of 1796 the French had been harrassing American
shipping steadily in response to Jay's Treaty.

American sentiment was turning heavily against France and the French
revolution and the anarchy it had produced, and although the Republicans
still supported France in principle, even they saw little future in an
alliance with France.

The American navy was totally inadequate in dealing with the French threat
to shipping, consisting of only 3 ships.  The American army was standing at
only 3,500 men which would hardly be adequate to defend American interests
on the frontiers.  The only logical course in dealing with the French
seemed to be negotiation.

Adams sent three representatives to talk to the French government.  Charles
Pinckney, John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry.

When they reached France the French minister Talleyrand sent three men to
negotiate them who were later called X, Y and Z in the official report.
These men demanded a bribe of 250,000 dollars just to let them see
Talleyrand, plus a promise of a loan of $2 Million to the French
Government.  The Americans found this suggestion repulsive and doubted
Talleyrand's good faith, and Pinckney responded 'No, no, not a Sixpence,'
and after only a few days they headed back to America.

Adams cleverly released the report of this mission to the newspapers,
replacing the French names with X, Y and Z, arousing the ire of the
American public against France and making his representatives look like
honest negotiators who rejected a corrupt bargain, an admirable image which
rubbed off on Adams who had sent them.

Riding the crest of public approval and hate for the French after the XYZ
Affair and the breakdown of talks with France, Adams took the advice of the
common phrase of the day and decided to spend 'Millions for Defense and Not
One Cent For Tribute.'

In 1798 Adams appointed Benjamin Stoddert to be the first Secretary of the
Navy, and within 2 years he built the navy up to 50 ships.  In addition,
congress appropriated enough money to raise the strenght of the army to
10,000 men, despite republican objections.  American privateers were able
to threaten French shipping, and General Washington came out of retirement
to take command of the Army.  To top things off he also negated the
original treaty of 1778 and officially ended the paper alliance with
France.

Despite all this, Adams was restrained, and while American strength was
building up he was willing to hold off and not declare war against France,
in the hope that they would come to their senses.

A second peace mission was sent to France in 1799, and met with Napoleon,
who had just come to power.  He was much more cooperative and an
understanding was reached which temporarily freed American shipping from
the French threat, and gave the impression in America that Adams had made
the French back down.

The result of this was that Adams as president was more popular than the
Federalist party and was almost able to overcome the growing force of the
Republican party and came close to being reelected in 1800.

Another important program of the Adams administration also emerged as a
reaction to the French threat.  This was a series of rather repressive laws
which were rammed through congress by the Federalists in the summer of
1778.  These laws came to be known as the Alien and Sedition Laws.

Federalists saw the anti-French sentiment as an opportunity to pass
legislation in the congress which they still controlled designed to cripple
growing Republican support, much of which came from immigrants and
minorities in the new nation. A Naturalization act had been passed early in
the Washington administration, and in 1795 it had been reissued with the
period of residence required for citizenship increased from 3 to 5 years.
Under Adams the Naturalization period was again increased, this time from 5
to 14 years, making it very difficult for foreigners to become quickly
assimilated into society and delaying their opportunity to vote republican
by an additional 9 years.

The Alien Enemies act was passed to control the actions of enemy aliens in
event of a war.  It gave the president the power to arrest or expel
resident foreigners in time of war, though it had no practical application
in the 'quasi-war' with France, which was never actually declared.

The Alien Act authorized the president to expel from the US any aliens for
any reason, if he thought they were 'dangerous to the peace and safety of
the US'.  Adams never used this law, but many left the country in fear that
he might.  This law applied in peacetime as well as in wartime.

The most radical of these laws was the Sedition Act, which had a number of
provisions.  It made it illegal to 'impede the operation of any law' or to
instigate a riot or insurection, and also made it illegal to publish or
even utter any 'false, scandalous and malicious' criticism of government
officials.  This was a serious measure, since that was about all that
American newspapers of the time published, and people were very politically
outspoken.

Republicans were outraged at what seemed to be a total negation on the
right to free speech.  JAmes Madison commented that this act made
government officials 'the masters and not the servants of the people.'
There were sedition laws in England, and it was felt that these milder
versions of them were tyrranical.

While the Alien acts never had a great effect, the Federalists did attempt
to enforce the Sedition Act.

Before the election of 1800 they tried to use the act to shut down
Republican newspapers critical of Adams and the Federalists.  25 people
were prosecuted and 10 convicted, all in biased trials before federalist
appointed judges.  Typical punishments were 2 to 9 months in jail and a
fine of 2 to 400 dollars.

Harsh though the comments of these jailed editors had been, Federalist
papers were able to say equally awful things about JEfferson without fear
of prosecution, though there was an attempt to bring Hamilton to trial
under the act which was thrown out by a Federalist judge.

It was generally believed that these laws violated the first ammendment of
the constitution.

In response to the Sedition Laws, Jefferson and Madison drafted
resolutions, in the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky respectively,
objecting to the Alein and Sedition Acts, indicating that each state had
the right to judge these matters for itself, and insisting that states had
the right to declare such a national law unconstitutional within their
boundaries.  They set forth the idea that it was the duty of state
government to protect the people from the tyrrany of the federal state.
These resolutions were never acted on, and Jefferson urged his followers to
'keep away all show of force', but the point was made.

The Alien and Sedition Laws gave republicans a clear point to focus their
objections on and did much to counteract Adams' personal popularity, though
he had little active role in their creation, except as far as signing the
document the Federalist congress sent to him.


REVOLUTION OF 1800

Adams retained enough popularity, that in 1800 the election was so close
that it was thrown into the House of Representatives, who had to pick
between Adams, Jefferson and Aaron Burr, who had come in third in the
general election, running as Jefferson's Vice Presidential candidate.
Certain House members insisted on voting for Burr as president and he
refused to bow out, so a deadlock was created.

This situation was not broken until Jefferson met with Federalist leaders
and agreed in secret to preserve Hamilton's financial program and Adams'
foreign policy, at which point Hamilton endorsed Jefferson and he was
elected, with Burr as his VP.

It is important to note that this was the first time that control of a
major national government in the western world passed from the hands of one
major faction to another without any violence or conflict, a crucial test
for the new government to pass.

In their 12 years in power the federalists had left America with a strong
government, a stable economy and secure borders.  After the election of
1800 they pretty much fell apart, but they left a strong legacy in the
constitution and the various institutions of government, and though
Jefferson did his best to reduce their legacy, even the long era of
Republican rule never got rid of the basic system they had established.

Jefferson liked to call his election as president the 'Revolution of 1800'
and he hoped that the introduction of his republican principles would bring
change to America which was as revolutionary as the war with britain had
been and he believed that in his time in office he would be completing the
work of the revolution which the period of Federalist rule had left
unfinished.

Jefferson was a modest man, and he approached the presidency with caution.
He said 'The task is above my talents and I approach it with anxious and
awful presentiments.'  In his inaugural address he stated that the rights
of all people must be preserved and suggested that all 'will bear in mind
this sacred principle...that though the will of the majority is in all
cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the
minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to
violate would be oppression.'

Jefferson clearly had every intention of being fair and moderate, and
balancing out the desires of both parties to form an equitable system of
government.  He wanted to reconcile the parties and promote unity.  He
said, 'every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.  We
havecalled by different names brethren of the same principle.  We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists.'

Despite this conciliatory tone, Jefferson very quickly made it clear that
only the Federalist programs he liked and the Federalists who came over to
his way of thinking were going to be around for long under his
administration.

He brought a republican majority with him into congress and they made it
possible for him to get legislation passed quickly and in the form he
wanted.

The Whiskey Tax and other federal excise taxes were repealed.  The Naval
and Military budgets were cut sharply to keep the budget in balance, and
the national debt, which Jefferson hoped to abolish alltogether, was
reduced from $83 Million to $57 Million during his two terms.  He believed
that Hamilton's concept of creating good credit by borrowing money was
unsound and he hoped to eliminate the debt, while preserving the general
financial structure and administration.

The Naturalization act of 1798 was repealed and the residency period
restored to 5 years.  The Alien and Sedition Acts were allowed to expire in
1801 and 1802 when they came up for renewal.

Jefferson ran his government in a very low-key style, and often greeted
guests at the white house in slippers and a frayed bathrobe.  Instead of
large state dinners he held small, private meals with a few chosen guests,
without assigned seating or any pomp or formality.

Jefferson was so successful and so popular as president, that when he came
up for a second term, he won reelection with an unprecedented 92% of the
vote against Charles Pinckney, the token Federalist candidate.


THE ATTACK ON FEDERALISM

Despite his efforts to be moderate, Jefferson did make a variety of
reforms, the most widespread of which were in the judicial system.

In the last days of the last Federalist congress under Adams, a number of
laws had been rather hastily passed to assure continued federalist strength
in the one area of government where Jefferson would have a hard time
getting rid of Federalist appointees, the Judiciary.

The most significant of these acts was the Judiciary Act of 1801, which
created a large number of new federal officers, magistrates, justices of
the peace and circuit court judges.  Just before leaving office, Adams
appointed Federalists to fill all of these hundreds of new positions.
Adams also packed the supreme court with Federalists, including Chief
Justice Marshall who was to dominate the court for 35 years and provide the
one ongoing element of Federalism throughout that period.

Adams made these appointments so close to the moment when he left office
that they were called the 'Midnight Appointments', because they were said
to have been made at midnight the day before he left office, and possibly,
as some republicans hinted, after midnight, which would make them illegal.

The first thing Jefferson did was to get the Judiciary Act of 1801
repealed, but this still left many of the other appointments in force.

Adams had been so busy in his last moments that some of the appointments he
had signed had not yet gone out when the new administration moved into
their offices.  Jefferson commanded that these appointments not be given to
their recipients, so when William Marbury came to James MAdison's office to
ask for his appointment as a Justice of the Peace in the District of
Columbia, Madison sent him away empty handed.

Marbury went crying to the Supreme Court asking for a Writ of Mandamus to
force Madison to give him his commission.  In the case Marbury vs. Madison,
Justice Marshall was given a wonderful opportunity to lay down the law.

Rather than giving the fellow federalist what he wanted, Marshall used the
opportunity to establish greater power for the Supreme Court.  He declared
that the SC could NOT issue a Writ of Mandamus, because that right had been
given to it by congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789, and that that clause
of the act was unconstitutional because congress could not expand the
rights of the Supreme Court without ammending the constitution.  He had
cleverly made it clear that the authority of the SC had its origins in the
constitution and that it had the right to review laws for their
constitutionality and reject them if necessary, a power which truly put the
SC on a par with the other two major branches of the government.

This clever defeat by Marshall in Marbury vs. Madison drove Jefferson to
look for more direct ways to clear out the Federalist judiciary, many of
whom were appointed for life.  He attempted to do this by the process of
impeachement.

First congress brought charges against Judge John Pickering.  Pickering was
clearly insane.  He drank to excess and swore and raved in court, and it
was easy to have him removed.  From there he hoped to go on to impeach
other Federalist Judges and perhaps even Marshall.  His next target was
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, a particularly vocal Federalist, but
although Chase was obnoxious and egotistical, he was clearly sane and
competent, and had not committed the 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors'
required by the constitution for impeachment.

With the failure to convict Chase Jefferson became disilusioned and gave up
on his efforts at impeachment.


THE TRIPOLITAN WAR

At this point Jefferson had other matters to pay attention to.

It seems that America had gotten into its first foreign war, almost by
accident, at a time when the Army and Navy had been severely cut back.

For years the Arab states of North Africa had been preying as pirates on
Mediterranean trade and most European nations had even been paying them
tribute to keep them from victimizing their shipping.  Under Washington and
Adams America had also paid this protection money.

When Yusef Karamanli, Pasha of Tripoli atempted to increase the amount of
extortion, Jefferson said, 'When this idea comes across my mind, my
faculties are absolutely suspended between indignation and impatience.'

Jefferson refused to pay at all.  In response, on May 14th, Karamanli had
the American flagpole at the US consulate cut down and declared war on
America.  Karamanli also captured an American merchant ship and held the
crew hostage.

Jefferson dispatched a squadron of 8 ships to the mediterranean to deal
with this problem.  War was not declared, they were authorized only to
protect American shipping and interests.

The war started badly, with the pirates capturing the American frigate
Philadelphia when it ran ashore near Tripoli.  In a daring raid, Stephen
Decatur took a small boat in to shore at night and burnt the Philadelphia
so that it could not be used by the enemy.

Jefferson then attempted to support a rival claimant to Karamanli's throne,
and as military operations were underway to strike against Tripoli with a
force of Marines and Greek Mercenaries, a peace settlement was reached, the
hostages were freed, and it was arranged that America would leave Tripoli
alone and would have to make only a much reduced payment for freedom and
safety in the mediterranean.

After this small war many Americans were very pleased with heroes like
Stephen Decatur, and were proud to have succeeded where European nations
had failed in resisting this extortion.


JEFFERSON & THE WEST

One of Jefferson's major achievement was the negotiated purchase of the
vast territory of land called Louisiana from the French government of
Napoleon Bonaparte.

Jefferson, like most Americans believed that New Orleans was the key to
western expansion, and it was the gem of the Louisiana Territory which
stretched from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountaians and had recently
been given to France by Spain.

Jefferson said 'There is on the glove one single spot, the possessor of
which is our natural and habitual enemy...it is New Orleans'.  He went on
to say that 'on the day that France takes possession of New Orleans, we
must marry ourselves to the British Fleet and Nation.'

To avoid this unpleasant prospect, he sent Robert Livingston to France to
negotiate the purchase of New Orleans, or at least the preservation of
American access to that port.

Napoleon was hoping to make use of the Louisiana Territory to provide food
for his carribean colonies, but he was in the process of losing control of
their best colony, Haiti, to a revolution led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, and
as the Haitian rebels repeatedly defeated his French troops, he became
discouraged with this plan.

Fed up with this situation, after months of ignoring the American
representatives, Napoleon abandonned his plans for NEw World Empire and
went for the fast cash, selling not only New Orleans, but the whole
Louisiana Territory to America for $15 Million.

Livingston had not been authorized to buy so much land, but he was not
about to turn it down.  No one really had any idea how vast the purchase
was.  The French Foreign minister, Talleyrand, said of it 'I can give you
no direction.  You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose
you will make the most of it.'  As Henry Adams wrote, 'Never did the US get
so much for so little.'

In early 1803 Jefferson decided to find out what he had bought, and for
$2500 he outfitted an expedition led by his private secretary Meriwether
Lewis and an army officer from Virginia, William Clark, who were sent west
to gather 'A great mass of accurate information on all the subjects of
nature.'  He asked for information on flora, fauna, climate, geography and
inhabitants.  For almost four years they travelled up and down the rivers
of the western territory, accompanied by the Shoshone squaw Sacagawea and
her husband the French Canadian guide Toussaint Charbonneau.  In their
travels they discovered several passes through the rockies, made friends
with a number of indian tribes and broungt back journals full of useful
data plus excellent maps and two grizzly bear cubs for the president, which
he kept on the White House Lawn.

From this point further exploration and settlement proceeded slowly, though
the southern part of the territory was admitted to the union as the state
of louisiana in 1812.

All that remained necessary to cement the Republican hold on the government
was to get rid of the radical fringes of both the Republican and Federalist
parties.

These groups conveniently destroyed themselves, when the Essex Junto, a
radical Federalist group led by Timothy Pickering decided to recruit Aaron
Burr, leader of the radical fringe Republicans as their new leader in an
attempt to split NEw York state off from the union and form an independent,
'Northern Confederacy' independent from the Union.  The plan was a dismal
failure, and concluded embarrassingly with a duel between Burr and
Hamilton, fought over both Burr's politics and the fact that it was
generally believed he had seduced Hamilton's wife.  Burr killed Hamilton in
the duel, and ended up fleeing to Louisiana, where he attempted to
establish a Western Empire in the new territory, a plan which was put down
by the Army, and though he was acquitted of treason, Burr's political
career and his imperial ambitions were brought to an end, and he lived out
his life as a successful lawyer and dirty old man in NEw York City.

These problems out of the way, Jefferson went on into his second term with
confidence, stating that 'Our interests soundly calculated, will ever be
found inseperable from our moral duties.  Fellow citizens, you best know
whether we have done well or ill.'  This was, of course, a rhetorical
question, because with a 92% majority in the election, he knew just how
well the people thought he was doing.


FOREIGN POLICY

Jefferson's first term in office was one of the great eras of American
political and economic success.  Unfortunately, his second term was
increasingly disastrous, especially because of growing problems in foreign
policy.

John Randolph said of Jefferson, 'NEver was there an administration more
Brillian than that of Mr. Jefferson up to this period.  We were indeed in
the full tide of sucessful xperiment.  Taxes were repealed, the public debt
amptly provided for...sinecure abolished, Louisiana acquired, public
confidence unbounded.'

Jefferson's first 4 years had coincided with a period of peace in Europe,
peace established in the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, but peace which was to
be shortlived.

In 1804 war broke out between France and England.  At the battle of
Austerlitz Napoleon gained domination over much of Europe, including
Germany and Italy, while the English Naval victory at Trafalgar had given
them near complete control of the sea.  The result of this was a long,
drawn-out war of attrition in which neutral countries like America became
like balls bounced between the two super-powers, suffering at the hands of
both.

Prior to this period the British had  been willing to allow American
merchants to buy goods in the French West Indies, bring them to America and
then ship them from America to European ports.  In a court decision in 1805
a British court upheld the principle that this trade constituted direct
trade with the French, and the British navy looked on this as placing
American merchants in alliance with the French, and unless American ships
could prove that their goods originated first in America, they would be
seized by the British.  Under this new policy the British massively
increased their harrassment of American shipping.

In response to this:

April 18, 1806, Congress prohibited importation of British products, in
protest of seizure of American goods and ships and impressment of American
sailors.

In an effort to cut off the French/European economy from imported goods and
colonial wealth:

May 16, 1806, British Foreign Secretary Charles Fox ordered all European
ports in French control blockaded by British Navy, including closing them
to American trade.

In response, Napoleon issued the Berlin and Milan decrees, which closed all
ports in Europe to British goods and British trade, hoping to hurt the
British economy.  French policy was that any ship stopping in a British
port before it came to a French port was trading with the British and would
be liable to seizure.

Jefferson sent William Pinckney and John Monroe to London to try to
negotiate some sort of settlement with the British.

The British demanded that the US ignore Napoleon's decrees.  A treaty was
worked out, but Jefferson rejected it as giving in so much to the British
that it would never be accepted by congress or the public.

In response, the British issued the Orders in Council, which stated that
all French and continental ports were considered to be at war with Britain,
and any neutral ships which went there were fair game for British seizure.

This meant that if an American ship went directly from America to a French
port the British would seize it unless it had been to an English port
first.  If it went from America to England and then to France, the French
would impound it, assuming it made it pass the English blockade, because it
would be assumed to be trading as an English ally.  The result of these
decrees was that it became virtually impossible for American ships to trade
in Europe without being seized.      Jefferson refused to become a
militarist in response to this threat, and instead of building up the navy
and army, he began a program of building Gunboats, designed to protect the
coasts of America and stay out of the open ocean, though there still
remained almost 50 ships of the line in the US navy left over from the
Adams administration and the 'quasi-war' with France.  Jefferson began by
building 69 of these gunboats, which his federalist opponents suggested
would be better off used as wagons or as planters for the white house lawn
than as warships.

In this period hundreds of american ships were seized by the British and
the French, and the British navy stepped up impressment to fill their need
for men because it was wartime.

For the most part American ships had to just let the British board them and
take a few so called 'deserters' in peace, but an incident was inevitable.

In 1807 the new US Frigate Chesapeake was just off the coast of Virginia,
barely in international waters.  The HMS Leopard hailed the Chesapeake and
ordered it to pull over and be boarded.  the Captain refused to give in and
the Leopard opened fire, killing and wounding 21 of the crew.  At this
point they surrendered, were boarded, and 4 men were removed to the
Leopard.

Most Americans saw this as an act of war, but Jefferson preferred to try
what he called 'peacable coercion', influencing the British through
economic and political measures, although he did expell British ships from
American waters and ordered the building of 188 more gunboats, and demanded
an apology and damages from England, neither of which he got.

His most concrete action towards peacable coercion came with:

December 22, 1807, Embargo Act: Prohibited American trade with Britain or
France, in protest of French and British refusal to recognize American
neutral rights. This embargo was ruinous, bringing American industry to a
standstill, shutting down shipbuilding, damaging international trade, and
in the worst interests of the country.  Rather than bring Europe to its
knees, the Europeans just got more obnoxious.  In fact, the Embargo hurt
merchants and exporting farmers so much that it actually ressurected the
Federalist party in congress and created dissension among the Republicans,
though it was not enough to keep Jefferson's protege Madison from getting
elected president.

April 17, 1988: Bayonne Decree, issued by Napoleon, ordered seizure of all
US vessels in French and Italian ports, claiming that all US shipping was
British shipping in disguise, since, according to the Embargo, they should
not be trading there, and must, therefore be British merchants in disguise,
since no honest American would disobey the law.  Napoleon seized $10
million worth of US ships and cargoes.  This was just the first of a number
of similar acts which Napoleon issued in response to American efforts to
use economic sanctions against france.

Realizing his mistake, Jefferson repealed the Embargo just before leaving
office in May of 1809 and issued the Non-Intercourse Bill, which closed US
ports to France and England, though it too was later repealed because the
loss in customs fees was too great.

Despite all of its harm, the Embargo had some delayed effect on England,
and Jefferson's representative MAdison worked out a potential settlement
with Erskine, the British representative, which would have lifted the
Orders in Council, in the Madison Erskine Agreement, but the British
Parliament delayed the agreement for so long that the Orders in Council
were not actually revoked until 5 days after the US had already declared
war on England.

Under the shadow of these foreign policy disasters Jefferson left office
far less popular than he had been at the end of his first term, though his
chosen Republican successor, James Madison beat the federalist Charles
Pinckney by an easy 2 to 1 margin to take over as President and try to
salvage some sort of self-respect for America out of the Foreign Policy
disaster Jefferson had created.


MADISON & THE WAR

Madison did not handle the war situation particularly well.  Calhoun said
of him, 'Ouir president, though a man of amiable manners and great talents,
has not I fear those commanding talents which are necessary to control
those about him.'

Madison was a good thinker and a good writer, but he didn't manage people
well, nor was he particularly good at bargaining, politicking or diplomacy.
He lost control over his own cabinet officers, who tended to go off on
their own initiative, and generally managed things badly.

As sentiment against the European powers, particularly England, grew, a
faction developed in Congress called 'The War Hawks.'  This was a group of
ambitious young congressmen from the south who had great populist
sentiment, and included some very able leaders.  They were united by their
desire to see America united and in strong resistence to foreign
oppression.  They had a well developed agenda, including the strengthening
of American military power, war with England, and the use of that war as an
excuse to grab territory in the North, the west and in Florida, making war
on British allied Indians there and aiming to drive the British from the
continent.  The leader of the war hawks was Henry Clay of Kentucky, and his
most eloquent follower was John C. Calhoun of S. Carolina.

Meanwhile the French were continuing to cause problems, and it was not
absolutely clear if America would go to war against the British or the
French:

Mar 23, 1810: Rambouillet Decree and Decree of Trianon, napoleon ordered
seizure of American ships in French ports again.

In the Cadore Letter: Napoleon offered to rescind Berlin and Milan Decrees
if US stopped trading with England.

MAcon's Bill #2: Authorized the president to resume trade with both France
and England or with whichever of the two major European powers lifted its
sanctions against America first.

In May of 1811 the american Frigate President attacked the British corvette
Little Belt, almost by accident, mistaking it for the much hated ship
Guerriere. The british suffered 32 casualties, and this was hailed by the
War Hawks as a great American victory.

