Early Settlement

Colonial Period

Road to Independence

Forming a Government

Westward Expansion

Sectional Conflict

Civil War 

Economic Growth 

Discontent and Reform

War, Prosperity, and Depression

The New Deal and World War II

Postwar Prosperity

Civil Rights and Social Change

A New World Order

Bridge to the 21st Century

2008 Presidential Election

OUTLINE OF 

U.S.

History

U.S. HISTORY . HISTORY

OUTLINE OF OUTLINE OF

Bureau of International Information Programs

U.S. Department of State

2011

CHAPTER 1 Early America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

CHAPTER 2 The Colonial Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

CHAPTER 3 The Road to Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

CHAPTER 4 The Formation of a National Government . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

CHAPTER 5 Westward Expansion and Regional Differences . . . . . . 110

CHAPTER 6 Sectional Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

CHAPTER 7 The Civil War and Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

CHAPTER 8 Growth and Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

CHAPTER 9	 Discontent and Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

CHAPTER 10 War, Prosperity, and Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

CHAPTER 11 The New Deal and World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

CHAPTER 12 Postwar America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

CHAPTER 13 Decades of Change: 1960-1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

CHAPTER 14 The New Conservatism and a New World Order . . . . . . 304

CHAPTER 15 Bridge to the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

CHAPTER 16 Politics of Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

PICTURE PROFILES

Becoming a Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Transforming a Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Monuments and Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Turmoil and Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

21st Century Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

CONTENTS

U.S. HISTORY . HISTORY

OUTLINE OF OUTLINE OF
4
CHAPTER

EARLY 

AMERICA

1

Mesa Verde settlement in 

Colorado, 13th century.
6

“Heaven and Earth never 

agreed better to frame a place 

for man’s habitation.”

Jamestown founder John Smith, 1607

THE FIRST AMERICANS

At the height of the Ice Age, between 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much 

of the world’s water was locked up 

in vast continental ice sheets. As a 

result, the Bering Sea was hundreds 

of meters below its current level, and 

a land bridge, known as Beringia, 

emerged between Asia and North 

America. At its peak, Beringia is 

thought to have been some 1,500 kilometers wide. A moist and treeless 

tundra, it was covered with grasses 

and plant life, attracting the large 

animals that early humans hunted 

for their survival.

The first people to reach North 

America almost certainly did so 

without knowing they had crossed 

into a new continent. They would 

have been following game, as their 

ancestors had for thousands of years, 

along the Siberian coast and then 

across the land bridge.

Once in Alaska, it would take 

these first North Americans thousands of years more to work their 

way through the openings in great 

glaciers south to what is now the 

United States. Evidence of early life 

in North America continues to be 

found. Little of it, however, can be 

reliably dated before 12,000 B.C.; a 

recent discovery of a hunting lookout in northern Alaska, for example, may date from almost that time.

So too may the finely crafted spear 

points and items found near Clovis, 

New Mexico.

Similar artifacts have been found 

at sites throughout North and South 

America, indicating that life was 

probably already well established in 

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

7

much of the Western Hemisphere by 

some time prior to 10,000 B.C.

Around that time the mammoth 

began to die out and the bison took 

its place as a principal source of 

food and hides for these early North 

Americans. Over time, as more and 

more species of large game vanished — whether from overhunting 

or natural causes — plants, berries, 

and seeds became an increasingly 

important part of the early American diet. Gradually, foraging and 

the first attempts at primitive agriculture appeared. Native Americans 

in what is now central Mexico led 

the way, cultivating corn, squash, 

and beans, perhaps as early as 8,000 

B.C. Slowly, this knowledge spread 

northward.

By 3,000 B.C., a primitive type of 

corn was being grown in the river 

valleys of New Mexico and Arizona. Then the first signs of irrigation 

began to appear, and, by 300 B.C., 

signs of early village life.

By the first centuries A.D., the 

Hohokam were living in settlements 

near what is now Phoenix, Arizona, where they built ball courts and 

pyramid-like mounds reminiscent 

of those found in Mexico, as well as 

a canal and irrigation system.

MOUND BUILDERS AND 

PUEBLOS

The first Native-American group 

to build mounds in what is now the 

United States often are called the 

Adenans. They began constructing earthen burial sites and fortifications around 600 B.C. Some 

mounds from that era are in the 

shape of birds or serpents; they 

probably served religious purposes 

not yet fully understood.

The Adenans appear to have 

been absorbed or displaced by various groups collectively known as 

Hopewellians. One of the most important centers of their culture was 

found in southern Ohio, where the 

remains of several thousand of these 

mounds still can be seen. Believed 

to be great traders, the Hopewellians used and exchanged tools and 

materials across a wide region of 

hundreds of kilometers.

By around 500 A.D., the 

Hopewellians disappeared, too, 

gradually giving way to a broad 

group of tribes generally known 

as the Mississippians or Temple 

Mound culture. One city, Cahokia, near Collinsville, Illinois, is 

thought to have had a population of 

about 20,000 at its peak in the early 

12th century. At the center of the 

city stood a huge earthen mound, 

flattened at the top, that was 30 

meters high and 37 hectares at the 

base. Eighty other mounds have 

been found nearby.

Cities such as Cahokia depended on a combination of hunting, 

foraging, trading, and agriculture 

for their food and supplies. Influenced by the thriving societies to the 

south, they evolved into complex hierarchical societies that took slaves 

and practiced human sacrifice.
8

In what is now the southwest 

United States, the Anasazi, ancestors 

of the modern Hopi Indians, began 

building stone and adobe pueblos 

around the year 900. These unique 

and amazing apartment-like structures were often built along cliff 

faces; the most famous, the “cliff 

palace” of Mesa Verde, Colorado, 

had more than 200 rooms. Another 

site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along 

New Mexico’s Chaco River, once 

contained more than 800 rooms.

Perhaps the most affluent of the 

pre-Columbian Native Americans 

lived in the Pacific Northwest, where 

the natural abundance of fish and 

raw materials made food supplies 

plentiful and permanent villages possible as early as 1,000 B.C. The opulence of their “potlatch” gatherings 

remains a standard for extravagance 

and festivity probably unmatched in 

early American history.

NATIVE-AMERICAN 

CULTURES

The America that greeted the first 

Europeans was, thus, far from an 

empty wilderness. It is now thought 

that as many people lived in the 

Western Hemisphere as in Western Europe at that time — about 40 

million. Estimates of the number of 

Native Americans living in what is 

now the United States at the onset of 

European colonization range from 

two to 18 million, with most historians tending toward the lower figure.

What is certain is the devastating effect that European disease had on 

the indigenous population practically from the time of initial contact. Smallpox, in particular, ravaged 

whole communities and is thought 

to have been a much more direct 

cause of the precipitous decline in 

the Indian population in the 1600s 

than the numerous wars and skirmishes with European settlers.

Indian customs and culture at the 

time were extraordinarily diverse, 

as could be expected, given the expanse of the land and the many different environments to which they 

had adapted. Some generalizations, 

however, are possible. Most tribes, 

particularly in the wooded eastern 

region and the Midwest, combined 

aspects of hunting, gathering, and 

the cultivation of maize and other 

products for their food supplies.

In many cases, the women were 

responsible for farming and the 

distribution of food, while the men 

hunted and participated in war.

By all accounts, Native-American 

society in North America was closely 

tied to the land. Identification with 

nature and the elements was integral 

to religious beliefs. Their life was 

essentially clan-oriented and communal, with children allowed more 

freedom and tolerance than was the 

European custom of the day.

Although some North American tribes developed a type of hieroglyphics to preserve certain 

texts, Native-American culture was 

primarily oral, with a high value 

placed on the recounting of tales 

and dreams. Clearly, there was a 

good deal of trade among various 

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

9

groups and strong evidence exists 

that neighboring tribes maintained 

extensive and formal relations — 

both friendly and hostile.

THE FIRST EUROPEANS

The first Europeans to arrive in 

North America — at least the first 

for whom there is solid evidence 

— were Norse, traveling west from 

Greenland, where Erik the Red 

had founded a settlement around 

the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is 

thought to have explored the northeast coast of what is now Canada and 

spent at least one winter there.

While Norse sagas suggest that 

Viking sailors explored the Atlantic coast of North America down 

as far as the Bahamas, such claims 

remain unproven. In 1963, however, 

the ruins of some Norse houses dating from that era were discovered at 

L’Anse-aux-Meadows in northern 

Newfoundland, thus supporting at 

least some of the saga claims.

In 1497, just five years after 

Christopher Columbus landed in 

the Caribbean looking for a western route to Asia, a Venetian sailor named John Cabot arrived in 

Newfoundland on a mission for 

the British king. Although quickly 

forgotten, Cabot’s journey was later 

to provide the basis for British claims 

to North America. It also opened 

the way to the rich fishing grounds 

off George’s Banks, to which European fishermen, particularly the 

Portuguese, were soon making regular visits.

Columbus never saw the mainland of the future United States, 

but the first explorations of it were 

launched from the Spanish possessions that he helped establish. The 

first of these took place in 1513 

when a group of men under Juan 

Ponce de León landed on the Florida 

coast near the present city of St.

Augustine.

With the conquest of Mexico in 

1522, the Spanish further solidified their position in the Western 

Hemisphere. The ensuing discoveries added to Europe’s knowledge 

of what was now named America 

— after the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, who wrote a widely popular 

account of his voyages to a “New 

World.” By 1529 reliable maps of the 

Atlantic coastline from Labrador 

to Tierra del Fuego had been drawn 

up, although it would take more than 

another century before hope of discovering a “Northwest Passage” to 

Asia would be completely abandoned.

Among the most significant early Spanish explorations was that of 

Hernando De Soto, a veteran conquistador who had accompanied 

Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of 

Peru. Leaving Havana in 1539, De 

Soto’s expedition landed in Florida 

and ranged through the southeastern United States as far as the Mississippi River in search of riches.

Another Spaniard, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, set out 

from Mexico in 1540 in search of 

the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. Coronado’s travels took him to 

the Grand Canyon and Kansas, but 
10

failed to reveal the gold or treasure 

his men sought. However, his party did leave the peoples of the region a remarkable, if unintended, 

gift: Enough of his horses escaped 

to transform life on the Great Plains.

Within a few generations, the Plains 

Indians had become masters of 

horsemanship, greatly expanding 

the range of their activities.

While the Spanish were pushing 

up from the south, the northern portion of the present-day United States 

was slowly being revealed through 

the journeys of men such as Giovanni da Verrazano. A Florentine who 

sailed for the French, Verrazano 

made landfall in North Carolina in 

1524, then sailed north along the Atlantic Coast past what is now New 

York harbor.

A decade later, the Frenchman 

Jacques Cartier set sail with the hope 

— like the other Europeans before 

him — of finding a sea passage to 

Asia. Cartier’s expeditions along the 

St. Lawrence River laid the foundation for the French claims to North 

America, which were to last until 

1763.

Following the collapse of their 

first Quebec colony in the 1540s, 

French Huguenots attempted to settle the northern coast of Florida two 

decades later. The Spanish, viewing 

the French as a threat to their trade 

route along the Gulf Stream, destroyed the colony in 1565. Ironically, the leader of the Spanish forces, 

Pedro Menéndez, would soon establish a town not far away — St. Augustine. It was the first permanent 

European settlement in what would 

become the United States.

The great wealth that poured into 

Spain from the colonies in Mexico, 

the Caribbean, and Peru provoked 

great interest on the part of the other 

European powers. Emerging maritime nations such as England, drawn 

in part by Francis Drake’s successful raids on Spanish treasure ships, 

began to take an interest in the New 

World.

In 1578 Humphrey Gilbert, the 

author of a treatise on the search 

for the Northwest Passage, received 

a patent from Queen Elizabeth to 

colonize the “heathen and barbarous landes” in the New World that 

other European nations had not yet 

claimed. It would be five years before 

his efforts could begin. When he was 

lost at sea, his half-brother, Walter 

Raleigh, took up the mission.

In 1585 Raleigh established the 

first British colony in North America, on Roanoke Island off the coast 

of North Carolina. It was later abandoned, and a second effort two years 

later also proved a failure. It would 

be 20 years before the British would 

try again. This time — at Jamestown 

in 1607 — the colony would succeed, 

and North America would enter a 

new era.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS

The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration 

from Europe to North America.

Spanning more than three centuries, 

this movement grew from a trickle 

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

11

of a few hundred English colonists 

to a flood of millions of newcomers.

Impelled by powerful and diverse 

motivations, they built a new civilization on the northern part of the 

continent.

The first English immigrants 

to what is now the United States 

crossed the Atlantic long after thriving Spanish colonies had been established in Mexico, the West Indies, 

and South America. Like all early 

travelers to the New World, they 

came in small, overcrowded ships.

During their six- to 12-week voyages, they lived on meager rations.

Many died of disease, ships were 

often battered by storms, and some 

were lost at sea.

Most European emigrants left 

their homelands to escape political 

oppression, to seek the freedom to 

practice their religion, or to find opportunities denied them at home.

Between 1620 and 1635, economic 

difficulties swept England. Many 

people could not find work. Even 

skilled artisans could earn little 

more than a bare living. Poor crop 

yields added to the distress. In addition, the Commercial Revolution 

had created a burgeoning textile 

industry, which demanded an everincreasing supply of wool to keep 

the looms running. Landlords enclosed farmlands and evicted the 

peasants in favor of sheep cultivation. Colonial expansion became 

an outlet for this displaced peasant 

population.

The colonists’ first glimpse of 

the new land was a vista of dense 

woods. The settlers might not have 

survived had it not been for the 

help of friendly Indians, who taught 

them how to grow native plants —

pumpkin, squash, beans, and corn.

In addition, the vast, virgin forests, 

extending nearly 2,100 kilometers 

along the Eastern seaboard, proved 

a rich source of game and firewood.

They also provided abundant raw 

materials used to build houses, furniture, ships, and profitable items 

for export.

Although the new continent was 

remarkably endowed by nature, 

trade with Europe was vital for articles the settlers could not produce.

The coast served the immigrants 

well. The whole length of shore provided many inlets and harbors. Only 

two areas — North Carolina and 

southern New Jersey — lacked harbors for ocean-going vessels.

Majestic rivers — the Kennebec, 

Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, 

Potomac, and numerous others —

linked lands between the coast and 

the Appalachian Mountains with 

the sea. Only one river, however, the 

St. Lawrence — dominated by the 

French in Canada — offered a water 

passage to the Great Lakes and the 

heart of the continent. Dense forests, 

the resistance of some Indian tribes, 

and the formidable barrier of the 

Appalachian Mountains discouraged settlement beyond the coastal 

plain. Only trappers and traders 

ventured into the wilderness. For 

the first hundred years the colonists 

built their settlements compactly 

along the coast.
12

Political considerations influenced many people to move to 

America. In the 1630s, arbitrary rule 

by England’s Charles I gave impetus 

to the migration. The subsequent revolt and triumph of Charles’ opponents under Oliver Cromwell in the 

1640s led many cavaliers — “king’s 

men” — to cast their lot in Virginia.

In the German-speaking regions of 

Europe, the oppressive policies of 

various petty princes — particularly 

with regard to religion — and the 

devastation caused by a long series 

of wars helped swell the movement 

to America in the late 17th and 18th 

centuries.

The journey entailed careful 

planning and management, as well 

as considerable expense and risk.

Settlers had to be transported nearly 

5,000 kilometers across the sea. They 

needed utensils, clothing, seed, tools, 

building materials, livestock, arms, 

and ammunition. In contrast to the 

colonization policies of other countries and other periods, the emigration from England was not directly 

sponsored by the government but by 

private groups of individuals whose 

chief motive was profit.

JAMESTOWN

The first of the British colonies 

to take hold in North America was 

Jamestown. On the basis of a charter which King James I granted to 

the Virginia (or London) Company, 

a group of about 100 men set out for 

the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. Seeking 

to avoid conflict with the Spanish, 

they chose a site about 60 kilometers 

up the James River from the bay.

Made up of townsmen and adventurers more interested in finding 

gold than farming, the group was 

unequipped by temperament or ability to embark upon a completely new 

life in the wilderness. Among them, 

Captain John Smith emerged as the 

dominant figure. Despite quarrels, 

starvation, and Native-American 

attacks, his ability to enforce discipline held the little colony together 

through its first year.

In 1609 Smith returned to England, and in his absence, the colony 

descended into anarchy. During the 

winter of 1609-1610, the majority of 

the colonists succumbed to disease.

Only 60 of the original 300 settlers 

were still alive by May 1610. That 

same year, the town of Henrico (now 

Richmond) was established farther 

up the James River.

It was not long, however, before 

a development occurred that revolutionized Virginia’s economy. In 

1612 John Rolfe began cross-breeding imported tobacco seed from the 

West Indies with native plants and 

produced a new variety that was 

pleasing to European taste. The first 

shipment of this tobacco reached 

London in 1614. Within a decade it 

had become Virginia’s chief source 

of revenue.

Prosperity did not come quickly, 

however, and the death rate from 

disease and Indian attacks remained 

extraordinarily high. Between 1607 

and 1624 approximately 14,000 people migrated to the colony, yet only 

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

13

1,132 were living there in 1624. On 

recommendation of a royal commission, the king dissolved the Virginia 

Company, and made it a royal colony 

that year.

MASSACHUSETTS

During the religious upheavals 

of the 16th century, a body of men 

and women called Puritans sought 

to reform the Established Church of 

England from within. Essentially, 

they demanded that the rituals and 

structures associated with Roman 

Catholicism be replaced by simpler 

Calvinist Protestant forms of faith 

and worship. Their reformist ideas, 

by destroying the unity of the state 

church, threatened to divide the 

people and to undermine royal 

authority.

In 1607 a small group of Separatists — a radical sect of Puritans 

who did not believe the Established 

Church could ever be reformed — 

departed for Leyden, Holland, where 

the Dutch granted them asylum.

However, the Calvinist Dutch restricted them mainly to low-paid laboring jobs. Some members of the 

congregation grew dissatisfied with 

this discrimination and resolved to 

emigrate to the New World.

In 1620, a group of Leyden Puritans secured a land patent from the 

Virginia Company. Numbering 101, 

they set out for Virginia on the Mayflower. A storm sent them far north 

and they landed in New England 

on Cape Cod. Believing themselves 

outside the jurisdiction of any organized government, the men drafted 

a formal agreement to abide by “just 

and equal laws” drafted by leaders 

of their own choosing. This was the 

Mayflower Compact.

In December the Mayflower 

reached Plymouth harbor; the Pilgrims began to build their settlement during the winter. Nearly half 

the colonists died of exposure and 

disease, but neighboring Wampanoag Indians provided the information that would sustain them: how 

to grow maize. By the next fall, the 

Pilgrims had a plentiful crop of corn, 

and a growing trade based on furs 

and lumber.

A new wave of immigrants arrived on the shores of Massachusetts 

Bay in 1630 bearing a grant from 

King Charles I to establish a colony.

Many of them were Puritans whose 

religious practices were increasingly 

prohibited in England. Their leader, 

John Winthrop, urged them to create a “city upon a hill” in the New 

World — a place where they would 

live in strict accordance with their 

religious beliefs and set an example 

for all of Christendom.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony 

was to play a significant role in the 

development of the entire New England region, in part because Winthrop and his Puritan colleagues 

were able to bring their charter with 

them. Thus the authority for the colony’s government resided in Massachusetts, not in England.

Under the charter’s provisions, 

power rested with the General 

Court, which was made up of “free-
14

men” required to be members of the 

Puritan, or Congregational, Church.

This guaranteed that the Puritans 

would be the dominant political as 

well as religious force in the colony.

The General Court elected the governor, who for most of the next generation would be John Winthrop.

The rigid orthodoxy of the Puritan rule was not to everyone’s liking. One of the first to challenge the 

General Court openly was a young 

clergyman named Roger Williams, 

who objected to the colony’s seizure 

of Indian lands and advocated separation of church and state. Another 

dissenter, Anne Hutchinson, challenged key doctrines of Puritan theology. Both they and their followers 

were banished.

Williams purchased land from 

the Narragansett Indians in what is 

now Providence, Rhode Island, in 

1636. In 1644, a sympathetic Puritan-controlled English Parliament 

gave him the charter that established 

Rhode Island as a distinct colony 

where complete separation of church 

and state as well as freedom of religion was practiced.

So-called heretics like Williams 

were not the only ones who left Massachusetts. Orthodox Puritans, seeking better lands and opportunities, 

soon began leaving Massachusetts 

Bay Colony. News of the fertility of 

the Connecticut River Valley, for instance, attracted the interest of farmers having a difficult time with poor 

land. By the early 1630s, many were 

ready to brave the danger of Indian 

attack to obtain level ground and 

deep, rich soil. These new communities often eliminated church membership as a prerequisite for voting, 

thereby extending the franchise to 

ever larger numbers of men.

At the same time, other settlements began cropping up along the 

New Hampshire and Maine coasts, 

as more and more immigrants 

sought the land and liberty the New 

World seemed to offer.

