Доклад: History of the USA 
committed a crime. Then, most important, the document that was drawn up at
Philadelphia stated that the Constitution, as well as laws and treaties made
under the authority of the U.S. government, "shall be the supreme Law of the
Land."
The proposed constitution was to be ratified by specially elected ratifying
conventions in each state and to become operative after nine states had
ratified it. In the national debate that arose over ratification, ANTI-
FEDERALISTS opposed the concentration of power in the national government
under the document; a key question was the absence of a BILL OF RIGHTS. Many
Americans thought that a bill of rights was necessary to preserve individual
liberties, and to accommodate this view proponents of the Constitution
promised to add such a bill to the document after ratification. With the
clear understanding that amendments would be added, ratification by nine
states was completed (1788) and the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES became
operative. The Bill of Rights was then drafted by the first Congress and
became the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Diverging Visions of the American Republic
In the first elections for the new federal Congress (1789), those favoring
the new system won a huge majority. George Washington was unanimously elected
to be chief executive, the only president so honored. He was inaugurated in
the temporary capital, New York City, on Apr. 30, 1789. The American
experiment in republican self-government now began again. The unanimity
expressed in Washington's election would prove short- lived.
Under the leadership of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander HAMILTON,
Congress pledged (1790) the revenues of the federal government to pay off all
the outstanding debt of the old Articles of Confederation government as well
as the state debts. Much of the domestic debt was in currency that had badly
depreciated in value, but Congress agreed to fund it at its higher face
value; at one stroke, the financial credit of the new government was assured.
Southerners, however, mistrusted the plan, claiming that it served only to
enrich northern speculators because the southern states had largely paid off
their debts. Many southerners feared, too, that the new nation would be
dominated by New Englanders, whose criticism of southern slavery and living
styles offended them. Before assenting to the funding proposal, the
southerners had obtained agreement that the national capital (after 10 years
in Philadelphia) would be placed in the South, on the Potomac River.
In 1791, Hamilton persuaded Congress to charter the BANK OF THE UNITED
STATES, modeled after the Bank of England. Primarily private (some of its
trustees would be federally appointed), it would receive and hold the
government's revenues, issue currency and regulate that of state-chartered
banks, and be free to invest as it saw fit the federal tax moneys in its
vaults. Because it would control the largest pool of capital in the country,
it could shape the growth of the national economy. Hamilton also proposed
(with limited success) that protective tariffs be established to exclude
foreign goods and thus stimulate the development of U.S. factories. In short,
he laid out the economic philosophy of what became the FEDERALIST PARTY: that
the government should actively encourage economic growth by providing aid to
capitalists. Flourishing cities and a vigorous industrial order: this was the
American future he envisioned. His strongly nationalist position gained the
support of the elites in New York City and Philadelphia as well as broad-
based support among the Yankees of New England.
On the other hand, southerners, a rural and widely dispersed people, feared
the cities and the power of remote bankers. With Thomas JEFFERSON they worked
to counteract the Federalists' anglicized vision of the United States.
Southerners rejected the concept of an active government, preferring one
committed to laissez-faire (that is, allowing people to act without
government interference) in all areas--economic and cultural. Jefferson
declared that close ties between government and capitalists would inevitably
lead to corruption and exploitation. In his view, behind-the-scene schemers
would use graft to secure special advantages (tariffs, bounties, and the
like) that would allow them to profiteer at the community's expense.
The Middle Atlantic states at first supported the nationalistic Federalists,
who won a second term for Washington in 1792 and elected John ADAMS to the
presidency in 1796. However, many of the Scots-Irish, Germans, and Dutch in
these states disliked Yankees and distrusted financiers and business
proprietors. The growing working class in Philadelphia and New York City
turned against the Federalists' elitism. By 1800 the ethnic minorities of the
Middle Atlantic states helped swing that region behind Jefferson, a
Virginian, and his Democratic-Republican party, giving the presidency to
Jefferson. Thereafter, until 1860, with few intermissions, the South and the
Middle Atlantic states together dominated the federal government. Although
the U.S. Constitution had made no mention of POLITICAL PARTIES, it had taken
only a decade for the development of a party system that roughly reflected
two diverging visions for the new republic. Political parties would remain an
integral part of the American system of government.
During the 1790s, however, foreign affairs became dominant, and dreams of
republican simplicity and quietude were dashed. A long series of wars between
Britain and Revolutionary France began in that decade, and the Americans were
inevitably pulled into the fray. By JAY'S TREATY (1794) the United States
reluctantly agreed to British wartime confiscation of U.S. ship cargoes,
alleged to be contraband, in return for British evacuation of western forts
on American soil and the opening of the British West Indies to U.S. vessels.