A few months later, a British spy named John Henry was captured with
reports on plots to promote rebellions in New England, further arousing
public outrage.

June 18, 1812, Congress declared war on England, citing blockade of
American ports and impressment of sailors.  Henry Clay boasted that 'I
verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place
Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet'.

The war was entered into only reluctantly by northern states which knew
they would bear the expense of naval operations, but the south was eager to
break the british stranglehold on their agricultural exports.  Support was
also strong on the western frontier where ambitious types hoped to expand
america's territory in British held lands.

Andrew Jackson summed up the unofficial intentions of America in the war
when he wrote, 'We are going to fight for the reestablishment of our
national character...for the protection of our maritime citizens impressed
on board British ships...to vindicate our right of free trade and open
markets for the productions of our soil...to seek some indemnity for past
injuries, some security against future aggressions, by the conquest of all
the British dominions upon the continent of North America.'

Clearly ambitious military leaders on the frontier saw no limit to the
potential of such a war.  Clearly the causes of the war included not only
resentment of the British, but also a good measure of greed for more
western land.


WAR & THE WEST

Given the desire of American leaders for more western land access, it is
inevitable that the conflicts of the war should have really begun on the
western border.

1811: Invited by settlers there, Madison seized Florida from Spain with
military occupation under the authority of the ordered in the Perdido River
Proclamation.

In the Same year, the first colony in Pacific Northwest wasestablished at
Cape Disappointment Washington.  Established by sea from settlers in the
ship Tonquin which had rounded Cape Horn.

The war was also preceeded by major actions against British-allied indians
in several western territories.

In 1811 Tecumseh, the great chief of the Shawnee made an attempt to unify
all of the indian tribes from Florida to Misouri with the intention of
making a permanent Indian state in the Ohio Valley.  He said 'Let the white
race perish...they seize your land, they corrupt your women...back whence
they came, on a trail of blood, they must be driven.'

This message was well received, and soon a vast array of tribes had joined
his alliance, inspired by his vision of an indian society free of white
influence.  General William Henry Harrison described Tecumseh as 'One of
those uncommon geniuses which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions
and overturn the established order of things.'

General Harrison didn't let his admiration slow him down.  He attacked the
Shawnee while Tecumseh was away recruiting aid, and caught them ill
prepared.  At the battle of Tippecanoe he defeated them with 1000 men and
broke their organization, though Tecumseh later allied with the British and
was killed when Harrison defeated a joint Shawnee-British force at the
Battle of the Thames in 1813.
 
Also in this period General Andrew Jackson of the Tennessee Militia
carried on a successful war against the Creek indians who were also British
allies, defeating them at Hoseshoe Bend, Alabama and inflicting 90%
casualties.


THE WAR AT SEA

From the very start of the war, American forces were shockingly successful
at sea against the supposedly invincible British navy.  American ships were
of superior manufacture, small, fast and deadly, firing with great speed
though they had fewer guns.  American vessels were particularly successful
in the Great Lakes, interfering with British shipments to Canada and the
west.

Aug 19, 1812, The Constitution, Old Ironsides (Texas Live Oak
planks...cannon balls, etc), defeated British frigate Guerriere off coast
of Nova Scotia

Oct 9, 1812, British Ships Detroit and Caldedonia captured on Lake Erie.

Dec 29, 1812: Constitution defeated British frigate JAva off coast of
Brazil.

Feb 24 1813, British ship Peacock captured by US Ship Hornet.

June 1: British Shannon captured American ship Chesapeake.

Aug 14: British Pelican captured American ship Argus off coast of England.
Argus had previously captured 27 British merchantmen, and had more than
done its part before capture.

Sept 4, British Boxer captured by US Enterprise.

Sept 10, 1813 Capt Oliver Hazard Perry defeated British fleet on Lake Erie.
'We Have met the enemy and they are ours.' captured 6 ships.
 
Sept 11, 1814, Comm. Thomas MAcDonnough defeated British fleet on Lake
Champlain.

As they had in the Revolutionary war, the much smaller American navy
shocked the British with their skill and speed, and while they could not
face the British in the open ocean, in the smaller areas of the Great lakes
they were very successful and they did well in situations where they could
strike fast and run or raid British merchant shipping.  All told American
privateers captured 1300 British ships. with some single ships like the
True blooded Yankee and the America capturing as many as two dozen British
vessels.


THE WAR ON LAND

While the seizure of Florida and the indian wars went very well, the land
war against the British in the north started off rather poorly.

The US attempted to strike at what seemed to be England's soft underbelly,
Canada, which was defended by only 2200 regular troops.  Unfortunately,
ill-prepared, amateurish American generals were met by well trained and
disciplined British regulars and their determined, vengeful indian allies.

The British were aided in Canada by the extremely able leadership of
General Isaac Brock, a home- grown Canadian general who was exceptionally
cunning and won a number of successful battles against poorly organized but
enthusiastic American militia.

Aug 16 1812, General Hull, Michigan Militia leader, surrendered Detroit to
British with no resistence.  Was fooled by Isaac Brock into thinking that
the British force was much larger than it actually was.  Brock dressed
indians, including women and Children in British uniforms and paraded
around outside of detroit, intimidating the timid, semi-senile Hull into
surrendering to a much smaller force.  Hull was later court martialed.

Oct 13, 1812, General Van Rensselaer of NY Militia defeated at Queenstown
Heights while attempting to invade Canada from upstate NEw York, by force
of British and Indians.  Gen Isaac Brock killed,  but victorious.  1000 US
Casualties.  Battle was impeded by the refusal of elements of the army,
particularly Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Militia, to cross into Canada
in what they felt was an attack for the benefit of NEw York and not the
nation as a whole.

Apr 27, 1813, Americans captured York, CAnada under Gen Zebulon Pike,
though they were later forced to give it up when the British were
reinforced from their fleet in the st. Lawrence river.

In 1814 American successes were temporarily reversed when the British sent
14,000 veteran troops to Canada, retaking all of Canada and threatening New
York as part of a three pronged attack on the US.

While this army assembled, a smaller force of 4,000 men struck quickly from
Bermuda, up the Chesapeake bay and burnt the city of Washington to the
ground, after the commander of the local garrison fled the city with his
forces.

When this force moved on to try to take Baltimore they were firmly repulsed
by the main American Army and driven off after bombarding Ft. McHenry
unsuccessfully for 25 hours and expending 1800 shells. This failure was
followed by failure in the North, where 11,000 British Regulars were turned
back at Plattsburg NY by only 3300 American soldiers under General
Alexander Macomb.  General Prevost lost heart when Macomb defeated his
fleet support in lake Champlain, and withdrew to Canada.

The third prong of Britain's three-pronged attack was to strike in the
south, at New Orleans.

Major General Sir Edward Pakenham led 11,000 British soldiers in 60 ships
to attack NEw Orleans through the bayous to the east.  On December 23, 1814
they ran into doom at the hands of Andrew Jackson, commander of the
Tennessee Militia, a man described as 'virtually demonic in his
determination...sheer, total, concentrated.'

Knowing the route of approach the British planned to take, Jackson was able
to move out from New Orleans, take up a position, and wait, reinforcing and
fortifying his position while the British camped and dithered, sending out
men at night to ambush British patrols.  After several days facing each
other across a swampy field, the British made a frontal attack with 11,000
men against 4500 Americans, expecting to break the untrained militia with
their charge.

The Americans were more afraid of Jackson than they were of the British,
and when the ranks closed, rank after rank of Americans fired, supported by
artillery, and only 1 British soldier reached the American entrenchments.
2100 lay dead or wounded and the rest had turned back.  The Americans lost
only 13 dead and 58 wounded.

Despite all of the defeats and difficulties of the war, this one great
victory made it seem that America had won completely, despite the fact that
the Battle of New Orleans was fought five days after the war was officially
over...the news of the treaty took several weeks to reach America from
England, so no one knew the war was over.

When the Treaty of Ghent was anounced, the terms also made the war look
like an American victory.


THE TREATY OF GHENT

Restored pre-war borders, referred all disputes of trade or impressement to
mixed arbitration panels.  Did not address neutrality or impressment, but
they were pretty much dead issues with the war concluded.  American land
claims and holdings were left intact, and with the war in europe also
ending, peace and harmony were restored.

John Quincy Adams stated '-I-hope that it will be the last treaty of peace
between Great Britain and the US.' and it was...

From that point forward American and Britain came to work closely together,
and border disputes in the west were settled by arbitration and Canada and
America existed in an atmosphere of friendly cooperation.


NATIONALISM & THE WEST

Treaty of Ghent: ended war of 1812 in 1815.  Established  borders of US
from Rockies West to Gt. Lakes North.  Began period of cooperation with GB,
settling conflicts through arbitration.

Battle of New Orleans: Seen as great victory, though 5 days after war
ended.  Spurred national pride and nationalist sentiment.  Many War Hawks,
plus Jackson and his men were Westerners, people who became increasingly
important in American life and government.

Republicans were going through gradual change.  They were not becoming
federalists,  but they were becoming more nationalistic and beginning to
show more support for industrialization, financial growth and effective
government.  Even Jefferson said 'Manufacturers are as necessary to our
independence as to our comforts.'

Cooperation of the different elements in the nation and the unity on
certain goals, like westward expansions, made this period what was called
the 'Era of Good Feelings'.

Agricultural exports of food and cotton increased because of poor european
harvests, the development of the Cotton Gin and growing textile industry in
GB.  Tobacco markets had also reopened with end of war.

American economy was booming.  Agricultural growth led to land speculation.
By 1820 Ohio had more people than Mass.

Frontier was dominated by wild, ambitious men, described as 'Half Horse and
Half Alligator,' of almost legendary status.  Jackson lionized as hero of
NO and as prototype frontiersman.

Travellers, like Frances Trollope and the Marquis of Lafayette sent back
reports of America as a land of growth and imagination which was at the
same time rusticly primitive...'Provincial, boastful, optimistic,
swaggering, patriotic, oportunistic, inventive and crude.'

Riding the wave of economic and territorial growth, a new national bank,
called the Second Bank of the US was established in 1816.  The original
bank had expired in 1811 and in the interim there had been great inflation
with state and private banks in control of the money supply, issueing
almost $100 Million in relatively worthless paper money.

Loans for new ventures were all the rage, and local banks feared that the
new Bank of the US would take away a lot of their loan business.  It did,
making bigger, riskier loans.  This led to inflation of the value of its
currency and deflation in the value of other currencies and credit.  the
BUS cut back sharply on loans in 1818, but this led to a contraction of
available money and much defaulting on loan payments.  This led to economic
collapse in 1819, called The Panic, and the post war boom ended,
devastating those who had risked a lot on western land and eastern
industry.

some of these problems were relieved by a new land act in 1820 which
allowed anyone to buy an 80 acre homestead for $100 and a relief act to
help out those who were having trouble paying off western mortgages.

During this period states formed out of the new western territories were
being admitted fairly quickly, with Ohio in 1803, Louisiana in 1812,
Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818 and Alabama in 1819.

Slavery had been outlawed in the Northwest Territory in the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787,  but conflict came with the assimilation of the new
western territories of the Louisiana purchase, which were not under its
authority.

Missouri applied to join the union in 1818, and there was no problem until
Rep James Tallmadge of NY introduced an ammendment to the act making it a
state which prohibited the introduction of additional slaves into the new
state.  This Tallmadge Ammendment also proposed that all slaves born in the
region be freed at age 25.  The ammendment passed the house by a narrow
margin, but met with trouble in the senate.

Argument between southern and northern factions was deadlocked until Maine
also petitioned to enter the union.  Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser,
took this opportunity to make a deal.  In the Missouri Compromise, Maine
was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, balancing out
the number of slave and free votes in the senate.  In addition, slavery was
prohibited 'forever in all territory ceded by France to the US which lies
north of 36 degrees 30 minutes,' essentially drawing a north-south dividing
line in the new territory between future slave and free states.  The
compromise was accepted and became law in 1820.

This compromise was extremely important, because it abated the furor over
slavery in the territories and held off serious crisis for almost a
generation.

One very important aspect of the 'New Nationalism' was really a holdover
from the older nationalism of the federalists.  This was in the form of
John Marshall and his continuing nationalist influence from his position as
Chief Justice of the US SC.

In a series of decisions Marshall reaffirmed his national/federal
interpretation of the constitution on a number of key points.

Marbury vs. Madison (1803): SC right to declare congressional acts
unconstitutional.

Fletcher v. Peck (1810): Upheld obligation of contracts against state
interference.

Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819): State of New Hampshire did not have
the right to alter college charter without college's permission.

Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819): NY Bankruptcy law was unconstitutional
because it relieved debtor of his legitimate debts.  He held that state or
national legislatures could not interfere with private charters or
contracts.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): Denied the right of the State of Maryland to
tax local branch of Bank of US.  Rejected idea of state nullification of
federal law or state taxing or manipulating of any federal body.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): Denied the right of states to interfere in
interstate or international commerce, in rejecting monopoly granted by NY
to Robert Fulton for operating steam ferry on Hudson River.

Although anti states-rights and nationalistic, Marshall's decisions were
fair and sound, and expanded and strengthened federal government which the
presidents he served with came to appreciate greatly.


AMERICAN EMPIRE

In this period America began to look all the way west to the pacific, and
even beyond its own borders in an effort to expand its influence in what
many saw as a growing american economic, military and political empire.
Americans realized that they had the wealth and power to influence other
nations and this strongly determined the foreign policy of the Madison and
Monroe administrations.

The first step in this was to settle lingering disputes with England.

To protect America's growing industry a protective Tarriff was passed on
imported goods in 1816.  When it proved to be ineffective, Henry Clay
claimed that this was because of Britain's 'mean, barefaced cheating,  by
fraudulent invoices and false denominations.'  There was some outrage over
the fact that although the British insisted on access to American markets
they kept American trade out of the west indies.  As a result the Tarriff
was not of great value, though it was the first protective Tarriff ever
passed, some 20 years after Hamilton first proposed such tarriffs.

In 1817 it was discovered that the British were building up their forces
and the great lakes.  President Madison proposed that this construction and
American parallel construction of ships be stopped and that both nations
maintain parity in the Great Lakes.  In 1817 Charles Bagot, the British
representative in Washington and Madison's acting Secretary of State signed
the Rush-Bagot agreement which said that neither nation would have more
than 4 small armed vessels on the great lakes...with the exception of small
technical modifications this agreement is still in force.

The demilitarization of the great lakes led quickly to other border
settlements.  By 1818 joint comissions had negotiated a permanent border
between the US and canada as far west as the Rocky Mountains, with an
agreement to jointly control the Oregon Country beyond that point until it
was settled and a new border was drawn.  An agreement was also made to give
American fishermen free access to the Grand Banks and to Canadian ports in
the North Atlantic.

The other major power still holding land in North America was Spain, and
the US dealt with the Spanish in a far less peaceful and restrained manner.

America held West Florida and the spanish held East Florida, but America
wanted it all.

When spanish-supported Indians threatened settlers the US government sent
in Andrew Jackson, who burnt villages, hanged chiefs and ruthlessly put the
Seminoles in order.  In the process he executed two British citizens
suspected of inciting Indian uprisings.  After subduing the Seminoles he
marched on the Spanish fort in Pensacola anad seized the entire state,
kicking out the Spanish government.

Both spain and England were outraged, but America had the force to hold the
land, and in the Adams-Onis treaty of 1819 Spain legally surrendered its
claim to florida, in exchange for America assuming the claims of American
merchants against the spanish government for a total fo $5 million dollars.
This treaty also established the border of Spanish Mexico all of the way to
the pacific.

Secretary of State JQA was disappointed not to have gotten more land, like
Texas, and said that the eventual conquest of all of North America was 'as
much a law of nature as that the mississippi should flow into the sea.'

The ultimate expression of the Imperial aims of America can be found in the
Monroe Doctrine...

In the 1820s a number of the Spanish colonies in south and central America
rebelled against Spain, which had become increasingly disorganized and
oppressive in its waning years as a colonial power.  They began to form
republics, many of them on an American model.

The English encouraged America to join with them in discouraging Spanish
attempts at counter revolution and french attempts to step in and take over
for the Spanish, by working to protect the former spanish colonies.

John Quincy Adams and President Monroe devised a somewhat different
position of their own, seeing America as the sole protector of the New
World, which Monroe stated in an address to congress in December of 1823,
saying...

'The political system of the allied powers of Europe is essentially
different from that of America...we owe it, therefore, to candor and to the
amicable relations existing  between the United States and those powers to
declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their
system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and
safety...With the governments who have declared their independence and
maintained it, and whose independence we have acknowledged, we could not
view any interposition by any European powerer in any other light than as
the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.'

In short he declared all of the Americas to be our sphere of influence and
declared the US to be the defender and protector of new republics in this
area and the only nation with a legitimate right to interfere in the
Western Hemisphere.

In this period America first put the Monroe Doctrine into practice when we
came into conflict with the other great rising power in the world, Imperial
Russia.  In 1821 Czar Alexander I declared that 'The pursuits of commerce,
whaling and fishery and of all other industry on all islands, posts and
gulfs, including the whole of the Northwest coast of America, beginning
from the Behring straits to 51 degress of northern Latitude is exclusively
granted to Russian Subjects,' essentially claiming Alaska and all of the
Northwest down through Oregon for Russia.

In response JQA, the new President, insisted that 'The US can admit no part
of these claims as a principle' and anounced that the American continents
are 'henveforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by
any European power.'  Russia backed down to this forceful expression of the
Monroe Doctrine and the Russian/American border was raised to 54 degrees 40
minutes.


EXPANDING AGRO & INDUSTRY

In this period new industries and new aspects of agriculture were emerging
throughout the United States.

Whaling had become a major element of the American economy, based around
New Bedford Massachusetts, in this period Whaling became more
commercialized, voyages became longer and the market for whale oil and
other whale products expanded considerably.

The Fur Trade had a resurgence, based out of St. Louis, because of the
growing demand for furs in the orient, where the chinese were willing to
trade tea, silk, spices, china, cotton and opium for furs at excellent
rates of exchange.  This led to an increase in the china trade, and New
England merchants regularly sailed around Cape Horn to China to bring back
rich cargoes okf luiuxury goods.

Because fur-bearing animals were being hunted to extinction longer and more
expensive trips inland were neeeded to get furs, and men like John Jacob
Astor made their fortunes financing fur expeditions, as he did with his
American Fur Company based in New York.  Astor sent trappers to Oregon by
sea and established the settlement of Astoria on the columbia river as a
trading post.  He also secured sole rights to trap furs in the Michigan
territory from congress.  Until the 1830s Astor's company had an annual
income of over $5 million.  Astor was the first of many adventurous
investors of this period who made great profits on expanding old industries
or investing in new enterprises.

Westward trade also began in earnest in this period along the Santa Fe
Trail, with American wagons bearing farm produce and manufactured goods
south to Mexico to trade for spanish gold and silver.  The Santa Fe trail
was under the protection of the US army which built a number of protective
forts along its length to defend against indian raids.

Following routes established by Fur Traders settlers began to cross into
the new western territories in great numbers along what became known as the
Oregon Trail, a route which passed from Western Pennsylvania, through the
cumberland gap and into Ohio, and from there to the great plains.  These
travellers popularized the Conestoga Wagon, a large, cloth enclosed wagon
drawn by4-6 horses, 60ft long and capable of carrying several tons of
goods.  The common pattern of migration was generational, with one
generation migrating a few hundred miles west, their children migrating
another few hundred miles west when they grew up, etc.  By 1840 more than
1/3 of the 17.2 million americans lived West of the Appalachias and
Alleghenies, profiting from the fertile farmlands of these new territories.

Aspects of the eastern economy were also booming, with cotton in the south
and increasing industry in the north.

In the 1790s most other crops in South Carolina, like Indigo, had been
replaced with cotton.  While long-staple cotton could only grow in ideal
climates close to the close, the coarser short-staple cotton would grow
almost anywhere.  The problem with this cotton was that it was hard to
remove the seeds and it took a worker a whole day to clean a single pound
of it.

The discovery of the Cotton Gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 solved this problem.
It was a simple machine for mechanically cleaning cotton which greatly
increased the speed with which cotton could be cleaned.  It allowed a
single worker to clean 50 pounds of cotton each day.  The Cotton Gin and
similar devices quickly went into massive production, and by 1800 about
75,000 bales of cotton were being marketed each year.  By 1812 this had
risen to 175,000 bales per year.

As the land in Georgia and South Carolina began to  be used up, cotton
spread into Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.  Much of
this trade began to go through NEw Orleans, which shipped 37K bushels in
1816, 161K in 1822 and 428K in 1830.  Most of this went to english and New
England textile mills.

The expansion of cotton and the increase in population and power it brought
to the south, caused Cotton to be called 'King Cotton' by those who served
it.

Meanwhile, Trade, Industry and transportation were booming in the north.

The First Steamboat in north America was the Clermont which was build by
Robert Fulton in 1807 to work as a ferry on the Hudson River in NY.  He
built another steamboat, the New Orleans in 1811 to trade on the
mississippi.  By 1830 there were nearly 200 steamboats operating on the
mississipi and its tributaries.  The efficiency of the steamboat more than
halved the cost of shipping goods on the mississipi between 1810 and 1820
from $5 per 100 pounds to $2 per 100 pounds, and by 1840 the rate had
fallen to 25cents/100 pounds.  This made it cheaper to ship goods out of
the west through New Orleans, even if they were going from Ohio to
Philadelphia than it would have been to take them overland.

To facilitate transportation America began building roads.  In 1806
Congress, distressed with the difficulty of travelling from Washington to
anywhere else, established a National Highway which was paved with stone
and eventually reached from Vandalia, IL to the east coast.  This road
still exists today, much expanded, as I70 in Maryland and PA.  Pennsylvania
built the Lancaster Turnpike, from the farming center at Lancaster to
Philadelphia in 1794, which later became PA. Rt. 30 (a hellhole) and was
replaced by the PA Turnpike.  It was one of the first major toll roads.  By
1825 privatecompanies all over new england and the middle states had built
over 10,000 miles of turnpike, at costs of as much of 5 to 10 thousand
dollars per mile.  Often these road projects were subsidized by the state
government through the sale of stocks or bonds.  By the 1830s it proved
impractical to manage turnpikes commercially and most of them were turned
over to the states.

Transportation by water was proving to be more efficient and economical
than transportation by land, and the northern states were upset to be
losing a lot of western trade to the steamboats on the mississipi, so they
began to build canals all over the place to link together natural waterways
and make trade by barge possible to the west and between majkjor cities.

In 1816 there were only 100 miles of canals, but Governor DeWitt Clinton of
NY came up with the extraordinary plan of building a huge canal to connect
the Hudson River with Lake Erie.  By 1823 a 280 mile stretch of canal from
Albany to Rochester was in operation, with tolls financing a final leg to
buffalo in 1825.  An additional canal connected lake Champlain to the
Hudson River.  The Erie canal brought in $500,000 in its first year of
operation, and it reduced the freight rates from Albany to Buffalo from
$100 to $15 per ton and travel time from 28 to 8 days.

This led to a canal boom, with a canal being built from Philadelphia to
Pittsburgh and eventually to the Ohio River.  The Chesapeake & Ohio canal
connected Washington DC with Cumberland Maryland in 1827, though its leg to
the Ohio River was never completed.

By 1840, some 3326 miles of acanals had been built, with both private and
public funding totalling some $125 billion.

Many of these later canals, like the C&O were made obsolete by the
introduction of Railroads, and many canal companies, like the Baltimore and
Ohio the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie, went into the railroad business,
operating rail lines in conjunction with their canals and eventually
converting their trade entirely to the rails.