NEW NETHERLAND AND 

MARYLAND

Hired by the Dutch East India 

Company, Henry Hudson in 1609 

explored the area around what is 

now New York City and the river 

that bears his name, to a point probably north of present-day Albany, 

New York. Subsequent Dutch voyages laid the basis for their claims 

and early settlements in the area.

As with the French to the north, 

the first interest of the Dutch was the 

fur trade. To this end, they cultivated 

close relations with the Five Nations 

of the Iroquois, who were the key to 

the heartland from which the furs 

came. In 1617 Dutch settlers built a 

fort at the junction of the Hudson 

and the Mohawk Rivers, where Albany now stands.

Settlement on the island of Manhattan began in the early 1620s. In 

1624, the island was purchased from 

local Native Americans for the reported price of $24. It was promptly 

renamed New Amsterdam.

In order to attract settlers to the 

Hudson River region, the Dutch enCHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

15

couraged a type of feudal aristocracy, known as the “patroon” system.

The first of these huge estates were 

established in 1630 along the Hudson River. Under the patroon system, any stockholder, or patroon, 

who could bring 50 adults to his estate over a four-year period was given a 25-kilometer river-front plot, 

exclusive fishing and hunting privileges, and civil and criminal jurisdiction over his lands. In turn, he 

provided livestock, tools, and buildings. The tenants paid the patroon 

rent and gave him first option on 

surplus crops.

Further to the south, a Swedish 

trading company with ties to the 

Dutch attempted to set up its first 

settlement along the Delaware River three years later. Without the resources to consolidate its position, 

New Sweden was gradually absorbed 

into New Netherland, and later, 

Pennsylvania and Delaware.

In 1632 the Catholic Calvert family obtained a charter for land north 

of the Potomac River from King 

Charles I in what became known as 

Maryland. As the charter did not expressly prohibit the establishment of 

non-Protestant churches, the colony 

became a haven for Catholics. Maryland’s first town, St. Mary’s, was 

established in 1634 near where the 

Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay.

While establishing a refuge for 

Catholics, who faced increasing persecution in Anglican England, the 

Calverts were also interested in creating profitable estates. To this end, 

and to avoid trouble with the British 

government, they also encouraged 

Protestant immigration.

Maryland’s royal charter had 

a mixture of feudal and modern 

elements. On the one hand the 

Calvert family had the power to 

create manorial estates. On the other, they could only make laws with 

the consent of freemen (property 

holders). They found that in order 

to attract settlers — and make a 

profit from their holdings — they 

had to offer people farms, not just 

tenancy on manorial estates. The 

number of independent farms grew 

in consequence. Their owners demanded a voice in the affairs of the 

colony. Maryland’s first legislature 

met in 1635.

COLONIAL-INDIAN 

RELATIONS

By 1640 the British had solid 

colonies established along the New 

England coast and the Chesapeake 

Bay. In between were the Dutch and 

the tiny Swedish community. To the 

west were the original Americans, 

then called Indians.

Sometimes friendly, sometimes 

hostile, the Eastern tribes were no 

longer strangers to the Europeans.

Although Native Americans benefited from access to new technology and trade, the disease and thirst 

for land that the early settlers also 

brought posed a serious challenge to 

their long-established way of life.

At first, trade with the European 

settlers brought advantages: knives, 
16

axes, weapons, cooking utensils, 

fishhooks, and a host of other goods.

Those Indians who traded initially had significant advantage over 

rivals who did not. In response to 

European demand, tribes such as the 

Iroquois began to devote more attention to fur trapping during the 

17th century. Furs and pelts provided tribes the means to purchase 

colonial goods until late into the 

18th century.

Early colonial-Native-American 

relations were an uneasy mix of cooperation and conflict. On the one 

hand, there were the exemplary relations that prevailed during the first 

half century of Pennsylvania’s existence. On the other were a long series 

of setbacks, skirmishes, and wars, 

which almost invariably resulted in 

an Indian defeat and further loss of 

land.

The first of the important NativeAmerican uprisings occurred in Virginia in 1622, when some 347 whites 

were killed, including a number of 

missionaries who had just recently 

come to Jamestown.

White settlement of the Connecticut River region touched off the 

Pequot War in 1637. In 1675 King 

Philip, the son of the native chief 

who had made the original peace 

with the Pilgrims in 1621, attempted 

to unite the tribes of southern New 

England against further European encroachment of their lands. In 

the struggle, however, Philip lost 

his life and many Indians were sold 

into servitude.

The steady influx of settlers into 

the backwoods regions of the Eastern 

colonies disrupted Native-American 

life. As more and more game was 

killed off, tribes were faced with the 

difficult choice of going hungry, going to war, or moving and coming 

into conflict with other tribes to the 

west.

The Iroquois, who inhabited the 

area below lakes Ontario and Erie 

in northern New York and Pennsylvania, were more successful in resisting European advances. In 1570 

five tribes joined to form the most 

complex Native-American nation 

of its time, the “Ho-De-No-SauNee,” or League of the Iroquois. The 

league was run by a council made 

up of 50 representatives from each of 

the five member tribes. The council 

dealt with matters common to all the 

tribes, but it had no say in how the 

free and equal tribes ran their dayto-day affairs. No tribe was allowed 

to make war by itself. The council 

passed laws to deal with crimes such 

as murder.

The Iroquois League was a strong 

power in the 1600s and 1700s. It 

traded furs with the British and 

sided with them against the French 

in the war for the dominance of 

America between 1754 and 1763.

The British might not have won that 

war otherwise.

The Iroquois League stayed 

strong until the American Revolution. Then, for the first time, the 

council could not reach a unanimous decision on whom to support.

Member tribes made their own deCHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

17

cisions, some fighting with the British, some with the colonists, some 

remaining neutral. As a result, everyone fought against the Iroquois.

Their losses were great and the 

league never recovered.

SECOND GENERATION OF 

BRITISH COLONIES

The religious and civil conflict in 

England in the mid-17th century 

limited immigration, as well as the 

attention the mother country paid 

the fledgling American colonies.

In part to provide for the defense 

measures England was neglecting, the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven 

colonies formed the New England 

Confederation in 1643. It was the 

European colonists’ first attempt at 

regional unity.

The early history of the British 

settlers reveals a good deal of contention — religious and political — 

as groups vied for power and position among themselves and their 

neighbors. Maryland, in particular, 

suffered from the bitter religious rivalries that afflicted England during 

the era of Oliver Cromwell. One of 

the casualties was the state’s Toleration Act, which was revoked in the 

1650s. It was soon reinstated, however, along with the religious freedom 

it guaranteed.

 With the restoration of King 

Charles II in 1660, the British once 

again turned their attention to 

North America. Within a brief span, 

the first European settlements were 

established in the Carolinas and the 

Dutch driven out of New Netherland. New proprietary colonies were 

established in New York, New Jersey, 

Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

The Dutch settlements had been 

ruled by autocratic governors appointed in Europe. Over the years, 

the local population had become 

estranged from them. As a result, 

when the British colonists began encroaching on Dutch claims in Long 

Island and Manhattan, the unpopular governor was unable to rally the 

population to their defense. New 

Netherland fell in 1664. The terms 

of the capitulation, however, were 

mild: The Dutch settlers were able to 

retain their property and worship as 

they pleased.

As early as the 1650s, the Albemarle Sound region off the coast of 

what is now northern North Carolina was inhabited by settlers trickling 

down from Virginia. The first proprietary governor arrived in 1664.

The first town in Albemarle, a remote area even today, was not established until the arrival of a group of 

French Huguenots in 1704.

In 1670 the first settlers, drawn 

from New England and the Caribbean island of Barbados, arrived 

in what is now Charleston, South 

Carolina. An elaborate system of 

government, to which the British 

philosopher John Locke contributed, was prepared for the new colony.

One of its prominent features was a 

failed attempt to create a hereditary 

nobility. One of the colony’s least appealing aspects was the early trade in 
18

Indian slaves. With time, however, 

timber, rice, and indigo gave the colony a worthier economic base.

In 1681 William Penn, a wealthy 

Quaker and friend of Charles II, received a large tract of land west of 

the Delaware River, which became 

known as Pennsylvania. To help 

populate it, Penn actively recruited 

a host of religious dissenters from 

England and the continent — Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Moravians, 

and Baptists.

When Penn arrived the following year, there were already Dutch, 

Swedish, and English settlers living along the Delaware River. It was 

there he founded Philadelphia, the 

“City of Brotherly Love.”

In keeping with his faith, Penn 

was motivated by a sense of equality not often found in other American colonies at the time. Thus, 

women in Pennsylvania had rights 

long before they did in other parts 

of America. Penn and his deputies 

also paid considerable attention to 

the colony’s relations with the Delaware Indians, ensuring that they 

were paid for land on which the Europeans settled.

Georgia was settled in 1732, 

the last of the 13 colonies to be 

established. Lying close to, if not 

actually inside the boundaries of 

Spanish Florida, the region was 

viewed as a buffer against Spanish 

incursion. But it had another unique 

quality: The man charged with 

Georgia’s fortifications, General 

James Oglethorpe, was a reformer 

who deliberately set out to create a 

refuge where the poor and former 

prisoners would be given new 

opportunities.

SETTLERS, SLAVES, AND 

SERVANTS

Men and women with little active 

interest in a new life in America were 

often induced to make the move to 

the New World by the skillful persuasion of promoters. William Penn, 

for example, publicized the opportunities awaiting newcomers to the 

Pennsylvania colony. Judges and 

prison authorities offered convicts 

a chance to migrate to colonies like 

Georgia instead of serving prison 

sentences.

But few colonists could finance 

the cost of passage for themselves and 

their families to make a start in the 

new land. In some cases, ships’ captains received large rewards from the 

sale of service contracts for poor migrants, called indentured servants, 

and every method from extravagant 

promises to actual kidnapping was 

used to take on as many passengers 

as their vessels could hold.

In other cases, the expenses of 

transportation and maintenance 

were paid by colonizing agencies like 

the Virginia or Massachusetts Bay 

Companies. In return, indentured 

servants agreed to work for the agencies as contract laborers, usually for 

four to seven years. Free at the end of 

this term, they would be given “freedom dues,” sometimes including a 

small tract of land.

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

19

Perhaps half the settlers living in 

the colonies south of New England 

came to America under this system.

Although most of them fulfilled 

their obligations faithfully, some ran 

away from their employers. Nevertheless, many of them were eventually able to secure land and set up 

homesteads, either in the colonies in 

which they had originally settled or 

in neighboring ones. No social stigma was attached to a family that had 

its beginning in America under this 

semi-bondage. Every colony had its 

share of leaders who were former indentured servants.

There was one very important 

exception to this pattern: African 

slaves. The first black Africans were 

brought to Virginia in 1619, just 12 

years after the founding of Jamestown. Initially, many were regarded 

as indentured servants who could 

earn their freedom. By the 1660s, 

however, as the demand for plantation labor in the Southern colonies 

grew, the institution of slavery began to harden around them, and Africans were brought to America in 

shackles for a lifetime of involuntary 

servitude. 9
20

Time-worn pueblos and dramatic cliff towns, set amid the stark, rugged mesas and canyons of Colorado and New Mexico, mark the settlements of some of 

the earliest inhabitants of North America, the Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning 

“ancient ones”).

By 500 A.D. the Anasazi had established some of the first villages in 

the American Southwest, where they hunted and grew crops of corn, squash, 

and beans. The Anasazi flourished over the centuries, developing sophisticated 

dams and irrigation systems; creating a masterful, distinctive pottery tradition; and carving multiroom dwellings into the sheer sides of cliffs that remain 

among the most striking archaeological sites in the United States today.

Yet by the year 1300, they had abandoned their settlements, leaving their 

pottery, implements, even clothing — as though they intended to return — and 

seemingly vanished into history. Their homeland remained empty of human 

beings for more than a century — until the arrival of new tribes, such as the 

Navajo and the Ute, followed by the Spanish and other European settlers.

The story of the Anasazi is tied inextricably to the beautiful but harsh 

environment in which they chose to live. Early settlements, consisting of simple 

pithouses scooped out of the ground, evolved into sunken kivas (underground 

rooms) that served as meeting and religious sites. Later generations developed 

the masonry techniques for building square, stone pueblos. But the most dramatic change in Anasazi living was the move to the cliff sides below the flattopped mesas, where the Anasazi carved their amazing, multilevel dwellings.

The Anasazi lived in a communal society. They traded with other peoples 

in the region, but signs of warfare are few and isolated. And although the Anasazi certainly had religious and other leaders, as well as skilled artisans, social 

or class distinctions were virtually nonexistent.

Religious and social motives undoubtedly played a part in the building 

of the cliff communities and their final abandonment. But the struggle to raise 

food in an increasingly difficult environment was probably the paramount factor. As populations grew, farmers planted larger areas on the mesas, causing 

some communities to farm marginal lands, while others left the mesa tops for 

the cliffs. But the Anasazi couldn’t halt the steady loss of the land’s fertility 

from constant use, nor withstand the region’s cyclical droughts. Analysis of tree 

rings, for example, shows that a drought lasting 23 years, from 1276 to 1299, 

finally forced the last groups of Anasazi to leave permanently.

Although the Anasazi dispersed from their ancestral homeland, their 

legacy remains in the remarkable archaeological record that they left behind, 

and in the Hopi, Zuni, and other Pueblo peoples who are their descendants. 

THE ENDURING MYSTERY OF THE ANASAZI

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
Major Native American cultural groupings, A.D. 500-1300. 

OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

21
22
CHAPTER 2

THE 

COLONIAL

PERIOD

Pilgrims signing the 

Mayflower Compact 

aboard ship, 1620. 
24

NEW PEOPLES

Most settlers who came to America in the 17th century were English, 

but there were also Dutch, Swedes, 

and Germans in the middle region, 

a few French Huguenots in South 

Carolina and elsewhere, slaves from 

Africa, primarily in the South, and a 

scattering of Spaniards, Italians, and 

Portuguese throughout the colonies.

After 1680 England ceased to be the 

chief source of immigration, supplanted by Scots and “Scots-Irish” 

(Protestants from Northern Ireland). In addition, tens of thousands 

of refugees fled northwestern Europe to escape war, oppression, and 

absentee-landlordism. By 1690 the 

American population had risen to 

a quarter of a million. From then 

on, it doubled every 25 years until, 

in 1775, it numbered more than 2.5 

million. Although families occasionally moved from one colony to 

another, distinctions between individual colonies were marked. They 

were even more so among the three 

regional groupings of colonies.

NEW ENGLAND

The northeastern New England 

colonies had generally thin, stony 

soil, relatively little level land, and 

long winters, making it difficult to 

make a living from farming. Turning to other pursuits, the New Englanders harnessed waterpower and 

established grain mills and sawmills. Good stands of timber encouraged shipbuilding. Excellent 

harbors promoted trade, and the 

sea became a source of great wealth.

In Massachusetts, the cod industry 

alone quickly furnished a basis for 

prosperity.

With the bulk of the early settlers 

living in villages and towns around 

the harbors, many New Englanders carried on some kind of trade or 

business. Common pastureland and 

woodlots served the needs of townspeople, who worked small farms 

CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 

“What then is the American, 

this new man?”

American author and agriculturist 

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, 1782 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

25

nearby. Compactness made possible 

the village school, the village church, 

and the village or town hall, where 

citizens met to discuss matters of 

common interest.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony 

continued to expand its commerce.

From the middle of the 17th century 

onward it grew prosperous, so that 

Boston became one of America’s 

greatest ports.

Oak timber for ships’ hulls, tall 

pines for spars and masts, and pitch 

for the seams of ships came from the 

Northeastern forests. Building their 

own vessels and sailing them to ports 

all over the world, the shipmasters 

of Massachusetts Bay laid the foundation for a trade that was to grow 

steadily in importance. By the end 

of the colonial period, one-third of 

all vessels under the British flag were 

built in New England. Fish, ship’s 

stores, and woodenware swelled the 

exports. New England merchants 

and shippers soon discovered that 

rum and slaves were profitable commodities. One of their most enterprising — if unsavory — trading 

practices of the time was the “triangular trade.” Traders would purchase 

slaves off the coast of Africa for New 

England rum, then sell the slaves in 

the West Indies where they would 

buy molasses to bring home for sale 

to the local rum producers.

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

Society in the middle colonies 

was far more varied, cosmopolitan, 

and tolerant than in New England.

Under William Penn, Pennsylvania 

functioned smoothly and grew rapidly. By 1685, its population was almost 9,000. The heart of the colony 

was Philadelphia, a city of broad, 

tree-shaded streets, substantial brick 

and stone houses, and busy docks.

By the end of the colonial period, 

nearly a century later, 30,000 people 

lived there, representing many languages, creeds, and trades. Their talent for successful business enterprise 

made the city one of the thriving 

centers of the British Empire.

Though the Quakers dominated 

in Philadelphia, elsewhere in Pennsylvania others were well represented. Germans became the colony’s 

most skillful farmers. Important, 

too, were cottage industries such as 

weaving, shoemaking, cabinetmaking, and other crafts. Pennsylvania 

was also the principal gateway into 

the New World for the Scots-Irish, 

who moved into the colony in the 

early 18th century. “Bold and indigent strangers,” as one Pennsylvania 

official called them, they hated the 

English and were suspicious of all 

government. The Scots-Irish tended 

to settle in the backcountry, where 

they cleared land and lived by hunting and subsistence farming.

New York best illustrated the 

polyglot nature of America. By 1646 

the population along the Hudson 

River included Dutch, French, Danes, 

Norwegians, Swedes, English, Scots, 

Irish, Germans, Poles, Bohemians, 

Portuguese, and Italians. The Dutch 

continued to exercise an important 

social and economic influence on 
26

the New York region long after the 

fall of New Netherland and their integration into the British colonial 

system. Their sharp-stepped gable 

roofs became a permanent part of 

the city’s architecture, and their 

merchants gave Manhattan much 

of its original bustling, commercial 

atmosphere.

THE SOUTHERN COLONIES

In contrast to New England and 

the middle colonies, the Southern 

colonies were predominantly rural 

settlements.

By the late 17th century, Virginia’s and Maryland’s economic and 

social structure rested on the great 

planters and the yeoman farmers.

The planters of the Tidewater region, supported by slave labor, held 

most of the political power and the 

best land. They built great houses, 

adopted an aristocratic way of life, 

and kept in touch as best they could 

with the world of culture overseas.

The yeoman farmers, who worked

smaller tracts, sat in popular assemblies and found their way into political 

office. Their outspoken independence 

was a constant warning to the oligarchy of planters not to encroach too 

far upon the rights of free men.

The settlers of the Carolinas 

quickly learned to combine agriculture and commerce, and the marketplace became a major source of 

prosperity. Dense forests brought 

revenue: Lumber, tar, and resin from 

the longleaf pine provided some of 

the best shipbuilding materials in 

the world. Not bound to a single 

crop as was Virginia, North and 

South Carolina also produced and 

exported rice and indigo, a blue dye 

obtained from native plants that was 

used in coloring fabric. By 1750 more 

than 100,000 people lived in the two 

colonies of North and South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina, was 

the region’s leading port and trading 

center.

In the southernmost colonies, as 

everywhere else, population growth 

in the backcountry had special significance. German immigrants 

and Scots-Irish, unwilling to live in 

the original Tidewater settlements 

where English influence was strong, 

pushed inland. Those who could not 

secure fertile land along the coast, or 

who had exhausted the lands they 

held, found the hills farther west a 

bountiful refuge. Although their 

hardships were enormous, restless 

settlers kept coming; by the 1730s 

they were pouring into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Soon the interior was dotted with farms.

Living on the edge of Native 

American country, frontier families 

built cabins, cleared the wilderness, 

and cultivated maize and wheat.

The men wore leather made from 

the skin of deer or sheep, known 

as buckskin; the women wore garments of cloth they spun at home.

Their food consisted of venison, 

wild turkey, and fish. They had their 

own amusements: great barbecues, 

dances, housewarmings for newly 

married couples, shooting matches, 

and contests for making quilted 

CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

27

blankets. Quilt-making remains an 

American tradition today.

SOCIETY, SCHOOLS, AND 

CULTURE

A significant factor deterring the 

emergence of a powerful aristocratic 

or gentry class in the colonies was 

the ability of anyone in an established colony to find a new home on 

the frontier. Time after time, dominant Tidewater figures were obliged 

to liberalize political policies, landgrant requirements, and religious 

practices by the threat of a mass exodus to the frontier.

Of equal significance for the 

future were the foundations of 

American education and culture established during the colonial period.

Harvard College was founded in 

1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Near the end of the century, the 

College of William and Mary was 

established in Virginia. A few 

years later, the Collegiate School of 

Connecticut, later to become Yale 

University, was chartered.

Even more noteworthy was the 

growth of a school system maintained by governmental authority.

The Puritan emphasis on reading 

directly from the Scriptures underscored the importance of literacy. In 

1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony 

enacted the “ye olde deluder Satan” 

Act, requiring every town having 

more than 50 families to establish 

a grammar school (a Latin school to 

prepare students for college). Shortly 

thereafter, all the other New England colonies, except for Rhode Island, followed its example.