Under John Adams, similar depredations by the French navy against American
trading ships led to the Quasi-War (1798-1801) on the high seas. Federalist
hysteria over alleged French-inspired subversion produced the ALIEN AND
SEDITION ACTS (1798), which sought to crush all criticism of the government.
The Democratic Republic
As president, Jefferson attempted to implement the Democratic- Republican
vision of America; he cut back the central government's activities, reducing
the size of the court system, letting excise taxes lapse, and contracting the
military forces. Paradoxically, in what was perhaps Jefferson's greatest
achievement as president, he vastly increased the scope of U.S. power: the
securing of the LOUISIANA PURCHASE (1803) from France practically doubled
American territory, placing the western boundary of the United States along
the base of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1811, under Jefferson's successor, James MADISON, the 20- year charter of
the Bank of the United States was allowed to lapse, further eroding the
Federalists' nationalist program. Renewed warfare between Britain and France,
during which American foreign trade was progressively throttled down almost
to nothing, led eventually to the WAR OF 1812. The British insisted on the
right freely to commandeer U.S. cargoes as contraband and to impress American
sailors into their navy. To many Americans the republic seemed in grave
peril.
With reluctance and against unanimous Federalist opposition, Congress made
the decision to go to war against Britain. Except for some initial naval
victories, the war went badly for the Americans. Western Indians, under the
gifted TECUMSEH, fought on the British side. In 1814, however, an invading
army from Canada was repelled. Then, just as a peace treaty was being
concluded in Ghent (Belgium), Andrew JACKSON crushed another invading British
army as it sought to take New Orleans. The war thus ended on a triumphant
note, and the republic was confirmed. The Federalists, who in the HARTFORD
CONVENTION (in Connecticut, 1814) had capped their opposition to the war with
demands for major changes in the Constitution, now were regarded as disloyal,
and their party dwindled down to a base in New England and in the 1820s
dissolved. Robbed of their enemy, Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans broke
into factions, effectively disappearing as a national party.
AN AGE OF BOUNDLESSNESS: 1815-50
The volatile and expansive years from 1815 to 1850 were, in many ways, an age
of boundlessness when limits that had previously curbed human aspirations
seemed to disappear.
Economic and Cultural Ferment
After 1815 the American economy began to expand rapidly. The cotton boom in
the South spread settlement swiftly across the Gulf Plains: the Deep South
was born. Farmers also moved into the Lake Plains north of the Ohio River,
their migration greatly accelerating after the completion of the ERIE CANAL
in 1825. Practically all Indians east of the Mississippi were placed on small
reservations or forced to move to the Great Plains beyond the Missouri River.
Canals and railroads opened the interior to swift expansion, of both
settlement and trade. In the Midwest many new cities, such as Chicago,
appeared, as enormous empires of wheat and livestock farms came into being.
From 1815 to 1850 a new western state entered the Union, on the average,
every two and one-half years.
The westward movement of the FRONTIER was matched in the Northeast by rapid
economic development. National productivity surged during the 1820s; prices
spurted to a peak during the 1830s and dropped for a time during the 1840s;
both prices and productivity soared upward again during the 1850s, reaching
new heights. A business cycle had appeared, producing periods of boom and
bust, and the factory system became well developed. After the GOLD RUSH that
began in California in 1848-49, industrial development was further stimulated
during the 1850s by the arrival of $500 million in gold and silver from the
Sierra Nevada and other western regions. A willingness to take risks formerly
thought wildly imprudent became a national virtue. Land values rose, and
hundreds of new communities appeared in the western states.
Meanwhile, property tests for voting were disappearing, white manhood
suffrage became the rule, and most offices were made elective. A
communications revolution centering in the inexpensive newspaper and in a
national fascination with mass education (except in the South) sent literacy
rates soaring. The Second Great Awakening (1787-1825), a new religious
revival that originated in New England, spread an evangelical excitement
across the country. In its wake a ferment of social reform swept the northern
states. The slave system of the South spread westward as rapidly as the free
labor system of the North, and during the 1830s ABOLITIONISTS mounted a
crusade to hammer at the evils of slavery.
Expansion of the American Domain
The years 1815-50 brought further expansion of the national domain. In the
Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the 49th parallel was established as the
border between Canada and the United States from the Lake of the Woods to the
Rockies, and in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded Florida and its
claims in the Oregon Country to the United States. During the 1840s a sense
of MANIFEST DESTINY seized the American mind (although many individuals,
especially in New England, were more restrained in their thinking).