International trade also began to increase, much of it centered around the
growing metropolis of New York city, connected to the Atlantic and the Erie
Canal, and with a growing population of over 150,000 in 1820.

In 1818 the Black Ball Line first began to run regularly scheduled
transatlantic trips, once a month with its ship the James Monroe and
shortly thereafter three more ships.  In 1820 the first American Steamboat
crossed the Atlantic in 25 days.

Factories began to be established in the east.  The first was the Almy &
Brown Cotton spinning plant in Pawtucket Rhode Island in 1791, employing
primarily children at slave wages of 12 to 25 cents a day.

The Napoleonic wars in Europe and the war of 1812 made it hard to import
Europopean goods, so this led to a boom in industrialization in America.

Textile mills were the most common factories in America in the 1830s and
1840s, funded by large corporations like the Boston Associates which
controlled 20% of the cotton manufacturing in Massachusetts, 30% of the
railroad miles, 39% of the insurence business and 40% of the banking.

Although the Cotton Mills were the largest part of this new
industrialization, many other industries began to emerge in this period.

In 1817 Baltimore established the first city wide gas program, with the
Baltimore Gas Light Company.

1818 Thomas Gilpin produced the first machine-made paper in the US.

1818 Isaac Mason started the Plumsock Rolling Mill in PA, the first iron
rolling mill in the US.

1818 West Point Foundry at Cold Spring NY established to make gun barrels.

1819 PEter Durand introduced the tin can and canned foods in the US to
replace glasscontainers.

1819 New England Glasscompany began mass production of glass goods.

1819 Seth Boyden of Newark NJ started first Patent Leather tanning works.

1819 Ezra Dagget and Thomas Kensett established the first fish cannery in
NY.

1820 Thomas Blanchard introduced concept of interchangeable machine parts
with a special lathe, making mass production of guns and other machines
possible.

1824 Ressaeler Polytechnic Institute at Troy NY established, devoted to
education in Engineering.

1825 Mechanical press for glass introducedby Deming Jarves in his works at
Sandwich Mass.

1828 American Pottery Manufacturing Co. of Jersey City Est.  1st US china
factory.

Very quickly, in the 1810s and 1820s New England went from a commercial
economy to an industrial economy, setting a pattern which other nations
were to follow in years to come.                        The factories of
new England were not healthy places to work.  In 1840 Orestes Brownson
reported on the condition of the women working in the factories.  'The
Great mass wear out their health, spirits and morals without becoming one
whit better off than when they commenced labor.'  There was great concern
among reformers over the immorality of the women corrupted by this labor
and the conditions in which women and children labored.

There were efforts to reform the factories, and when jobs became scarcer
and conditions worse unions began tobe formed.  Most unions were suppressed
between 1820 and 1840 as 'conspiratorial' organizations of saboteurs.  The
first recorded strike was in 1824 at a mill in Pawtucket Rhode Island where
weavers struck against increased hours and decreased wages.  In 1825 600
carpenters in Boston struck for a 10 hour work day.   The first major
factory strike was in 1828 at a mill in Paterson New Jersey and the
strikers were mostly children who wanted a 10 hour workday.  The militia
was called in to break up the strike.  From 1833 to 1837 trade union
membership increased from 26K to 300K.  In this period there were 170
strikes.  One of the largest of these unions was the Factory Girls
Association, founded in 1836 with 2500 members.  They declared, 'As our
fathers resisted unto blood the lordly avarice of the British ministry, so
we, their daughters, never will wear the yoke which has been prepared for
us.'

A new generation of Americans was emerging, in the western frontier and in
the industrial urban frontier.  The middle class was growing, the economy
was expanding, and the physical borders of American power and influence
were being pushed to their limits.

New kinds of men were coming into power, westerners like Henry Clay, John
Calhoun, Andrew Jackson and James Polk, to be talked about next lecture.


CHANGING POLITICAL SYSTEM

Electorate traditionally limited by factors like age, property, land
holding and wealth.  In 1820s this began to change and many states began to
give the vote to all men

Most of the new states included no property or wealth requirements for
voting in their constitutions, and all of the original states eventually
eliminated that requirement

Virginia was the last to reform its electoral system in 1829.  In promoting
this reform one Virginia legislator said 'We ought to spread wide the
foundation of our government so that all white men have a direct interest
in its protection.'  In this case he meant to draw more of the white
population into the voting process in order to create unity against
potential unrest in the black population

The Vesey Slave Plot of 1822 had made many people extremely wary of the
black population.  A free negro named Denmark Vesey had organized negro
factory and shop workers in the city of Charleston SC to revolt against
their masters.  An informer turned them in before they could do any damage
and 37 participants were executed

This heightened awareness of the danger of unrest in the slave population,
and free negroes like Vesey were seen as likely to incite this sort of
unrest.

As a result of this situation, the one element of the population which
found its voting rights restricted in most states was the free black
population.  Many free blacks in the north had lineages which included few
or no slaves, and in new england, new york, pennsylvania, tennessee and
north carolina free blacks had been allowed to vote on an equal status with
whites into the 1820s.

Attitudes changed in the 1820s and 30s.  As a Pennsylvania legislator said,
'The people of this state are for continuing this commonwealth as what it
always has been, a political community for white persons.'

After 1837 only New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts still allowed free
blacks to vote, though Connecticut allowed blacks who were not freed slaves
to vote.  Ironically, in most states the same statute which widened the
white vote removed the right to vote from free blacks

No new state entering the union after 1819 gave the right to vote to
blacks.  In fact, many western states eventually forbade blacks to cross
their borders.

Free blacks also lost a lot of the other rights which whites enjoyed.  They
were forced to live in slums, put under curfews, denied access to public
education and services.  One contemporary report said that the free black
was, 'cast upon the world, with no defense; his life, liberty, his
property, his all, are dependent on the caprice, the passion and the
inveterate prejudices of not only the community at large but of every felon
who may happen to cover an inhuman heart with a white face.'

While blacks lost their vote, the whites who were added to the voting rolls
in this period proved to have a great interest in politics, and turned out
in record numbers.  Voting percentages increased from 27 in 1724 to 56 in
1828 and 78 in 1840, far above anything seen before or since, though this
may be a result of the exciting political style of the times, the emergence
of stimulating national issues and the charisma of Andrew Jackson One thing
which made politics more attractive was the increase in party organization
and the expansion of popular involvement in party politics.

Prior to this period national candidates for a given party were selected in
caucuses or through a process of private negotiation by party leaders.  In
the 1830s this anti-populist practice was replaced by the much more popular
and much more politically rousing system of national nominating
conventions.

The first nominating convention was held by the Anti-Masonic party, a third
party with extreme populist appeal, based around the platform of
eliminating freemasons in government, promoted by catholics and
discontented elements, especially in Maryland, who felt that the secret
society of freemasons was running their country and their lives.  Their
convention in 1831 didn't get them enough support to win an election, but
it served as a model for the two major parties which held their first
nominating conventions in the election of 1832.

With the general trend towards making elections more populist, with a
widening of the electorate and popular involvement in party nominations, it
was inevitable that the electoral system would be reformed.  By 1828 all of
the states except Delaware and South Carolina had made a vital change in
the electoral system and provided that members of the electoral college
would be chosen based on the popular vote rather than being appointed  by
he legislature of the state, as had been the standard a generation before.
To a great extent this was the result of negative reaction to the election
of 1824 where Jackson won the popular vote but lost in the electoral
college to John Quincy Adams.


ELECTION OF 1824

Under the weak leadership of Monroe the Republican party lost its unity,
and in the election of 1824 they found they had 4 major candidates, each
representing a different division within the party.

The most popular of these was Senator Andrew Jackson, the hero of New
Orleans, though the other candidates had greater political experience.  The
other candidates each had their advantages.  Secretary of State John Quincy
Adams was seen as Monroe's heir apparent and had the most experience.
William Crawford of Georgia was popular and well spoken and represented the
Jeffersonian wing of the party, championing states rights.  Unfortunately,
Crawford suffered a stroke during the election.  Henry Clay had great
political connections as Speaker of the House, and was popular in many
parts of the country.

Clay was the champion of the 'American System', the political programs
which had emerged in the Madison administration, emphasizing military
expansion, protective tarriffs, internal improvements and a stable economy,
programs which many labelled as neo-Federalist.

Each candidate had his support in specific parts of the country as well.
Jackson had support everywhere except New England.  Adams was popular
mostly in New York and New England.  Crawford was popular in the South
East.  Clay's main supportcame from the north and the west.

Note that there was no second party in the 1820s, so all this diversity was
represented within the boundaries of the increasingly divided Republican
party.

With four candidates it was very difficult for any one candidate to get a
definite majority in the election of 1824.  Jackson got 99 electors, Adams
84, Crawford 41 and Clay 37.  Jackson got a clear majority of the popular
votes, but mostly in larger states, slightly reducing his electoral vote
count.  This meant that the election had to be decided in the House of
Representatives, which was not obligated to follow the votes or the
division of electors.  Each state delegation in the house got to cast one
vote and Clay was eliminated as the lowest of the three candidates.
Crawford was also eliminated because of his ill health.

Of course, Clay was Speaker of the House, and basically controlled the
election there.  He rejected the concept that Jackson should win because of
his popular majority, and cast his support behind Adams, primarily because
Adams was in agreement with Clay on many issues, like the American System,
while Jackson was less nationalistic and less experienced.

The result was that Adams won a clear majority on the first ballot.

This looked particularly bad when Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of
State, often considered the office for a president-in-waiting.

Jackson's rather vocal supporters claimed that Adams and clay had made a
'Corrupt Bargain', exchanging the Secretary of State position and its
access to the presidency to Clay in exchange for his powerful support in
congress.  One Jacksonian editorial said that, 'The Nations political
virtue has died of poison administered by the hands of John Quincy Adams,
the usurper, and Henry Clay.'

Although it is likely that Adams only rewarded Clay as an afterthought, he
was never able to refute these Jacksonian objections and the Corrups
Bargain haunted JQA and HC for the next three years.

Jackson didn't give up, and from the moment the election was over he began
his campaign for the presidency in 1828.


JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

Adams had been an excellent secretary of state, but he worked much better
when he was applying other peoples policies than when he was forming his
own.  He was tactless and somewhat cold, and had little awareness of or
respect for public opinion.

Adams was a nationalist who favored growth and internal improvements.  He
defended projects like the national road, saying 'To how many thousands of
our countrymen has it proved a benefit?  To what single individual has it
ever proved an injury?'  He planned to use the proceeds of the sale of
public land to build roads and canals and to found a national university.
He even suggested that congress might pass laws to promote 'the elegant
arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences.'  He
wanted to make America a modern paradise, and believed that 'the spirit of
improvement is abroad upon this earth.'

Men like Crawford, Jackson and the elder statesman Thomas Jefferson saw
Adams as overstepping the role of the president, becoming aristocratic and
tyrranical, and they had enough followers in congress to tie his hands
effectively.  They felt that such internal improvements were
unconstitutional, and believed Adams planned to create what Thomas
Jefferson called 'a single and splendid government of the
aristocracy...riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared
yeomanry.'

The one major Adams program which did get enacted, a tarriff in 1828
designed to protect industry and trade, particularly in the north, was
poorly put together and seen as an act of favoritism to special interests
by many, especially in the south.  It was modified in the house, but ended
up particularly protecting wool, hemp, flax, fur and liquor.  It was dubbed
'The Tarriff of Abominations' and lost him much support.

Later Adams blamed his failure and ineffectiveness on the south, which had
originally supported him to some extent, but resented the fact that the
north was prospering and so, 'fell to cursing the tarriff and internal
improvements, and raised the standard of free trade, nullification and
states rights.'

And, in fact, it was on southern votes that Jackson rode into the White
House in 1828, and the only states Adams won in that election were in the
northeast.


THE REIGN OF KING ANDREW

The election of 1828 was a festival of rhetoric.

Jackson's forces were augmented by people who resented the policies of
Adams and Clay, including Adams Vice-President John C. Calhoun, who decided
he would rather be Jackson's VP.  The old-line republicans were determined
to hold onto the government at any cost, though they realized their chances
of stopping Jackson were slim.

Mudslinging was the great characteristic of the election of 1828.

Adams supporters claimed that Jackson was a bloodthirsty militarist, a
drunkard and a gambler.  They claimed that his wife Rachel smoked a pipe
(true), that she was a bigamist (because she had lived with Jackson before
her divorce was final), had a beard, and that they had illegitimate
children.  They cried, 'Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour
husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and christian land?'

In response, the Jacksonians, who were in the process of forming their own
party called the Democratic Party, replied in kind.  They charged that
Adams had lived in sin with his wife before marriage and that while he was
ambassador to Russia he had pimped out young american virigns to the Czar.
Because Adams had purchased a billiard table and a chess set for the white
house they accused him of wasting public money on gambling devices.  They
even broke down his lengthy career to determine that for every day of his
life he had received $16 in government pay.  One of the more valid
criticisms made by either side was that despite Jackson't image as a
champion of the weak and underpriveleged, he was a wealthy land speculator,
owned a large plantation and many slaves.

Perhaps because of all the mud that was slung, Jackson won election on a
landslide, with more than 2/3rds of the electoral vote.

Jackson was much like George Washington in many ways.  He was a soldier, a
big fan of the west, had few intellectual interests and only sketchy
education.  Jackson could not spell, chewed tobacco and had a violent
temper.  Despite these rustic aspects of his character, his white house was
a model of high living, with great feasts and a great deal of pomp and
ceremony.

Though untrained, Jackson't political judgement was sound, based on great
natural intuition.  Often his shows of temper were just that, shows,
designed to intimidate or confuse opponents.  One contemporary noted that
'He would sometimes extemporize a fit of passion in order to overwhelm an
adversary, but his self command was always perfect.'

Whatever his actual background and interests, Jackson was unquestionably
the symbol of the new America, the hero of New Orleans, irrepressible,
champion of the west and the common man.  He was intensely patriotic,
generous to a fault, an admirer of good horseflesh and beautiful women.  He
had killed a number of men in duels and felt no remorse for it.  People
could identify with Jackson, and he drew his support from all parts of the
society.

With each election his percentage of the popular vote increased enormously,
and in 1832 he was reelected with an overwhelming 77% majority.

When Jackson came into office in 1828 he was so popular that a mob of
supporters followed him into the White House and looted and vandalized the
building in their joy.  Oponnents criticized this as a sign of impending
doom and commented that Jackson was the leader of the 'Reign of King Mob'
and that mob violence and popular uprisings at his instigation would bring
about the destruction of American industry and society.  Very quickly they
changed their criticism from 'The Reign of King Mob' to the 'Reign of King
Andrew' when they saw the firm controlling hand which Jackson brought to
running the government.

Jackson entered office intent on expelling all political appointees who had
opposed him in the prior election from office.  HEnry Clay commented that,
'Among the official corps here there is the greatest solicitude and
apprehension.  The members of it feel something like the inhabitants of
Cairo when the plague breaks out.  No one knows who is next to encounter
the stroke of death.'

Hordes of democratic party office-seekers followed Jackson to washington
hoping to fill some of the posts he would empty.  This was the beginning of
the Spoils System, in which supporters of the new president would be
rewarded with public office for their efforts, a system which Jackson
exercised thoroughly.

In a conversation two office seekers arrived in washington were heard to
comment, 'I am ashamed for myself', said one, 'I beel as if every man I met
knew what I came for.'  His friend replied, 'Don't distress yourself, for
every man you meet is on the same business.'

Jackson justified the Spoils System on the idea of the principle of
rotation, that 'No man has any more intrinsic right to official station
than another', and that those who held office for too long were 'apt to
acquire a habit of looking with indifference upon the public interests and
of tolerating conduct from which an unpracticed man would revolt.'  By
rotating office holders he made the executive branch more accessible to the
people and got more people involved in public service.

Jackson successfully eliminated corrupt and incompetent office holders and
replaced them with democrats who, if inexperienced, were at least
enthusiastic and loyal.  Jackson believed that anyone could do a civil
service job, and that 'The duties of all public officers are so plain and
simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their
performance.'

The feeling among the spoils seekers was that it was JAckson's duty to
expel Adams supporters from office.  One New Yorker commented, 'No damned
rascal who made use of his office for the purpose of keeping Mr. Adams in
and Gen. Jackson out of power is entitled to the least leniency or mercy.
Whether or not I shall get anything in the general scramble for plunder
remains to be proven, but I rather think I shall.'

While Jackson had a cabinet and all of the regular executive appointees, he
relied for advice on what was called the 'Kitchen Cabinet', a group of
informal advisors, friends, some with no role in government who met
occassionally to advise the president, a concept which many other
presidents later used, some, like Grant, to their great embarassment,
though it worked well for JAckson.  Jackson governed with strength, and
invented a number of practical political techniques, including the pocket
veto, the principle of holding onto a bill until it died by refusing to
sign or veto it.  His policies were sometimes ill-considered and he didn't
always follow good advice, but he was a strong and rousing leader who did
much to energize the economy and spirit of the nation.

One of the most ill-considered programs JAckson initiated was the removal
of indian tribes in the states of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to
homesteads in the new Indian Territory beyond the Mississippi.  The
Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Cherokee tribes were forced to march hundreds
of miles in the dead of winter along what was called The Trail of Tears.
They even had to ford the Mississipi in freezing temperatures.  Those
tribes which resisted, like the Sac, Fox and Seminoles were put down by the
army.  The Cherokees tried to avoid this fate by forming their own state in
northern georgia and applying to join the union, but the state of Georgia
and the congress rejected this concept.  They appealed the case to the
Supreme Court in the cases Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v.
Georgia, and though Marshall upheld their right not to be governed by
Georgia law, his opinion was unenforcable and in 1838 they were removed
from Georgia, with 4000 of 15000 dying on the Trail of Tears.  Alexis de
Tocqueville described a scene of this migration in a letter, when he
commented on an old indian woman.  'She was naked save for acovering which
left visible at a thousand paces the most emaciated figure imaginable.  To
leave one's country at that age to seek one's fortune in a foreign land,
what misery!  In the whole scene, there was an air of ruin and destruction,
something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch
without feeling one's heart wrung.'

In the indian issue Jackson had upheld Georgia's claim to sovereignty over
the indians, but most of his policies were far less supportive of states
rights.  Perhaps Jackson's most important role was in maintaining the union
and fighting against growing forces for states rights and against the
constitutional union of the states.

With the passage of a new, more moderate tariff law in 1832 the south began
grumbling again and talk turned to the Doctrine of Nullification, the
theory that states could nullify federal laws within their own borders.

In addition, the south was unhappy with growing anti-slavery sentiment in
the north and wanted to have the legislative freedom to protect itself from
northern-sponsored abolitionist laws in congress.

In 1828 John C. Calhoun authored the EXPOSITION AND PROTEST, outlining the
principles of Nullification.  Support rallied around Calhoun in the south.

As South Carolina became more aroused, Jackson commented, 'Tell the
nullifiers from me that they can talk and write resolutions to their hearts
content, but if one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of
the US, I will hand the first man of them I can get my hands on to the
first tree I find.'

People in SC were foolish enough to believe that Jackson wouldn't take such
radical action.  In November of 1832 they organized a special convention
which passed a Ordinance of Nullification, which prohibited the collection
of Tarriff duties in the state after Feb 1 of 1833.  They also authorized
the raising of an army and military supplies.

Jackson spoke to the peole of SC and tried to prevent this action,
explaining that 'The laws of the US must be executed.  I have no
discretionary power on the subject...those who told y ou that you might
peacably prevent their execution deceived you.  Disunion by armed force is
TREASON.  Are you really ready to incur its guilt?'

In congress Jackson had great support.  Congress passed a new, harsher
tariff, and a Force Bill which authorized Jackson to take extreme measures
against SC.

Jackson threatened to raise an army of 200,000 men to crush SC.  He said,
'Union men, fear not.  The Union WILL be preserved.'

As it developed, none of the other southern states were willing to go along
with SC, and they began to lose heart before the fearsom image of General
Jackson at the head of an avenging northern army.

Calhoun and Clay got together in the congress and passed a new compromise
tariff in march of 1833, making some concessions and placating both South
Carolina and vengeful unionists.

In a final defiant gesture, before repealing the Nullification Ordinance
the SC legislature nullified the Force Bill, essentially to show that they
still supported Nullification in principle.

Jackson tended to act decisively and forcefully as he had in dealing with
SC.  He applied these same tactics to dealing with the Bank of the US.

Nicholas Biddle, director of the national bank had decided to extend his
authority by using the powers of the bank to regulate the availability of
credit and the lending practices of smaller banks, applying what he called
'a mild and gentle but efficient control' to keep local banks from spending
and lending beyond their means.  This made the economy stable and made the
bank popular in some quarters, but many people disagreed with Biddle's
plans and were offended by his arrogance.  Biddle, like Hamilton, was
something of a financial wizard, and had little patience for those who
didn't understand his plans.

Jackson didn't like Banks in general and didn't like Biddle at all.  He
liked coins over paper money and commented to Biddle, 'I do not dislike
your Bank any more than all banks. But ever since I read the history of the
South Sea Bubble I have been afraid of all banks.'  The south sea bubble
was an investment scheme in which many British investors had lost their
shirts in the previous century.

Biddle became more conservative and began to court the opposition party,
Adams' National Republicans.  Who hoped to use it against Jackson.  Jackson
was outraged, and commented, 'The Banak is trying to kill me, but I will
kill IT!!'

The Bank's charter was up for renewal in 1836, and a bill to renew the
charter early was submitted to Jackson in 1832.  Jackson promptly vetoed
the bill on the basis that the Bank was unconstitutional (for the same
reasons Thomas Jefferson had originally argued against it).  He said that
it was a dangerous private monopoly, making 'the rich richer and the potent
more powerful'.  None of this was really true, and it would have been
better to reform the bank than to destroy it.  The voters approved
Jackson's emotional dislike for the bank, and though Biddle called it 'A
manifesto of Anarchy', it won Jackson even more support.

Although the bill was vetoed, the bank still had 4 years to try to ge|
rechartered, but Jackson did all he could to prevent that.  Jackson tried
to get his secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane to pull federal funds
from the bank, but he refused.  Jackson then replaced him with William
Duane, who also refused to do so, considering it to be imprudent.  Jackson
replaced him with Roger Taney, who was a total lackey and he carried out
JAckson's instruction to take federal funds out of the bank. Much of this
money ended up in the Union Bank of Baltimore, in which Taney owned stock.
This led to banks holding the federal deposits being called 'pet' banks by
Jackson's oponents.

After Taney had removed about half of the 10 million deposited in the
National Bank, Biddle struck back by cutting  back on loans and calling in
debts to the national bank so it seemed like it was suffering worse than it
was.  Money became scarce and banks refused to make loans at all.  When
people complained to JAckson he swore that he would rather cut off his
right arm and undergo the torture of ten spanish inquisitions than give in.
He told people to Go to Nicholas Biddle...Biddle has all the money.'  Under
pressure from the banking community Biddle knuckled under and ended his
artificial crisis.  With all this controversy, the bank looked very bad, so
it was not renewed in 1836.

All of this economic infighting led to a financial crisis in 1835 and 1836
and a great rise in land speculation.  Jackson dealt with this by issuing a
Specie Circular, requiring that land be paid for in gold or silver, very
effectively putting a limit on speculation.


LOG CABIN-HARD CIDER CAMPAIGN

Under the pressure of victorious Jacksonianism, all of the factions opposed
to Jackson and his democrats gathered together to form the new Whig party
out of the ashes of the National Republican party.  In the election of 1836
they attempted to throw the election into the house of representatives by
running four regionally popular candidates to soak off votes from Jackson's
chosen successor Martin Van Buren.  Van Buren won handily, with a clear
majority of the popular and electoral vote.