The Pilgrims and Puritans had 

brought their own little libraries and continued to import books 

from London. And as early as the 

1680s, Boston booksellers were doing a thriving business in works of 

classical literature, history, politics, 

philosophy, science, theology, and 

belles-lettres. In 1638 the first printing press in the English colonies and 

the second in North America was installed at Harvard College.

The first school in Pennsylvania 

was begun in 1683. It taught reading, 

writing, and keeping of accounts.

Thereafter, in some fashion, every 

Quaker community provided for the 

elementary teaching of its children.

More advanced training — in classical languages, history, and literature 

— was offered at the Friends Public 

School, which still operates in Philadelphia as the William Penn Charter 

School. The school was free to the 

poor, but parents were required to 

pay tuition if they were able.

In Philadelphia, numerous private 

schools with no religious affiliation 

taught languages, mathematics, and 

natural science; there were also night 

schools for adults. Women were not 

entirely overlooked, but their educational opportunities were limited 

to training in activities that could 

be conducted in the home. Private 

teachers instructed the daughters 

of prosperous Philadelphians in 

French, music, dancing, painting, 

singing, grammar, and sometimes 

bookkeeping.
28

In the 18th century, the intellectual and cultural development 

of Pennsylvania reflected, in large 

measure, the vigorous personalities 

of two men: James Logan and Benjamin Franklin. Logan was secretary 

of the colony, and it was in his fine library that young Franklin found the 

latest scientific works. In 1745 Logan 

erected a building for his collection 

and bequeathed both building and 

books to the city.

Franklin contributed even more 

to the intellectual activity of Philadelphia. He formed a debating club 

that became the embryo of the 

American Philosophical Society. His 

endeavors also led to the founding 

of a public academy that later developed into the University of Pennsylvania. He was a prime mover in 

the establishment of a subscription 

library, which he called “the mother 

of all North American subscription 

libraries.”

In the Southern colonies, wealthy 

planters and merchants imported private tutors from Ireland or Scotland 

to teach their children. Some sent 

their children to school in England.

Having these other opportunities, the 

upper classes in the Tidewater were 

not interested in supporting public education. In addition, the diffusion of farms and plantations made 

the formation of community schools 

difficult. There were only a few free 

schools in Virginia.

The desire for learning did not 

stop at the borders of established 

communities, however. On the frontier, the Scots-Irish, though living in 

primitive cabins, were firm devotees 

of scholarship, and they made great 

efforts to attract learned ministers to 

their settlements.

Literary production in the colonies was largely confined to New 

England. Here attention concentrated on religious subjects. Sermons were the most common 

products of the press. A famous Puritan minister, the Reverend Cotton Mather, wrote some 400 works.

His masterpiece, Magnalia Christi Americana, presented the pageant of New England’s history. The 

most popular single work of the day 

was the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth’s long poem, “The Day of 

Doom,” which described the Last 

Judgment in terrifying terms.

In 1704 Cambridge, Massachusetts, launched the colonies’ first 

successful newspaper. By 1745 there 

were 22 newspapers being published 

in British North America.

In New York, an important step 

in establishing the principle of freedom of the press took place with the 

case of John Peter Zenger, whose 

New York Weekly Journal, begun in 

1733, represented the opposition to 

the government. After two years of 

publication, the colonial governor 

could no longer tolerate Zenger’s satirical barbs, and had him thrown 

into prison on a charge of seditious 

libel. Zenger continued to edit his 

paper from jail during his ninemonth trial, which excited intense 

interest throughout the colonies.

Andrew Hamilton, the prominent 

lawyer who defended Zenger, argued 

CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

29

that the charges printed by Zenger 

were true and hence not libelous.

The jury returned a verdict of not 

guilty, and Zenger went free.

The increasing prosperity of the 

towns prompted fears that the devil was luring society into pursuit of 

worldly gain and may have contributed to the religious reaction of the 

1730s, known as the Great Awakening. Its two immediate sources were 

George Whitefield, a Wesleyan revivalist who arrived from England 

in 1739, and Jonathan Edwards, who 

served the Congregational Church 

in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Whitefield began a religious revival in Philadelphia and then moved 

on to New England. He enthralled 

audiences of up to 20,000 people at 

a time with histrionic displays, gestures, and emotional oratory. Religious turmoil swept throughout New 

England and the middle colonies as 

ministers left established churches to 

preach the revival.

Edwards was the most prominent 

of those influenced by Whitefield 

and the Great Awakening. His most 

memorable contribution was his 

1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands 

of an Angry God.” Rejecting theatrics, he delivered his message in a 

quiet, thoughtful manner, arguing 

that the established churches sought 

to deprive Christianity of its function of redemption from sin. His 

magnum opus, Of Freedom of Will 

(1754), attempted to reconcile Calvinism with the Enlightenment.

The Great Awakening gave rise 

to evangelical denominations (those 

Christian churches that believe in 

personal conversion and the inerrancy of the Bible) and the spirit of 

revivalism, which continue to play 

significant roles in American religious and cultural life. It weakened 

the status of the established clergy 

and provoked believers to rely on 

their own conscience. Perhaps most 

important, it led to the proliferation 

of sects and denominations, which 

in turn encouraged general acceptance of the principle of religious 

toleration.

EMERGENCE OF COLONIAL 

GOVERNMENT

In the early phases of colonial development, a striking feature was the 

lack of controlling influence by the 

English government. All colonies except Georgia emerged as companies 

of shareholders, or as feudal proprietorships stemming from charters 

granted by the Crown. The fact that 

the king had transferred his immediate sovereignty over the New World 

settlements to stock companies and 

proprietors did not, of course, mean 

that the colonists in America were 

necessarily free of outside control.

Under the terms of the Virginia 

Company charter, for example, full 

governmental authority was vested 

in the company itself. Nevertheless, 

the crown expected that the company would be resident in England.

Inhabitants of Virginia, then, would 

have no more voice in their government than if the king himself had 

retained absolute rule.
30

Still, the colonies considered 

themselves chiefly as commonwealths or states, much like England 

itself, having only a loose association 

with the authorities in London. In 

one way or another, exclusive rule 

from the outside withered away. The 

colonists — inheritors of the long 

English tradition of the struggle 

for political liberty — incorporated 

concepts of freedom into Virginia’s 

first charter. It provided that English colonists were to exercise all 

liberties, franchises, and immunities “as if they had been abiding and 

born within this our Realm of England.” They were, then, to enjoy the 

benefits of the Magna Carta — the 

charter of English political and civil liberties granted by King John in 

1215 — and the common law — the 

English system of law based on legal 

precedents or tradition, not statutory 

law. In 1618 the Virginia Company 

issued instructions to its appointed 

governor providing that free inhabitants of the plantations should elect 

representatives to join with the governor and an appointive council in 

passing ordinances for the welfare of 

the colony.

These measures proved to be 

some of the most far-reaching in the 

entire colonial period. From then 

on, it was generally accepted that the 

colonists had a right to participate in 

their own government. In most instances, the king, in making future 

grants, provided in the charter that 

the free men of the colony should 

have a voice in legislation affecting 

them. Thus, charters awarded to the 

Calverts in Maryland, William Penn 

in Pennsylvania, the proprietors in 

North and South Carolina, and the 

proprietors in New Jersey specified 

that legislation should be enacted 

with “the consent of the freemen.”

In New England, for many years, 

there was even more complete selfgovernment than in the other colonies. Aboard the Mayflower, the 

Pilgrims adopted an instrument for 

government called the “Mayflower 

Compact,” to “combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our 

better ordering and preservation ...

and by virtue hereof [to] enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal 

laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, 

and offices ... as shall be thought most 

meet and convenient for the general 

good of the colony....”

Although there was no legal basis 

for the Pilgrims to establish a system 

of self-government, the action was 

not contested, and, under the compact, the Plymouth settlers were able 

for many years to conduct their own 

affairs without outside interference.

A similar situation developed in 

the Massachusetts Bay Company, 

which had been given the right to 

govern itself. Thus, full authority 

rested in the hands of persons residing in the colony. At first, the 

dozen or so original members of the 

company who had come to America 

attempted to rule autocratically. But 

the other colonists soon demanded 

a voice in public affairs and indicated that refusal would lead to a 

mass migration.

The company members yieldCHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

31

ed, and control of the government 

passed to elected representatives.

Subsequently, other New England 

colonies — such as Connecticut and 

Rhode Island — also succeeded in 

becoming self-governing simply by 

asserting that they were beyond any 

governmental authority, and then 

setting up their own political system modeled after that of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

In only two cases was the selfgovernment provision omitted.

These were New York, which was 

granted to Charles II’s brother, the 

Duke of York (later to become King 

James II), and Georgia, which was 

granted to a group of “trustees.” In 

both instances the provisions for 

governance were short-lived, for the 

colonists demanded legislative representation so insistently that the authorities soon yielded.

In the mid-17th century, the 

English were too distracted by 

their Civil War (1642-49) and 

Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Commonwealth to pursue an effective 

colonial policy. After the restoration of Charles II and the Stuart 

dynasty in 1660, England had more 

opportunity to attend to colonial 

administration. Even then, however, it was inefficient and lacked 

a coherent plan. The colonies were 

left largely to their own devices.

The remoteness afforded by a vast 

ocean also made control of the colonies difficult. Added to this was the 

character of life itself in early America. From countries limited in space 

and dotted with populous towns, 

the settlers had come to a land of 

seemingly unending reach. On such 

a continent, natural conditions promoted a tough individualism, as 

people became used to making their 

own decisions. Government penetrated the backcountry only slowly, 

and conditions of anarchy often prevailed on the frontier.

Yet the assumption of self-government in the colonies did not go 

entirely unchallenged. In the 1670s, 

the Lords of Trade and Plantations, 

a royal committee established to enforce the mercantile system in the 

colonies, moved to annul the Massachusetts Bay charter because the colony was resisting the government’s 

economic policy. James II in 1685 

approved a proposal to create a Dominion of New England and place 

colonies south through New Jersey 

under its jurisdiction, thereby tightening the Crown’s control over the 

whole region. A royal governor, Sir 

Edmund Andros, levied taxes by executive order, implemented a number of other harsh measures, and 

jailed those who resisted.

When news of the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), which deposed 

James II in England, reached Boston, 

the population rebelled and imprisoned Andros. Under a new charter, 

Massachusetts and Plymouth were 

united for the first time in 1691 as 

the royal colony of Massachusetts 

Bay. The other New England colonies quickly reinstalled their previous governments.

The English Bill of Rights and 

the Toleration Act of 1689 affirmed 
32

freedom of worship for Christians in 

the colonies as well as in England 

and enforced limits on the Crown.

Equally important, John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government (1690), 

the Glorious Revolution’s major 

theoretical justification, set forth 

a theory of government based not 

on divine right but on contract. It 

contended that the people, endowed 

with natural rights of life, liberty, 

and property, had the right to rebel when governments violated their 

rights.

By the early 18th century, almost 

all the colonies had been brought 

under the direct jurisdiction of the 

British Crown, but under the rules 

established by the Glorious Revolution. Colonial governors sought to 

exercise powers that the king had 

lost in England, but the colonial assemblies, aware of events there, attempted to assert their “rights” and 

“liberties.” Their leverage rested on 

two significant powers similar to 

those held by the English Parliament: the right to vote on taxes and 

expenditures, and the right to initiate legislation rather than merely 

react to proposals of the governor.

The legislatures used these rights 

to check the power of royal governors and to pass other measures to 

expand their power and influence.

The recurring clashes between governor and assembly made colonial 

politics tumultuous and worked increasingly to awaken the colonists to 

the divergence between American 

and English interests. In many cases, 

the royal authorities did not understand the importance of what the 

colonial assemblies were doing and 

simply neglected them. Nonetheless, 

the precedents and principles established in the conflicts between assemblies and governors eventually 

became part of the unwritten “constitution” of the colonies. In this way, 

the colonial legislatures asserted the 

right of self-government.

THE FRENCH AND 

INDIAN WAR

France and Britain engaged in a 

succession of wars in Europe and 

the Caribbean throughout the 18th 

century. Though Britain secured 

certain advantages — primarily in 

the sugar-rich islands of the Caribbean — the struggles were generally 

indecisive, and France remained in a 

powerful position in North America. By 1754, France still had a strong 

relationship with a number of Native American tribes in Canada and 

along the Great Lakes. It controlled 

the Mississippi River and, by establishing a line of forts and trading 

posts, had marked out a great crescent-shaped empire stretching from 

Quebec to New Orleans. The British 

remained confined to the narrow 

belt east of the Appalachian Mountains. Thus the French threatened 

not only the British Empire but also 

the American colonists themselves, 

for in holding the Mississippi Valley, 

France could limit their westward 

expansion.

An armed clash took place in 

1754 at Fort Duquesne, the site where 

CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

33

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is now located, between a band of French regulars and Virginia militiamen under 

the command of 22-year-old George 

Washington, a Virginia planter and 

surveyor. The British government 

attempted to deal with the conflict 

by calling a meeting of representatives from New York, Pennsylvania, 

Maryland, and the New England 

colonies. From June 19 to July 10, 

1754, the Albany Congress, as it 

came to be known, met with the Iroquois in Albany, New York, in order 

to improve relations with them and 

secure their loyalty to the British.

But the delegates also declared a 

union of the American colonies “absolutely necessary for their preservation” and adopted a proposal drafted 

by Benjamin Franklin. The Albany 

Plan of Union provided for a president appointed by the king and a 

grand council of delegates chosen by 

the assemblies, with each colony to 

be represented in proportion to its 

financial contributions to the general treasury. This body would have 

charge of defense, Native American 

relations, and trade and settlement 

of the west. Most importantly, it 

would have independent authority to 

levy taxes. But none of the colonies 

accepted the plan, since they were 

not prepared to surrender either the 

power of taxation or control over the 

development of the western lands to 

a central authority.

England’s superior strategic position and her competent leadership 

ultimately brought victory in the 

conflict with France, known as the 

French and Indian War in America and the Seven Years’ War in Europe. Only a modest portion of it was 

fought in the Western Hemisphere.

In the Peace of Paris (1763), 

France relinquished all of Canada, 

the Great Lakes, and the territory 

east of the Mississippi to the British. The dream of a French empire in 

North America was over.

Having triumphed over France, 

Britain was now compelled to face 

a problem that it had hitherto neglected, the governance of its empire. London thought it essential to 

organize its now vast possessions to 

facilitate defense, reconcile the divergent interests of different areas and 

peoples, and distribute more evenly 

the cost of imperial administration.

In North America alone, British 

territories had more than doubled.

A population that had been predominantly Protestant and English now 

included French-speaking Catholics 

from Quebec, and large numbers of 

partly Christianized Native Americans. Defense and administration 

of the new territories, as well as of 

the old, would require huge sums of 

money and increased personnel. The 

old colonial system was obviously 

inadequate to these tasks. Measures 

to establish a new one, however, 

would rouse the latent suspicions 

of colonials who increasingly would 

see Britain as no longer a protector 

of their rights, but rather a danger 

to them. 9
34

AN EXCEPTIONAL NATION?

The United States of America did not emerge as a nation until about 175 

years after its establishment as a group of mostly British colonies. Yet from the 

beginning it was a different society in the eyes of many Europeans who viewed 

it from afar, whether with hope or apprehension. Most of its settlers — whether 

the younger sons of aristocrats, religious dissenters, or impoverished indentured servants — came there lured by a promise of opportunity or freedom not 

available in the Old World. The first Americans were reborn free, establishing 

themselves in a wilderness unencumbered by any social order other than that 

of the primitive aboriginal peoples they displaced. Having left the baggage of 

a feudal order behind them, they faced few obstacles to the development of a 

society built on the principles of political and social liberalism that emerged 

with difficulty in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Based on the thinking of the 

philosopher John Locke, this sort of liberalism emphasized the rights of the 

individual and constraints on government power.

Most immigrants to America came from the British Isles, the most 

liberal of the European polities along with The Netherlands. In religion, the 

majority adhered to various forms of Calvinism with its emphasis on both 

divine and secular contractual relationships. These greatly facilitated the 

emergence of a social order built on individual rights and social mobility. The 

development of a more complex and highly structured commercial society in 

coastal cities by the mid-18th century did not stunt this trend; it was in these 

cities that the American Revolution was made. The constant reconstruction 

of society along an ever-receding Western frontier equally contributed to a 

liberal-democratic spirit.

In Europe, ideals of individual rights advanced slowly and unevenly; the 

concept of democracy was even more alien. The attempt to establish both in 

continental Europe’s oldest nation led to the French Revolution. The effort to 

destroy a neofeudal society while establishing the rights of man and democratic fraternity generated terror, dictatorship, and Napoleonic despotism. In the 

end, it led to reaction and gave legitimacy to a decadent old order. In America, 

the European past was overwhelmed by ideals that sprang naturally from the 

process of building a new society on virgin land. The principles of liberalism 

and democracy were strong from the beginning. A society that had thrown off 

the burdens of European history would naturally give birth to a nation that 

saw itself as exceptional. 

CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

35

THE WITCHES OF SALEM

In 1692 a group of adolescent girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, became 

subject to strange fits after hearing tales told by a West Indian slave. They 

accused several women of being witches. The townspeople were appalled but 

not surprised: Belief in witchcraft was widespread throughout 17th-century 

America and Europe. Town officials convened a court to hear the charges of 

witchcraft. Within a month, six women were convicted and hanged.

The hysteria grew, in large measure because the court permitted witnesses to testify that they had seen the accused as spirits or in visions. Such 

“spectral evidence” could neither be verified nor made subject to objective 

examination. By the fall of 1692, 20 victims, including several men, had been 

executed, and more than 100 others were in jail (where another five victims 

died) — among them some of the town’s most prominent citizens. When the 

charges threatened to spread beyond Salem, ministers throughout the colony 

called for an end to the trials. The governor of the colony agreed. Those still 

in jail were later acquitted or given reprieves.

Although an isolated incident, the Salem episode has long fascinated 

Americans. Most historians agree that Salem Village in 1692 experienced a 

kind of public hysteria, fueled by a genuine belief in the existence of witchcraft. While some of the girls may have been acting, many responsible adults 

became caught up in the frenzy as well.

Even more revealing is a closer analysis of the identities of the accused and the accusers. Salem Village, as much of colonial New England, 

was undergoing an economic and political transition from a largely agrarian, 

Puritan-dominated community to a more commercial, secular society. Many 

of the accusers were representatives of a traditional way of life tied to farming 

and the church, whereas a number of the accused witches were members of a 

rising commercial class of small shopkeepers and tradesmen. Salem’s obscure 

struggle for social and political power between older traditional groups and a 

newer commercial class was one repeated in communities throughout American history. It took a bizarre and deadly detour when its citizens were swept 

up by the conviction that the devil was loose in their homes.

The Salem witch trials also serve as a dramatic parable of the deadly 

consequences of making sensational, but false, charges. Three hundred years 

later, we still call false accusations against a large number of people a 

“witch hunt.” 
Map depicting the English colonies and western territories, 1763-1775.

CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

37
38

BECOMING A

NATION

The United States of America was transformed in the two centuries 

from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 to the 

beginning of the 19th century. From a series of isolated colonial 

settlements hugging the Atlantic Coast, the United States evolved 

into a new nation, born in revolution, and guided by a Constitution 

embodying the principles of democratic self-government. 

A PICTURE PROFILE

John Smith, 

the stalwart 

English explorer 

and settler whose 

leadership helped 

save Jamestown from 

collapse during its critical 

early years.
Detail from a painting by American artist Benjamin West 

(1738-1820), which depicts William Penn’s treaty with the 

Native Americans living where he founded the colony of 

Pennsylvania as a haven for Quakers and others seeking 

religious freedom. Penn’s fair treatment of the Delaware 

Indians led to long-term, friendly relations, unlike the conflicts 

between European settlers and Indian tribes in other colonies. 

39
40

A devout Puritan elder (right) confronts patrons drinking ale outside a 

tavern. Tensions between the strictly religious Puritans, who first settled 

the region, and the more secular population were characteristic of the 

colonial era in New England. 

Cotton Mather was one of 

the leading Puritan figures 

of the late 17th and early 

18th centuries. His massive 

Ecclesiastical History of 

New England (1702) is an 

exhaustive chronicle of the 

settlement of New England 

and the Puritan effort to 

establish a kingdom of God 

in the wilderness of the 

New World. 
41

Statue of Roger Williams, early champion of religious freedom 

and the separation of church and state. Williams founded the colony of 

Rhode Island after leaving Massachusetts because of his disapproval 

of its religious ties to the Church of England. 
42

Drawing of revolutionary firebrand Patrick Henry (standing 

to the left) uttering perhaps the most famous words of the 

American Revolution — “Give me liberty or give me death!” 