Continent-wide expansion seemed inevitable. Texas, which had declared its
independence from Mexico in 1835-36 (see TEXAS REVOLUTION), was annexed in
1845. Then a dispute with Mexico concerning the Rio Grande as the border of
Texas led to the MEXICAN WAR (1846-48). While U.S. armies invaded the
heartland of Mexico to gain victory, other forces sliced off the northern
half of that country--the provinces of New Mexico and Alta California. In the
Treaty of GUADALUPE HIDALGO (1848), $15 million was paid for the Mexican
cession of those provinces, more than 3 million sq km (roughly 1 million sq
m).
In 1846, Britain and the United States settled the OREGON QUESTION,
concluding a treaty that divided the Oregon Country at the 49th parallel and
bringing the Pacific Northwest into the American nation. In addition, by the
GADSDEN PURCHASE of 1853 the United States acquired (for $10 million) the
southern portions of the present states of New Mexico and Arizona. By 1860
the Union comprised 33 states, packed solid through the first rank beyond the
Mississippi and reaching westward to include Texas, as well as California and
Oregon on the Pacific Coast. Fed by a high birthrate and by the heavy
immigration from Ireland and Germany that surged dramatically during the
1840s, the nation's population was leaping upward: from 9.6 million in 1820
to 23 million in 1850 and 31.5 million in 1860.
Domestic Politics: 1815-46
In a nationalist frame of mind at the end of the War of 1812, Congress
chartered the Second Bank of the United States in 1816, erected the first
protective tariff (see TARIFF ACTS), and supported internal improvements
(roads and bridges) to open the interior. President James MONROE presided
(1817-25) over the so-called Era of Good Feelings, followed by John Quincy
ADAMS (1825-29).
Chief Justice John MARSHALL led the Supreme Court in a crucial series of
decisions, beginning in 1819. He declared that within its powers the federal
government could not be interfered with by the states (MCCULLOCH V. MARYLAND)
and that regulation of interstate and international commerce was solely a
federal preserve (GIBBONS V. OGDEN and BROWN V. MARYLAND). In 1820, in the
MISSOURI COMPROMISE, Congress took charge of the question of slavery in the
territories by declaring it illegal above 36 deg 30 min in the huge region
acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. Witnessing the Latin American revolutions
against Spanish rule, the American government in 1823 asserted its
paramountcy in the Western Hemisphere by issuing the MONROE DOCTRINE. In
diplomatic but clear language it stated that the United States would fight to
exclude further European extensions of sovereignty into its hemisphere.
During the presidency of Andrew JACKSON (1829-37), a sharp bipolarization
occurred again in the nation's politics. Of Scots-Irish descent, Jackson
hated the English, and he was, in turn, as thoroughly disliked by New
Englanders, who thought him violent and barbaric. He made enemies in the
South, as well, when in 1832 South Carolina, asserting superior STATE RIGHTS,
attempted to declare null and void within its borders the tariff of 1828 (see
NULLIFICATION). In his Nullification Proclamation (1832), Jackson declared
that the federal government was supreme according to the Constitution. He
skillfully outmaneuvered the South Carolinians, forcing them to relent. In
1832 he vetoed the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States on
the grounds that it caused the booms and busts that so alarmed the country
and that it served the wealthy while exploiting the farmers and working
people. To oppose him, the old Federalist coalition was reborn in the form of
the American WHIG PARTY. With a DEMOCRATIC PARTY emerging behind Jackson and
embodying the old Jeffersonian Democratic- Republican coalition, two-party
rivalries appeared in every state. By the 1840s modern mass political
parties, organized down into every ward and precinct, had appeared.
Led by Henry CLAY and Daniel WEBSTER, the Whigs called for protective
tariffs, a national bank, and internal improvements to stimulate the economy.
Moralists in politics, they also demanded active intervention by state
governments to maintain the sanctity of the Sabbath, put down alcoholic
beverages, and "Americanize" the immigrants in the public schools. Yankees,
who by now had migrated in great numbers into the Midwest, leaned strongly
toward the Whigs. Many southerners admired Yankee ways and tended to vote for
Whig candidates, too.
Democrats continued to condemn banks and tariffs as sources of corruption and
exploitation, and in Jefferson's tradition insisted on cultural laissez-
faire, the freedom of people to live as they desired. The minority out-
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