Van Buren was a skillful political manipulator, known as the Red Fox and
the Little Magician.  He believed in internal improvements, though he tried
to follow in the tradition of Jefferson and Jackson.  In fact, he was a
pragmatist, and tried to do what was practical and effective.  He believed
that government should not intrude in the private lives of the people, and
said, 'The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for
the general prosperity.'

Unfortunately, although Van Buren was a good leader and a skilled
politician, his 'hands-off' policy was not forceful enough to deal with the
legacy of Economic crisis which Jackson had left him.  Although he was
still personally popular when he ran for reelection in 1840, he was not as
popular as the Whig candidate, General William Henry Harrison.

Realizing that they needed a gimmick, the Whigs began a tradition of
nominating military heroes for office.  Harrison was a political unknown,
but popular for his successes against indians, being known as the Hero of
Tippecanoe.  For Vice President they nominated John Tyler of Virginia, a
major supporter of states rights.

This campaign became known as the Log-Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign,
because the Whigs presented Harrison as a plain man of the people who lived
in a log cabin, in comparison to the suave, New Yorker, Van Buren, who
lived amid the 'Regal Splendor of the President's Palace.'  Harrison drank
hard cider, while Van Buren drank expensive foreign wine.  They called Van
Buren an aristocrat and named him 'Martin Van Ruin', and presented Harrison
as a simple brave, honest, public spirited common man.  In fact, Harrison
was as aristocratic as they come in America, his father Benjamin Harrison
had signed the Declaration of Independence, and been governor of Virginia.
He was well educated and wealthy, and didn't live in anything resembling a
log cabin.

Nonetheless, it was slogans and propaganda that won the election.  The
whigs hadchants like 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too' and 'Van, Van, is a used-up
man'  and aroused popular sentiment in support of Harrison, so that he was
swept into office with a strong majority of the vote.

This was a great achievement for the Whigs, who had been out of office for
twelve years, and their excitement was only slightly dampened when Harrison
dropped dead a month after taking office.

President Tyler was a real second-rater, a mediocre politician with little
imagination and no courage, he had been a follower of Jackson, but changed
parties because he felt Jackson was too aggressive.

Tyler was in constant conflict with Henry Clay, the unofficial leader of
his party and the King of Congress, and so was unable to achieve much in
the way of legislation.  Tyler couldn't even control his own cabinet.  In
fact, when he vetoed a bill creating a new Bank of the US, his entire
cabinet resigned.  For most of his administration Tyler was powerless, and
he was easily defeated by the Democractic candidate James K. Polk in 1844.
Later Tyler served in the Virginia legislature and voted for Virginia's
secession from the union in 1861.


MANIFEST DESTINY

Manifest Destiny was the reformulation of the Monroe Doctrine which
characterized the expansionist western policies of the 1840s.

In 1845 NY Journalist John O'Sullivan said 'nothing must interfere with the
fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread thecontinent alloted by
Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.'

The general belief was that the US would inevitably control all of North
America, and the 1830s were the greatest period of Westward movement of
money and population, in the form of land investment and settlement.

In this urge to expand throughout North America, the US came into conflict
with Great Britain again, in a clash known as the Aroostook War, when
American and Canadian lumberjacks came into conflict in the woods between
Maine and New Brunswick in 1837.  In the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842
this dispute over the location of the canadian border with Maine was
resolved with a skillful compromise between Secretary of State Daniel
Webster and the British representative, Lord Ashburton.

However, the main exercising of Manifest Destiny was engineered by
president James K. Polk in the acquisition of Texas, California and Oregon.


TEXAS

JQA had offered $1 million for Texas and AJ had offered the mexicans $5
million,  but they would not sell.  Nonetheless, some 20,000 American
settlers moved in, in.  When the Mexican government, fearing this large
minority, began to try to control and restrict them, skirimishes between
Texans and the Mexican government erupted into rebellion in 1835.

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna marched north to San Antonio with 6000
soldiers in 1836 and besieged 187 Texans under Col. Wm B. Travis at the
Alamo mission for 10 days.  The mexicans took massivecasualties, but
eventually overwhelmed the Alamo and killed everyone, including Davy
Crockett and Jim Bowie.  Santa Anna also massacred a garrison of Texans at
Goliad, south of San Antonio.  These two actions made a peaceful settlement
unlikely.

Texas declared its independence on MArch 2, 1836, and created an army under
command of Sam Houston.  Though greatly outnumbered, he made a stand at the
San Jaconto River in April of 1836, shouting, 'Forward! Charge! Remember
the Alamo! Remember Goliad!'  They routed the Mexican army, and shortly
thereafter Houston was elected president of the Republic of Texas.  A vote
of the population of Texas at the time showed that they overwhelmingly
wanted to become part of the US.

Jackson and Van Buren both hesitated to let Texan into the union for fear
it would lead to war with Mexico, but Tyler, being a southerner, was eager
to add another slave state to the union, and initiated a treaty of
annexation, but his secretary of state, Abel Upshur, was killed in a cannon
accident on the USS Princeton during the negotiations, and Texas was held
over and became a major election issue in 1844.

At this same time Americans were beginning to settle Oregon and California,
which many saw as a new promised land, arriving there in great numbers
either over the 2,000 miles of the Oregon Trail, or through the arduous sea
journey around South America.  Richard Dana gave a glowing picture of
california.  He said, 'There is no working class and every rich man looks
like a grandee and every poor scamp like a broken down gentleman.'  Jackson
and Van Buren made several attempts to buy California from the Mexicans,
with no success, but Manifest Destiny dictated that somehow it must become
part of the US.


JAMES K. POLK

Before the election of 1844 it was generally assumed that the democrats
would run Van Buren against either Calhoun or Clay for the Whigs.  To
everyone's surprise, James K. Polk of Tenessee, a virtual unknown came out
of the Democratic convention as an overwhelming winner.

Polk's supporters called him 'Young Hickory', and he was an ardent follower
of Jackson, propelled to prominence on the basis of his honesty, his
determination, and the desire of the people to see a new face in politics
in contrast to the too familiar features of long-time political masters
like Van Buren, Calhoun and Clay.

Polk was a man who knew what he wanted.  He was against tarriffs, against
the bank, and for expansion in the west.  He supported the annexation of
Texas, the big issue of the election, and beat out Henry Clay who opposed
it by a mere 38,000 votes to win the election.  Had the voters from the
Liberty Party, a third party whose anti-slavery candidate, James Birney got
only 62,000 votes, votedfor Clay instead, Polk would have lost.

One of Polk's first acts in office, in 1845 was to sign the bill accepting
the annexation of Texas, which became a full state without going through
the territorial period.

Polk was a slightly built, handsome man.  He was not a very imaginative
man, nor was he exceptionally brilliant.  However, he was intense,
calculating, a hard worker, and exceptionally strong willed.

His attention to details was phenomenal, and he even developed a special
technique of political handshaking.  He once explained, 'When I observed a
strong man approaching, I generally took advantage of him by being a little
quicker than he was and seizing him by the tip of his fingers, giving him a
hearty shake, and thus preventing him from getting a full grip upon me.'
In four years in office he only left his desk for a total of six weeks.

Polk came into office with an agenda, and was unique in the fact that he
accomplished every task he set for himself while he was in office.  He
stated from the start that he did not intend to serve a second term, and
would do in four years all of the hard tasks he had set out to do.

These plans were to lower the tariff, restore the treasury without creating
a bank, put an end to the federal role in internal improvements, and obtain
not only Texas, but Oregon and California as well.  He succeeded completely
in each of these tasks, and left office in 1848 as the most successful, if
not the most brilliant or popular president in history.

Polk informed the British that he wanted the Oregon boundary to be
established at the 49th parallel.  Richard Pakenham, the British minister,
rejected this idea.  Polk asked congress for permision to violate the joint
occupation treaty of 1818 and said, 'The Only ay to treat John Bull is to
look him straight in the eye.'  Congress gave him the authority to do
whatever was needed in Oregon, devlaring that it was 'our Manifest Destiny
to spread over this whole continent.'

Polk told the British he planned to end joint occupation, and the British
broke down and decided to compromise since there were 5000 Americans in
Oregon an only 750 British.

The border was established at the 49th Parallel and Polk had made Oregon
part of the US.

To make sure that Texas was secure, Polk then went to war with mexico,
sending General Zachary Taylor and 1500 troops to Texas to fortify the
border against Mexican invasion.  Since he fortified the border at the Rio
Grande, 150 miles south of the border claimed by Mexico at the Nueces
River, this led to conflict.

Polk then tried negotiation, sending John Slidell to Mexico in secret to
offer to cancel $2 Mil. in Mexican debts to the US if they would leave
Texas alone and make the Rio Grande the border, and also authorizing him to
offer up to $30 mil to buy California and New Mexico.

The Mexican government kept Slidell waiting and refused to deal with him.
While slidell was in Mexico City the government was overthrown and
President Jose Herrera who had refused to talk to Slidell was replaced by
Genral Mariano Paredes, who actually restated the Mexican claim to all of
Texas and began to make plans to invade.  Slidell returned to Washington
and suggested that the Mexicans should be 'chastised'.

Polk gave Taylor more men, to a total of 4,000 in preparation for conflict,
and when the Mexicans attacked a small American Patrol Taylor asked for
authority to not only drive the Mexicans back, but to conq uer all of
MExico.  Congress authorized another 50,000 Troops, but before they even
arrived, Taylor invaded Mexico, defeated forces 2 to 4 times the size of
his army at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma.  Once reinforced and joined
with the 200 Vessel Pacific Squadron, Generals Winfield Scott and Zachary
Taylor proceeded to romp all over Mexico, conquering most of Mexico, Mexico
City and part of New Mexico and California, in which the US army had a
field day, with minimal casualties, against an undisciplined, ill-equipped
Mexican army which fled and surrendered at every chance.

Despite being thoroughly beaten, the Mexicans kept insisting that he war
wasn't over, despite the fact that the American army was sitting undisputed
in Mexico City by the end of 1847.

Polk wanted to reach a settlement, but became annoyed with the Mexicans,
and as time went by he offered less and less and demanded more and more.
He recalled his representative, Nicholas Trist, for not reaching a
settlement soon enough, but Trist refused to be recalled, realizing that
eventually the Mexicans would have to give in. Since the Americans held all
the cards, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was finally concluded, the
US got twice what Polk originally asked for at half the price.

Mexico gave up all of Texas north of the Rio Grande, plus New Mexico and
California as well.  In exchange, the mexicans got $15 million, plus the US
assumed $3.25 million of their debts to US banks.  Trist was fired from his
state department job and kicked out of the government, but nonetheless,
Polk signed the treaty which gave the US its largest land acquisition since
the Louisiana Purchase.

With the mexican war over, Polk had done all he had set out to do, his term
was up, and true to his word, he was the only president who shose to step
down from office even though he could easily have won his parties
nomination and reelection.

With the acquisition of all this territory the issue of Slavery once again
emerged in the congress.  Northerners were concerned about the addition of
all of this new potential slave territory, and southerners wanted to make
sure that the new south stayed with slavery.

In 1846 Congressman David Wilmot introduced an ammendment to a  bill in
congress which stated that 'as an express and fundamental condition of the
acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico, neighter slavery
nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory,
except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.'  This
ammendment came to be known as the Wilmot Proviso, and though it passed the
northern-dominated house, it never passed the southern dominated senate.
It was submitted as part of so many bills in the next 12 years or so, that
Abraham Lincoln commented that during his term in congress he had voted for
it in one form or another at least 60 times.

In response to the Wilmot Proviso, John C. Calhoun argued that congress had
no right to bar slavery from any territory, and demanded that congress make
some guarantees of the rights of slave holders.  Northerners found this as
repulsive as southerners found the Wilmot PRoviso, and Calhouns resolutions
could never pass the house of representatives.

Eventually, these two positions would be hammered out in the Compromise of
1850, but they became a major issue in the election of 1848 and contributed
to the tensions which led to the Civil War.


REFORM

The 1830s and 1840s saw extensive change and reform in industry, the family
and individual rights, as well as the beginning of the abolitionist
movement to reform the institution of slavery.

American society of this period was, above all, industrious.  People worked
harder and longer than they did in Europe and a broader spectrum of the
population was employed.  America was described as 'active, energetic,
enterprising and ingenious.'

One aspect of this was that women and children took an unaccustomed place
in the labor force to fill the demand for reliable, low-paid workers in
jobs which were only somewhat physically demanding, especially in the
textile mills.

People believed that it was good that most of the labor force was under 16,
because this kept the youths busy at useful tasks instead of out doing
mischief, and provided families with extra income.  Industrial children
were expected to work hard in the same way that had been traditional for
children in farm communities.

Even relatively well off families put their children to work in family
businesses, as was the case with Roxanna Foote, the mother of Harriet
Beecher.  She described her regimen in the family mill: 'I generally rise
with the sun, and, after breakfast, take my wheel, which is my daily
companion, and the evening is generally devoted to reading, writing and
knitting.

Some factories hired families in units, while others attempted to provide a
moral family atmosphere for the unattached women they employed, with
regulations which required that all employees 'show that they are
penetrated by a laudable love of temperance and virtue', forbidding 'games
of hazard and cards', and setting strict curfews.

Dickens commented favorably on the conditions in American factories in
contrast to unhealthy English conditions.  He said of the women, 'They were
well dressed,.  They were healthy in appearance, many of them remarkably
so, and had the manners and deportment of young women...The rooms in which
they worked were as well ordered as themselves.'

In these conditions where the young and ambitious were brought together to
work hard, reading and discussion, much of it political began to occupy the
time of the workers, and as a result they began to question the fact that
they were paid less than men, could not be supervisors and could not vote,
and this, as much as bad conditions where they existed, led to a
self-awareness among working women which resulted in a movement towards
strikes, unions and demands for womens rights.

These ambitious daughters of the middle class who educated themselves in
their spare time at the mill and even published their own magazines and
books in some cases, like the LOWELL OFFERING, moved on in the 1840s into
jobs as clerks, secretaries and teachers, and the increasing body of Irish
immigrants came to take their place in the mills, which quickly turned from
being havens for the idle youth of the nation to sweatshops much closer to
the European model.

Americans worked so hard during this period that the husband in a family
would often be gone from the house almost entirely for six days of the
week.  If the wife didn't work, this led to an inevitable expansion of her
responsibilities, and if she also worked the result was a totally
unprecedented home situation.  The result was the beginning of the
breakdown of the patriarchal family system.  More and more responsibility
was expected of wives, and by the 1840s they were expected to devote
themselves entirely to managing the home, and employment began to be
considered a betrayal of that duty.  Even advocates of womens rights, like
Sarah Hale and Catherine Beecher believed that woman's proper place was in
the home.

Women began to have fewer children in this period and the general birth
rate declined, especially in the urbanized northeast.  People married
later, courtships were longer, and engagements were often broken off.  On
the average women had their first child two to three years later than a
generation  before.

With fewer children, families valued their children more highly and greater
time and attention were given to them, with more attention to their
education and upbringing.  Parents who had thought of children as future
workers and sources of income in the 20s and 30s began to cherish and care
for them more.              The puritans had seen children as having 'a
perverse will, a love of what's forbid.'  In the 1840s discipline took a
back seat and parents saw that children 'come to us from heaven, with their
souls full of innocence and peace.'  In this period the first child-rearing
manuals like 'The Mother's Book' by Lydia Maria Child were published, and
progressive fathers like Bronson Alcott 'banished the rod and all its
appendages' from his household.

America was possessed by reforming zeal in the 1830s and 1840s, and this
showed itself not only in changes in the family structure,  but in many
other areas as well.

The idea of public education really began to take hold.  One publicist said
of the public school system in 1832, 'The man in moderate circumstances
will have his children taught for a less sum than he pays at present.  The
rich man, who will be heavily taxed, will see that his course secures to
the rising generation the only means of perpetuating our institutions.'
The popular belief was that education should be available equally to all
and that this equal opportunity to learn would make success in America
possible for anyone.

The result of this desire for public education was the Free School
Movement, led by Horace Mann in MA, Henry Barnard in CT and Calvin Stowe in
Ohio.  They wrote articles and spoke throughout the country, and by the
1860s their efforts were rewarded by the fact that most of the nothern
states had a tax-supported school system of some sort.  Teacher pay
remained low, classes were too large and discipline was still severe, but
education was widely available and foreign visitors were surprised at the
widespread literacy among the urban poor and common workers in America.

The school curriculum was altered away from classics, latin and greek, and
towards reading, writing and arithmetic, the three 'R's.  Schools for the
deaf and the blind were also established in the 1840s and 1850s.

Although the first coeducational college, Oberlin, was established in 1833,
women continued to be educated somewhat less completely than men.  The
learned woman was called a 'bluestocking' and looked on as a monstrosity,
an 'unsexed woman who does not fill her true place in the world.  it is
though more credible,' said one writer in 1833, 'for a young woman to be
sentimental rather than learned--to appear rather than to be.'

In 1799 there were 16 colleges, in 1860 there were 182.  412 more had been
established and failed in that time.  Colleges concentrated on latin,
greek, mathematics, science and philosophy.  To supplement this system over
3000 'lyceums' were established in this period, schools where lecturers
addressed specific topics in an effort to stimulate intellectual thought
and supplement basic education.  Many of the great reformers and leaders of
this period had their start as speakers in such lyceums.

The increasingly socially aware leaders of this period had a number of
favorite issues, social evils which many wanted to see stamped out,
including slavery, strong drink, the prison system, war and catholicism.
There were also specific institutions which they wanted to reform.  The
1830s and 1840s were characterized by reforming zeal which improved
conditions in many areas of American life.

Reformers were inspired by the idea of Fr. Samuel Howe. that 'Every
creature in human shape should command our respect.  The strong should help
the weak, so that the whole should advance as a band of brethren.'  This
led to the replacement of the idea of punishment with the idea of
rehabilitation, and the creation of special asylums for the insane, prisons
for the training and rehabilitation of criminals, almshouses for the poor,
and orphanages for orphaned children.  The idea was to cure and reform,
rather than confine and punish.

Despite reformed prison systems like the Auburn System in New York and the
Philadelphia Prison System in Pennsylvania, and the efforts of women like
Dorothea Dix to reform the insane asylums, after the initial zeal for
reform had worn off, the prisons and asylums returned to their old state as
pens to confine and restrict potential threats to society.

Another popular target of reformers was 'Demon Rum.'  In the 1820s and
1830s Americans were consuming more alcohol than ever before, mostly rum
and hard cider.  Although there had been alcoholics in America since
colonial times, no one much worried about it as a problem, until reformers
came along with their desire to meddle in the affairs of others.

In the 1820s everyone drank everywhere.  There were two whiskey breaks for
workers at factories and the average per capita consumption was 5 gallons
of hard liquor per year, about twice the average today.  In 1829 Secretary
of War John Eaton estimated that 3/4 of the laborers of the nation drank 4
ounces of hard liquor per day.

The American Temperance Union was founded in 1826.  With lecturers,
pamphlets and rallies they tried to persuade people to 'sign the pledge'
and quit drinking.  Businesses began to insist on sobriety at work,
revivalist preachers like Charles Grandison Finney and Lyman Beecher
preached against alcohol and soon the movement had 1 million members.

In 1840 a group of reformed alcoholics called the Washingtonians joined the
movement.  Their leader, John Gough, preached, 'Crawl from the slimy ooze,
ye drowned drunkards and with suffocation's blue and livid lips speak out
against the drink!'

Temperance was popular, but the movement met bitter opposition in its
attempts to ban alcohol.  German and Irish immigrants objected to their
drinking tradition being interfered with, especially since they were
catholic and most of the temperancers were protestant.  By the 1840s many
states had imposed heavy liquor taxes and stringent licensing laws, and
counties and towns prohibited alcohol alltogether.  In 1851 Maine
prohibited sale and manufacture of alcohol within its borders.  By 1855 a
dozen more states had joined maine and the nationwide alcohol consumption
level was cut in half.

Certainly the greatest of the reform movements was Abolitionism.  John
Quincy Adams called slavery 'The great and foul stain on the north american
union', and there was a vocal minority which agreed with this view and
began to agitate for an end to the southern institution.  Most opponents of
slavery were in favor of colonization, the idea of sending slaves back to
africa or were in favor of reforms, but as time progressed the more radical
elements of the anti-slavery movement became organized and increasingly
influential in the north.

One of the earliest reformers in the 1820s was a Quaker newspaper editor,
Benjamin Lundy, who wanted to persuade the south to voluntarily end
slavery.  He published THE GENIUS OF UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION, and wanted to
colonize blacks and slaves in Haiti and Canada.

The most famous abolitionist was L}ndy's young protege, William Lloyd
Garrison of MA.  He established an abolitionist newspaper called THE
LIBERATOR in Boston, and announced in the first issue, 'I am in earnest. I
will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--I
will be heard.'

Garrison and his New England Anti-Slavery Society insisted on immediately
freeing the slaves, and because the constitution was used as a
justification for federal non-involvement in the issue, Garrison burned
copies of the constitution at his lectures and called it 'an agreement with
Hell'.

Whenever Garrison spoke he was in danger of mob violence.  Even in the more
receptive areas, more moderate abolitionists resented his extremism and he
was even dragged through the streets of Boston.  Some of his presses were
burnt and one of his editors was murdered by a mob.  A hall in philadelphia
where one of Garrison's followers was to speak was burnt to the ground.
All told more than 100 major attacks were made on abolitionists between
1833 and 1838.

Many of Garrison's supporters turned to more moderate groups, particularly
those led by Theodore Dwight Weld, who had split off from Garrison to form
the Liberty Party, a moderate anti-slavery political party.

Nonetheless, abolitionism grew.  White audiences often sought out black
speakers to talk about slavery, and this brought Frederick Douglass of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to prominence in the 1840s.

Douglass had been a slave who had learned to write and mastered a slave.
He was eventually freed and settled in Boston.  He was a magnetic speaker,
and told people that slavery 'brands your republicanism as a sham, your
humanity as a base pretense, your Christianity as a lie'.  He demanded not
only freedom, but full political and social equality for blacks.  Few
accepted his reasoning, but seeing this eloquent black man it was hard to
argue that negroes were somehow less than human.

Douglass was less radical than his patron Garrison, and resolved to fight
slavery within the system, maintaining that the constitution which had been
established to 'establish justice and insure domestic tranquility, could
not well have been designed to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine
and murder like slavery.'

Garrison had no sympathy for the slaveowner and no care for what became of
the south once slaves were freed.  He said 'The life of the slaveowner is
one of unbridled lust, of filthy amalgamation, of swaggering  braggadocio,
of haughty dominion, of cowardly ruffianism, of boundless dissipation, of
matchless insolence, of infinite self-conceit, of unequalled oppression, of
more than savage cruelty.'  He was fanatical and extreme in his judgement,
and rarely minced words.  He called southern congressmen 'desperadoes', and
said that he would rather be governed by the 'inmates of penitentiaries'.

Garrison launched a powerful movement, but as an individual he was hated in
north and south for his fanaticism and his contention that 'American
Society is Rotten to the Core.'

To some degree the Womens Rights Movement grew out of the abolitionist
movement, for many were or were married to abolitionists.  Feminist Abby
Kelly wrote, 'We have good cause to be grateful to the slave, for in
striving to strike his irons off, we found most surely, that we were
manacled ourselves.'

Women began to ask why all MEN were created equal, including slaves, if
they were not.  Many considered themselves to be worse off than blacks, in
that blacks faced a clear and identifiable enemy, while the bonds that held
women were softer and harder to cut.

When the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 in London refused to allow
women to participate, two women abolitionists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Lucretia Mott started out to found a womens movement.