— in a debate before the Virginia Assembly in 1775.
43

Benjamin Franklin: scientist, inventor, writer, 

newspaper publisher, city father of Philadelphia, 

diplomat, and signer of both the Declaration of 

Independence and the Constitution. Franklin 

embodied the virtues of shrewd practicality and 

the optimistic belief in self-improvement often 

associated with America itself.

James Madison, fourth president of 

the United States, is often regarded 

as the “Father of the Constitution.” 

His essays in the debate over 

ratification of the Constitution were 

collected with those of Alexander 

Hamilton and John Jay as The 

Federalist Papers. Today, they are 

regarded as a classic defense of 

republican government, in which the 

executive, legislative, and judicial 

branches check and balance each 

other to protect the rights and 

freedoms of the people.
44

Artist’s depiction of the first shots of the American 

Revolution, fired at Lexington, Massachusetts, 

on April 19, 1775. Local militia confronted British 

troops marching to seize colonial armaments 

in the nearby town of Concord.
45
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration 

of Independence and third president of 

the United States. Jefferson also founded 

the University of Virginia and built one 

of America’s most celebrated houses, 

Monticello, in Charlottesville, Virginia. 
47

Above: Surrender of Lord Cornwallis and the British army to American 

and French forces commanded by George Washington at Yorktown, 

Virginia, on October 19, 1781. The battle of Yorktown led to the end of the 

war and American independence, secured in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

Left: U.S. postage stamp commemorating the bicentennial of the Lewis 

and Clark expedition, one of Thomas Jefferson’s visionary projects. 

Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson’s secretary, and his friend, William Clark, 

accompanied by a party of more than 30 persons, set out on a journey into 

the uncharted West that lasted four years. They traveled thousands of 

miles, from Camp Wood, Illinois, to Oregon, through lands that eventually 

became 11 American states. 
48

Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury in the administration of 

President George Washington. Hamilton advocated a strong federal government 

and the encouragement of industry. He was opposed by Thomas Jefferson, 

a believer in decentralized government, states’ rights, and the virtues of 

the independent farmers and land owners.
49

John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, in a portrait 

by Alonzo Chappel. In a series of landmark cases, Marshall established the principle 

of judicial review — the right of the courts to determine if any act of Congress or the 

executive branch is constitutional, and therefore valid and legal.
50
CHAPTER 3

THE ROAD 

TO

INDEPENDENCE

The protest against British 

taxes known as the “Boston 

Tea Party,” 1773.
52

Throughout the 18th century, the 

maturing British North American 

colonies inevitably forged a distinct 

identity. They grew vastly in economic strength and cultural attainment; virtually all had long years 

of self-government behind them.

In the 1760s their combined population exceeded 1,500,000 — a 

six-fold increase since 1700. Nonetheless, England and America did 

not begin an overt parting of ways 

until 1763, more than a century 

and a half after the founding of the 

first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

A NEW COLONIAL SYSTEM

In the aftermath of the French and 

Indian War, London saw a need for 

a new imperial design that would 

involve more centralized control, 

spread the costs of empire more equitably, and speak to the interests of 

both French Canadians and North 

American Indians. The colonies, on 

the other hand, long accustomed to 

a large measure of independence, expected more, not less, freedom. And, 

with the French menace eliminated, 

they felt far less need for a strong 

British presence. A scarcely comprehending Crown and Parliament on 

the other side of the Atlantic found 

itself contending with colonists 

trained in self-government and impatient with interference.

The organization of Canada 

and of the Ohio Valley necessitated 

policies that would not alienate the 

French and Indian inhabitants. Here 

London was in fundamental conflict 

with the interests of the colonies.

Fast increasing in population, and 

needing more land for settlement, 

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

“The Revolution was effected 

before the war commenced. 

The Revolution was in 

the hearts and minds of 

the people.”

Former President John Adams, 1818

 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

53

they claimed the right to extend 

their boundaries as far west as the 

Mississippi River.

The British government, fearing a series of Indian wars, believed 

that the lands should be opened on 

a more gradual basis. Restricting 

movement was also a way of ensuring royal control over existing settlements before allowing the formation 

of new ones. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 reserved all the western territory between the Allegheny 

Mountains, Florida, the Mississippi 

River, and Quebec for use by Native Americans. Thus the Crown attempted to sweep away every western 

land claim of the 13 colonies and to 

stop westward expansion. Although 

never effectively enforced, this measure, in the eyes of the colonists, constituted a high-handed disregard of 

their fundamental right to occupy 

and settle western lands.

More serious in its repercussions was the new British revenue 

policy. London needed more money 

to support its growing empire and 

faced growing taxpayer discontent at 

home. It seemed reasonable enough 

that the colonies should pay for their 

own defense. That would involve new 

taxes, levied by Parliament — at the 

expense of colonial self-government.

The first step was the replacement 

of the Molasses Act of 1733, which 

placed a prohibitive duty, or tax, 

on the import of rum and molasses from non-English areas, with the 

Sugar Act of 1764. This act outlawed 

the importation of foreign rum; it 

also put a modest duty on molasses from all sources and levied taxes 

on wines, silks, coffee, and a number of other luxury items. The hope 

was that lowering the duty on molasses would reduce the temptation 

to smuggle the commodity from the 

Dutch and French West Indies for 

the rum distilleries of New England.

The British government enforced the 

Sugar Act energetically. Customs officials were ordered to show more 

effectiveness. British warships in 

American waters were instructed to 

seize smugglers, and “writs of assistance,” or warrants, authorized the 

king’s officers to search suspected 

premises.

Both the duty imposed by the Sugar Act and the measures to enforce 

it caused consternation among New 

England merchants. They contended 

that payment of even the small duty 

imposed would be ruinous to their 

businesses. Merchants, legislatures, 

and town meetings protested the law.

Colonial lawyers protested “taxation 

without representation,” a slogan 

that was to persuade many Americans they were being oppressed by 

the mother country.

Later in 1764, Parliament enacted a Currency Act “to prevent paper bills of credit hereafter issued in 

any of His Majesty’s colonies from 

being made legal tender.” Since the 

colonies were a deficit trade area and 

were constantly short of hard currency, this measure added a serious 

burden to the colonial economy.

Equally objectionable from the colonial viewpoint was the Quartering 

Act, passed in 1765, which required 
54

colonies to provide royal troops with 

provisions and barracks.

THE STAMP ACT

A general tax measure sparked 

the greatest organized resistance.

Known as the “Stamp Act,” it required all newspapers, broadsides, 

pamphlets, licenses, leases, and other legal documents to bear revenue 

stamps. The proceeds, collected by 

American customs agents, would be 

used for “defending, protecting, and 

securing” the colonies.

Bearing equally on people who 

did any kind of business, the Stamp 

Act aroused the hostility of the most 

powerful and articulate groups in 

the American population: journalists, lawyers, clergymen, merchants 

and businessmen, North and South, 

East and West. Leading merchants 

organized for resistance and formed 

nonimportation associations.

Trade with the mother country 

fell off sharply in the summer of 

1765, as prominent men organized 

themselves into the “Sons of Liberty” — secret organizations formed 

to protest the Stamp Act — often 

through violent means. From Massachusetts to South Carolina, mobs, 

forcing luckless customs agents to 

resign their offices, destroyed the 

hated stamps. Militant resistance effectively nullified the Act.

Spurred by delegate Patrick Henry, the Virginia House of Burgesses 

passed a set of resolutions in May 

denouncing taxation without representation as a threat to colonial liberties. It asserted that Virginians, 

enjoying the rights of Englishmen, 

could be taxed only by their own 

representatives. The Massachusetts 

Assembly invited all the colonies to 

appoint delegates to a “Stamp Act 

Congress” in New York, held in October 1765, to consider appeals for 

relief to the Crown and Parliament.

Twenty-seven representatives from 

nine colonies seized the opportunity 

to mobilize colonial opinion. After 

much debate, the congress adopted 

a set of resolutions asserting that “no 

taxes ever have been or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but 

by their respective legislatures,” and 

that the Stamp Act had a “manifest 

tendency to subvert the rights and 

liberties of the colonists.”

TAXATION WITHOUT 

REPRESENTATION

The issue thus drawn centered on 

the question of representation. The 

colonists believed they could not 

be represented unless they actually 

elected members to the House of 

Commons. But this idea conflicted 

with the English principle of “virtual 

representation,” according to which 

each member of Parliament represented the interests of the whole 

country and the empire — even if his 

electoral base consisted of only a tiny 

minority of property owners from a 

given district. This theory assumed 

that all British subjects shared the 

same interests as the property owners who elected members of Parliament.

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

55

The American leaders argued 

that their only legal relations were 

with the Crown. It was the king who 

had agreed to establish colonies beyond the sea and the king who provided them with governments. They 

asserted that he was equally a king 

of England and a king of the colonies, but they insisted that the English Parliament had no more right to 

pass laws for the colonies than any 

colonial legislature had the right to 

pass laws for England. In fact, however, their struggle was equally with 

King George III and Parliament.

Factions aligned with the Crown 

generally controlled Parliament and 

reflected the king’s determination to 

be a strong monarch.

The British Parliament rejected the colonial contentions. British 

merchants, however, feeling the effects of the American boycott, threw 

their weight behind a repeal movement. In 1766 Parliament yielded, 

repealing the Stamp Act and modifying the Sugar Act. However, to 

mollify the supporters of central 

control over the colonies, Parliament 

followed these actions with passage 

of the Declaratory Act, which asserted the authority of Parliament to 

make laws binding the colonies “in 

all cases whatsoever.” The colonists 

had won only a temporary respite 

from an impending crisis.

THE TOWNSHEND ACTS

The year 1767 brought another series of measures that stirred anew 

all the elements of discord. Charles 

Townshend, British chancellor of 

the exchequer, attempted a new fiscal program in the face of continued 

discontent over high taxes at home.

Intent upon reducing British taxes 

by making more efficient the collection of duties levied on American 

trade, he tightened customs administration and enacted duties on colonial imports of paper, glass, lead, and 

tea from Britain. The “Townshend 

Acts” were based on the premise that 

taxes imposed on goods imported by 

the colonies were legal while internal 

taxes (like the Stamp Act) were not.

The Townshend Acts were designed to raise revenue that would 

be used in part to support colonial 

officials and maintain the British army in America. In response, 

Philadelphia lawyer John Dickinson, 

in Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, argued that Parliament had the 

right to control imperial commerce 

but did not have the right to tax the 

colonies, whether the duties were 

external or internal.

The agitation following enactment of the Townshend duties was 

less violent than that stirred by the 

Stamp Act, but it was nevertheless 

strong, particularly in the cities of 

the Eastern seaboard. Merchants 

once again resorted to non-importation agreements, and people made 

do with local products. Colonists, 

for example, dressed in homespun 

clothing and found substitutes for 

tea. They used homemade paper 

and their houses went unpainted. In Boston, enforcement of the 

new regulations provoked violence.
56

When customs officials sought to 

collect duties, they were set upon by 

the populace and roughly handled.

For this infraction, two British regiments were dispatched to protect the 

customs commissioners.

The presence of British troops in 

Boston was a standing invitation to 

disorder. On March 5, 1770, antagonism between citizens and British 

soldiers again flared into violence.

What began as a harmless snowballing of British soldiers degenerated 

into a mob attack. Someone gave the 

order to fire. When the smoke had 

cleared, three Bostonians lay dead in 

the snow. Dubbed the “Boston Massacre,” the incident was dramatically 

pictured as proof of British heartlessness and tyranny.

Faced with such opposition, Parliament in 1770 opted for a strategic 

retreat and repealed all the Townshend duties except that on tea, which 

was a luxury item in the colonies, 

imbibed only by a very small minority. To most, the action of Parliament 

signified that the colonists had won 

a major concession, and the campaign against England was largely 

dropped. A colonial embargo on 

“English tea” continued but was not 

too scrupulously observed. Prosperity was increasing and most colonial 

leaders were willing to let the future 

take care of itself.

SAMUEL ADAMS

During a three-year interval of 

calm, a relatively small number of 

radicals strove energetically to keep 

the controversy alive. They contended that payment of the tax constituted an acceptance of the principle 

that Parliament had the right to rule 

over the colonies. They feared that at 

any time in the future, the principle 

of parliamentary rule might be applied with devastating effect on all 

colonial liberties.

The radicals’ most effective 

leader was Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, who toiled tirelessly for 

a single end: independence. From 

the time he graduated from Harvard 

College in 1743, Adams was a public 

servant in some capacity — inspector of chimneys, tax-collector, and 

moderator of town meetings. A 

consistent failure in business, he was 

shrewd and able in politics, with 

the New England town meeting his 

theater of action.

Adams wanted to free people 

from their awe of social and political superiors, make them aware of 

their own power and importance, 

and thus arouse them to action. Toward these objectives, he published 

articles in newspapers and made 

speeches in town meetings, instigating resolutions that appealed to the 

colonists’ democratic impulses.

In 1772 he induced the Boston 

town meeting to select a “Committee of Correspondence” to state the 

rights and grievances of the colonists. The committee opposed a 

British decision to pay the salaries 

of judges from customs revenues; it 

feared that the judges would no longer be dependent on the legislature 

for their incomes and thus no longer

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

57

accountable to it, thereby leading to 

the emergence of “a despotic form 

of government.” The committee 

communicated with other towns on 

this matter and requested them to 

draft replies. Committees were set 

up in virtually all the colonies, and 

out of them grew a base of effective 

revolutionary organizations. Still, 

Adams did not have enough fuel to 

set a fire.

THE BOSTON “TEA PARTY”

In 1773, however, Britain furnished 

Adams and his allies with an incendiary issue. The powerful East India 

Company, finding itself in critical financial straits, appealed to the British government, which granted it a 

monopoly on all tea exported to the 

colonies. The government also permitted the East India Company to 

supply retailers directly, bypassing 

colonial wholesalers. By then, most 

of the tea consumed in America was 

imported illegally, duty-free. By selling its tea through its own agents 

at a price well under the customary 

one, the East India Company made 

smuggling unprofitable and threatened to eliminate the independent 

colonial merchants. Aroused not 

only by the loss of the tea trade but 

also by the monopolistic practice involved, colonial traders joined the 

radicals agitating for independence.

In ports up and down the Atlantic coast, agents of the East India Company were forced to resign.

New shipments of tea were either returned to England or warehoused.

In Boston, however, the agents defied the colonists; with the support 

of the royal governor, they made 

preparations to land incoming cargoes regardless of opposition. On 

the night of December 16, 1773, a 

band of men disguised as Mohawk 

Indians and led by Samuel Adams 

boarded three British ships lying at 

anchor and dumped their tea cargo 

into Boston harbor. Doubting their 

countrymen’s commitment to principle, they feared that if the tea were 

landed, colonists would actually 

purchase the tea and pay the tax.

A crisis now confronted Britain.

The East India Company had carried out a parliamentary statute. If 

the destruction of the tea went unpunished, Parliament would admit 

to the world that it had no control 

over the colonies. Official opinion 

in Britain almost unanimously condemned the Boston Tea Party as an 

act of vandalism and advocated legal measures to bring the insurgent 

colonists into line.

THE COERCIVE ACTS

Parliament responded with new 

laws that the colonists called the 

“Coercive” or “Intolerable Acts.” The 

first, the Boston Port Bill, closed 

the port of Boston until the tea was 

paid for. The action threatened the 

very life of the city, for to prevent 

Boston from having access to the 

sea meant economic disaster. Other 

enactments restricted local authority and banned most town meetings 

held without the governor’s consent.
58

A Quartering Act required local authorities to find suitable quarters for 

British troops, in private homes if 

necessary. Instead of subduing and 

isolating Massachusetts, as Parliament intended, these acts rallied its 

sister colonies to its aid. The Quebec Act, passed at nearly the same 

time, extended the boundaries of 

the province of Quebec south to the 

Ohio River. In conformity with previous French practice, it provided 

for trials without jury, did not establish a representative assembly, and 

gave the Catholic Church semi-established status. By disregarding old 

charter claims to western lands, it 

threatened to block colonial expansion to the North and Northwest; 

its recognition of the Roman Catholic Church outraged the Protestant 

sects that dominated every colony.

Though the Quebec Act had not 

been passed as a punitive measure, 

Americans associated it with the Coercive Acts, and all became known 

as the “Five Intolerable Acts.”

At the suggestion of the Virginia House of Burgesses, colonial 

representatives met in Philadelphia 

on September 5, 1774, “to consult 

upon the present unhappy state 

of the Colonies.” Delegates to this 

meeting, known as the First Continental Congress, were chosen by 

provincial congresses or popular 

conventions. Only Georgia failed to 

send a delegate; the total number of 

55 was large enough for diversity of 

opinion, but small enough for genuine debate and effective action. The 

division of opinion in the colonies 

posed a genuine dilemma for the 

delegates. They would have to give 

an appearance of firm unanimity 

to induce the British government 

to make concessions. But they also 

would have to avoid any show of 

radicalism or spirit of independence 

that would alarm more moderate 

Americans.

A cautious keynote speech, followed by a “resolve” that no obedience was due the Coercive Acts, 

ended with adoption of a set of resolutions affirming the right of the 

colonists to “life, liberty, and property,” and the right of provincial 

legislatures to set “all cases of taxation and internal polity.” The most 

important action taken by the Congress, however, was the formation of 

a “Continental Association” to reestablish the trade boycott. It set up 

a system of committees to inspect 

customs entries, publish the names 

of merchants who violated the agreements, confiscate their imports, and 

encourage frugality, economy, and 

industry.

The Continental Association immediately assumed the leadership 

in the colonies, spurring new local 

organizations to end what remained 

of royal authority. Led by the proindependence leaders, they drew 

their support not only from the less 

well-to-do, but from many members 

of the professional class (especially lawyers), most of the planters of 

the Southern colonies, and a number of merchants. They intimidated 

the hesitant into joining the popular 

movement and punished the hostile; 

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

59

began the collection of military supplies and the mobilization of troops; 

and fanned public opinion into revolutionary ardor.

Many of those opposed to British encroachment on American 

rights nonetheless favored discussion and compromise as the proper solution. This group included 

Crown-appointed officers, Quakers, 

and members of other religious sects 

opposed to the use of violence, numerous merchants (especially in the 

middle colonies), and some discontented farmers and frontiersmen in 

the Southern colonies.

The king might well have effected an alliance with these moderates and, by timely concessions, so 

strengthened their position that the 

revolutionaries would have found it 

difficult to proceed with hostilities.

But George III had no intention of 

making concessions. In September 

1774, scorning a petition by Philadelphia Quakers, he wrote, “The die 

is now cast, the Colonies must either submit or triumph.” This action 

isolated Loyalists who were appalled 

and frightened by the course of 

events following the Coercive Acts.

THE REVOLUTION BEGINS

General Thomas Gage, an amiable 

English gentleman with an American-born wife, commanded the 

garrison at Boston, where political 

activity had almost wholly replaced 

trade. Gage’s main duty in the colonies had been to enforce the Coercive Acts. When news reached him 

that the Massachusetts colonists 

were collecting powder and military 

stores at the town of Concord, 32 

kilometers away, Gage sent a strong 

detail to confiscate these munitions.

After a night of marching, the 

British troops reached the village of 

Lexington on April 19, 1775, and saw 

a grim band of 77 Minutemen — so 

named because they were said to be 

ready to fight in a minute — through 

the early morning mist. The Minutemen intended only a silent protest, 

but Marine Major John Pitcairn, the 

leader of the British troops, yelled, 

“Disperse, you damned rebels! You 

dogs, run!” The leader of the Minutemen, Captain John Parker, told 

his troops not to fire unless fired 

at first. The Americans were withdrawing when someone fired a shot, 

which led the British troops to fire 

at the Minutemen. The British then 

charged with bayonets, leaving eight 

dead and 10 wounded. In the oftenquoted phrase of 19th century poet 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, this was “the 

shot heard round the world.”

The British pushed on to Concord. The Americans had taken 

away most of the munitions, but they 

destroyed whatever was left. In the 

meantime, American forces in the 

countryside had mobilized to harass 

the British on their long return to 

Boston. All along the road, behind 

stone walls, hillocks, and houses, 

militiamen from “every Middlesex 

village and farm” made targets of 

the bright red coats of the British 

soldiers. By the time Gage’s weary 

detachment stumbled into Boston, 
60

it had suffered more than 250 killed 

and wounded. The Americans lost 

93 men.

The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 10. The Congress 

voted to go to war, inducting the colonial militias into continental service. It appointed Colonel George 

Washington of Virginia as their 

commander-in-chief on June 15.

Within two days, the Americans had 

incurred high casualties at Bunker 

Hill just outside Boston. Congress 

also ordered American expeditions 

to march northward into Canada by 

fall. Capturing Montreal, they failed 

in a winter assault on Quebec, and 

eventually retreated to New York.

Despite the outbreak of armed 

conflict, the idea of complete separation from England was still 

repugnant to many members of the 

Continental Congress. In July, it 

adopted the Olive Branch Petition, 

begging the king to prevent further hostile actions until some sort 

of agreement could be worked out.

King George rejected it; instead, on 

August 23, 1775, he issued a proclamation declaring the colonies to be 

in a state of rebellion.

Britain had expected the Southern colonies to remain loyal, in part 

because of their reliance on slavery. Many in the Southern colonies 

feared that a rebellion against the 

mother country would also trigger 

a slave uprising. In November 1775, 

Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, tried to capitalize on that fear 

by offering freedom to all slaves who 

would fight for the British. Instead, 

his proclamation drove to the rebel 

side many Virginians who would 

otherwise have remained Loyalist.

The governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin, also urged North 

Carolinians to remain loyal to the 

Crown. When 1,500 men answered 

Martin’s call, they were defeated by 

revolutionary armies before British 

troops could arrive to help.

British warships continued down 

the coast to Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire on the city 

in early June 1776. But South Carolinians had time to prepare, and 

repulsed the British by the end of 

the month. They would not return 

South for more than two years.

COMMON SENSE AND 

INDEPENDENCE

In January 1776, Thomas Paine, 

a radical political theorist and 

writer who had come to America 

from England in 1774, published a 

50-page pamphlet, Common Sense.

Within three months, it sold 100,000 

copies. Paine attacked the idea of a 

hereditary monarchy, declaring that 

one honest man was worth more to 

society than “all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” He presented 

the alternatives — continued submission to a tyrannical king and 

an outworn government, or liberty 

and happiness as a self-sufficient, 

independent republic. Circulated 

throughout the colonies, Common 

Sense helped to crystallize a decision 

for separation.

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

61

There still remained the task, 

however, of gaining each colony’s 

approval of a formal declaration. On 

June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution in the 

Second Continental Congress, declaring, “That these United Colonies 

are, and of right ought to be, free 

and independent states....” Immediately, a committee of five, headed by 

Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was 

appointed to draft a document for 

a vote.

Largely Jefferson’s work, the Declaration of Independence, adopted 

July 4, 1776, not only announced the 

birth of a new nation, but also set 

forth a philosophy of human freedom that would become a dynamic 

force throughout the entire world.

The Declaration drew upon French 

and English Enlightenment political 

philosophy, but one influence in particular stands out: John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. Locke 

took conceptions of the traditional 

rights of Englishmen and universalized them into the natural rights of 

all humankind. The Declaration’s 

familiar opening passage echoes 

Locke’s social-contract theory of 

government:

We hold these truths to be selfevident, 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. — That to 

secure these rights, Governments 

are instituted among Men, 

deriving their just powers from 

the consent of the governed, — 

That whenever any Form of 

Government becomes destructive 

of these ends, it is the Right of the 

People to alter or to abolish it, 

and to institute new Government, 

laying its foundation on such 

principles and organizing its 

powers in such form, as to them 

shall seem most likely to effect 

their Safety and Happiness.

Jefferson linked Locke’s principles directly to the situation in the 

colonies. To fight for American independence was to fight for a government based on popular consent 

in place of a government by a king 

who had “combined with others to 

subject us to a jurisdiction foreign 

to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws....” Only a government based on popular consent 

could secure natural rights to life, 

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thus, to fight for American independence was to fight on behalf of 

one’s own natural rights.

DEFEATS AND VICTORIES

Although the Americans suffered 

severe setbacks for months after 

independence was declared, their 

tenacity and perseverance eventually paid off. During August 1776, 

in the Battle of Long Island in New 

York, Washington’s position became untenable, and he executed a 

masterly retreat in small boats from 

Brooklyn to the Manhattan shore.

British General William Howe twice 

hesitated and allowed the Americans 
62

to escape. By November, however, 

Howe had captured Fort Washington on Manhattan Island. New York 

City would remain under British 

control until the end of the war.

That December, Washington’s 

forces were near collapse, as supplies and promised aid failed to 

materialize. Howe again missed his 

chance to crush the Americans by 

deciding to wait until spring to resume fighting. On Christmas Day, 

December 25, 1776, Washington 

crossed the Delaware River, north 

of Trenton, New Jersey. In the earlymorning hours of December 26, his 

troops surprised the British garrison 

there, taking more than 900 prisoners. A week later, on January 3, 1777, 

Washington attacked the British at 

Princeton, regaining most of the 

territory formally occupied by the 

British. The victories at Trenton and 

Princeton revived flagging American spirits.

In September 1777, however, 

Howe defeated the American army 

at Brandywine in Pennsylvania and 

occupied Philadelphia, forcing the 

Continental Congress to flee. Washington had to endure the bitterly 

cold winter of 1777-1778 at Valley 

Forge, Pennsylvania, lacking adequate food, clothing, and supplies.

Farmers and merchants exchanged 

their goods for British gold and silver 

rather than for dubious paper money 

issued by the Continental Congress 

and the states.

Valley Forge was the lowest ebb 

for Washington’s Continental Army, 

but elsewhere 1777 proved to be 

the turning point in the war. British General John Burgoyne, moving 

south from Canada, attempted to 

invade New York and New England 

via Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. He had too much heavy 

equipment to negotiate the wooded 

and marshy terrain. On August 6, 

at Oriskany, New York, a band of 

Loyalists and Native Americans under Burgoyne’s command ran into a 

mobile and seasoned American force 

that managed to halt their advance.

A few days later at Bennington, Vermont, more of Burgoyne’s forces, 

seeking much-needed supplies, were 

pushed back by American troops.

Moving to the west side of the 

Hudson River, Burgoyne’s army advanced on Albany. The Americans 

were waiting for him. Led by Benedict Arnold — who would later betray the Americans at West Point, 

New York — the colonials twice repulsed the British. Having by this 

time incurred heavy losses, Burgoyne fell back to Saratoga, New 

York, where a vastly superior American force under General Horatio 

Gates surrounded the British troops.

On October 17, 1777, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army — six generals, 300 other officers, and 5,500 

enlisted personnel.

FRANCO-AMERICAN 

ALLIANCE

In France, enthusiasm for the 

American cause was high: The 

French intellectual world was itself stirring against feudalism and 

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

63

privilege. However, the Crown lent 

its support to the colonies for geopolitical rather than ideological 

reasons: The French government 

had been eager for reprisal against 

Britain ever since France’s defeat in 

1763. To further the American cause, 

Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris 

in 1776. His wit, guile, and intellect 

soon made their presence felt in the 

French capital, and played a major 

role in winning French assistance.

France began providing aid to the 

colonies in May 1776, when it sent 14 

ships with war supplies to America.

In fact, most of the gunpowder used 

by the American armies came from 

France. After Britain’s defeat at Saratoga, France saw an opportunity to 

seriously weaken its ancient enemy 

and restore the balance of power that 

had been upset by the Seven Years’ 

War (called the French and Indian 

War in the American colonies). On 

February 6, 1778, the colonies and 

France signed a Treaty of Amity and 

Commerce, in which France recognized the United States and offered 

trade concessions. They also signed 

a Treaty of Alliance, which stipulated that if France entered the war, 

neither country would lay down its 

arms until the colonies won their independence, that neither would conclude peace with Britain without the 

consent of the other, and that each 

guaranteed the other’s possessions 

in America. This was the only bilateral defense treaty signed by the 

United States or its predecessors 

until 1949.

The Franco-American alliance 

soon broadened the conflict. In June 

1778 British ships fired on French 

vessels, and the two countries went 

to war. In 1779 Spain, hoping to reacquire territories taken by Britain 

in the Seven Years’ War, entered the 

conflict on the side of France, but 

not as an ally of the Americans. In 

1780 Britain declared war on the 

Dutch, who had continued to trade 

with the Americans. The combination of these European powers, with 

France in the lead, was a far greater 

threat to Britain than the American 

colonies standing alone.

THE BRITISH MOVE SOUTH

With the French now involved, 

the British, still believing that most 

Southerners were Loyalists, stepped 

up their efforts in the Southern 

colonies. A campaign began in late 

1778, with the capture of Savannah, 

Georgia. Shortly thereafter, British 

troops and naval forces converged 

on Charleston, South Carolina, the 

principal Southern port. They managed to bottle up American forces on 

the Charleston peninsula. On May 

12, 1780, General Benjamin Lincoln 

surrendered the city and its 5,000 

troops, in the greatest American defeat of the war.

But the reversal in fortune only 

emboldened the American rebels.

South Carolinians began roaming 

the countryside, attacking British 

supply lines. In July, American General Horatio Gates, who had assembled a replacement force of untrained 

militiamen, rushed to Camden, 
South Carolina, to confront British 

forces led by General Charles Cornwallis. But Gates’s makeshift army 

panicked and ran when confronted 

by the British regulars. Cornwallis’s 

troops met the Americans several 

more times, but the most significant battle took place at Cowpens, 

South Carolina, in early 1781, where 

the Americans soundly defeated 

the British. After an exhausting but 

unproductive chase through North 

Carolina, Cornwallis set his sights 

on Virginia.

VICTORY AND 

INDEPENDENCE

In July 1780 France’s King Louis 

XVI had sent to America an expeditionary force of 6,000 men under 

the Comte Jean de Rochambeau. In 

addition, the French fleet harassed 

British shipping and blocked reinforcement and resupply of British forces in Virginia. French and 

American armies and navies, totaling 18,000 men, parried with Cornwallis all through the summer and 

into the fall. Finally, on October 19, 

1781, after being trapped at Yorktown near the mouth of Chesapeake 

Bay, Cornwallis surrendered his 

army of 8,000 British soldiers.

Although Cornwallis’s defeat 

did not immediately end the war — 

which would drag on inconclusively 

for almost two more years — a new 

British government decided to pursue peace negotiations in Paris in 

early 1782, with the American side 

represented by Benjamin Franklin, 

John Adams, and John Jay. On April 

15, 1783, Congress approved the final treaty. Signed on September 3, 

the Treaty of Paris acknowledged the 

independence, freedom, and sovereignty of the 13 former colonies, 

now states. The new United States 

stretched west to the Mississippi 

River, north to Canada, and south 

to Florida, which was returned to 

Spain. The fledgling colonies that 

Richard Henry Lee had spoken of 

more than seven years before had finally become “free and independent 

states.”

The task of knitting together a 

nation remained. 9

CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

64
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

65

The American Revolution had a significance far beyond the North American 

continent. It attracted the attention of a political intelligentsia throughout the 

European continent. Idealistic notables such as Thaddeus Kosciusko, Friedrich

von Steuben, and the Marquis de Lafayette joined its ranks to affirm liberal 

ideas they hoped to transfer to their own nations. Its success strengthened the 

concept of natural rights throughout the Western world and furthered the Enlightenment rationalist critique of an old order built around hereditary monarchy and an established church. In a very real sense, it was a precursor to the 

French Revolution, but it lacked the French Revolution’s violence and chaos 

because it had occurred in a society that was already fundamentally liberal.

The ideas of the Revolution have been most often depicted as a triumph 

of the social contract/natural rights theories of John Locke. Correct so far as it 

goes, this characterization passes too quickly over the continuing importance 

of Calvinist-dissenting Protestantism, which from the Pilgrims and Puritans on 

had also stood for the ideals of the social contract and the self-governing community. Lockean intellectuals and the Protestant clergy were both important 

advocates of compatible strains of liberalism that had flourished in the British 

North American colonies.

Scholars have also argued that another persuasion contributed to the 

Revolution: “republicanism.” Republicanism, they assert, did not deny the 

existence of natural rights but subordinated them to the belief that the maintenance of a free republic required a strong sense of communal responsibility 

and the cultivation of self-denying virtue among its leaders. The assertion of 

individual rights, even the pursuit of individual happiness, seemed egoistic by 

contrast. For a time republicanism threatened to displace natural rights as the 

major theme of the Revolution. Most historians today, however, concede that 

the distinction was much overdrawn. Most individuals who thought about such 

things in the 18th century envisioned the two ideas more as different sides of 

the same intellectual coin.

Revolution usually entails social upheaval and violence on a wide scale. 

By these criteria, the American Revolution was relatively mild. About 100,000 

Loyalists left the new United States. Some thousands were members of old 

elites who had suffered expropriation of their property and been expelled; 

others were simply common people faithful to their King. The majority of 

those who went into exile did so voluntarily. The Revolution did open up and 

further liberalize an already liberal society. In New York and the Carolinas, 

large Loyalist estates were divided among small farmers. Liberal assumptions 

became the official norm of American political culture — whether in the disestablishment of the Anglican Church, the principle of elected national and 

state executives, or the wide dissemination of the idea of individual freedom. 

Yet the structure of society changed little. Revolution or not, most people remained secure in their life, liberty, and property. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
66
CHAPTER 4

THE 

FORMATION 

OF A 

NATIONAL 

GOVERNMENT

George Washington 

addressing the 

Constitutional Convention 

in Philadelphia, 1787.
68

STATE CONSTITUTIONS

The success of the Revolution gave 

Americans the opportunity to give 

legal form to their ideals as expressed 

in the Declaration of Independence, 

and to remedy some of their grievances through state constitutions.

As early as May 10, 1776, Congress 

had passed a resolution advising 

the colonies to form new governments “such as shall best conduce 

to the happiness and safety of their 

constituents.” Some of them had already done so, and within a year after the Declaration of Independence, 

all but three had drawn up constitutions.

The new constitutions showed 

the impact of democratic ideas.

None made any drastic break with 

the past, since all were built on the 

solid foundation of colonial experience and English practice. But each 

was also animated by the spirit of republicanism, an ideal that had long 

been praised by Enlightenment philosophers.

Naturally, the first objective of 

the framers of the state constitutions was to secure those “unalienable rights” whose violation had 

caused the former colonies to repudiate their connection with Britain.

Thus, each constitution began with 

a declaration or bill of rights. Virginia’s, which served as a model for all 

the others, included a declaration of 

principles: popular sovereignty, rotation in office, freedom of elections, 

and an enumeration of fundamental 

liberties: moderate bail and humane 

punishment, speedy trial by jury, 

freedom of the press and of conCHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 

“Every man, and 

every body of men on Earth, 

possesses the right of 

self-government.”

Drafter of the Declaration of Independence 

Thomas Jefferson, 1790
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

69

science, and the right of the majority 

to reform or alter the government.

Other states enlarged the list of 

liberties to freedom of speech, of assembly, and of petition. Their constitutions frequently included such 

provisions as the right to bear arms, 

to a writ of habeas corpus, to inviolability of domicile, and to equal protection under the law. Moreover, all 

prescribed a three-branch structure 

of government — executive, legislative, and judiciary — each checked 

and balanced by the others.

Pennsylvania’s constitution was 

the most radical. In that state, Philadelphia artisans, Scots-Irish frontiersmen, and German-speaking farmers 

had taken control. The provincial 

congress adopted a constitution that 

permitted every male taxpayer and 

his sons to vote, required rotation in 

office (no one could serve as a representative more than four years out 

of every seven), and set up a singlechamber legislature.

The state constitutions had some 

glaring limitations, particularly by 

more recent standards. Constitutions established to guarantee people 

their natural rights did not secure 

for everyone the most fundamental 

natural right — equality. The colonies south of Pennsylvania excluded 

their slave populations from their 

inalienable rights as human beings.

Women had no political rights. No 

state went so far as to permit universal male suffrage, and even in those 

states that permitted all taxpayers to 

vote (Delaware, North Carolina, and 

Georgia, in addition to Pennsylvania), office-holders were required to 

own a certain amount of property.

THE ARTICLES OF 

CONFEDERATION

The struggle with England had 

done much to change colonial attitudes. Local assemblies had rejected 

the Albany Plan of Union in 1754, refusing to surrender even the smallest 

part of their autonomy to any other 

body, even one they themselves had 

elected. But in the course of the Revolution, mutual aid had proved effective, and the fear of relinquishing 

individual authority had lessened to 

a large degree.

John Dickinson produced the 

“Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union” in 1776. The Continental Congress adopted them in 

November 1777, and they went into 

effect in 1781, having been ratified 

by all the states. Reflecting the fragility of a nascent sense of nationhood, 

the Articles provided only for a very 

loose union. The national government lacked the authority to set up 

tariffs, to regulate commerce, and to 

levy taxes. It possessed scant control 

of international relations: A number 

of states had begun their own negotiations with foreign countries. Nine 

states had their own armies, several 

their own navies. In the absence of 

a sound common currency, the new 

nation conducted its commerce with 

a curious hodgepodge of coins and a 

bewildering variety of state and national paper bills, all fast depreciating in value.
70

Economic difficulties after the 

war prompted calls for change. The 

end of the war had a severe effect on 

merchants who supplied the armies 

of both sides and who had lost the 

advantages deriving from participation in the British mercantile system.

The states gave preference to American goods in their tariff policies, but 

these were inconsistent, leading to 

the demand for a stronger central 

government to implement a uniform 

policy.

Farmers probably suffered the 

most from economic difficulties 

following the Revolution. The 

supply of farm produce exceeded 

demand; unrest centered chiefly 

among farmer-debtors who wanted 

strong remedies to avoid foreclosure 

on their property and imprisonment for debt. Courts were clogged 

with suits for payment filed by their 

creditors. All through the summer 

of 1786, popular conventions and 

informal gatherings in several 

states demanded reform in the state 

administrations.

That autumn, mobs of farmers in 

Massachusetts under the leadership 

of a former army captain, Daniel 

Shays, began forcibly to prevent 

the county courts from sitting and 

passing further judgments for debt, 

pending the next state election.

In January 1787 a ragtag army of 

1,200 farmers moved toward the 

federal arsenal at Springfield. The 

rebels, armed chiefly with staves 

and pitchforks, were repulsed by a 

small state militia force; General 

Benjamin Lincoln then arrived with 

reinforcements from Boston and 

routed the remaining Shaysites, 

whose leader escaped to Vermont.

The government captured 14 rebels 

and sentenced them to death, but ultimately pardoned some and let the 

others off with short prison terms.

After the defeat of the rebellion, 

a newly elected legislature, whose 

majority sympathized with the rebels, met some of their demands for 

debt relief.

THE PROBLEM OF EXPANSION

With the end of the Revolution, 

the United States again had to face 

the old unsolved Western question, the problem of expansion, 

with its complications of land, fur 

trade, Indians, settlement, and local government. Lured by the richest land yet found in the country, 

pioneers poured over the Appalachian Mountains and beyond. By 

1775 the far-flung outposts scattered along the waterways had tens 

of thousands of settlers. Separated 

by mountain ranges and hundreds 

of kilometers from the centers of 

political authority in the East, the 

inhabitants established their own 

governments. Settlers from all the 

Tidewater states pressed on into 

the fertile river valleys, hardwood 

forests, and rolling prairies of the 

interior. By 1790 the population of 

the trans-Appalachian region numbered well over 120,000.

Before the war, several colonies 

had laid extensive and often overlapping claims to land beyond the 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

71

Appalachians. To those without 

such claims this rich territorial prize 

seemed unfairly apportioned. Maryland, speaking for the latter group, 

introduced a resolution that the 

western lands be considered common property to be parceled by the 

Congress into free and independent 

governments. This idea was not received enthusiastically. Nonetheless, in 1780 New York led the way 

by ceding its claims. In 1784 Virginia, which held the grandest claims, 

relinquished all land north of the 

Ohio River. Other states ceded their 

claims, and it became apparent that 

Congress would come into possession of all the lands north of the 

Ohio River and west of the Allegheny Mountains. This common possession of millions of hectares was 

the most tangible evidence yet of nationality and unity, and gave a certain substance to the idea of national 

sovereignty. At the same time, these 

vast territories were a problem that 

required solution.

The Confederation Congress established a system of limited selfgovernment for this new national 

Northwest Territory. The Northwest 

Ordinance of 1787 provided for its 

organization, initially as a single 

district, ruled by a governor and 

judges appointed by the Congress.

When this territory had 5,000 free 

male inhabitants of voting age, it 

was to be entitled to a legislature 

of two chambers, itself electing the 

lower house. In addition, it could at 

that time send a nonvoting delegate 

to Congress. Three to five states 

would be formed as the territory was 

settled. Whenever any one of them 

had 60,000 free inhabitants, it was 

to be admitted to the Union “on 

an equal footing with the original 

states in all respects.” The ordinance 

guaranteed civil rights and liberties, 

encouraged education, and prohibited slavery or other forms of involuntary servitude.

The new policy repudiated the 

time-honored concept that colonies 

existed for the benefit of the mother 

country, were politically subordinate, and peopled by social inferiors.

Instead, it established the principle 

that colonies (“territories”) were an 

extension of the nation and entitled, 

not as a privilege but as a right, to all 

the benefits of equality.

CONSTITUTIONAL 

CONVENTION

By the time the Northwest Ordinance was enacted, American leaders 

were in the midst of drafting a new 

and stronger constitution to replace 

the Articles of Confederation. Their 

presiding officer, George Washington, had written accurately that the 

states were united only by a “rope of 

sand.” Disputes between Maryland 

and Virginia over navigation on 

the Potomac River led to a conference of representatives of five states 

at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786.

One of the delegates, Alexander 

Hamilton of New York, convinced 

his colleagues that commerce was 

bound up with large political and 

economic questions. What was re-
72

quired was a fundamental rethinking of the Confederation.