Stanton authored the Declaration of Principles, a declaration of
independence for women in 1848, stating the conclusion that 'He (man) has
endeavored in every way he could to destroy her confidence in her own
powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a
dependent and abject life.'  This declaration was adopted at the Seneca
Falls Convention of 1848.

The movement held a number of conventions in the 1850s and reformers like
Garrison joined the cause.  Susan B. Anthony was one of the most
influential recruits.  She petitioned the new york legislature in 1854-1855
to reform divorce and property laws, though her 6,000 signature petition
got few results.

Some progress was made, particularly in modifications of private
lifestyles, but it would not be until much later in the century that the
government and national leaders began to be influenced  by the womens
movement.


REVIVALISM

The liberalization of family life and the qwuest for reform was parallelled
by liberalization and reform in religion as well, in a period in the 1830s
and 40s which became known as the Second Great Awakening after the
religious revival of a century before.

This new awakening was not as forceful or as complete as the one a century
before, but significant changes took place.  Religious inspiration came in
fits and starts, and outdoor 'camp meetings' would often bring about great
religious fervor in a region for a time, but no lasting or far reaching
movement emerged.

One of the main reasons for this was the rise in sectarianism, the breaking
down of established churches into sub-groups and splinter cults.  Different
established sects were competing with each other, and people were willing
to split off from established churches to form their own church if they
thought they could succeed, or if they were divinely inspired.  Everyone
was competing to convert the immigrant population.

The one unifying force was hatred for the catholic church among all the
protestant sects, a hatred which increased with increased catholic
immigration.  In 1830 there were 500 priests and 500,000 catholics in the
US.  By 1850 there were 1500 priests and almost 2 million catholics, as
well as seminaries, schools, monestaries and other institutions.

Protestants publicized supposed catholic attricities and newspapers
published sensational exposes.  No real violence was done, but catholicism
was looked down on as a religion for the lower classes and the immigrant
population, and you could look at your next door neighbor if you were an
episcopalian and say, 'he may be a baptist, but thank god he isn't a
catholic.'

One of the lasting characteristics of the religious revival of this period
is the idea of a 'Social Gospel', as preached by the leading revivalist of
the period, Charles Grandison Finney.  This was the idea that christian
ideals should be applied to reform the community as a whole, not just
individuals, and that christian values should be part of the new order of
society.  This Social Gospel tied religion more closely to everyday life,
and while it was a very watered down christianity, it had a strong
influence on mainstream America.


AN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Before the 1820s American literature had existed, but for the most part
American authors tried to imitate europeans who they admired.  Beginning
with writers like Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper this began to
change.  These writers began to introduce more specifically American themes
into their writing and were the forerunners of the great americana
literature of the mid- nineteenth century.  Cooper and Irving both lived
and worked in Europe for much of their lives, and they worked to publicize
America in a European style, so their literature cannot be said to be truly
and entirely American.  The great American poet of the early 1800s, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, was also rather derivative of European literary
styles, addressing American topics in flowing, overwritten verse, a sad
imitation of the European romantics of that period.

Romanticism was the literary style which was revolutionizing writing in
Europe, and America was the ideal environment for this emotional reaction
against the age of reason which turned towards nature in its wildness and
glory for inspiration.  European romanticism had flowered in the 1780s and
1790s, and came to American a generation later.

With its worship of the individual, nature, primitive peoples and emotion
romanticism was ideal for the era of Jacksonian Democracy.  Jackson himself
was a great romantic figure, tragic and untamed, in many ways like Ulysses.

American romanticism had its main expression in the Transcendentalism
Movement.  Transcendentalism was the pursuit of the unknown and the
unknowable, those qualities of knowledge which are beyond human
comprehension.  This was an essentially futile pursuit, but nonetheless, it
led to some great literary achievements as Thoreau, Emerson and others
attempted to follow their muse 'beyond the world of the senses'.
Transcendentalists were complete individualists.  They did not believe in
organized religion, nor did they have much desire for organized society.
They attempted to form a number of communes called 'Backwoods Utopias',
where they would live in anarchistic isolation.  They believed that human
beings were essentially divine because each partook of part of the
divinity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was the leader of the Transcendentalists.  He had been
a minister, and after meeting many of the romantics like Coleridge,
Wordsworth and Carlyle in Europe, he brought their ideas to America and
founded a transcendentalist community in Concord, MA.  He rejected
everything, from 'corpse-cold' unitarian religion to devotion to european
luxuries, and sought his inspiration in the American world around him.  He
sought to place 'spiritual powers' agains 'the mechanical powers and
mechanical philosophy of his time.'

Emerson emphasized self reliance, and said, 'the less government we have,
the better.'  He said that 'The wise man is the state'.  He made his living
by lecturing and writing, and was repulsed by more mundane occupations and
alienated by the world and society.  He expressed Transcendentalism best
when he wrote 'Everything in nature contains all the powers of Nature.
Everything is made of one hidden stuff.'

At his best, Emerson was a great poet, mirroring the style of the romantics
to produce a great deal of poetry, some of it doggerel, but some of it true
romantic verse based around uniquely American themes.  He also produced
great volumes of essays and opinion, and contributed many sayings and ideas
to American culture.  Emerson was longed more than anything else to be
free, he saw his thoughts and wit as imprisoned, much like negro slaves,
and sought to free mind and body.  As he wrote, 'Let me go where're I will,
I hear a sky-born music still.'

The other great Transcendentalist was Emerson's friend Henry David Thoreau,
a school teacher with a limited grip on reality.  Echoing Emerson he said,
'That government is best which governs not at all'.  He authored the
phrase, 'If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is
because he hears a different drummer.'

Thoreau's drummer led him to seek the isolation of Walden Pond in 1845, to
see if a person could exist totally apart from society.  There he wrote
several books, most famous of which is WALDEN, the story of his stay there
and a vommentary on the flaws of the society he had left. Like Emerson,
Thoreau refused to be involved in politics, but he did object to the
Mexican war, and spent a night in jail for refusing the pay the
Massachusetts Poll Tax out of protest.

Like Emerson, Thoreau, more than anything else, sought some sort of
undefinable satisfaction out of life, some transcendant contentment.  He
wrote, 'If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and
life emits a fragrance like the flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more
elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success.'

Like Emerson, Thoreau was also somewhat of a wit and sage, and issued many
wise and catchy sayings, including 'Beware of any enterprise which requires
new clothes,'...something I-try to live by.

The Transcendentalists were anarchistic, individualistic and had a limited
grip on reality,  but their adaptation of Romanticism to the American
environment was one of the first truly American literary and cultural
movements.

The Great tradition of American literature which emerged in this same
period can be seen in the works of three writers, Hawthorne, Melville and
Poe.

These three writers were uniquely American, even though they were
influenced by romanticism and sometimes imitated European styles, but they
pioneered the first style of American literature which European writers
like Baudelair and de Maupassant were to imitate in turn a generation
later.

Edgar Allan Poe the son of poor Boston Actors raised by his grandfather in
Virginia.  He was neurotic and precocious, always deeply in debt, and was
discharged from west point for 'gross dereliction of duty'.  He was an
alcoholic, but not the drug addict some have made himnm out to be.  He
married a 13 year old girl, attempted to kill himself several times, was
haunted by melancholia, and had spontaneous hallucinations.  Nonetheless,
he was an outstanding magazine editor, a great poet, a penetratinc critic
and probably the greatest short story writer of his age.  Though he died at
40 he left a legacy of unique and original work.

Poe's wild imagination led him to model his works on Byron and Coleridge,
but he was not solely an imitator.  He invented the detective story and the
psychological horror story, and developed characters of unique intensity
and complexity, like his Detective August Dupin from MURDERS IN THE RUE
MORGUE.

Poe was popular and successful, balancing between genius and madness to
produce great works.  Some of his greatest lasting contributionscan be
found in his essay, THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION where he defined literary
principles which later authors followed and described many of he
characteristics of American literature.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was also from massachusetts, and though he rejected
Emerson as an 'everlasting rejector of all that is, and seeker for he knows
not what', Hawthorne's gloomy, brooding tales of what he called 'The Truth
of the Human Heart.'

Melville: Greatest/Least successful: conflict of good and evil.


  1:59 AM -- 35 Minutes Left

(MB,UD,TF,VB,BB,UL,LD,VW,MA,RE,?)

In this world, not everyone with a long knife is a cook.

VOID: RD9,0


Filename?: ln19b *lm5:rm80 *pl66:tl60

Melville was a close friend of Hawthorne, and had a varied background,
having  been everything from a bank clerk to a seaman, and even having
lived for some time with a tribe of cannibals in the Marquesas islands.

Melville had been a man of action, but he became a man of letters, when he
capitalized on his reputation as 'The Man who had lived among the
cannibals' and wrote two autobiographical books TYPEE and OMOO.

Melville discovered that not only was he a good writer, but he had
something to say, and in successive books he explored human nature and the
conflict of light and darkness.  He was an admirer of American literature
and said, 'Believe me, men not very much inferior to Shakespeare are being
born on the banks of the ohio.'

Melville tried to right wrongs in the world as well as exploring human
nature.  In WHITE JACKET, he illustrate the barbarous way men were treated
in the US Navy (where he had served for a season).

As Melville became more philosophical and more profound he became less
popular and though he continued to write until the 1890s he was not
successful after the release of MOBY DICK in 1851, though he wrote his
greatest novel, BILLY BUDD in that period, and it was not published until
1924.

Melville summed up the concrete basis of his literature and the conflicts
which he saw in the real world in contrast with the abstractions of the
Transcendentalists when he wrote, 'There is no faith, and no stoicism and
no philosophy, that a mortal mancan possibly evoke, which will stand the
final test in a real impassioned onset of life and passion upon him.  Faith
and philosophy are air, but events are brass.'

Just as Emerson and Thoreau epitomized the individualistic aspects of
Amercian literature, Melville expressed the concrete, the willingness of
American writers to deal with reality and the conflicts of the real world
in specific terms.


INDUSTRY, EXPANSION AND IMMIGRATION

In 1840 there was a worldwide economic depression.  Liberal land policies
of the US government encouraged impoverished eastern farmers to move west
and encouraged immigrants to come from europe and settle directly in the
middle west.  This led to a massive influx of settlers, especially from
Germany and Ireland.

Most of these immigrants and settlers went to regions like Iowa, Wisconsin,
Minnesota and Kansas, all of which grew rapidly and became states in this
period.

In 1845 and 1846 the potato crop failed in Ireland and in the period from
1845 to 1854 when the land boom ended in panic, the Irish were the single
largest group of immigrants to the US.

Unlike other groups of settlers, the Irish were often too poor to afford
land even at the artificially low prices set by the government, so they
settled in the coastal cities and became laborers working in factories or
on canal and railroad building crews.

One of the problems with the Irish who settled in the cities was that they
competed with poor free blacks and with slaves for work, and one of the
major conflicts leading to the civil war was the argument between free
Irish labor and slave black labor.  One Irish leader admitted that the
American Irish were 'Among the worst enemies of the colored race'.  Blacks
responded, 'Every hour sees us elbowed out of some employument to make room
for some newly arrived emigrant from the emerald isle, whose hunger and
color entitle him to special favor.'  Immigrants, more than any other group
in america became unfriendly towards blacks, and though they bore the main
burden of fighting the civil war, they had no love for the blackmen they
freed to compete with them in the job market.

It is understandable that such a cuthroat attitude existed, when the
minimum livable budget for a family in the 1850s was about 11 dollars a
week, and the average factory wage was about $5 per person.  This meant
that both parents and often the children had to work, and often children
were left to beg in the streets or turn to crime.  People lived in
degradation in the cities.  New York's notorious slum, 'The Five Points
District' was described by Dickens as 'Reeking with dirt and filth, where
dogs would howl to lie, men women and boys slink off to sleep, forcing the
dislodged rats to move.'  By 1848 more than 56,000 new yorkers were
receiving some sort of public relief.  In 1860 a police roundup arrested
more than 600 beggars in the city.

There was also crop failure in Germany, and germans came in large numbers
as well, mostly settling in midwestern cities like Cincinnati, St. Louis
and Milwaukee.

All told, in the period from 1840 to 1860 over 5 million new immigrants
came to the US.  More than half of these, some 2.9 million were Irish.  1.5
Million were German.  Some 500 thousand came from Scotland, wales and
England.  The remaindercame from all over Europe, including Switzerland,
France and Scandinavia.

Most of these settlers were young and unmarried, or else came in family
groups.  Many of them later sent for relatives from the old world to come
and join them, which led to an ongoing influx of european settlers for
several generations.

Land for these farmers sold for as little as $1 or $1.25 per acre for up to
160 acres, requiring only that the farmers fence that land in, build a
dwelling and register their claim with the local land office.  Because the
soil was heavy and had never been tilled most farmers found they couldn't
plow it, and had to hire professional 'breakers' with oxen and heavy iron
plows to break up the soil at $1.75 to $2.50 per acre.  With that done,
they could then use their normal plows on the fertile soil of the lands of
the mississipi river valley.

Corn was the first crop of these farmers in the west, often made more
transportable by being used to feed pigs or being made into corn liquor.
Once farms were well established they might turn to wheat farming.  In 1849
Pennsylvania, Ohio and NY were the leading wheat producing states.  Within
10 years the wheat production of the country had almost doubled and
Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin led in wheat production.  In the next
decade production doubled again, with Minnesota, Kansas and the Dakotas
taking the lead.  Wheat was generally more profitable than corn, being less
bulky and more marketable world-wide.

1833: John Deere introduced first steel plow, made from a discarded
circular saw blade.  It sold for $10 and was called the 'Singing Plow'.  It
became the key to plowing the heavy dark soil of the west.  By 1858 his
factory was producing 13,000 of them per year.  Experiments even  began in
this period with steam-driven plowing engines which could cut up to 6
furrows at a time.

To parallel the increased effectiveness of Deere's plow for planting, Cyrus
McCormick developed a horse-drawn reaping machine and gby 1858 McCormick
was selling more than 500 of them each month out of his factory in chicago.
To save time it was one of the first machines built disassembled and sent
to the purchaser in parts with instructions on its assembly.

In this period the cost of farm machinery went from $15 to $600 for a fair
sized farm, but production and profit increased in similar proportions.

These increased costs began the cycle of debt which has cursed the american
farmer ever since.  He borrowed money to buy land and machinery.  The more
land and machinery he had the more wheat he produced.  The more wheat he
produced the more the price of wheat fell.  The more the price of wheat
fell, the more land and machinery he needed to produce wheat to make the
money to pay off his debts.  To get this added land and machinery he had to
borrow more money.  Inevitably this led to a spiral of increasing
indebtedness for farmers, which led to an economic collapse in 1858 and
demands for government agricultural reform.

With the farms of the west taking over the high profit crops like wheat,
the older farms of the east turned to producing less transportable goods,
like meat, fruit, butter and vegetables.

The success of these crops in the nearby urban markets like New York and
Philadelphia along with the agricultural boom in the west made America the
leading agricultural nation in the world by the 1850s.

The transportation revolution which had begun in the 1820s and 1830s with
the canal boom continued in the 1840s and 1850s.

In 1843 foreign exports were only $125 million.  By 1860 they had risen to
almost $700 million.  To a large extent the vast fleets which began to plow
the atlantic to take american goods to Europe also aided the rise in
immigration, since they usually brought passengers back as their cargo on
their return trip.

While foreign trade increased five or 6 fold, domestic trade increased 10
fold in this period.  Into the 1850s most trade in America was done on
boats, either on the mississipi, on the canal system, or on ships trading
up and down the American coasts.

Coastal trade by sea became increasingly significant with the introduction
of the clipper ship, and in 1852 the volume of trade by sea was three times
that of goods traded by canal or overland by rail and wagon.

This trade was made possible by the clipper ship, a new kind of vessel
designed to carry valuable cargoes at high speed, which were very
successful in the 1840s.

1832: 1st Clipper Ship, Ann McKim launched from Baltimore.  Speedier design
of clipper ships staved off the dominance of steam for two decades.

The largest role of the clipper ship was in transporting gold from
california to Europe and the eastern US.  Since clipper ships sacrificed
cargo for speed, a high-value, low volume cargo like gold was ideal for
them.  The clippers set new records for speed around the horn, with the
Flying Cloud going from San Francisco to NY in 89 days, almost half the
previous record.

Almost before they had a chance to shine, the clipper ships, the last great
sailing vessels, were becoming obsolete.

1838: First transatlantic steamship service, trip took just over 2 weeks.
Services first established by Great Britain, with the arrival of the Great
Western from London to NY.  Regular schedule begun in 1840 by British and
North American Royal Steam Packet Company, which later became Cunard and
folded in early 1970s.

Steamship companies developed an even faster route to the west, by steaming
to panama, transporting goods overland across panama and then putting them
on another steamship to California, a route which took only about 35 days,
half what the clipper ships were able to do.

The cost of moving a pound of goods from NY to Liverpool fell from $1 to 30
cents in this period, and in the 1840s there were at least 4,000 ships
carrying cargo east and passengers back west.  Conditions on these
passenger-carrying cargo ships were not great.  On one crossing 158 of 440
passengers on the Lark dired of Typhus.  To make matters worse, immigration
officers in America turned these diseased immigrants away and left them to
die on shipboard.

Nonetheless, shipping of this sort continued to be increasingly profitable.

This period also saw a number of revolutionary advances in industry,
including:

1833: Samuel Colt introduced first successful revolver manufactured by his
Patent Arms Mfg Co.

1834: Thomas Davenport developed first electric motor, basically same
design used today, though it did not become successful until after the
civil war.

1835: Samuel F. B. Morse invented telegraph.  When demonstrating it to the
congress to try to convince them to establish a patent system, he sent a
message from washington to Baltimore, saying 'What hath God Wrought?'  He
was granted the first patent, and from that point most other inventions
were patented by the govenrment.  The telegraph led to fast communication
across the nation, which was a great aid to business and helped in
controlling the growing railroad system.

1839: Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber, first non-sticky rubber.
accident, dropped rubber on stove.

1844: Stuart Perry invented first gas engine, single piston deal.


1848: Air Conditioning first introduced in a theatre on Broadway in NY.
Air Conditioner was invented by J. F. Coffee.  Steam driven.

1844: Masabi Iron Range near Lake Superior discovered when William A. Burt
noticed that his compass deviated 87 degrees from normal.  This vast store
of iron and others later discovered farther west made the manufacture of
all these iron engines and machines possible, especially tens of thousands
of miles of railroad track and telegraph wire..


RAIL ROADS & ROBBER BARONS

July 4, 1829: Construction  begun on Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.  Founder
was Charles Carroll of Maryland, who had signed the declaration of
independence.  The B&O was completed from Baltimore to Wheeling, VA in
1853.

1832: The Emigrant newspaper of Ann Arbor, MI, suggested the idea of a
transcontinental railroad

1832: New York and Harlem RR established as the first streetcar line, drawn
by horses on lower 4th ave in NY.

Nonetheless, the railroads were slow getting started.  In 1840 there were
only about 3300 miles of track, mostly in the northeast,  but by 1860 there
were over 30,000 miles of track and rails reached as far west as the
western border of Missouri.  After the civil war the rails would eventually
unite the east and west coasts.

Passenger trains whipped along at 20 miles an hour taking settlers west to
Chicago and St. Louis on the first leg of their journey, and freight trains
got goods to market at a blinding 11mph.

Most of the early railroads grew out of the canal industry.  Canal builders
built rails to expand their trade over mountains and when rails began to
become cheaper than canals they gradually switched over to building
railroads instead.

Most of the early railroad companaies, like the Baltimore and Ohio, the
Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie, began as canal companies.

Pennsylvania was the most active railroad state becaus of its relatively
easy access to the west.  The Pennsylvania Railroad, which began running
from Harrisburg to Pittsburg in 1846 was required to pay 3 cents per
ton-mile of freight hauled to the state canal commission.  The first
railroads in NY state parallelled the course of the erie canal and
eventually took its place as the main road for freight west.  Eventually
the Pennsylvania Railroad bought out the canal system in PA to put an end
to that form of competition.

Massachusetts worked hard to catch up, and by 1850 almost every town in the
state was connected by trains.  Boston led the investment in western rail
lines, under the leadership of John Murray Forbes, they moved their money
west to build rail lines to Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis.

Engineering problems held back railroad growth, including the lack of
durability in iron-shod wood rails and dangers of sparks starting fires,
but most of these problems were solved by:

Robert Stevens, son of Col. John Stevens who had started the first US
Railroad in 1826 on a circular track for tourists.  In 1830 he invented the
T-Rail, which made trains safer and more stable and lasted longer, being
made of solid iron.  One of the great inventors of the age, also invented
new steam engines, guns, the iron tongue for connecting rails, the railroad
spike and special nuts and bolts for track.

Chicago became the rail hub of the west, and in the 1860s it was served by
no fewer than 45 different rail roads.

Railroads were faster and more competitive than barges on rivers or canals
and very quickly they began to put these businesses to rest, with only the
erie canal surviving with any strength.

The census of 1860 reported, 'So great are the benefits, that if the entire
cost of railroads between the atlantic and the western states had been
levied on the farmers of the central west, they could have paid it and been
immensely the gainers.'

In the 1850s there were four great railroads.  The longest of these was the
Erie, with 537 miles of track in 1851, followed by the B&O, the
Pennsylvania and The New York Central, consolidated out of 8 short lines in
New York by Erastus Corning.

By 1855 passengers could travel from Chicago or St. Louis to the eastcoast
at from $20 to $30 in less than 48 hours.  A generation before the journey
would have taken 3 weeks.  The trip from Buffalo to NY was $4, and freight
could travel from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia at $1.50 per ton.

Investment in railroads led to a new sort of economy and a new kind of
businessmen, the big investor.  Bonds to finance railroads became so
popular that many banking houses started to just trade in bonds and became
the first investment brokers.  Railroads were given large grants of land by
the government and used these lands as collateral to finance the issuing of
bonds to fund their high initial expenses.  In the 1850s these expenses
amounted to over $800 million.

Many railroads were financed by public sale of shares.  Erastus Corning
established the New York central with 20,000 shares, valued at $100 each.
They actually sold for around $75 and by the time the line was complete in
1844 they were selling for $129, a handsome profit for investors.

Most railroads aside from the NYC were funded partly with private money and
usually with about a third of the money coming from state or federal
grants.  Many of these grants wer in the form of land, or 'right-of-way',
200 foot wide strips of land for the rails to run on.

Many of the Rail Barons as investors cam eto be called made money off of
the actual construction of the railroads, by providing essential goods and
serviced.  Erastus Corning was an iron mill owner, and took no salary for
his work on the Utica and Schenectedy and later the NYC.  As he said, he
was 'asking only that he have the privelege of supplying all the  rails,
running gear, tools and other iron and steel articles supplied.'  Those
goods he couldn't make he bought and sold to the railroad at a good profit.
Although stockholders objected, when they investigated he was able to
convince them that he was on the up and up, though they did report that,
'The practice of buying articles for the use of the Railroad Company from
its own officers might, in time, come to lead to abuses of great
magnitude.'  This proved to be prophetic in the second great rail boom of
the 1870s and 1880s.

Corning was relatively legitimate in his dealings.  Other Rail Barons were
far less scrupulus.  They took stock without paying for it and then sold it
to investors for inflated prices, they juggled the books, used inside
information to 'gut' or 'milk' rail stocks on the market, manipulating the
price and trading stocks back and forth for repeated profits.  After the
civil war this got much worse, with fraudulent companies being established
to provide services for the railroads and being paid outrageour fees.  The
rail boom led to the emergence of America's first big-time crooks.  These
rail barons also established some of America's leading families.  They
included Cornelius Vanderbilt who founded the New York and Harlem Railroad,
the Hudson Railroad, and later took over the NYC from Cyrus Corning.


GOLD

From he 16th centuries, the Spaniards had searched the American west for El
Dorado, the fabled city of gold.  When Coronado thought he had discovered
the 'Seven Cities of Gold' in California he found that in fact, they were
seven little indian villages, and the spanish had to settle for other
profits from their new world colonies.

In the 1850s many Americans believed they had found that city, or its
real-world equivalent, with the discovery of Gold in California in 1849.

It had been known that there was gold in California since the early 1840s,
but no one really new where it was and no one had made a major strike.
Other metals, including silver, copper and iron had also been found in the
far west.

In the 1840s, a Swedish born entrepreneur named John Augustus Sutter
established a small community in the Sacramento valley, based around a
trading post called Sutter's Fort, where he set himself up as almost a
local lord.  In 1847 an enterprising man named James Wilson Marshall was
hired by Sutter to build a mill on the American river forty miles northwest
of Sutter's Fort at a place called Coloma.

While laying the foundation for the mill, Marshall found some yellow metal
on the river bank, which he described as 'about as much as a ten-cent piece
would hold'.  When he said to his men, 'boys, I have found a gold mine!'
they laughed in derision.

The next morning Marshall abandonned his plans for the mill and began to
search for gold in earnest, finding a small nugget, 'about half the size of
a pea'.  Over the next few days he and his men discovered more gold.

Marshall rode back to Sutter in secret, met with him alone and produced
several ounces of gold, which Sutter tested.

Sutter and Marshall went back and completed the mill, and made a deal with
the local indians to lease all the land around the American River in that
area for 'a few shirts, hats, handkerchiefs and other articles of trifling
value.'

Sutter sent a messenger to register this claim with the governor, but on
the way the messenger showed samples of gold dust to acquaintances, and the
news spread quickly.

News spread so quickly that within two weeks San Francisco was virtually
deserted.  Shops were closed and offices were abandonned.  The crews of
ships left the ships in port and went inland.  Only women, soldiers and
prisoners remained behind.

The gold crazed thousands descended on Sutter's Mill, took illegal
possession, and forced Marshall and Sutter to let them dig and pan where
they would.

Eventually San Francisco was repopulated once the initial thrill wore off,
and merchants there and in other communities began to make their money off
of the gold rush through selling goods and supplies to the 'Forty-Niners'
as these gold seekers came to be called.

San Francisco blossomed, with bars, restaurants, shops, casinos and whore
houses everywhere, all open 24 hours a day. Merchants didn't even wait to
find shop space,  but opened up business on the street corners, selling
everything at inflated prices.

By the summer of 1849 eggs were 75cents to $1 each, and property values had
risen from $16.50 to $6,000 an acre and then to $45,000 by the end of the
year.  An office rented for $1000, a room for $250, and a tent for $180.

Other towns also prospered in similar ways along the trail from SF to the
American River.

On Feather River near Sutters Mill miners pulled out 275 pounds of gold in
two weeks.  The Yuba River provided $75,000 worth of gold in its first 3
months.  In 48 and 49 the strike at Dry Diggings yielded as much as five
pounds per man per day.  Other smaller strikes averaged an ounce or two per
man each day.  On the Tuolomne river one man panned out 45 ounces in one
day, and another bested him by panning out 52 pounds in 8 days.  One man
panned so much gold in one day that he was unable to carry it back to his
tent.

The first miners panned in the rivers, or dug shallow trenches on the banks
and shoals.  Later on mechanized dredging was used in the rivers and mines
began to be dug to find the veins all this gold had erroded out of.  As the
easy gold was used up, Mining gold out of the quartz veins became the work
of big business, and serious commercial mines were established.

This mining zeal led to discoveries of gold and other minerals in Montana,
Wahsington, Idaho, Utah and Colorado, as well as other discoveries in
California, including the famous Comstock Lode near Nevada City in what
would later be Nevada.  Comstock sold his rights to his discoveries for
$11,500 and they soon appreciated to a value of $80 million.

At this point more than 500 people were arriving in SF per day to hunt for
gold.

All of this led to lawless conditions in california, and though their was
appreciation for the value of California to the US.  It had joined the
union in 1846, there was some concern over conditions there, especially in
the east, and men like Horace Greeley went out west to report on conditions
in the new state.

Conditions for the miners were hard.  Horace Greeley described the way
people lived in pursuit of gold, when he wrote of the comstock: 'the entire
population of the valley--which cannot number less than four thousand,
including 5 white women and 7 squaws living with white men--sleep in tents,
or under booths of pine boughs, cooking and eating in the open air.  I
doubt that there is yet a table or chair in the diggings...The food, like
that of the plains, is restricted to a few staples--pork, hot bread, beans
and coffee forming the almost exclusive diet of the mountains; but a meat
shop has just been established, on whose altar are offered up the ill-fed
well whipped oxen who are just in from a fifty days journey across the
plains...'  Despite this discouraging picture, Greeley saw the future of
the US in the west, and is remembered most for advising a young friend to
'Go west young man, go west, and grow up with the country', though in fact
that phrase was authored by one of the staff writers on one of Greeley's
newspapers.

Despitw the hard life, the gold rush gave a great artificial boost to the
US economy, the passenger shipping industry and all forms of cross-country
transportation, but in actuality, although professional miners like John
Routt, James Friar and Horace Tabor made huge fortunes as miners, most of
the small 49ers either failed after years of uneven success, or spent years
in fruitless searching for the 'mother lode', or eventually squandered away
their riches.  It was the nature of the kind of people who went to
California in search of easy riches that if they didn't have the fortitude
to earn their money through honest labor they also didn't have the strength
to keep it and save it, so that in the end it was shopkeepers and
profiteers who became rich.


THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

In 1820 the Missouri Compromise had made a temporary settlement regarding
slavery in the territories,  but the south continued to believe that if
they were to protect the right to hold slaves in the south, it was
necessary to asser the right to own slaves in the west as well.

Three general views on slavery in the territories, were emerging in the US.
One of these was the 'Free Soil Doctrine', essentially expressed in the
Wilmost Proviso, which said that 'Neither slavery nor any involuntary
servitude sahll ever exist in any part of the territories.'  The southern
answer to that was the 'Calhoun Doctrine', formulated by John C. Calhoun,
which insisted that slavery was legal anywhere and everywhere because it
was not specifically prohibited or limited by the constitution.  The third
and last doctrine was a compromise put forward by senators Lewis Cass of
Michigan and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, called 'Popular Sovreignty' or
'Squatter Sovreignty'.  This was the idea that it was the American
tradition for communities to decide for themselves about issues like
slavery, and in practical application, they suggested that it be left up to
the territories to decide whether they should be slave or free states.

Popular Sovreignty caught on quickly in the 1840s, as a possible compromise
alternative to the positions of southern and northern extremists, but
unfortunately, its vagueness opened a whole can of worms surrounding the
technicalities of how and when a territory would decide on the status of
slavery and what the basis of such decisions should be.

The 1850s were characterized by a distinct lack of presidential leadership.
After Polk, things more or less fell apart with the election of 1848.

As they had with Harrison, the Whigs nominated a war hero as their
candidate, this time General Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican war.  The
Democrats nominated Lewis Cass.  Both candidates were undistinguised
moderates.

At the same time, anti-slavery elements of both parties split off and
formed a third party, the Free- Soil Party, composed of 'barnburner'
democrats and 'conscience' whigs.  They nominated MArtin Van Buren and he
ran on the slogan, 'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men.'

Van Buren was unable to do well without the support of a well-established
party, and in a lackluster election he came in  behind both Taylor and
Cass.  Taylor won the presidency with a reasonable majority, but the Free
Soil Party did win nine key seats in the relatively evenly divided
congress.  They also demonstrated the growing anti-slavery sentiment in the
nation and struck fear into the south which motivated radical reactions
among  southern extremists.  Van Buren and the Free Soilers realized that
they could not win, but they felt it was time to make a stand.  Van Buren
said, 'The minds of nearly all man kind have been penetrated by a
conviction of the evils of slavery.'  Though the time to put an end to that
evil did not come in 1848, the Free Soilers were one of the elements which
formed the new Republican party in the 1850s and eventually put Lincoln in
office.

Zachary Taylor was a good general, but an uninspiring candidate and an
unremarkable president.  He ran under the slogan, 'I am a whig, but not an
ultra-whig...if elected...I should feel bound to administer the government
untrammelled by party schemes.'  This perspective didn't earn him much
party support but let him tread a harmless middle ground.

Neither party inspired much loyalty or excitement, and the democrats began
to be dominated by cynical professional politicians like William Marcy and
James Buchannan, who wanted to get and hold office and had few principles
or convictions to speak of.

President Taylor was excited by the discovery of gold in California, and
urged that California be admitted as a state as quickly as possible and
given the choice of whether it should be a free or slave state.
Californians were overwhelmingly opposed to slavery, not because they were
abolitionists, but because they feared negro competition in mining gold.
At their constitutional convention they stated that they would 'be unable
to compete with the bands of negroes who would be set to work under the
direction of capitalists.'  They believed that gold mining would become a
slave monopoly.  The south had assumed that because Taylor owned a large
plantation and many slaves he would encourage California to be a slave
state, but he made no protest over their anti-slavery constitution.
Southern radicals believed that this meant that all of the new territory
would be admitted as free territory and in their outrage they were ready to
break up the union over the issue.

Henry Clay, almost on his death bed, rose in the senate to offer another
compromise, one which he suggested was founded on 'multual forbearance'.
The Compromise of 1850 included 8 major provisions.  These were: 1:
California would be admitted as a free state.  2: Utah and New Mexico would
be allowed to decide on slavery for themselves.  3: Land disputed between
Texas and New Mexico would go to New Mexico.  4: The US would pay off
Texas' pre-annexation war debts.  5: Slavery could not be abolished in DC
without the consent of Maryland and without compensation of slave owners
there.  6: Slave trade was prohibited in DC, selling, not owning.  7: a
Strict, national fugitive slave law would be adopted.  8: Congress would
declare that it did not have jurisdiction over the insterstate slave trade.

While this compromise yielded to the north on almost all of the specific
issues, at the same time it strengthened the institution of slavery and
provided protections much desired by southerners.

Clay was so sickly that he could not defend his plan in the Senate.  He had
JAmes M. Mason of VA read his speech as he sat wrapped in a great cloak.
In the speach he suggested to the north that if they would not yield to the
compromise, 'let the states...agree to separate and part in peace.  If you
are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know what
to do...'

Daniel Webster, the greatest leader of all the northern senators saw a need
for compromise, and applied his skills as the greatest orator of the age
and the strongest support of the union to support the compromise.  He
opened his speech saying, 'Peacable secession!  Heaven forbid!  Where is
the flag of the republic to remain?  where is the eagle still to tower?'
He closed his speech pleading for the union, saying, 'When my eyes shall be
turned to behold for the last time the sun in the heaven, may I not see him
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on
States dissevered, discordant, belligerent: on a land rent with civil
feuds, or drenched in fraternal blood!  Let their last feeble and lingering
glance rather be on the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and
honored throughout the earth, still full high and advanced, its arms and
trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or
polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its
motto...that...sentiment dear to every true American heart--Liberty and
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!'

Webster was from Massachusetts and had been an anit-slavery advocate, but
his wilingness to support the compromise lost him much respect and caused
dissension and breakdown in the whig party.  It was thought that he had
sacrificed his honor for the union.  After his death Whittier wrote, 'All
else is gone;/ from those great eyes/ the soul has fled;/ When faith is
los, when honor dies/ The man is dead.'  Webster had been the great orator
and the great northern voice of reason, and many who wanted to follow in
his footsteps resented his legacy of support for compromise with the south
right before his death.  When Webster died he was replaced with Charles
Sumner who remained in the senate for 23 years and was a leading
anti-slavery advocate.

Both Clay and Webster knew that they were to die shortly, and they hoped to
leave behind a surviving union as their legacy.  The main objection of the
northern states was to the new fugitive slave law, but with Clay and
Webster about to die, a relative newcommer, Stephen Douglas of IL took
over, and pushed the bill to completion, aided by the death of President
Taylor and the succession of VP Millard Fillmore who was a Free Soiler, but
favored compromise.

The Fugitive Slave Bill was the most flawed and controversial element of
the compromise, providing southern slave owners with the right to enter
free states and territories to retrieve their slaves, and including
provisions which denied slaves jury trials and the right to testify in
their own behalf, and which paid commissioners judging escaped slaves $10
for a conviction but only $5 for an acquittal.

In protest against the fugitive slave law many northern states passed
'Personal Liberty Laws', that allowed legal counsel and jury trials to
fugitive slaves before they could be extradited.  Northern blacks also
spoke up, particularly Frederick Douglass, who said, 'This reproach must be
wiped out, and nothing short of resistence on the part of the colored man,
can wipe it out.  Every slavehunter who meets a bloody death in his
infernal business, is an argument in favor of the manhood of our race.'  In
one case, an escaped Slave named Shadrach was rescued by a mob in Boston
when slave takers tried to apprehend him.  In another at the trial of a
slave named Anthony Burns the US army had to send 1000 troops to augement
Boston police and prevent mob violence.  When Burns was taken  back to the
south he was sold to a friendly master who sold Burns to the people of
Boston.  All told the trial and returning Burns to the south cost the US
Government $100,000.  Later, in 1859 the Supreme Court would declare the
Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional in the case Ableman v. Booth, and this
became one of the main causes cited by the south for starting the Civil
War.

Despite the compromise many northerners remained firm in their resolve to
resist the extension and even the survival of slavery wherever they could.
At the same time there were southerners who believed that no compromise
could save the union.  John C. Calhoun said, 'It is a great mistake to
suppose that disunion can be effected by a single blow.  The cords which
bind these states together in one common Union are far too numerous and
powerful for that.  Disunion must be the work of time.'

Nonetheless, with california admitted as a free state, New Mexico and Utah
also followed as free states, Texas was satisfied to lose $10 million in
war debts, and for a time, at least, the union was preserved.  Webster
expressed satisfaction, and said, 'You would suppose that nobody had ever
thought of disunion. All say that they always meant to stand by the Union
to the last.'  Douglas said, 'I have resolved never to make another speach
on the slavery question.  Let us cease agitating, stop the debate, and drop
the subject.'  Clay died within two weeks of the approval of the
compromise.  Webster died several months later.  With Webster and Clay
dead, the Whig party fell apart after the election of 1852.  Southern Whigs
moved into the democratic party, while northern Whigs regrouped with the
Free Soil Party to form the Republican party.


SLAVERY & SOCIETY

In the wake of the great compromise, John C. Calhoun made the rather
pompous and self-righteous pronouncement that: 'The agitation against
slavery has produced one happy effect at least; it has compelled us in the
south to look into the nature and character of this great institution, and
to correct many false impressions that even we had entertained in relation
to it.  Many in the south once believed that it was a moral and policial
evil; that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light,
and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in he
world.'

At the same time, northerners like Richard Hildreth still saw slavery as
'Aristocracies of the most odious kind, where extremes meet.  Ferocity of
temper, idleness, improvidence, drunkenness, gambling--these are vices for
which the masters are distinguished, and these same vices are conspicuous
traits in the characters and conducts of the slaves.'  The masters seemed
to be be passing on their corruption to the slaves they owned.

The main reason for slavery was economic.  Cotton was becoming increasingly
important in the southern economy, and with limited industrial growth in
the south it was necessary for southerners to fight to preserve the
profitability of their plantations and mills.

The price of slaves had trippled from $600 to $1800 for a field hand
between 1820 and 1860., but at the same time, the value of crops produced
increased by an even greater margin, from $15 to $125.

England, America and most other nations had outlawed the international
slave trade by the 1830s, so no new slaves were coming to America, except
for occasional illegal shipments from Africa.  Nonetheless, there was a
large internal slave trade.  Mississipi was growing as a cotton producer,
and in the 1820s and 30s some 10,000 slaves per year were moved into
Mississipi until its black population exceeded its white population.  There
were some 50 slave dealers in Charleston in 1850 and 200 in New Orleans.
Two of the largest, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield would buy up slaves in
the increasingly industrialized states of Virginia and Maryland, and trade
them south.  When they retired these partners had build up over $1 million
in savings from their profits.  Although slave traders were generally
despised, they were appreciated more in the south as the price of slaves
rose, and though they tore apart black families, separating husbands, wives
and children, their trade in human misery was increasingly profitable in
the 1850s and 1860s.

With expense increasing, slave ownership became more limited.  By the time
of th civil war only 1 in four white families owned slaves at all in the
south.  Only 254 people owned more than 200 slaves.  Only 46,000 of the 8
million whites in the south owned 20 or more slaves.  Slave plantations
worked best with 1-2000 acres, but most farms in the south had only 1-200
acres.

Conditions were much better for slaves among the poorer farmers than they
were on the plantations.  These farmers who owned only 1 or 2 slaves worked
with them in the fields and treated them almost like family members in many
cases.  Most of these farms were in the poorer land of the western
mountains, while the fertile valleys were dominated by the plantations.
One northerner, Frederick Olmsted, reported on conditions in these small
farming communities: 'The majority of dwellings are small log cabins of one
room, with another separatecabin for a kitchen; each house has a well, and
a garden enclosed with palings.  Cows, goats, mules and swine, fowls and
doves are abundant.  The people are more social than those of the lower
country, falling readily  into friendly conversation...They are very
ignorant, the agriculture is wretched and the work hard.  I have seen three
white women hoeing field crops today.  A spinning wheel is heard in every
house...everyone wears homespun.  The negroes have much more individual
freedom than in the rich cotton country, and are not infrequently heard
singing or whistling at their work.'

Nonetheless, these farmers who didn't grow cotton or rice and barely got by
supported slavery.  They worked hard and felt entitled to own slaves and to
buy more if they could afford them.  When approached to buy 'A Bible
Defense of Slavery', one Red River farmer replied, 'Now you go to hell!
I've told you free times I didn't want your book...I own niggers: and I
calculate to own more of 'em, but I don't want any damned preaching about
it.'

The real plantation class was probably only the 8000 or so people who owned
50 or more slaves.  Not all lived the grand life found in 'Gone with the
Wind', but enough did to leave that legacy.  Susan Dabney Smedes wrote of
her father's plantation, 'Managing a plantation was something like managing
a kingdom.  The ruler had need of great store, not only of wisdom, but of
tact and patience as well.'  Many slave owners, like Mr. Dabney tried to
treat their slaves well and fairly to justify the exalted life they lived
off the wealth earned for them by their slaves.  The system was essentially
paternalistic, but it remained a business.

Well managed plantations yielded 10% or more pure profit each year.  The
average slave produced $78 in cotton a year and cost only $32 to house,
feed and clothe.  Further profits were eaten up by the cost of
transportation, with it costing $2.85 per bale to get the cotton to the
coast and $15 to ship it to Europe.  Much of the profit of slavery ended up
being made by shipping magnates in New York and Boston who shipped cotton
to market and sold imported goods in the south.

By 1860 there were some 4 million blacks in the US.  Because of poor diet
(mostly corn and pork) slaves were prone to disease, and their rate of
infant mortality was twice that among whites.  Their life expectancy was
about 5 years less as well.  The way to make profits from slavery was to
provide minimum sustenance and demand maximum labor.

Slaves had no rights.  Marriages had no legal status, but they developed
strong, loving families nonetheless, and many masters tried to keep
families together when they could.  Their religion, a mixture of
Christianity and African beliefs, was introduced to keep slaves docile,
but also taught them their own self-worth and that it was possible to
enslave the body, but not the soul.  Nearly every observer commented that
slaves were lazy.  As George Washington said, 'When an overlooker's back is
turned, the most of them will slight their work or be idle together.'
Because of this the overlooker's  back was rarely turned.

Slaves often seemed to be happy and peaceful, and they were rarely
rebellious.  Notable exceptions to this include the Vessey Slave Plot in
1822 and Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 where 57 whites were killed before
the rebellion was suppressed.  Runaway slaves were hunted down with
bloodhounds and then whipped mercilessly whecaptured.  In general only
older slaves were freed, once they had lost their usefulness.  People felt
that the sight of 'a vile and lazy free negro lolling in the sun-shine'
might make slaves dissatisfied.

White slave-owning society was amazingly corrupt.  They led dissolute lives
and set terrible examples for the slaves.  As much as 8% of the slave
population had white fathers.  Slave owners were often brutal, self-deluded
and self-destructive.  Mark Twain once commented on seeing a slave clubbed
to death by an overseer that 'Nobody in the village approved of that
murder, but of course, no one said much about it...considerable sympathy
was felt for the slave's owner, who had been bereft of valuable property by
a worthless person who was not able to pay for it.  The nature of the
institution put no restraint on whites and fed any sickness or brutality or
temper which they had.  One georgian commented, 'You can manage ordinary
Niggers by lickin' 'em and by givin' 'em a taste of hot iron once in a
while when they're extra ugly.  But if a nigger ever sets himself up
against me, I can't never have any patience with him.  I gjust get my
pistol and shoot him right down; and that's the best way.

In this period, when the overwhelming majority of slaves were native born
in america, their awareness of their situation and their place in the world
began to increase as the conditions under which they lived continued to be
abhorent.

Frederick Douglass described one of his worst experiences as a slave: 'If
at any one time of my life more than any other, I was made to drink the
bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first siz months of my
stay with Mr. Covey.  We were worked in all weathers.  It was never too hot
or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail or snow too hard for us to
work in the field.  Work, work, work, was scarecely more the order of the
day than of the night.  The longest days were too short for him and the
shortest nights too long for him.  I was somewhat unmanageable when I first
went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me.  Mr. Covery
succeeded in breaking me.'

Of course, Douglass was never really broken and later became free and a
great champion of black rights.  Later Douglass commented, 'beat andcuff
the slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of
his master like a dog, but feed and clothe him well, work him moderately
and surround him with physical comfort, and dreams of freedom will intrude.
Give him a bad master and he aspires to a good master.  Give him a good
master and he wishes to bedome his own master.'

Another former slave, Paul Dunbar wrote a more colloquial expression of the
misery of slaves:

    A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in
    A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
    A pint of joy and a peck of trouble,
    And never a laugh but the moans come double:
    And that is life!

Slaves boasted among themselves on their ability to avoid work and to
escape punishment or their ability to endure the worst the master could
dish out.  Many turned to religion.  As one ex-slave recalled, 'we prayed
for the day of freedom.  We come from four and five miles to pray to gether
to god that if we don't live to see it, please let our children live to see
a better day and be free.'  Slave religion was lightened by music and
singing, and most slave songs share the common theme of yearning for a
better life.  One song went:

    I know the moon-rise, I know star-rise,
      Lay this body down
    I walk in the moonlight, I walk in the starlight,
      Lay this body down
    I'll walk in the graveyard, I'll walk through the graveyard,
      To lay this body down.
    I'll lie in the grave and stretch out my arms;
      Lay this body down.

When he first heard this song during the civil war, one union officer
commented, 'Never, since men first lived and suffered, was his infinite
longing for peace uttered more plaintively than in that line.'

Not all slaves were content to lie down and just long for peace and
freedom.  The violence with which slaves were kept in place was eventually
met with violence from the slaves themselves.

In the period after the Slave Revolution in Haiti in the 1790s, for 40
years there were frequent small slave rebellions, most involving fewer than
25 slaves.

The first of major uprising was the Gabriel Plot outside Richmond in 1800.
Slaves armed themselves and gathered to march on the city.  An informant
turned them in, and Gabriel and 30others were hanged.

In 1822 Denmark Vesey, a Charleston freedman, organized another rebellion
which was betrayed and led to 40 hangings.