The Annapolis conference issued 

a call for all the states to appoint 

representatives to a convention to be 

held the following spring in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress was 

at first indignant over this bold step, 

but it acquiesced after Washington 

gave the project his backing and was 

elected a delegate. During the next 

fall and winter, elections were held in 

all states but Rhode Island.

A remarkable gathering of notables assembled at the Federal 

Convention in May 1787. The state 

legislatures sent leaders with experience in colonial and state governments, in Congress, on the bench, 

and in the army. Washington, regarded as the country’s first citizen 

because of his integrity and his military leadership during the Revolution, was chosen as presiding officer.

Prominent among the more active 

members were two Pennsylvanians: 

Gouverneur Morris, who clearly saw 

the need for national government, 

and James Wilson, who labored indefatigably for the national idea.

Also elected by Pennsylvania was 

Benjamin Franklin, nearing the end 

of an extraordinary career of public 

service and scientific achievement.

From Virginia came James Madison, 

a practical young statesman, a thorough student of politics and history, 

and, according to a colleague, “from 

a spirit of industry and application ...

the best-informed man on any point 

in debate.” He would be recognized 

as the “Father of the Constitution.”

Massachusetts sent Rufus King 

and Elbridge Gerry, young men of 

ability and experience. Roger Sherman, shoemaker turned judge, was 

one of the representatives from 

Connecticut. From New York came 

Alexander Hamilton, who had proposed the meeting. Absent from the 

Convention were Thomas Jefferson, 

who was serving as minister representing the United States in France, 

and John Adams, serving in the same 

capacity in Great Britain. Youth predominated among the 55 delegates — 

the average age was 42.

Congress had authorized the 

Convention merely to draft amendments to the Articles of Confederation but, as Madison later wrote, the 

delegates, “with a manly confidence 

in their country,” simply threw the 

Articles aside and went ahead with 

the building of a wholly new form 

of government.

They recognized that the paramount need was to reconcile two 

different powers — the power of 

local control, which was already 

being exercised by the 13 semi-independent states, and the power of 

a central government. They adopted 

the principle that the functions and 

powers of the national government 

— being new, general, and inclusive 

— had to be carefully defined and 

stated, while all other functions and 

powers were to be understood as belonging to the states. But realizing 

that the central government had to 

have real power, the delegates also 

generally accepted the fact that the 

government should be authorized, 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

73

among other things, to coin money, 

to regulate commerce, to declare 

war, and to make peace.

DEBATE AND COMPROMISE

The 18th-century statesmen who 

met in Philadelphia were adherents 

of Montesquieu’s concept of the 

balance of power in politics. This 

principle was supported by colonial experience and strengthened 

by the writings of John Locke, with 

which most of the delegates were familiar. These influences led to the 

conviction that three equal and coordinate branches of government 

should be established. Legislative, 

executive, and judicial powers were 

to be so harmoniously balanced that 

no one could ever gain control. The 

delegates agreed that the legislative 

branch, like the colonial legislatures 

and the British Parliament, should 

consist of two houses.

On these points there was unanimity within the assembly. But 

sharp differences also arose. Representatives of the small states — New 

Jersey, for instance — objected to 

changes that would reduce their influence in the national government 

by basing representation upon population rather than upon statehood, 

as was the case under the Articles of 

Confederation.

On the other hand, representatives of large states, like Virginia, 

argued for proportionate representation. This debate threatened to go 

on endlessly until Roger Sherman 

came forward with arguments for 

representation in proportion to the 

population of the states in one house 

of Congress, the House of Representatives, and equal representation in 

the other, the Senate.

The alignment of large against 

small states then dissolved. But almost every succeeding question 

raised new divisions, to be resolved 

only by new compromises. Northerners wanted slaves counted when determining each state’s tax share, but 

not in determining the number of 

seats a state would have in the House 

of Representatives. Under a compromise reached with little dissent, 

tax levies and House membership 

would be apportioned according to 

the number of free inhabitants plus 

three-fifths of the slaves.

Certain members, such as Sherman and Elbridge Gerry, still smarting from Shays’s Rebellion, feared 

that the mass of people lacked sufficient wisdom to govern themselves 

and thus wished no branch of the 

federal government to be elected directly by the people. Others thought 

the national government should be 

given as broad a popular base as 

possible. Some delegates wished to 

exclude the growing West from the 

opportunity of statehood; others 

championed the equality principle 

established in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

There was no serious difference 

on such national economic questions as paper money, laws concerning contract obligations, or the role 

of women, who were excluded from 

politics. But there was a need for 
74

balancing sectional economic interests; for settling arguments as to 

the powers, term, and selection of 

the chief executive; and for solving 

problems involving the tenure of 

judges and the kind of courts to be 

established.

Laboring through a hot Philadelphia summer, the convention finally 

achieved a draft incorporating in 

a brief document the organization 

of the most complex government 

yet devised, one that would be supreme within a clearly defined and 

limited sphere. It would have full 

power to levy taxes, borrow money, 

establish uniform duties and excise taxes, coin money, regulate interstate commerce, fix weights and 

measures, grant patents and copyrights, set up post offices, and build 

post roads. It also was authorized to 

raise and maintain an army and 

navy, manage Native American affairs, conduct foreign policy, and 

wage war. It could pass laws for 

naturalizing foreigners and controlling public lands; it could admit new 

states on a basis of absolute equality with the old. The power to pass 

all necessary and proper laws for 

executing these clearly defined powers rendered the federal government 

able to meet the needs of later generations and of a greatly expanded 

body politic.

The principle of separation of 

powers had already been given a fair 

trial in most state constitutions and 

had proved sound. Accordingly, the 

convention set up a governmental 

system with separate legislative, executive, and judiciary branches, 

each checked by the others. Thus 

congressional enactments were not 

to become law until approved by the 

president. And the president was to 

submit the most important of his appointments and all his treaties to the 

Senate for confirmation. The president, in turn, could be impeached 

and removed by Congress. The judiciary was to hear all cases arising 

under federal laws and the Constitution; in effect, the courts were 

empowered to interpret both the 

fundamental and the statute law. But 

members of the judiciary, appointed 

by the president and confirmed by 

the Senate, could also be impeached 

by Congress.

To protect the Constitution 

from hasty alteration, Article V 

stipulated that amendments to the 

Constitution be proposed either by 

two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by two-thirds of the states, 

meeting in convention. The proposals were to be ratified by one of two 

methods: either by the legislatures 

of three-fourths of the states, or by 

convention in three-fourths of the 

states, with the Congress proposing 

the method to be used.

Finally, the convention faced 

the most important problem of all: 

How should the powers given to 

the new government be enforced? 

Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government had 

possessed — on paper — significant powers, which, in practice, had 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

75

come to naught, for the states paid 

no attention to them. What was to 

save the new government from the 

same fate?

At the outset, most delegates furnished a single answer — the use of 

force. But it was quickly seen that the 

application of force upon the states 

would destroy the Union. The decision was that the government should 

not act upon the states but upon the 

people within the states, and should 

legislate for and upon all the individual residents of the country. As 

the keystone of the Constitution, the 

convention adopted two brief but 

highly significant statements:

Congress shall have power ... 

to make all Laws which shall be 

necessary and proper for carrying 

into Execution the ... Powers 

vested by this Constitution in the 

Government of the United States. 

... (Article I, Section 7)

This Constitution, and the 

Laws of the United States which 

shall be made in Pursuance 

thereof; and all Treaties made, or 

which shall be made, under the 

Authority of the United States, 

shall be the supreme Law of the 

Land; and the Judges in every 

State shall be bound thereby, 

any Thing in the Constitution or 

Laws of any State to the Contrary 

notwithstanding. (Article VI)

Thus the laws of the United States 

became enforceable in its own national courts, through its own judges 

and marshals, as well as in the state 

courts through the state judges and 

state law officers.

Debate continues to this day 

about the motives of those who 

wrote the Constitution. In 1913 historian Charles Beard, in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, 

argued that the Founding Fathers 

represented emerging commercialcapitalist interests that needed a 

strong national government. He 

also believed many may have been 

motivated by personal holdings of 

large amounts of depreciated government securities. However, James 

Madison, principal drafter of the 

Constitution, held no bonds and 

was a Virginia planter. Conversely, 

some opponents of the Constitution owned large amounts of bonds 

and securities. Economic interests 

influenced the course of the debate, 

but so did state, sectional, and ideological interests. Equally important 

was the idealism of the framers.

Products of the Enlightenment, the 

Founding Fathers designed a government that they believed would 

promote individual liberty and public virtue. The ideals embodied in 

the U.S. Constitution remain an essential element of the American national identity.

RATIFICATION AND 

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

On September 17, 1787, after 16 

weeks of deliberation, the finished 

Constitution was signed by 39 of 

the 42 delegates present. Franklin, 

pointing to the half-sun painted in 

brilliant gold on the back of Washington’s chair, said:
76

I have often in the course of the 

session ... looked at that [chair] 

behind the president, without 

being able to tell whether it was 

rising or setting; but now, at 

length, I have the happiness to 

know that it is a rising, and not a 

setting, sun.

The convention was over; the 

members “adjourned to the City 

Tavern, dined together, and took 

a cordial leave of each other.” Yet 

a crucial part of the struggle for a 

more perfect union remained to 

be faced. The consent of popularly 

elected state conventions was still 

required before the document could 

become effective.

The convention had decided that 

the Constitution would take effect 

upon ratification by conventions in 

nine of the 13 states. By June 1788 

the required nine states had ratified 

the Constitution, but the large states 

of Virginia and New York had not.

Most people felt that without their 

support the Constitution would never be honored. To many, the document seemed full of dangers: Would 

not the strong central government 

that it established tyrannize them, 

oppress them with heavy taxes, and 

drag them into wars?

Differing views on these questions brought into existence two parties, the Federalists, who favored a 

strong central government, and the 

Antifederalists, who preferred a loose 

association of separate states. Impassioned arguments on both sides were 

voiced by the press, the legislatures, 

and the state conventions.

In Virginia, the Antifederalists 

attacked the proposed new government by challenging the opening phrase of the Constitution: “We 

the People of the United States.” 

Without using the individual state 

names in the Constitution, the delegates argued, the states would not 

retain their separate rights or powers. Virginia Antifederalists were 

led by Patrick Henry, who became 

the chief spokesman for back-country farmers who feared the powers 

of the new central government. Wavering delegates were persuaded by 

a proposal that the Virginia convention recommend a bill of rights, 

and Antifederalists joined with the 

Federalists to ratify the Constitution 

on June 25.

In New York, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison 

pushed for the ratification of the 

Constitution in a series of essays 

known as The Federalist Papers.

The essays, published in New York 

newspapers, provided a now-classic 

argument for a central federal government, with separate executive, 

legislative, and judicial branches that 

checked and balanced one another.

With The Federalist Papers influencing the New York delegates, the Constitution was ratified on July 26.

Antipathy toward a strong central government was only one concern among those opposed to the 

Constitution; of equal concern 

to many was the fear that the 

Constitution did not protect individual rights and freedoms sufficiently.

Virginian George Mason, author 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

77

of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights 

of 1776, was one of three delegates 

to the Constitutional Convention 

who had refused to sign the final 

document because it did not enumerate individual rights. Together 

with Patrick Henry, he campaigned 

vigorously against ratification of the 

Constitution by Virginia. Indeed, 

five states, including Massachusetts, 

ratified the Constitution on the condition that such amendments be 

added immediately.

When the first Congress convened in New York City in September 1789, the calls for amendments 

protecting individual rights were 

virtually unanimous. Congress 

quickly adopted 12 such amendments; by December 1791, enough 

states had ratified 10 amendments 

to make them part of the Constitution. Collectively, they are known 

as the Bill of Rights. Among their 

provisions: freedom of speech, press, 

religion, and the right to assemble 

peacefully, protest, and demand 

changes (First Amendment); protection against unreasonable searches, seizures of property, and arrest 

(Fourth Amendment); due process 

of law in all criminal cases (Fifth 

Amendment); right to a fair and 

speedy trial (Sixth Amendment); 

protection against cruel and unusual 

punishment (Eighth Amendment); 

and provision that the people retain 

additional rights not listed in the 

Constitution (Ninth Amendment).

Since the adoption of the Bill 

of Rights, only 17 more amendments have been added to the 

Constitution. Although a number 

of the subsequent amendments revised the federal government’s structure and operations, most followed 

the precedent established by the Bill 

of Rights and expanded individual 

rights and freedoms.

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON

One of the last acts of the Congress of the Confederation was to arrange for the first presidential election, setting March 4, 1789, as the 

date that the new government would 

come into being. One name was on 

everyone’s lips for the new chief of 

state, George Washington. He was 

unanimously chosen president and 

took the oath of office at his inauguration on April 30, 1789. In words 

spoken by every president since, 

Washington pledged to execute the 

duties of the presidency faithfully 

and, to the best of his ability, to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

When Washington took office, 

the new Constitution enjoyed neither tradition nor the full backing of 

organized public opinion. The new 

government had to create its own 

machinery and legislate a system of 

taxation that would support it. Until 

a judiciary could be established, laws 

could not be enforced. The army was 

small. The navy had ceased to exist.

Congress quickly created the departments of State and Treasury, 

with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton as their respective 

secretaries. Departments of War 
78

and Justice were also created. Since 

Washington preferred to make decisions only after consulting those 

men whose judgment he valued, 

the American presidential Cabinet 

came into existence, consisting of 

the heads of all the departments that 

Congress might create. Simultaneously, Congress provided for a federal judiciary — a Supreme Court, 

with one chief justice and five associate justices, three circuit courts, and 

13 district courts.

Meanwhile, the country was 

growing steadily and immigration 

from Europe was increasing. Americans were moving westward: New 

Englanders and Pennsylvanians into 

Ohio; Virginians and Carolinians 

into Kentucky and Tennessee. Good 

farms were to be had for small sums; 

labor was in strong demand. The 

rich valley stretches of upper New 

York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia 

soon became great wheat-growing 

areas.

Although many items were still 

homemade, the Industrial Revolution was dawning in the United 

States. Massachusetts and Rhode Island were laying the foundation of 

important textile industries; Connecticut was beginning to turn out 

tinware and clocks; New York, New 

Jersey, and Pennsylvania were producing paper, glass, and iron. Shipping had grown to such an extent 

that on the seas the United States 

was second only to Britain. Even before 1790, American ships were traveling to China to sell furs and bring 

back tea, spices, and silk.

At this critical juncture in the 

country’s growth, Washington’s wise 

leadership was crucial. He organized 

a national government, developed 

policies for settlement of territories 

previously held by Britain and Spain, 

stabilized the northwestern frontier, 

and oversaw the admission of three 

new states: Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), and Tennessee (1796).

Finally, in his Farewell Address, he 

warned the nation to “steer clear of 

permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” This advice influenced American attitudes 

toward the rest of the world for generations to come.

HAMILTON VS. JEFFERSON

A conflict took shape in the 1790s 

between America’s first political 

parties. Indeed, the Federalists, led 

by Alexander Hamilton, and the 

Republicans (also called Democratic-Republicans), led by Thomas 

Jefferson, were the first political 

parties in the Western world. Unlike loose political groupings in the 

British House of Commons or in 

the American colonies before the 

Revolution, both had reasonably 

consistent and principled platforms, 

relatively stable popular followings, 

and continuing organizations.

The Federalists in the main represented the interests of trade and 

manufacturing, which they saw as 

forces of progress in the world. They 

believed these could be advanced 

only by a strong central government 

capable of establishing sound public 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

79

credit and a stable currency. Openly 

distrustful of the latent radicalism of 

the masses, they could nonetheless 

credibly appeal to workers and artisans. Their political stronghold was 

in the New England states. Seeing 

England as in many respects an example the United States should try to 

emulate, they favored good relations 

with their mother country.

Although Alexander Hamilton 

was never able to muster the popular 

appeal to stand successfully for elective office, he was far and away the 

Federalists’ main generator of ideology and public policy. He brought to 

public life a love of efficiency, order, 

and organization. In response to the 

call of the House of Representatives 

for a plan for the “adequate support 

of public credit,” he laid down and 

supported principles not only of the 

public economy, but of effective government. Hamilton pointed out that 

the United States must have credit 

for industrial development, commercial activity, and the operations 

of government, and that its obligations must have the complete faith 

and support of the people.

There were many who wished to 

repudiate the Confederation’s national debt or pay only part of it.

Hamilton insisted upon full payment and also upon a plan by which 

the federal government took over 

the unpaid debts of the states incurred during the Revolution. He 

also secured congressional legislation for a Bank of the United States.

Modeled after the Bank of England, 

it acted as the nation’s central financial institution and operated 

branches in different parts of the 

country. Hamilton sponsored a national mint, and argued in favor of 

tariffs, saying that temporary protection of new firms could help foster the development of competitive 

national industries. These measures 

— placing the credit of the federal government on a firm foundation and giving it all the revenues 

it needed — encouraged commerce 

and industry, and created a solid 

phalanx of interests firmly behind 

the national government.

The Republicans, led by Thomas 

Jefferson, spoke primarily for agricultural interests and values. They 

distrusted bankers, cared little for 

commerce and manufacturing, and 

believed that freedom and democracy flourished best in a rural society 

composed of self-sufficient farmers. They felt little need for a strong 

central government; in fact, they 

tended to see it as a potential source 

of oppression. Thus they favored 

states’ rights. They were strongest 

in the South.

Hamilton’s great aim was more 

efficient organization, whereas Jefferson once said, “I am not a friend 

to a very energetic government.” 

Hamilton feared anarchy and 

thought in terms of order; Jefferson 

feared tyranny and thought in terms 

of freedom. Where Hamilton saw 

England as an example, Jefferson, 

who had been minister to France in 

the early stages of the French Revolution, looked to the overthrow of 

the French monarchy as vindication 
80

of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment. Against Hamilton’s instinctive 

conservatism, he projected an eloquent democratic radicalism.

An early clash between them, 

which occurred shortly after Jefferson took office as secretary of state, 

led to a new and profoundly important interpretation of the Constitution. When Hamilton introduced his 

bill to establish a national bank, Jefferson, speaking for those who believed in states’ rights, argued that 

the Constitution expressly enumerated all the powers belonging to the 

federal government and reserved all 

other powers to the states. Nowhere 

was the federal government empowered to set up a bank.

Hamilton responded that because 

of the mass of necessary detail, a 

vast body of powers had to be 

implied by general clauses, and one 

of these authorized Congress to 

“make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” for carrying out 

other powers specifically granted.

The Constitution authorized the 

national government to levy and 

collect taxes, pay debts, and borrow money. A national bank would 

materially help in performing these 

functions efficiently. Congress, 

therefore, was entitled, under its implied powers, to create such a bank.

Washington and the Congress accepted Hamilton’s view — and set 

an important precedent for an expansive interpretation of the federal 

government’s authority.

CITIZEN GENET AND 

FOREIGN POLICY

Although one of the first tasks 

of the new government was to 

strengthen the domestic economy 

and make the nation financially 

secure, the United States could not 

ignore foreign affairs. The cornerstones of Washington’s foreign policy were to preserve peace, to give 

the country time to recover from 

its wounds, and to permit the slow 

work of national integration to 

continue. Events in Europe threatened these goals. Many Americans 

watched the French Revolution with 

keen interest and sympathy. In April 

1793, news came that France had 

declared war on Great Britain and 

Spain, and that a new French envoy, 

Edmond Charles Genet — Citizen 

Genet — was coming to the United 

States.

When the revolution in France 

led to the execution of King Louis 

XVI in January 1793, Britain, Spain, 

and Holland became involved in 

war with France. According to the 

Franco-American Treaty of Alliance 

of 1778, the United States and France 

were perpetual allies, and the United States was obliged to help France 

defend the West Indies. However, 

the United States, militarily and 

economically a very weak country, 

was in no position to become involved in another war with major 

European powers.

On April 22, 1793, Washington 

effectively abrogated the terms of the 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

81

1778 treaty that had made American 

independence possible by proclaiming the United States to be “friendly 

and impartial toward the belligerent 

powers.” When Genet arrived, he 

was cheered by many citizens, but 

treated with cool formality by the 

government. Angered, he violated 

a promise not to outfit a captured 

British ship as a privateer (privately owned warships commissioned 

to prey on ships of enemy nations).

Genet then threatened to take his 

cause directly to the American people, over the head of the government.

Shortly afterward, the United States 

requested his recall by the French 

government.

The Genet incident strained 

American relations with France at 

a time when those with Great Britain were far from satisfactory. British troops still occupied forts in the 

West, property carried off by British 

soldiers during the Revolution had 

not been restored or paid for, and the 

British Navy was seizing American 

ships bound for French ports. The 

two countries seemed to be drifting 

toward war. Washington sent John 

Jay, first chief justice of the Supreme 

Court, to London as a special envoy.