The most significant uprising was led by Nat Turner.  He was a slave
preacher who led followers on a string of killings through Southhampton
County Va in 1831, killing 57 whites.  Most of the rebels were massacred by
a white mob army as well as over 100 blacks, many of them not connected
with the rebellion at all.  Turner remained at large for almost a month,
but was eventually hanged.

In response to Turner's rebellion fear of blacks and especially of free
blacks increased in the south, and the white populace became increasingly
wary and armed itself to deal with insurrection.  Measures included arming
police with cannons filled with grapeshot, and offering a huge bounty for
the death of men like Frederick Douglass.

Slave resistence also took other, more subtle forms, including women faking
pregnancy for up to 11 months to avoid working, and sit-down strikes at
many plantations.

Meanwhile Garrison and his abolitionists continued to agitate and northern
laborers continued to resent competition for slave labor, and despite the
compromise of 1850 America continued to steer a course for civil war.


SOUTHERN EXPANSIONISM

Hoping to affirm the power granted to slaveholders in the Fugitive Slave
Act, southern slave holders actively sought to make examples of runaways in
the stronghold of the northern states.

A black New Yorker, James Hamlet, was seized and rushed off to slavery in
Maryland without benefit of a trial.  His neighbors bought  back this free
black man for $800.  In 1851, Euphemia Williams who had been free for years
and living in Pennsylvania, was seized by a man claiming to own her and her
6 children, all of whom were born and raised in a free state.  A federal
judge released Mrs. Williams,  but it aroused concern and ire in the north.

The growing body of northern abolitionists were more than ready to shatter
the fugitive slave law wherever they could.  They took an active role,
forming 'Vigilance Committees' to protect free blacks and escaped slaves,
forcing slave takers to head home empty handed.  They circulated warning
posters in black communities, and organized mobs to rescue suspected
escaped slaves who were captured.

Although about 300 slaves were returned to their owners under the Fugitive
Slave Act, its main effect was to create outrage in both the south and the
north, and to expose more white northerners to the excesses of southern
slave society in the form of slave takers who would just as soon kidnap
suspected slaves as follow the process of law.  The south was outraged
because mobs and vigilance committees made the act unenforcable, for them
the reality of the situation was as unendurable as the potential of the act
was to northerners.

At the height of this controversy Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the
earthshaking novel, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, which was published in 1852.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was not a trained writer, nor was she an
abilitionist, but the Fugitive Slave Act and the plight of blacks under
slavery had aroused her emptions, and she dashed off a very controversial
novel in a matter of weeks.  UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was an instant success.
10,000 Copies sold in a week and 300,000 in the first year.  It was made
into plays and translated into dozens of languages, and became the best
selling book of the 19th Century.  The book was awkwardly written, but
appealed to a larger audience that abolitionist tracts because of the
melodramatic story it told of little Eva, Uncle Tom and the evil Slave
Drive Simon Legree.  She was the first white writer to present slaves as
people and to write from their perspective.  Southerners claimed that her
picture of the south was distorted, and called her 'A coarse, ugly,
long-tongued woman who tried to awaken rancorous hatred and malignant
jealousies'.  They claimed that almost no plantations were as bad as the
one she presented, but northerners decided that if even one master were as
cruel as Simon Legree then slavery was an excess.  The book touched the
heart of millions who were not reached by the rantings of abolitionists and
forced them to question slavery.

The late 1840s had been a period of conflict and revolution in Europe, and
Americans had great sympathy for what they hoped would be democratic
revolutions overseas.  Horace Greeley predicted that 'We shall soon be one
great ans spelendid Republic...and we shall all be citizens of the world.'
When the Hungarian revolutionary Louis Kossuth visited the US, President
Fillmore put the USS Mississipi at his disposal, though actual American aid
to his cause was more show than substance.  The Young America movement
developed in this period, led by George N. Sanders, who hoped that American
involvement in a European conflict would divert attention from growing
domestic difficulties.

More practical men saw this as a time to take advantage of the weakness of
the european powers to expand American territory and power.  Expansionism
was strongest in the south, where many believed that to balance out the
increasing proportion of free states in the union it would be necessary to
expand American territory southward in lands which were naturally suited to
the introduction of slavery, even though Slavery had been abolished in the
various Spanish colonies more than a century before.

In 1851 a group of Americans led by Colonel William Crittenden allied with
a group of exiled Cubans led by General Narciso Lopez.  Their plan was to
invade Cuba, which they felt was on the verge of revolution against Spain.
They hoped that Cuba could be annexed to the US as another state.  They
issued bonds to fund the expedition and gathered volunteers in New Orleans.
Although both Presidents Fillmore and Pierce forbade the expedition and
guaranteed the safety of spanish property, the forces grew, drawn by the
promise of plunder.  The ship Pampero sailed from New Orleans with some 500
men in August of 1851.  The invasion was a terrible failure.  Lopez,
Crittendon and most of their men were shot or executed by the Spanish.  162
prisoners, about half of them american, were sent to Spain.  When news of
what had happened reached New Orleans, a mob attacked the Spanish consulate
there, tore up the spanish flag and mutillated a portrait of the Queen of
Spain.  Congress ended up having to pay $25,000 in restitution and the
American prisoners were freed.

The southern desire for Cuba, which they hoped to make into 3 or 4 new
slave states did not abate.  In 1854 Pierre Soule, the US ambassador to
Spain met with James Buchanan and John Mason, the ambassadors to England
and France, in Ostend, Belgium.  There they authored the Ostend Manifesto,
which demanded that in order to preserve slavery the US must obtain Cuba,
and that if Spain were not willing to sell Cuba, then 'By every law human
and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess
the power'.  Although Soule had  been authorized by President Pierce to
offer $130 Million to buy Spain, if necessary, when news of the Ostend
Manifesto leaked out, northern opinion was outraged by this 'slaveholder's
plot' and the clandestine nature of the plan, and President Pierce had to
call off plans to obtain Cuba, disavow the manifesto and fire Soule.

'General' George W. L. Bickley of Texas, organized a society called the
Knights of the Golden Circle in the 1850s, made up of southerners and
particularly Texans, this was a secret organization with the goal of
expanding slave territory by gathering an army and invading Mexico, to
correct what Bickley called 'that crookedest of boundary lines, the Rio
Grande.'  Bickley planned to divide Mexico up into 25 new Slave States.
Although Bickley aroused a lot of southern sentiment he was never able to
gather enough men to mount a successful invasion, though he made several
abortive attempts with bands of young Texas volunteers.

The most successful of all the would-be southern dictators was William
Walker, who southerners called 'The Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny'.  Walker had
been a lawyer, a doctor and a newspaper editor, but mostly he wanted to be
a king or a dictator.  He had conquered southern California in 1853 and
made himself president for life there, though his regime had fallen apart
and he was tried in San Francisco for violating neutrality laws, though he
was acquitted.  Walker still wanted to rule, and Nicaragua was a
particularly attractive target, because it was the route by which migrants
to California were crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the
proposed site of an Anglo-American canal.  In 1854 Walker, as an agent for
an American company, attempted to start a business transporting migrants
across Nicaragua to be shipped to California, in competition with Cornelius
Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company.  While there, Walker made friends
with revolutionary elements in the country, and in 1855 he invaded and
conquered Nicaragua with fewer than 100 men, mostly southern volunteers,
plus some local support and a good bit of southern money.  Walker
established himself as president of Nicaragua, and his government was
recognized by the US.  He remained in power until 1859, when Nicaraguan
rebels, financed by Vanderbilt and supported by Vanderbilt's private
gunship, forced him out of office.  He fled the country, burning Managua to
the ground as he left, and swearing to return.  Walker continued to attempt
invasions for the next year, until in 1860 he was captured by a British
ship, which turned him over to the Honduran government which promptly had
him shot.

At the same time, the north had dreams of expansion, though the common plan
in the north was to eliminate slavery forever in central America and the
Carribean, by transporting freed slaves to these areas to set up their own
independed colonies and 'build up a free black power' base to make slavery
expansion impossible.


BLOODY KANSAS--BLOODY SUMNER

The great emerging political figure of the 1850s was Stephen Douglas, the
senator from Illinois, who had pushed through the Compromise of 1850 and
taken on the mantle of Webster and Clay as an orator, leader and
compromiser.

Douglas had been a successful lawyer in Chicago and had made a fortune in
real estate.  He was short, but had sunken eyes, a high forehead and a
powerful body, so his friends called him 'The Little Giant'.  He said, 'I
live with my constituents, drink with them, lodge with them, pray with
them, laugh, hunt, dance and work with them.  I eat their corn dodgers and
fried bacon, and sleep in a bed with them.'

His main issues were expansion, union, and popular sovreignty.  He was also
one of the great supporters of the idea of a Transcontinental Railway, and
had helped create the Transcontinental Railway Survey, which was undertaken
in 1853 by the Army, and resulted in the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico to
secure a southern route around the Rockies in 1854.

Douglas said of the railroads, 'No one can keep up with the spirit of this
age who travels on anything slower than the locomotive, and fails to
reveive intelligence by lightning.  We must therefore have Rail Roads and
Telegraphs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through our own territory.
Not one line, but many lines...the removal of the Indian barrier and the
extension of the laws of the United States in the form of Territorial
governments are the first steps towards the accomplishment of each and all
of those objects.'

Douglas had also supported the annexation of Oregon, and had been willing
to go to war over it, and he was a strong supporter of the war with Mexico.
He was convinced that arguments over slavery in the territory were a waste
of effort and that natural conditions would keep slavery out of the west.

Douglas, at only 38 set out to become president in 1852.  He despised the
other two democratic candidates, James Buchanan and Lewis Cass.  During the
election, Douglas was fond of saying, 'By God Sir, I made James Buchanan,
and by God, sir, I will unmake him!".  Because of the rivalries between the
three men, the Democratic convention chose a dark horse, Franklin Pierce,
who ran against the Whig nominee General Winfield Scott who was called 'Old
Fuss and Feathers' because he dressed so well, and the Democrats won
easily.  This large victory seemed to assure success and cohesion, but the
large southern majority in congress led to dissatisfaction in the north and
conflict continued.

Franklin Pierce was a weak president, unable to use his considerable
intelligence and talents effectively.  He tried to balance off the factions
in the government and succeeded only in alienating both sides.

In January of 1854, Douglas introduced the Nebraska act in congress, which
organized the land west of Missouri and Iowa as the Nebraska Territory.
Settlers were beginning to move into the area, and Douglas felt that it was
necessary to start a government quickly so that the Illinois Central Rail
Road, of which he as a director, could move in quickly and safely.  Douglas
hoped to see two or three transcontinental rail lines, but the south wanted
to send the first line south, through the Gadsden purchase, not north
through Nebraska.  The powerful southern faction in congress also objected
to the Nebraska Act,  because Nebraska was north of the Missouri Compromise
line, and would presumably become another free state.

Douglas agreed to divide the territory in half, and make the southern half
Kansas and the northern half Nebraska.  He suggested that the slave status
of the territories could be left up to the voters there under his principle
of popular sovreignty.  It was clear that Nebraska would be a free state,
and Douglas suspected that this meant that Kansas would also vote for
freedom, because the climate was unsuited to plantation farming, though
southerners assumed it would become a slave state, and planned to take
measures to assure that.  Thus, the bill became the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Douglas had miscalculated northern sentiment.  Popular sovreignty was just
fine as long as it was a way to let southern territories vote against
slavery, but when it allowed territory that had been free for 34 years the
option of becoming slave territory it was far less popular in the north.
This caused many moderates to become more radical in their opposition to
slavery.  The Kansas-Nebraska act was denounced as 'a gross violation of a
sacred pledge'.  Opponents, Salmon Chase and Charles Sumner described it
as, 'A criminal betrayal of precious rights...part and parcel of an
atricious plot to exclude from a vast and unoccupied region immigrants from
the Old World and free laborers from our own states, and convert it into a
dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.'  When douglas
tried to defend his position members of his own party hooted him off the
platform and crowds menaced him in the streets.  Nonetheless, the bill
passed with southern support in congress.

To some degree Douglas was correct.  There was no effort in Nebraska to
form a slave state.  However, the situation was much more difficult in
Kansas.

Most of the settlers in Kansas were slaveless farmers, with little love for
southerners, slavery or blacks, expressing the opinion, 'I came to Kansas
to live in a Free State.  I don't want niggers a- tramping over my grave.'

To insure that Kansas would be free, abolitionists organized the New
England Emigrant Aid Society to encourage anti-slavery settlers to move to
Kansas.  In response, when an election for a territorial representative was
scheduled in 1854, a large number of Missourians temporarily migrated to
Kansas to participate in the election.  These 5000 Border Ruffians voted to
send a pro-slavery man to congress.  Somehow 6307 votes were cast when
there were only 2905 eligible voters.  They also elected a pro-slavery
legislature, which prohibited abolitionist agitation and adopted a
territorial slave code.  President Pierce made matters worse by supporting
this questionable government against the Free State Government in Topeka.

In May the pro-slavery settlers took the offensive and sacked the
antislavery town of Lawrence, burning the hotel, destroying homes and
smashing a free-soil printing press.  In response, a Free Soiler named John
Brown retaliated.  In May of 1856, with his four sons and three friends, he
snuck into the pro-slavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek at night,
dragged five settlers from their homes and murdered them.  This slaughter
brought hundreds of men to arms, and sent armed men roaming the countryside
in bands, so that eventually 200 people had lost their lives and 2 million
dollars had been done in damages.  Brown went into hiding, but 'Bleeding
Kansas' became the issue of the day, as settlers armed themselves and even
brought in cannons to defend the major settlements.

Matters only got worse under President Buchanan.  In 1857 the pro-slavery
Kansans passed a state constitution at Lecompton.  The Free Soil population
refused to participate in this constitutional convention, but they went
ahead and submitted the Lecompton Constitution to the president.  Buchanan
sent it on to congress.  Douglas convinced the congress to reject the
constitution, and meanwhile a new Kansas Legislature had met and rejected
the Lecompton Constitution as well by a 6-1 margin, even though they had
been told that if they did not approve it they would have to wait until the
population of the territory reached 90,000 to be admitted to the union.
They went on to pass an anti-slavery constitution at Wyandotte in October
of 1859, but it was not until the Civil War that Kansas was admitted as a
state.

The violence in Kansas was mirrored by violence in the senate itself.  When
the young abolitionist senator Charles Sumner spoke out strongly against
Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, referring to his affair with 'that
harlot slavery', reaction was swift and harsh.  At the end of the speech
Douglas commented that 'That damn fool will get himself killed by some
other damn fool.'  Two days later, Butler's Nephew, Congressman Preston
Brooks, broke into the floor of the senate, and repeatedly clubbed Sumner
over the head with a heavy cane, in full view of the Senate.  As he said
later, 'I gave him about 30 first-rate stripes...towards the last, he
bellowed like a calf.  I wore my cane out completely, but saved the head,
which is gold.'  Sumner was only mildly scarred physically, but the mental
and emotional damage of the attack was such that it kept him out of
congress for years.  There is some speculation that he may have received
some brain damage, and thereafter he had a tendancy to twitch and flinch,
reminding other northerners of his martyrdom.

A Richmond editorial said of the incident...'Mr. Brooks has initiated this
salutory discipline, and he deserves applause for the bold judicious manner
in which he chastised the scamp Sumner.  It was a proper act, done at the
proper time, and at the proper place.'

Southern well-wishers sent Brooks new canes to replace the one he had
broken on Sumner's head.  Northerners saw this as an example of the
brutality which the slave system instilled in southerners.  Sumner was a
martyr to the north and an example of justice to the south, but the
incident was a cause of escalating friction.


THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Whig party broke up after the election of 1852 and the Democratic party
was increasingly influenced by the south, alienating many traditional
Jacksonian democrats.

The American Party emerged in 1852, and came to be known as the
'Know-Nothing Party'.  They were in opposition to catholic immigrants and
attracted many who hoped that this issue might deflect attention from
slavery.  They became known as the Know Nothings, because they had secret
handshakes and kept their meetings secret.  Members when questioned were
expected to 'know nothing'

Enemies of Know Nothingism emerged, among them Abraham Lincoln who had been
a Whig, but eventually joined the new Republican Party.

Lincoln wrote in 1855:

'I am not a know nothing.  That is certrtain.  How could I be?  Our
progress in degeneracy seems to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began
by declaring that 'all men are created equal'.  We know practically read
it, 'all men are created equal, except Negroes.'  When the Know Nothings
get control, it will read 'all men are created equal except negroes and
foreigners and catholics'.  When it comes to this, I should prefer
emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving
liberty...'

The Know Nothings lost many followers in 1854 when the party voted to
support the Kansas- Nebraska Act.

Out of disaffected members of all these other parties the Republican Party
was formed in 1854, including many Know Nothings, Whigs, Free Soilers and
northern Democrats.  Republicans opposed the extension of slavery as their
main issue, though most of them had little love of negroes or any concrete
desire to see them freed immediately.  As time went by and issues
crystalized, the Republicans were to become increasingly radical.  In its
first year, the Republican PArty won 100 seats in congress and control of
many state governments, leaving it in the minority, but still a force to be
reckoned with.

Another development which widened the gap between north and south was the
Dredd Scott Decision in the supreme Court in 1857.

Dredd Scott was a slave who had traveled with his master to the free
territory of Wisconsin from Misouri, and claimed to be free under the laws
of Wisconsin.  After the death of his master, Scott got a lawyer, and went
to court.  In his decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney practiced amazing
double think in declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, and
insisting that Scott was not free, using the Bill of Rights as a
justification, because it would violate the rights of the master to deprive
him of his property, the slave.

Taney wrote, 'An Act of Congress which deprives a person of his liberty or
property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a
particular territory could hardly be dignified with the name of due process
of law.'

This ironic decision to use the Bill of Rights to deprive a black man of
his rights, was seen as an outrage in the north andcalled 'the greatest
crime in the judicial annals of the republic'.  Buchanan's support for the
decision only fueled the fires of dissatisfaction with his administration
and the situation in the country.


REPUBLICAN PARTY

Following the Kansas-Nebraska act, America was divided, torn apart by anger
and uncertainty.  Northerners were becoming increasingly opposed to
slavery, while southerners clung more and more desperately to the
institution which made their southern culture unique.

In this atmosphere the south became increasingly paranoid.  Southerners
followed the belief of Jefferson that agriculture was the natural and
proper pursuit for Americans, but they saw that the north was prospering
enormously from its industry, while southern agriculture was becoming less
and less profitable.  This was seen as an evil and unnatural condition.

Many southerners thought that northern bankers from New York were in
conspiracy to destroy them economically, for these were the investors who
were profiting from shipping southern cotton.  Southerners saw the slippery
yankee merchants as cheating and deceiving the honorable and innocent
southern farmer, bleeding off the great cotton wealth of the south.  They
accused northern merchants of exacting outrageous profits as middlemen,
rigging prices and of manipulating the money market to southern detriment.

One Virginian wrote that the price of southern land was 'dependent upon the
speculative pleasure of the merchants, bankers and brokers of New York.
And why?  Because Wall Street can depress the money market when it
pleases.'  One Mississipian commented that the south had fallen into a
condition of 'serfdom, ' to become 'the sport and laughing stock of Wall
Street.'

Southerners also believed that northern interests had the federal
government in their pockets because of their wealth and political strength.
Northern wealth and population were steadily growing, and the south, which
never changed, could not keep up.  Senator William Toombs expressed the
fear of northern domination of the government when he said, 'The Northern
States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it to their own benefit,
and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily
pursued that policy to this day.'

They felt that the government subsidized northern industry and granted it
monopolies, giving it complete control over shipbuilding and international
trade.  Toombs described the federal treasury as 'a perpetual fertilizing
stream to them and their industry, and a suction-pump to drain away our
substance and parch up our lands.'

To the southerner the north seemed to  becoming to dominate America more,
with the growing west seeming to be part of the north, and as the south
declined to be a minority saddled with a peculiar, treasured institution
which the north seemed to hate, they became more and more isolated and
alienated from the union, socially, economically and politically.

    Further terror was brought to the south with the emergence of the
Republican party.  Northerners were politically divided between those
indifferent to slavery, those economically devoted to it, like New York
merchants, those in favor of colonization, and those for abolition.
Politically they were a mess, with no political leadership.  Some adhered
to the Free Soil Party, some to the Know Nothing Party, some to the dying
Whig party, and there were even some disaffected northern democrats who had
been squeezed out of their own party by southerners.

The final split in the democratic party and the impetus for new unity came
from the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by President Pierce in 1854.
Anti-Nebraska sentiment exploded in demonstrations, and Stephen Douglas
commented that he could Travel from Washington to Chicago, his way lit by
the light of his burning effigies.

In February of 1854 Anti-Nebraska whigs and democrats met together in
Rippon Wisconsin, only 2 weeks after the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill.  At a later meeting at Jackson, MI, the party- name 'Republican' was
selected.

The republican party grew quickly, and as time passed and the democratic
party became increasingly dominated by the south, the Republican party
emerged as a northern unity party and began to be taken seriously and
attract established politicians who could no longer cling to their old
party allegiances.  Thurlow Weed brought the entire New York Whig party
over to the Republicans when he came in 1855, and Salmon Chase, the Whig
Governor of Ohio joined the republican party, as did his democratic rival
in Ohio, Benjamin Wade.  Wade and Chase disliked each other, but they hated
slavery more.  In 1856, at their national convention a large wing of the
Know-Nothing Party decided to defect to the republicans.  By the end of the
election of 1856 almost all of the northern state governments were
Republican and the republicans had taken 100 seats in congress.

In the election of 1856 the Republicans were influenced by Whig tradition
to nominate a soldier for the presidency, selecting John C. Fremont, the
'Pathfinder of the West', who had opened up California to American
settlement.

Fremont ran on an anti-slavery, and was defeated by the Democrat, James
Buchanan, an undistinguished northerner who made no real stand on slavery,
endorsing popular sovreignty.  Many viewed Buchanan as a 'Doe-Face', a
northerner who was soft on slavery, because he seemed to be a northerner in
service of the largely southern Democratic Party.  However, Fremont won all
but 5 of the free states, and had he won Pennsylvania and its large
electoral votes, he would have won t he election.

The uncertainty in a nation torn between south and north was intensified by
an economic crisis in 1857, a panic kicked off by the failure of the Ohio
Life Insurance and Trust Company, followed by widespread foreclosures,
bankruptcies and unemployment.

The Panic of 1857 hit northern investors and industries particularly hard,
particularly the railroad industry with its large demand for capital.
Seeing that the non-industrial south passed through the crisis relatively
unscathed, many northerners blamed the panic on a 'slave power conspiracy'.
Southerners responded to accusations with infuriating smugness, replying
that their form of slave economy was superior to the economies of the
panic-stricken north and european nations.

The panic was relatively brief, but it gave the Republican party economic
issues to focus on in the next election, and they attracted many laborers
and farmers who were indifferent to slavery, but cared a lot about the
economy.  With the rise of the republicans as a serious party the south
became even more alarmed.


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES

Stephen Douglas had broken with Buchanan over Kansas and Buchanan's
policies of compromising with the south, and the Democratic party was
split.  Many saw Douglas as the only hope of unity.  Douglas was up for
reelection to the senate in 1858, and great publica attention focused on
the senatorial election of 1858 in Illinois.  This brought attention not
only to Douglas, but to his virtually unknown opponenet, Abraham Lincoln.

The Republicans were certain that they would have no chance of beating
Douglas in his home state, so they wanted to put forward the candidate who
would express their ideas best and catch the public imagination.  The tall
lawyer and former congressman from Springfield was the ideal figure to
catch the public eye, and the Illinois Senate RAce of 1858 became the
launching board for the Republican party and Abe Lincoln as well.

Lincoln was born in 1809 in Kentucky.  His father Thomas was an illiterate
frontier wanderer, and they moved west every few years, first to indiana
and eventually to settle in Illinois.  Poor and on the move, Abe received
almost no formal education, but he had a good mind and was ambitious.  He
read voraciously and tried to roughly educate himself.  He left home and
travelled to New Orleans while he was still a teen, and returned to manage
a general store in New Salem, IL in 1830.  Even then at 23 he was
considering politics, though he was pragmatic when he said, 'If the good
people, in their wisdom, shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have
been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.'

Modesty aside, Lincoln was ambitious.  He won a seat in the state
legislature as a Whig in 1834, and studied law and was admitted to the bar
in 1836.  He led an undistinguished career in the state legizlature until
1842, voting the straight party line.  In 1846 he was elected to the
congress, though he maintained his law practice.  His single term in
congress was unremarkable, except for his opposition to Polk's Mexican War,
but he began to develop a reputation, not as a politician, but as an
eccentric and amazing character.  He was renowned as an axman and a
champion wrestler, for his tall tales and his bawdy sense of humor.  He was
at home with street toughs and high society.  He was enormously popular as
a person in Illinois and Washington, regardless of his politics.  More than
anything else he was respected for his honesty and integrity.  Lincoln's
party, friends and constituents knew they could count on him.

He was a complex man.  He did not drink, but was subject to fits of extreme
melancholy.  He once wrote in one of these phases, 'I am now the most
miserable man living.  If what I felt were equally distributed to the whole
human family, therw would not be one cheerful face on earth.'  In many ways
his behavior was a virtual casebook study of manic depression, though his
mood swings were never severe enough to disable him.

Lincoln was not really aroused politically until the issue of slavery
emerged with the Kansas- Nebraska Bill.  He had been more of a pragmatist
than an abolitionist, but by 1854 he began to see things more clearly, and
declared, 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.'  He never blamed
southerners for slavery, he confessed that 'They are just what we would be
in their situation', but after 'Bloody Kansas' he was convinced that
slavery must come to an end.

Lincoln confessed that he had no solution to the problem of slavery.  He
said, 'If all earthly power were given to me, I should not know what to do
as to the existing institution, but...this furnishes no more excuse for
permitting slavery to go into our free territory than it would for reviving
the African slave trade.'

Lincoln opened the senatorial election of 1858 by saying, 'A house divided
against itself cannot stand...I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free.'  After making this strong statement
at the state Republican convention, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series
of 7 debates around the state of Illinois.

Douglas admired Lincoln and agreed with him on many principles, but he
intended to win the election, and in his speeches he targetted Lincoln as a
radical whose ideas would lead to a 'war of extermination'.

Their oratorical approaches were very different.  Douglas was short and
stocky, Lincoln tall and lean.  Douglas gestured dramatically, Lincoln
stood still and spoke with sincerity.  Douglas dressed in the latest
fashion.  Lincoln wore ill-fitting, rumpled black suits.  Douglas travelled
in a carriage to the debates, Lincoln walked in the streets with his
supporters.  Both made a very striking impression in their own ways.

The speeches were kept at a high intellectual level, though they remained
very political.  Both men were against slavery in the territories, and both
believed blacks to be naturally inferior to whites.  Lincoln was actually
opposed to letting blacks sit on juries, vote and even be citizens.  He
said, 'I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way
the social and political equality of the white and black races.'  He did
believe in the 'ultimate extinction' of slavery, but believed that it would
happen in the natural course of things in 'a hundred years at the least.'

Lincoln was slightly more radical than Douglas, so Douglas accused him of
favoring racial equality and being an abolitionist.  Douglas was slightly
more conservative, so Lincoln tried to make him look like a supporter of
slavery.  Lincoln said in one debate, 'Slavery is an unqualified evil to
the negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the state.  Judge Douglas
is blowing out the moral light around us, when he contends that whoever
wants slaves has a right to hold them.'  In this he was grossly
misrepresenting Douglas' position,  but that was the nature of politics and
debate at the time, and both men worked hard to distort and confuse
people's perception of his oponnent.

In the debates they did manage to make their positions on slavery, the two
most popular perspectives among northerners, extremely clear.

In the debate at Alton, Lincoln said:

'The real issue in this controversy--the one pressing on every mind--is the
sentiment on the part of one class that looks on the institution of slavery
AS A WRONG, and of another class that DOES NOT look upon it as a wrong.
The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country
as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party...they look upon it as
being a moral, social and political wrong...and they insist that it should,
as far as may be, BE TREATED as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating
it as a wrong is TO MAKE provision that it shall grown not larger.'

Douglas replied:

'We ought to extend to the negro race...all the rights, all the priveleges,
and all the immunities which they can exercise consistently with the safety
of society...The question then arises, what are those priveleges, and what
is the nature and extent of them?  My answer is that that is a question
which each state musta answer for itself...if the people of all the states
will act on that great principle, and each state mind its own business,
attend to its own affairs, take care of its own negroes, and not meddle
with its neighbors, then there will be peace between the North and the
South, the East and the West, throughout the whole union.'

For Douglas the issue came down to states rights, and in the end Popular
sovreignty was a cop out, leaving slavery up to the individual states and
not really changing anything a position which was becoming increasingly
unacceptable to the north.

At first Douglas had the upper hand in the debates, bashing on Lincoln and
sidestepping his questions.  In the debate at Freeport, Lincoln managed to
corner Douglas on an issue and force him to take a stand which could be
attacked.  Lincoln asked Douglas if, considering the Dred Scott decision,
thre was any legal way the people of a territory could exclude slavery
BEFORE the territory became a state.  He hoped to make Douglas admit that
Popular Sovreignty was a dead issue as a result of the Dred Scott decision.

Douglas responded by saying that it could be done by those territories NOT
passing laws which were essential for keeping slaves in bondage.  He said,
'It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the
abstract question.  The people have the lawful means to introduce of
exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot
exist...unless it is supported by local police regulations.'  His
contention in this Freeport Doctrine was simple.  Slave owners would not
bring slaves into a territory where it could not be protected and slavery
would not be enforced by the government.  Therefore, that territory would
be effectively free.  Douglas defended states rights and Popular Sovreignty
to the end, and though it was practical and made sense, it lacked the
element of compassion and awareness of right and wrong which characterized
Lincoln's attitude when he made it clear that one did not have to like
blacks or treat them as equals to acknowledge that slavery was wrong for
anyone, no matter how inferior.

The Freeport Doctrine won Douglas the Illinois election, but ended up
losing him the presidential election in 1860, because it alienated the
southern wing of his party and led to a split Democrat vote which let the
unified republicans win the presidency.

Defeat in the senatorial election only brought Lincoln more public
attention, for he had been able to hold his own against the most powerful
and eloquent polititician of the time, and he was well prepared to face
Douglas two years later for the presidency.


HARPERS FERRY

Just as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 1858 clarified the positions of the
major parties, events in the following year served to further define the
division between north and south and move the nation towards crisis.

John Brown had led the raid on Pottawattamie Creek in Kansas in 1856 and
spurred the Bloody Kansas crisis which led to 200 deaths including those of
the 5 slave-holders he had murdered.  In 1859 he was still at large, still
a madman, still devoted to the cause of freedom, and the idea that he was
the messiah of the black race.  He was ready to take his second bloody blow
at the south.

In October of 1859, with 18 white and black followers he launched an attack
on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.  He planned to seize
the arsenal, turn the arms over to the slaves he believed would flock to
his side, and begin an uprising against the slaveholdres of virginia.

Brown and his men snuck into the town, overpowered a couple of night
watchmen and took control of the arsenal and a nearby rifle factory.  They
captured a number of hostages, including Colonel Lewis Washington,
president Washington's Great-Grandnephew.  Federal troops under command of
Robert E. Lee surrounded BRown in an engine house of the B&O railroad.
After a 2 day siege 10 of Browns men had been picked off by the attackers
and brown was captured.

Brown was a strange figure.  He had been a drifter, a horse thief, a
swindler and had failed at most things he attempted.  His grandmother, his
mother and five aunts and uncles were certifiably insane, as were two of
his children and many of his cousins.  Nonetheless, many northerners had
great faith in him, giving money and protection.  Among his supporters was
a group of anonymous Boston merchants called the 'Secret Six' who helped
divert funds for the Kansas settlers to let him buy guns. Brown may have
been mad, but he seemed rational, and he looked and spoke like an old
testament prophet, complete with bushy white beard.  Even after Brown was
captured they agitated for his liberation, and Emerson wrote that if he
were executed he would 'make the gallows as glorious as the cross.'

Brown's fate was in the hands of the Virginia courts, which charged him
with Treason, conspiracy and murder.  They swiftly tried him and sentenced
him to death.  Most leading republicans repudiated Brown and his legacy of
violence, but because Brown seemed so sane and went through his trial so
serenely, he was seen by many as a martyr, an image which he tried to
promote up until the moment of his death.

Before his sentecing, Brown announced, 'If it is deemed necessary that I
should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and
mingle my blood further with the blood of...millions in this slave country
whose rights are disregarded by wicket, cruel and unjust enactments, I say,
let it be done.'  As he was taken to the gallows he went on to say, 'The
crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.'

Although Brown seemed dangerous and was rejected by many northerners before
his death, the moment he was hanged as a martyr, he became a safe, dead,
hero to the north, and a focus around which to rally anti-southern
sentiment.

In reaction to Brown's raid, southerners went berserk, arresting, beating
and lynching visiting northerners.  Many states also made it illegal to
free slaves, banished free blacks, and began demanding that the African
slave trade be reopened.


ELECTION OF 1860

The frenzied reaction to John Brown's execution in both north and south
carried over into the congress, where a heated debate took place for two
months over who would be the new Speaker of the House.

The Republican choice was John Sherman of Ohio, but the Democrats blocked
Sherman, who would have been an excellent speaker, because he had endorsed
a book called THE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH before he had read it, and
it turned out to be an indictment of slavery on an economic and social
basis, written by a southerner, Hinton Helper, who calaled for immediate
emancipation for the good of the WHITE population of the south.  Sherman
didn't actually support Helper's position, but his premature endorsement of
the book forced the Republicans to offer the far inferior John Pennington
of New Jersey as Speaker of the House.

Pennington didn't have the skill or strength to control the congress, and
Jefferson Davis quickly took over and began making demands and issuing
manifestos on behalf of the southern elements in congress, demanding a
national slavecode, the abolishment of personal liberty laws, and a
declaration that laws against slavery were unconstitutional.  With his
activism, these resolutions were actually passed in congress, but the
extended debate over these issues caused such dissension within the
Democratic party that they lost the presidential election in he shuffle.

Stephen Douglas was probably the only hope for Democratic unity, but he had
virtually damned himself with the Freeport Doctrine, and could only get
real support in the north, where the Republican party drained off his
popular base.

When the democrats met in Charleston in 1860to choose their candidate for
the presidency Douglas was given the ultimatum that he accept and endorse
slavery or he would not get the nomination.  One of Douglas' supporters
said, 'Gentlemen of the south, you mistake us--you mistake us!  We will not
do it!'  When northerners voted down this demands, most of the southerners
walked out on the convention, which was shut down because it did not have
enough votes to make a nomination.  The convention was reconvened in
Baltimore in June.  At this convention the northern democrats nominated
Douglas and the southern democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge of KY.
Unwilling to compromise they determined that both candidates would have to
run in the national election.

The Republicans had no such difficulties.  They created a northern-oriented
platform, strong on industry, with ahigh tarriff and internal improvements
programs, no restrictions on immigration, support of railroads, and on
slavery they said, 'The normal condition of all the territory of the US is
that of freedom,' and neither congress nor a local legislature could 'give
legal existence to slavery in any territory.'

Although Seward was chosen as their candidate on the first ballot, it was
though that he could not win the key states of Ohio, Illinois and
Pennsylvania, so the delegates decided to choose Lincoln.  It helped that
the convention was in Chicago, in Lincoln's home state, and that his
Republican state organization had packed the hall with a Lincoln cheering
section.  Lincoln finally won the nomination on the 4th ballot.

At more or less the same time, the remnants of the Know Nothing and Whig
parties which had not joined one of the other parties formed the
Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for
president, on a platform which resolved 'to recognize no political
principle other than the Constitution of the country, the union of the
states, and the enforcement of the laws.'  Their goal was to try to
preserve the union and protect the vulnerable border states where they had
their greatest following.

Lincoln campaigned in 1860 by letting his reputation speak for itself.
Douglas campaigned by presenting himself as the best hope for preserving
the union, through his tradition of compromise as the successer to Clay.
He said, 'We must try to save the union.'  He not only appealed to voters
to elect him, but unlike other candidates, he urged voters in both he north
and the south to stand by the union no matter who was elected.

Between them, Breckenridge and Douglas received more votes than Lincoln,
but because the Democratic vote was split between north and south, Lincoln,
who had all of the Republican vote and the largest total number of votes,
won the election handily, though he carried no southern states, winning all
of the northern states except NJ and MO, which voted for Douglas, plus
Oregon and California.  All of the south voted for Breckenridge, and though
Douglas came in second in the popular vote, being second choice in almost
every state north and south, he came out last, even behind Bell in the
electoral vote.

Lincoln was swept into office on the strength of the growing northern
population and the inability of the Democrats to unite behind one
candidate, and although his claim to the presidency seemed shaky, his party
had a strong platform and he was determined to be a firm leader.
Nonetheless, the Republican victory assured that crisis would follow, shown
clearly in an election which pitted sectional parties against each other
and in which only one candidate could win.


SECESSION CRISIS

Southern leaders saw Lincoln's election in 1860 as a blow against the
south.  He was a candidate who represented only northern interests, and
though he professed his devotion to the union and to serving all the
people, everyone knew he was not going to give slavery free reign.  It
seemed inevitable that while Lincoln might not intend to destroy slavery,
he would not be responsive to southern demands that the institution be
preserved and protected.

One southern newspaper editorial said, 'The history of the...Black
Republican party of the North is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of absolute
tyranny over the slave-holding states...they have set at naught the decrees
of the Supreme Court, they have invaded our States and killed our citizens,
they have declared their unalterable determination to exclude us altogether
from the territories, they have nullified the laws of Congress, and finally
they have capped the mighty pyramid of unfraternal enormities by electing
Abraham Lincoln...on a platform and by a system which indicates nothing but
the subjugation of the South and the complete ruin of her social, political
and industrial institutions.'

It looked very much like the only response for many southern states was to
leave a union which seemed to have no use for them or slavery.

In an attempt to save the union Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky
introduced resolutions in the Senate to try to create a compromise and
preserve the union.  He proposed a series of constitutional ammendments, to
make slavery illegal north of the Missouri Compromise line and legal south
of it, plus a national slave code and an unalterable ammendment
guaranteeing the safety of slavery in perpetuity.

Crittenden's compromise was unacceptable to northerners who realized that
southerners would use it as a justification for expanding southern
territory in the carribean or central america.

Lincoln warned his agents in congress, 'Entertain no proposition for a
comprimise in regard to the extension of slavery.  The instant you do, they
have us under again; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be
done over...Have none of it.  The tug has to come, and better now than
later.'  Inevitably Crittenden's last resort compromise was rejected.

Only three days later South Carolina seceded from the Union.

South Carolina had led in the Nullification Crisis against Jackson and had
always been the most vocal of the southern states in defense of slavery.

In December of 1860, the SC legislature called a special convention to
decide what to do in the face of the Lincoln presidency.  On December 20th
the convention voted unanimously to secede from the union, restating
principles of States Rights originated by John C. Calhoun.

Calhoun had maintained that the US was an alliance of independent states
and that each state was a completely independent political entity, part of
the union only at its own choice and convenience.  In declaring their
secession, the South Carolina convention declared, 'The State of South
Carolina has RESUMED her position among the nations of the world'.  Stating
their independence clearly.

By February of 1861 six other states in the Lower South had also seceded
and a provisional government had been established in Montgomery, AL, called
'The Confederate States of America'.  VA, TN, NC and AR did not secede, but
warned the US Government that if it attempted to use force against the
confederacy, they would also secede.

The North was outraged at this.  Northerners saw the election as legitimate
and felt that the south was being petty and  unreasonable.  One northern
editorialist wrote, 'There never was such a set of arrogant and imperious
rulers as the slave-driving captains of this Republic...such men cannot be
created except by Slavery...Of all men, they most need the discipline of
reverses and the humiliation of defeat.  It is their insolence of temper
that forbids them to submit to being beaten in a presidential election.
They will rule or they will ruin...They will remain in control of the
government, or they will drag it down about our ears, and bury us all in a
common destruction.'

Many northerners felt that southern democrats had more or less controlled
the government for at least two presidential terms, and they just felt that
it was their turn, and resented the southern reaction of secession.  After
all, the north had not seceded over Buchanan's handling of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act.

Lincoln realized that the union was in danger, and placed the highest
priority on maintaining the union.  In his inaugural address he spoke to
them when he said, 'In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and
not mine is the momentous issue of civil war...we are not enemies, but
friends...though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of
affection.'

The more moderate southern states still hoped for compromise.  Virginia
tried to gather representatives of all of the states together in Washington
to resolve the dispute and further compromises were proposed and rejected
in congress.  Meanwhile radical secessionists seized federal forts and
arsenals in the south, and President Buchanan, finally seeing the light, in
his final speech to congress declared that the Union was a 'Sacred Trust'
which must be defended and pledged that the government would act to protect
government property and possessions throughout the nation, north and south.

The two major strongholds of the Union in the south were Fort Pickens in FL
and Ft. Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, SC.  Ft. Sumter was on an
island, and the hastily formed army of SC brought guns to bear on it, and
when the supply ship Star of the West brought supplies for the garrison it
was fired on and driven off.

When Lincoln entered the white house on his first day as president, he was
informed that Major Anderson at Ft. Sumter had reported that he could only
hold out for a few days more unless 20,000 troops, a naval detachment and
provisions were sent.  He was effectively ecommending evacuation.

Lincoln tried to make a compromise, and offered not to send any additional
troops to Ft. Sumter if Governor F. W. Pickens would allow him to send in
supplies.  This shifted the responsibility to Pickens and confederate
president Jefferson Davis.  Davis instructed General Beauregard to ask Maj.
Anderson to evacuate the fort peacefully.  Anderson replied that he would
leave if no supplies arrived by noon of April 15th.  However, Beauregard's
men opened fire without his approval on April 12th,a adnd bombarded the
fort for forty hours.  On April 13th Anderson surrendered and was allowed
to leave in peace.

Two days after the fall of Ft. Sumter, Lincoln asked the state governors to
provide him with 75,000 Militiamen for 90 days service.  The north was
strongly behind Lincoln's decision to prepare for war.  He expressed
northern sentiment when he said, 'The central idea pervading this struggle
is the necessity of providing that popular government is not an absurdity.
We must settle this question now, whether, in a free government, the
minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose.'

At the same time the south was more unified than it would be at any time
later in the war and totally dedicated to its cause.  As one Atlanta
editorial proclaimed, 'Whether the Potomac River is crimsoned in Human Gore
and Pennsylvania Ave is paved ten fathoms in depth with mangled
bodies...the south will never submit.'

In the spring of 1861 17 states were firmly behind the union, and only
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina
had seceded.  Following the fall of Ft. Sumter, Arkansas, Tennessee, North
Carolina and Virginia also seceded.

The border states of Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky and Delaware were
undecided.  A few days after Ft. Sumter there was a riot between a local
mob and union troops in Baltimore, and Lincoln instituted martial law
there.  An ordinance of secession was defeated in the Maryland legislature,
partially because Lincoln had the delegates from the southern counties of
Maryland detained in Baltimore.  From that point on Maryland was firmly in
the union, though it remained a haven for confederate sympathizers.

In Missouri the population was strongly divided between union and
secession.  The militia was confederate in sympathy,  but the legislature
and governor refused to secede.  Governor Claiborne Jackson formed a 'Home
Guard' of armed German immigrants, which attacked the militia stationed in
St. Louis, surprising them and causing them to surrender.  Angry citizens
attacked the Home Guard, leading to a riot in which several were killed.
After this Missouri remained divided, sending some troops to each side and
torn by guerilla warfare.

Kentucky was as divided as Missouri, but was handled more tactfully.
Instead of seceding, the Kentucky legislature voted to remain neutral, and
for the first two years of the war it remained neutral, trading with both
north and south but siding with neither.

Virginia society was as divided in 1861 as it had  been in colonial times,
and while the tidewater aristocracy supported slavery, the small farmers of
the western highlands strongly supported the union.  In November of 1861
the western counties of virginia seceded from the state of virginia, formed
their own government and petitioned for admittance to the union as the
state of West Virginia.  They were eventually admitted in 1863.

Thus, as the war progressed into its active military phase, there were 11
confederate states and 22 union states, though 5 of those were slave states
within the union.


ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

Northern Disadvantages
    Had to invade and occupy hostile land
    Had to defeat and destroy occupying armies.
    Poorly developed cavalry...most defected south.
    Inexperienced military leadership.
    Afflicted by profiteering merchants selling moldy blankets, leaky ships
and misfiring rifles.

Northern Advantages
    Believed that secessionism not widely supported in the south (wrong)
    Stronger Industry
    More people, three times the population.
    More Wealth
    4/5ths of the nation's manufacturing
    2/3rds of the nation's railroad track
    Better food agriculture in midwest than the south had, since the south
grew mostly cash crops.  Greater grain production.
    Well developed artillery

Southern Disadvantages
    Insufficient industry to support war, provide guns, etc.  As soon-to-be
general William T. Sherman warned before the war, 'in all history no nation
of mere agriculturalists has ever made a successful war against
mechanics...' and he was a history teacher, so he knew...
    Had to create governments and institutions from scratch.
    Poorly developed artillery.  Shortage of cannon.  Only one iron works,
the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, was capable of producing Rail Road
track and cannons.
    Government weakened by constitution which gave much power to states and
little to central government
    Poor political leadership, internal bickering.  Obstructionists under
Vice President Alexander Stephens constantly interfering with strengthening
of Davis' government.  Claimed that draft and taxes and other programs were
violations of states rights.
    Jefferson Davis had a military background, from West Point, was
unwilling to give other people power, wanted to run everything himself, saw
divergent opinions as personal attacks, and had an unrealistically high
opinion of his ability as a military strategist.  A cold man who could not
inspire the support and devotion of the people that Lincoln did in the
north.

Southern Advantages
    Only had to hold on until the north was weakened or discouraged
    Didn't need to waste men on garrisons to defend captured cities.
    Could use slave labor instead of military labor for construction of
fortifications.
    Needed only a marginal victory.  If it held half the south for 5 years
it could win.
    Convinced that they fought for a just cause and defended liberty
    At first politically and principally unified.
    Believed that if they won victories early on the north would give in
and compromise
    More high ranking military officers in army were southern and defected.
Robert E. Lee was the greatest general in the army at the time, and he
defected, saying, 'I see only that a fearful calamity is upon us.  There is
no sacrifice I am not ready to make for the preservation of the Union save
that of honor.  If a disruption takes place, I shall go back in sorrow to
my people and share the misery of my native state.'
    Southerners generally more likely to have had military experience.
    Cotton wealth.  As James Hammond said in 1858, 'No power on earth dare
make war upon it.  Cotton IS king.'  Believed they would get british and
french support and aid for this reason.  Hoped for british aid by letting
them replace northerners as middleman shippers of cotton.
    Well developed cavalry...gentlement farmers of the west.


SOUTHERN PREPARATIONS

    Draft for all from 17 to 50 to make up for manpower shortage.  Exempted
thos who held more than 20 slaves, under the '20 nigger law', and al