Jay negotiated a treaty that secured 

withdrawal of British soldiers from 

western forts but allowed the British 

to continue the fur trade with the 

Indians in the Northwest. London 

agreed to pay damages for American 

ships and cargoes seized in 1793 and 

1794, but made no commitments on 

possible future seizures. Moreover, 

the treaty failed to address the festering issue of British “impressment” 

of American sailors into the Royal 

Navy, placed severe limitations on 

American trade with the West Indies, and accepted the British view 

that food and naval stores, as well as 

war materiel, were contraband subject to seizure if bound for enemy 

ports on neutral ships.

American diplomat Charles 

Pinckney was more successful in 

dealing with Spain. In 1795, he 

negotiated an important treaty settling the Florida border on American terms and giving Americans 

access to the port of New Orleans.

All the same, the Jay Treaty with 

the British reflected a continuing American weakness vis-a-vis a 

world superpower. Deeply unpopular, it was vocally supported only by 

Federalists who valued cultural and 

economic ties with Britain. Washington backed it as the best bargain 

available, and, after a heated debate, 

the Senate approved it.

Citizen Genet’s antics and Jay’s 

Treaty demonstrated both the difficulties faced by a small weak nation 

caught between two great powers 

and the wide gap in outlook between 

Federalists and Republicans. To the 

Federalists, Republican backers of 

the increasingly violent and radical 

French Revolution were dangerous 

radicals (“Jacobins”); to the Republicans, advocates of amity with England were monarchists who would 

subvert the natural rights of Americans. The Federalists connected virtue and national development with 

commerce; the Republicans saw 
82

America’s destiny as that of a vast 

agrarian republic. The politics of 

their conflicting positions became 

increasingly vehement.

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON

Washington retired in 1797, firmly declining to serve for more than 

eight years as the nation’s head.

Thomas Jefferson of Virginia (Republican) and John Adams (Federalist) vied to succeed him. Adams won 

a narrow election victory. From the 

beginning, however, he was at the 

head of a party and an administration divided between his backers and 

those of his rival, Hamilton.

Adams faced serious international difficulties. France, angered by 

Jay’s treaty with Britain, adopted its 

definition of contraband and began 

to seize American ships headed for 

Britain. By 1797 France had snatched 

300 American ships and broken 

off diplomatic relations with the 

United States. When Adams sent 

three commissioners to Paris to negotiate, agents of Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand 

(whom Adams labeled X, Y, and Z in 

his report to Congress) informed the 

Americans that negotiations could 

only begin if the United States loaned 

France $12 million and bribed officials of the French government.

American hostility to France rose to 

an excited pitch. The so-called XYZ 

Affair led to the enlistment of troops 

and the strengthening of the fledgling U.S. Navy.

In 1799, after a series of sea battles with the French, war seemed 

inevitable. In this crisis, Adams rejected the guidance of Hamilton, 

who wanted war, and reopened negotiations with France. Napoleon, 

who had just come to power, received them cordially. The danger 

of conflict subsided with the negotiation of the Convention of 1800, 

which formally released the United 

States from its 1778 defense alliance 

with France. However, reflecting 

American weakness, France refused 

to pay $20 million in compensation 

for American ships taken by the 

French Navy.

Hostility to France had led Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition 

Acts, which had severe repercussions for American civil liberties.

The Naturalization Act, which 

changed the requirement for citizenship from five to 14 years, was 

targeted at Irish and French immigrants suspected of supporting the 

Republicans. The Alien Act, operative for two years only, gave the 

president the power to expel or imprison aliens in time of war. The 

Sedition Act proscribed writing, 

speaking, or publishing anything 

of “a false, scandalous, and malicious” nature against the president 

or Congress. The few convictions 

won under it created martyrs to the 

cause of civil liberties and aroused 

support for the Republicans.

The acts met with resistance. Jefferson and Madison sponsored the 

passage of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions by the legislatures of 

these two states in November and 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

83

December 1798. Extreme declaration of states’ rights, the resolutions 

asserted that states could “interpose” 

their views on federal actions and 

“nullify” them. The doctrine of nullification would be used later for the 

Southern states’ resistance to protective tariffs, and, more ominously, 

slavery.

By 1800 the American people 

were ready for a change. Under 

Washington and Adams, the Federalists had established a strong government, but sometimes failing to 

honor the principle that the American government must be responsive 

to the will of the people, they had 

followed policies that alienated large 

groups. For example, in 1798 they 

had enacted a tax on houses, land, 

and slaves, affecting every property 

owner in the country.

Jefferson had steadily gathered 

behind him a great mass of small 

farmers, shopkeepers, and other 

workers. He won a close victory in 

a contested election. Jefferson enjoyed extraordinary favor because of 

his appeal to American idealism. In 

his inaugural address, the first such 

speech in the new capital of Washington, D.C., he promised “a wise 

and frugal government” that would 

preserve order among the inhabitants but leave people “otherwise free 

to regulate their own pursuits of industry, and improvement.”

Jefferson’s mere presence in the 

White House encouraged democratic procedures. He preached 

and practiced democratic simplicity, eschewing much of the pomp 

and ceremony of the presidency. In 

line with Republican ideology, he 

sharply cut military expenditures.

Believing America to be a haven 

for the oppressed, he secured a liberal naturalization law. By the end 

of his second term, his far-sighted 

secretary of the treasury, Albert 

Gallatin, had reduced the national 

debt to less than $560 million. Widely popular, Jefferson won reelection 

as president easily.

LOUISIANA AND BRITAIN

One of Jefferson’s acts doubled the 

area of the country. At the end of the 

Seven Years’ War, France had ceded 

its territory west of the Mississippi 

River to Spain. Access to the port 

of New Orleans near its mouth was 

vital for the shipment of American 

products from the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. Shortly after Jefferson became president, Napoleon 

forced a weak Spanish government 

to cede this great tract, the Louisiana 

Territory, back to France. The move 

filled Americans with apprehension 

and indignation. French plans for 

a huge colonial empire just west of 

the United States seriously threatened the future development of the 

United States. Jefferson asserted that 

if France took possession of Louisiana, “from that moment we must 

marry ourselves to the British fleet 

and nation.”

Napoleon, however, lost interest 

after the French were expelled from 

Haiti by a slave revolt. Knowing that 

another war with Great Britain was 
84

impending, he resolved to fill his 

treasury and put Louisiana beyond 

the reach of Britain by selling it to 

the United States. His offer presented Jefferson with a dilemma: The 

Constitution conferred no explicit 

power to purchase territory. At first 

the president wanted to propose an 

amendment, but delay might lead 

Napoleon to change his mind. Advised that the power to purchase 

territory was inherent in the power 

to make treaties, Jefferson relented, 

saying that “the good sense of our 

country will correct the evil of loose 

construction when it shall produce 

ill effects.”

The United States obtained the 

“Louisiana Purchase” for $15 million in 1803. It contained more than 

2,600,000 square kilometers as well 

as the port of New Orleans. The 

nation had gained a sweep of rich 

plains, mountains, forests, and river 

systems that within 80 years would 

become its heartland — and a breadbasket for the world.

As Jefferson began his second 

term in 1805, he declared American 

neutrality in the struggle between 

Great Britain and France. Although 

both sides sought to restrict neutral 

shipping to the other, British control of the seas made its interdiction 

and seizure much more serious than 

any actions by Napoleonic France.

British naval commanders routinely 

searched American ships, seized vessels and cargoes, and took off sailors 

believed to be British subjects. They 

also frequently impressed American 

seamen into their service.

When Jefferson issued a proclamation ordering British warships 

to leave U.S. territorial waters, the 

British reacted by impressing more 

sailors. Jefferson then decided to rely 

on economic pressure; in December 

1807 Congress passed the Embargo 

Act, forbidding all foreign commerce. Ironically, the law required 

strong police authority that vastly 

increased the powers of the national 

government. Economically, it was 

disastrous. In a single year American exports fell to one-fifth of their 

former volume. Shipping interests 

were almost ruined by the measure; 

discontent rose in New England and 

New York. Agricultural interests 

suffered heavily also. Prices dropped 

drastically when the Southern and 

Western farmers could not export 

their surplus grain, cotton, meat, 

and tobacco.

The embargo failed to starve 

Great Britain into a change of policy. As the grumbling at home increased, Jefferson turned to a milder 

measure, which partially conciliated 

domestic shipping interests. In early 

1809 he signed the Non-Intercourse 

Act permitting commerce with all 

countries except Britain or France 

and their dependencies.

James Madison succeeded Jefferson as president in 1809. Relations 

with Great Britain grew worse, and 

the two countries moved rapidly toward war. The president laid before 

Congress a detailed report, showing 

several thousand instances in which 

the British had impressed American 

citizens. In addition, northwestern 

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

85

settlers had suffered from attacks 

by Indians whom they believed had 

been incited by British agents in 

Canada. In turn, many Americans 

favored conquest of Canada and the 

elimination of British influence in 

North America, as well as vengeance 

for impressment and commercial 

repression. By 1812, war fervor was 

dominant. On June 18, the United 

States declared war on Britain.

THE WAR OF 1812

The nation went to war bitterly 

divided. While the South and West 

favored the conflict, New York and 

New England opposed it because 

it interfered with their commerce.

The U.S. military was weak. The 

army had fewer than 7,000 regular 

soldiers, distributed in widely scattered posts along the coast, near the 

Canadian border, and in the remote interior. The state militias were 

poorly trained and undisciplined.

Hostilities began with an invasion of Canada, which, if properly 

timed and executed, would have 

brought united action against Montreal. Instead, the entire campaign 

miscarried and ended with the British occupation of Detroit. The U.S.

Navy, however, scored successes.

In addition, American privateers, 

swarming the Atlantic, captured 500 

British vessels during the fall and 

winter months of 1812 and 1813.

The campaign of 1813 centered 

on Lake Erie. General William 

Henry Harrison — who would later become president — led an army 

of militia, volunteers, and regulars 

from Kentucky with the object of 

reconquering Detroit. On September 

12, while he was still in upper Ohio, 

news reached him that Commodore 

Oliver Hazard Perry had annihilated 

the British fleet on Lake Erie. Harrison occupied Detroit and pushed 

into Canada, defeating the fleeing 

British and their Indian allies on 

the Thames River. The entire region 

now came under American control.

A year later Commodore Thomas 

Macdonough won a point-blank gun 

duel with a British flotilla on Lake 

Champlain in upper New York. Deprived of naval support, a British invasion force of 10,000 men retreated 

to Canada. Nevertheless, the British fleet harassed the Eastern seaboard with orders to “destroy and 

lay waste.” On the night of August 

24, 1814, an expeditionary force 

routed American militia, marched to 

Washington, D.C., and left the city 

in flames. President James Madison 

fled to Virginia.

British and American negotiators conducted talks in Europe. The 

British envoys decided to concede, 

however, when they learned of Macdonough’s victory on Lake Champlain. Faced with the depletion of the 

British treasury due in large part to 

the heavy costs of the Napoleonic 

Wars, the negotiators for Great Britain accepted the Treaty of Ghent in 

December 1814. It provided for the 

cessation of hostilities, the restoration of conquests, and a commission 

to settle boundary disputes. Unaware 

that a peace treaty had been signed, 
the two sides continued fighting into 

1815 near New Orleans, Louisiana.

Led by General Andrew Jackson, 

the United States scored the greatest land victory of the war, ending 

once and for all any British hopes of 

reestablishing continental influence 

south of the Canadian border.

While the British and Americans 

were negotiating a settlement, Federalist delegates selected by the legislatures of Massachusetts, Rhode 

Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and 

New Hampshire gathered in Hartford, Connecticut, to express opposition to “Mr. Madison’s war.” New 

England had managed to trade with 

the enemy throughout the conflict, 

and some areas actually prospered 

from this commerce. Nevertheless, 

the Federalists claimed that the war 

was ruining the economy. With a 

possibility of secession from the 

Union in the background, the convention proposed a series of constitutional amendments that would 

protect New England interests. Instead, the end of the war, punctuated 

by the smashing victory at New Orleans, stamped the Federalists with a 

stigma of disloyalty from which they 

never recovered. 9

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 

86
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

87

By the end of the 18th century, many educated Americans no longer 

professed traditional Christian beliefs. In reaction to the secularism of the age, 

a religious revival spread westward in the first half of the 19th century.

This “Second Great Awakening” consisted of several kinds of activity, 

distinguished by locale and expression of religious commitment. In New 

England, the renewed interest in religion inspired a wave of social activism. 

In western New York, the spirit of revival encouraged the emergence of new 

denominations. In the Appalachian region of Kentucky and Tennessee, the 

revival strengthened the Methodists and the Baptists, and spawned a new form 

of religious expression — the camp meeting.

In contrast to the Great Awakening of the 1730s, the revivals in the 

East were notable for the absence of hysteria and open emotion. Rather, 

unbelievers were awed by the “respectful silence” of those bearing witness 

to their faith. The evangelical enthusiasm in New England gave rise to 

interdenominational missionary societies, formed to evangelize the West. 

Members of these societies not only acted as apostles for the faith, but as 

educators, civic leaders, and exponents of Eastern, urban culture. Publication 

and education societies promoted Christian education. Most notable among 

them was the American Bible Society, founded in 1816. Social activism 

inspired by the revival gave rise to abolition of slavery groups and the Society 

for the Promotion of Temperance, as well as to efforts to reform prisons and 

care for the handicapped and mentally ill.

Western New York, from Lake Ontario to the Adirondack Mountains, had 

been the scene of so many religious revivals in the past that it was known as 

the “Burned-Over District.” Here, the dominant figure was Charles Grandison 

Finney, a lawyer who had experienced a religious epiphany and set out to 

preach the Gospel. His revivals were characterized by careful planning, 

showmanship, and advertising. Finney preached in the Burned-Over District 

throughout the 1820s and the early 1830s, before moving to Ohio in 1835 

to take a chair in theology at Oberlin College, of which he subsequently 

became president.

Two other important religious denominations in America — the Mormons 

and the Seventh Day Adventists — also got their start in the BurnedOver District.

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING
In the Appalachian region, the revival took on characteristics similar 

to the Great Awakening of the previous century. But here, the center of the 

revival was the camp meeting, a religious service of several days’ length, for 

a group that was obliged to take shelter on the spot because of the distance 

from home. Pioneers in thinly populated areas looked to the camp meeting 

as a refuge from the lonely life on the frontier. The sheer exhilaration of 

participating in a religious revival with hundreds and perhaps thousands 

of people inspired the dancing, shouting, and singing associated with these 

events. Probably the largest camp meeting was at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 

August 1801; between 10,000 and 25,000 people attended.

The great revival quickly spread throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, and 

southern Ohio, with the Methodists and the Baptists its prime beneficiaries. 

Each denomination had assets that allowed it to thrive on the frontier. The 

Methodists had a very efficient organization that depended on ministers — 

known as circuit riders — who sought out people in remote frontier locations. 

The circuit riders came from among the common people and possessed a 

rapport with the frontier families they hoped to convert. The Baptists had 

no formal church organization. Their farmer-preachers were people who 

received “the call” from God, studied the Bible, and founded a church, which 

then ordained them. Other candidates for the ministry emerged from these 

churches, and established a presence farther into the wilderness. Using such 

methods, the Baptists became dominant throughout the border states and 

most of the South.

The Second Great Awakening exercised a profound impact on American 

history. The numerical strength of the Baptists and Methodists rose relative 

to that of the denominations dominant in the colonial period — Anglicans, 

Presbyterians, and Congregationalists. The growing differences 

within American Protestantism reflected the growth and diversity of an 

expanding nation. 

88

CHAPTER 4: THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 
89

TRANSFORMING

A NATION

The United States transformed itself again in the 19th and 

early 20th centuries. A rural, agricultural nation became an 

industrial power whose backbone was steel and coal, railroads, 

and steam power. A young country once bound by the Mississippi 

River expanded across the North American continent, and on to 

overseas territories. A nation divided by the issue of slavery and 

tested by the trauma of civil war became a world power whose 

global influence was first felt in World War I.

A PICTURE PROFILE

Andrew Jackson, president from 1829 to 1837. Charismatic, forceful, 

and passionate, Jackson forged an effective political coalition within 

the Democratic Party with Westerners, farmers, and working people.
90

Henry Clay of Kentucky, 

although never president, 

was one of the most 

influential American 

politicians of the first half 

of the 19th century. Clay 

became indispensable for 

his role in preserving the 

Union with the Missouri 

Compromise of 1820 and 

the Compromise of 1850. 

Both pieces of legislation 

resolved, for a time, 

disputes over slavery in 

the territories.

The great champions of 

women’s rights in the 19th 

century: Elizabeth Cady 

Stanton (seated) and Susan 

B. Anthony. Stanton helped 

organize the first women’s 

rights convention in 1848 

in Seneca Falls, New York. 

In later years, she joined 

Anthony in founding the 

National Woman Suffrage 

Association. “I forged the 

thunderbolts,” Stanton said 

of their partnership, “and she 

fired them.”
91

William Lloyd Garrison, whose 

passionate denunciations of slavery 

and eloquent defense of the rights 

of enslaved African Americans 

appeared in his weekly paper, the 

Liberator, from its first issue in 1831 to 

1865, when the last issue appeared at 

the close of the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass, the nation’s leading 

African-American abolitionist of the 

19th century, escaped from slavery in 

1838. His speech about his sufferings 

as a slave at the Massachusetts AntiSlavery Society’s annual convention 

in Nantucket launched his career as 

an outspoken lecturer, writer, and 

publisher on the abolition of slavery 

and racial equality.

Harriet Tubman, a former slave who rescued 

hundreds from slavery through the Underground 

Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a vast 

network of people who helped fugitive slaves 

escape to the North and to Canada in the first 

half of the 19th century.
Confederate dead along a stone wall during the Chancellorsville campaign, May 1863. 

Victorious at Chancellorsville, Southern forces advanced north into Pennsylvania, but 

were defeated at the three-day battle of Gettysburg, the turning point of the Civil War 

and the largest battle ever fought in North America. More Americans died in the Civil 

War (1861-65) than in any other conflict in U.S. history. 
93
94

Encampment of Union troops from New York in Alexandria, Virginia, 

just across the Potomac River from the capital of Washington.
95

Union General Ulysses S. Grant, who led Union 

forces to victory in the Civil War and became 

the 18th president of the United States. Despite 

heavy losses in several battles against his 

opponent, General Lee (below), Grant refused 

to retreat, leading President Lincoln to say to 

critics calling for his removal, “I can’t spare this 

general. He fights.”

Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Military 

historians to this day study his tactics 

and Grant’s in battles such as Vicksburg, 

Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness.
96

Engraving of the first African-American members elected to the U.S. Congress during 

the Reconstruction Era, following the Civil War. Seated at left is H.R. Revels, senator 

from Mississippi. The others were members of the House of Representatives, from 

the states of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Although practically 

unknown during her 

lifetime, Emily Dickinson 

(1830-1886) is now seen as 

one of the most brilliant 

and original poets America 

has ever produced.
97

Andrew Carnegie, business tycoon and philanthropist. Born in Scotland of a poor 

family, Carnegie immigrated to the United States and made his fortune by building 

the country’s largest iron and steel manufacturing corporation. Believing that the 

wealthy had an obligation to give back to society, he endowed public libraries across 

the United States. 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens 

(1835-1910), better known by 

his pen name of Mark Twain, 

is perhaps the most widely 

read and enjoyed American 

writer and humorist. In his 

Adventures of Huckleberry 

Finn and other works, Twain 

developed a style based on 

vigorous, realistic, colloquial 

American speech.
98

Custer’s army on the march prior to 

Little Bighorn. The Plains Indians who 

defeated his army were resisting white 

intrusions into their sacred lands and 

U.S. government attempts to force 

them back onto South Dakota’s 

Great Sioux Reservation.

Sitting Bull, Sioux chief who led the last great battle 

of the Plains Indians against the U.S. Army, when his 

warriors defeated forces under the command of 

General George Custer at the Battle of 

Little Bighorn in 1876.
99

101

Above, Oklahoma City in 1889, four weeks after the Oklahoma 

Territory was opened up for settlement. Settlers staked their claim, 

put up tents, and then swiftly began erecting board shacks and 

houses — a pattern repeated throughout the West.

Left, a vessel at the Gatun locks of the Panama Canal. The United 

States acquired the rights to build the canal in 1903 in a treaty with 

Panama, which had just rebelled and broken away from Colombia. 

Under the terms of the 1977 treaty, the canal reverted to 

Panamanian control on December 31, 1999.
102
Left, opposite page, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in New York 

City, principal gateway to the United States in the late 19th and early 

20th centuries. From 1890 to 1921, almost 19 million people entered 

the United States as immigrants. 

Below, children working at the Indiana Glass Works in 1908. 

Enacting child labor laws was one of the principal goals of the 

Progressive movement in this era.

103
104

Mulberry Street in New York City, also known as 

“Little Italy,” in the early years of the 20th century. 

Newly arrived immigrant families, largely from 

Eastern and southern Europe in this period, 

often settled in densely populated urban 

enclaves. Typically, their children, 

or grandchildren, would disperse, 

moving to other cities or other 

parts of the country.
105
106

Thomas Edison examines film used in the motion picture 

projector that he invented with George Eastman. The most 

celebrated of Edison’s hundreds of inventions was the 

incandescent light bulb.
107

Orville Wright, who built and flew the first heavier-than-air airplane at 

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903, with his brother Wilbur. Orville is 

shown here at the controls of a later model plane in 1909.

Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call from 

New York City to Chicago in 1892. Bell, an immigrant from 

Scotland who settled in Boston, invented the telephone 16 years 

earlier, in 1876.
108

American infantry forces in 1918, firing a 37 mm. gun, advance against German 

positions in World War I.

The “Big Four” at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, following the end of World War 

I. They are, seated from left, Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Prime Minister 

David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France, and 

President Woodrow Wilson of the United States. Despite strenuous efforts, Wilson 

was unable to persuade the U.S. Senate to agree to American participation in the new 

League of Nations established in the aftermath of the war.
109

For the educated and well-to-do, the 1920s was the era of the “Lost Generation,” 

symbolized by writers like Ernest Hemingway, who left the United States for voluntary 

exile in Paris. It was also the “flapper era” of frivolity and excess in which young people 

could reject the constraints and traditions of their elders. Top, flappers posing for the 

camera at a 1920s-era party. Above, Henry Ford and his son stand with one of his early 

automobiles, and the 10-millionth Ford Model-T. The Model-T was the first car whose 

price and availability made car ownership possible for large numbers of people.
110
CHAPTER 5

WESTWARD 

EXPANSION 

AND 

REGIONAL 

DIFFERENCES

Horse-drawn combine 

harvesting wheat in the 

Midwest, 19th century.
112

BUILDING UNITY

The War of 1812 was, in a sense, 

a second war of independence that 

confirmed once and for all the 

American break with England. With 

its conclusion, many of the serious 

difficulties that the young republic 

had faced since the Revolution disappeared. National union under 

the Constitution brought a balance 

between liberty and order. With a 

low national debt and a continent 

awaiting exploration, the prospect 

of peace, prosperity, and social progress opened before the nation.

Commerce cemented national 

unity. The privations of war convinced many of the importance of 

protecting the manufacturers of 

America until they could stand alone 

against foreign competition. Economic independence, many argued, 

was as essential as political independence. To foster self-sufficiency, 

congressional leaders Henry Clay of 

Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of 

South Carolina urged a policy of protectionism — imposition of restrictions on imported goods to foster the 

development of American industry.

The time was propitious for raising the customs tariff. The shepherds 

of Vermont and Ohio wanted protection against an influx of English 

wool. In Kentucky, a new industry 

of weaving local hemp into cotton 

bagging was threatened by the Scottish bagging industry. Pittsburgh, 

Pennsylvania, already a flourishing 

center of iron smelting, was eager to 

challenge British and Swedish iron 

suppliers. The tariff enacted in 1816 

imposed duties high enough to give 

manufacturers real protection.

In addition, Westerners advocatCHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 

“Go West, young man, 

and grow up with 

the country.”

Newspaper editor Horace Greeley, 1851
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

113

ed a national system of roads and 

canals to link them with Eastern cities and ports, and to open frontier 

lands for settlement. However, they 

were unsuccessful in pressing their 

demands for a federal role in internal improvement because of opposition from New England and the 

South. Roads and canals remained 

the province of the states until the 

passage of the Federal Aid Road Act 

of 1916.

The position of the federal government at this time was greatly 

strengthened by several Supreme 

Court decisions. A committed Federalist, John Marshall of Virginia became chief justice in 1801 and held 

office until his death in 1835. The 

court — weak before his administration — was transformed into a 

powerful tribunal, occupying a position co-equal to the Congress and 

the president. In a succession of historic decisions, Marshall established 

the power of the Supreme Court and 

strengthened the national government.

Marshall was the first in a long 

line of Supreme Court justices whose 

decisions have molded the meaning 

and application of the Constitution. When he finished his long service, the court had decided nearly 

50 cases clearly involving constitutional issues. In one of Marshall’s 

most famous opinions — Marbury 

v. Madison (1803) — he decisively 

established the right of the Supreme 

Court to review the constitutionality of any law of Congress or of 

a state legislature. In McCulloch v. 

Maryland (1819), he boldly upheld 

the Hamiltonian theory that the 

Constitution by implication gives 

the government powers beyond 

those expressly stated.

EXTENSION OF SLAVERY

Slavery, which up to now had received little public attention, began 

to assume much greater importance 

as a national issue. In the early years 

of the republic, when the Northern 

states were providing for immediate or gradual emancipation of the 

slaves, many leaders had supposed 

that slavery would die out. In 1786 

George Washington wrote that he 

devoutly wished some plan might 

be adopted “by which slavery may 

be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees.” Virginians Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe and 

other leading Southern statesmen 

made similar statements.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 

had banned slavery in the Northwest 

Territory. As late as 1808, when the 

international slave trade was abolished, there were many Southerners who thought that slavery would 

soon end. The expectation proved 

false, for during the next generation, 

the South became solidly united 

behind the institution of slavery as 

new economic factors made slavery 

far more profitable than it had been 

before 1790.

Chief among these was the rise of 

a great cotton-growing industry in 

the South, stimulated by the introduction of new types of cotton and 
114

by Eli Whitney’s invention in 1793 of 

the cotton gin, which separated the 

seeds from cotton. At the same time, 

the Industrial Revolution, which 

made textile manufacturing a largescale operation, vastly increased the 

demand for raw cotton. And the 

opening of new lands in the West 

after 1812 greatly extended the area 

available for cotton cultivation. Cotton culture moved rapidly from the 

Tidewater states on the East Coast 

through much of the lower South to 

the delta region of the Mississippi 

and eventually to Texas.

Sugar cane, another labor-intensive crop, also contributed to slavery’s extension in the South. The 

rich, hot lands of southeastern Louisiana proved ideal for growing sugar cane profitably. By 1830 the state 

was supplying the nation with about 

half its sugar supply. Finally, tobacco growers moved westward, taking 

slavery with them.

As the free society of the North 

and the slave society of the South 

spread westward, it seemed politically expedient to maintain a rough 

equality among the new states 

carved out of western territories. In 

1818, when Illinois was admitted to 

the Union, 10 states permitted slavery and 11 states prohibited it; but 

balance was restored after Alabama 

was admitted as a slave state. Population was growing faster in the North, 

which permitted Northern states to 

have a clear majority in the House 

of Representatives. However, equality between the North and the South 

was maintained in the Senate.

In 1819 Missouri, which had 

10,000 slaves, applied to enter the 

Union. Northerners rallied to oppose Missouri’s entry except as a free 

state, and a storm of protest swept 

the country. For a time Congress 

was deadlocked, but Henry Clay arranged the so-called Missouri Compromise: Missouri was admitted as 

a slave state at the same time Maine 

came in as a free state. In addition, 

Congress banned slavery from the 

territory acquired by the Louisiana 

Purchase north of Missouri’s southern boundary. At the time, this provision appeared to be a victory for 

the Southern states because it was 

thought unlikely that this “Great 

American Desert” would ever be 

settled. The controversy was temporarily resolved, but Thomas Jefferson 

wrote to a friend that “this momentous question, like a fire bell in the 

night, awakened and filled me with 

terror. I considered it at once as the 

knell of the Union.”

LATIN AMERICA AND THE 

MONROE DOCTRINE

During the opening decades of 

the 19th century, Central and South 

America turned to revolution. The 

idea of liberty had stirred the people 

of Latin America from the time the 

English colonies gained their freedom. Napoleon’s conquest of Spain 

and Portugal in 1808 provided the 

signal for Latin Americans to rise in 

revolt. By 1822, ably led by Simón 

Bolívar, Francisco Miranda, José de 

San Martín and Miguel de Hidalgo, 

CHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

115

most of Hispanic America — from 

Argentina and Chile in the south to 

Mexico in the north — had won independence.

The people of the United States 

took a deep interest in what seemed a 

repetition of their own experience in 

breaking away from European rule.

The Latin American independence 

movements confirmed their own belief in self-government. In 1822 President James Monroe, under powerful 

public pressure, received authority 

to recognize the new countries of 

Latin America and soon exchanged 

ministers with them. He thereby 

confirmed their status as genuinely 

independent countries, entirely separated from their former European 

connections.

At just this point, Russia, Prussia, 

and Austria formed an association, 

the Holy Alliance, to protect themselves against revolution. By intervening in countries where popular 

movements threatened monarchies, 

the alliance — joined by post-Napoleonic France — hoped to prevent 

the spread of revolution. This policy 

was the antithesis of the American 

principle of self-determination.

As long as the Holy Alliance confined its activities to the Old World, 

it aroused no anxiety in the United 

States. But when the alliance announced its intention of restoring to 

Spain its former colonies, Americans 

became very concerned. Britain, to 

which Latin American trade had become of great importance, resolved to 

block any such action. London urged 

joint Anglo-American guarantees 

to Latin America, but Secretary of 

State John Quincy Adams convinced 

Monroe to act unilaterally: “It would 

be more candid, as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France, than to 

come in as a cock-boat in the wake 

of the British man-of-war.”

In December 1823, with the 

knowledge that the British navy 

would defend Latin America from 

the Holy Alliance and France, President Monroe took the occasion of 

his annual message to Congress 

to pronounce what would become 

known as the Monroe Doctrine — 

the refusal to tolerate any further 

extension of European domination 

in the Americas:

The American continents ... are 

henceforth not to be considered as 

subjects for future colonization by 

any European powers.

We should consider any attempt 

on their part to extend their 

[political] system to any portion 

of this hemisphere, as dangerous 

to our peace and safety.

With the existing colonies or 

dependencies of any European 

power we have not interfered, 

and shall not interfere. But 

with the governments who have 

declared their independence, 

and maintained it, and whose 

independence we have ... 

acknowledged, we could not view 

any interposition for the purpose of 

oppressing them, or controlling, in 

any other manner, their destiny, by 

any European power in any other 

light than as the manifestation of 
116

an unfriendly disposition towards 

the United States.

The Monroe Doctrine expressed 

a spirit of solidarity with the newly independent republics of Latin 

America. These nations in turn recognized their political affinity with 

the United States by basing their new 

constitutions, in many instances, on 

the North American model.

FACTIONALISM AND 

POLITICAL PARTIES

Domestically, the presidency of 

Monroe (1817-1825) was termed the 

“era of good feelings.” The phrase acknowledged the political triumph of 

the Republican Party over the Federalist Party, which had collapsed as a 

national force. All the same, this was 

a period of vigorous factional and regional conflict.

The end of the Federalists led to a 

brief period of factional politics and 

brought disarray to the practice of 

choosing presidential nominees by 

congressional party caucuses. For 

a time, state legislatures nominated 

candidates. In 1824 Tennessee and 

Pennsylvania chose Andrew Jackson, with South Carolina Senator 

John C. Calhoun as his running 

mate. Kentucky selected Speaker of 

the House Henry Clay; Massachusetts, Secretary of State John Quincy 

Adams, son of the second president, 

John Adams. A congressional caucus, widely derided as undemocratic, picked Secretary of the Treasury 

William Crawford.

Personality and sectional allegiance played important roles in 

determining the outcome of the 

election. Adams won the electoral 

votes from New England and most 

of New York; Clay won Kentucky, 

Ohio, and Missouri; Jackson won 

the Southeast, Illinois, Indiana, the 

Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Maryland, 

and New Jersey; and Crawford won 

Virginia, Georgia, and Delaware.

No candidate gained a majority in 

the Electoral College, so, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the election was thrown 

into the House of Representatives, 

where Clay was the most influential 

figure. He supported Adams, who 

gained the presidency.

During Adams’s administration, 

new party alignments appeared.

Adams’s followers, some of whom 

were former Federalists, took the 

name of “National Republicans” 

as emblematic of their support of 

a federal government that would 

take a strong role in developing 

an expanding nation. Though he 

governed honestly and efficiently, 

Adams was not a popular president.

He failed in his effort to institute a 

national system of roads and canals.

His coldly intellectual temperament 

did not win friends. Jackson, by contrast, had enormous popular appeal 

and a strong political organization.

His followers coalesced to establish 

the Democratic Party, claimed direct lineage from the DemocraticRepublican Party of Jefferson, and 

in general advocated the principles 

of small, decentralized government.

CHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

117

Mounting a strong anti-Adams campaign, they accused the president of 

a “corrupt bargain” for naming Clay 

secretary of state. In the election of 

1828, Jackson defeated Adams by an 

overwhelming electoral majority.

Jackson — Tennessee politician, fighter in wars against Native 

Americans on the Southern frontier, and hero of the Battle of New 

Orleans during the War of 1812 — 

drew his support from the “common 

people.” He came to the presidency 

on a rising tide of enthusiasm for 

popular democracy. The election of 

1828 was a significant benchmark 

in the trend toward broader voter 

participation. By then most states 

had either enacted universal white 

male suffrage or minimized property requirements. In 1824 members 

of the Electoral College in six states 

were still selected by the state legislatures. By 1828 presidential electors were chosen by popular vote in 

every state but Delaware and South 

Carolina. These developments were 

the products of a widespread sense 

that the people should rule and that 

government by traditional elites had 

come to an end.

NULLIFICATION CRISIS

Toward the end of his first term 

in office, Jackson was forced to confront the state of South Carolina, 

the most important of the emerging Deep South cotton states, on the 

issue of the protective tariff. Business and farming interests in the 

state had hoped that the president 

would use his power to modify the 

1828 act that they called the Tariff of Abominations. In their view, 

all its benefits of protection went to 

Northern manufacturers, leaving 

agricultural South Carolina poorer.

In 1828, the state’s leading politician 

— and Jackson’s vice president until 

his resignation in 1832 — John C.

Calhoun had declared in his South 

Carolina Exposition and Protest that 

states had the right to nullify oppressive national legislation.

In 1832, Congress passed and 

Jackson signed a bill that revised 

the 1828 tariff downward, but it was 

not enough to satisfy most South 

Carolinians. The state adopted an 

Ordinance of Nullification, which 

declared both the tariffs of 1828 and 

1832 null and void within state borders. Its legislature also passed laws 

to enforce the ordinance, including 

authorization for raising a military 

force and appropriations for arms.

Nullification was a long-established 

theme of protest against perceived 

excesses by the federal government.

Jefferson and Madison had proposed 

it in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, to protest the Alien 

and Sedition Acts. The Hartford 

Convention of 1814 had invoked it 

to protest the War of 1812. Never 

before, however, had a state actually 

attempted nullification. The young 

nation faced its most dangerous 

crisis yet.

In response to South Carolina’s 

threat, Jackson sent seven small 

naval vessels and a man-of-war to 

Charleston in November 1832. On 
118

December 10, he issued a resounding proclamation against the nullifiers. South Carolina, the president 

declared, stood on “the brink of 

insurrection and treason,” and he 

appealed to the people of the state 

to reassert their allegiance to the 

Union. He also let it be known that, 

if necessary, he personally would lead 

the U.S. Army to enforce the law.

When the question of tariff duties 

again came before Congress, Jackson’s political rival, Senator Henry 

Clay, a great advocate of protection 

but also a devoted Unionist, sponsored a compromise measure. Clay’s 

tariff bill, quickly passed in 1833, 

specified that all duties in excess of 

20 percent of the value of the goods 

imported were to be reduced year by 

year, so that by 1842 the duties on 

all articles would reach the level of 

the moderate tariff of 1816. At the 

same time, Congress passed a Force 

Act, authorizing the president to use 

military power to enforce the laws.

South Carolina had expected the 

support of other Southern states, 

but instead found itself isolated. (Its 

most likely ally, the state government of Georgia, wanted, and got, 

U.S. military force to remove Native 

American tribes from the state.) 

Eventually, South Carolina rescinded its action. Both sides, nevertheless, claimed victory. Jackson had 

strongly defended the Union. But 

South Carolina, by its show of resistance, had obtained many of its 

demands and had demonstrated 

that a single state could force its will 

on Congress.

THE BANK FIGHT

Although the nullification crisis 

possessed the seeds of civil war, it 

was not as critical a political issue 

as a bitter struggle over the continued existence of the nation’s central 

bank, the second Bank of the United 

States. The first bank, established in 

1791 under Alexander Hamilton’s 

guidance, had been chartered for 

a 20-year period. Though the government held some of its stock, the 

bank, like the Bank of England and 

other central banks of the time, was 

a private corporation with profits 

passing to its stockholders. Its public 

functions were to act as a depository for government receipts, to make 

short-term loans to the government, 

and above all to establish a sound 

currency by refusing to accept at face 

value notes (paper money) issued by 

state-chartered banks in excess of 

their ability to redeem.

To the Northeastern financial 

and commercial establishment, the 

central bank was a needed enforcer of prudent monetary policy, but 

from the beginning it was resented by Southerners and Westerners 

who believed their prosperity and 

regional development depended 

upon ample money and credit. The 

Republican Party of Jefferson and 

Madison doubted its constitutionality. When its charter expired in 1811, 

it was not renewed.

For the next few years, the banking business was in the hands of 

state-chartered banks, which issued 

currency in excessive amounts, creCHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

119

ating great confusion and fueling inflation. It became increasingly clear 

that state banks could not provide 

the country with a reliable currency.

In 1816 a second Bank of the United 

States, similar to the first, was again 

chartered for 20 years. From its 

inception, the second bank was 

unpopular in the newer states and 

territories, especially with state and 

local bankers who resented its virtual monopoly over the country’s 

credit and currency, but also with 

less prosperous people everywhere, 

who believed that it represented the 

interests of the wealthy few.

On the whole, the bank was 

well managed and rendered a valuable service; but Jackson had long 

shared the Republican distrust of 

the financial establishment. Elected 

as a tribune of the people, he sensed 

that the bank’s aristocratic manager, Nicholas Biddle, was an easy 

target. When the bank’s supporters in Congress pushed through an 

early renewal of its charter, Jackson 

responded with a stinging veto that 

denounced monopoly and special 

privilege. The effort to override the 

veto failed.

In the presidential campaign 

that followed, the bank question revealed a fundamental division. Established merchant, manufacturing, 

and financial interests favored sound 

money. Regional bankers and entrepreneurs on the make wanted an 

increased money supply and lower 

interest rates. Other debtor classes, 

especially farmers, shared those sentiments. Jackson and his supporters 

called the central bank a “monster” 

and coasted to an easy election victory over Henry Clay.

The president interpreted his triumph as a popular mandate to crush 

the central bank irrevocably. In September 1833 he ordered an end to 

deposits of government money in 

the bank, and gradual withdrawals 

of the money already in its custody.

The government deposited its funds 

in selected state banks, characterized 

as “pet banks” by the opposition.

For the next generation the United States would get by on a relatively 

unregulated state banking system, 

which helped fuel westward expansion through cheap credit but kept 

the nation vulnerable to periodic 

panics. During the Civil War, the 

United States initiated a system of 

national charters for local and regional banks, but the nation returned to a central bank only with 

the establishment of the Federal Reserve system in 1913.

WHIGS, DEMOCRATS, AND 

KNOW-NOTHINGS

Jackson’s political opponents, united by little more than a common 

opposition to him, eventually coalesced into a common party called 

the Whigs, a British term signifying opposition to Jackson’s “monarchial rule.” Although they organized 

soon after the election campaign of 

1832, it was more than a decade before they reconciled their differences 

and were able to draw up a platform.

Largely through the magnetism of 
120

Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the 

Whigs’ most brilliant statesmen, the 

party solidified its membership. But 

in the 1836 election, the Whigs were 

still too divided to unite behind a 

single man. New York’s Martin Van 

Buren, Jackson’s vice president, won 

the contest.

An economic depression and the 

larger-than-life personality of his 

predecessor obscured Van Buren’s 

merits. His public acts aroused no 

enthusiasm, for he lacked the compelling qualities of leadership and 

the dramatic flair that had attended 

Jackson’s every move. The election 

of 1840 found the country afflicted 

with hard times and low wages — 

and the Democrats on the defensive.

The Whig candidate for president was William Henry Harrison 

of Ohio, vastly popular as a hero of 

conflicts with Native Americans and 

the War of 1812. He was promoted, 

like Jackson, as a representative of 

the democratic West. His vice presidential candidate was John Tyler — 

a Virginian whose views on states’ 

rights and a low tariff were popular 

in the South. Harrison won a sweeping victory.

Within a month of his inauguration, however, the 68-year-old 

Harrison died, and Tyler became 

president. Tyler’s beliefs differed 

sharply from those of Clay and Webster, still the most influential men 

in Congress. The result was an open 

break between the new president and 

the party that had elected him. The 

Tyler presidency would accomplish 

little other than to establish definitively that, if a president died, the 

vice president would assume the office with full powers for the balance 

of his term.

Americans found themselves divided in other, more complex ways.

The large number of Catholic immigrants in the first half of the 19th 

century, primarily Irish and German, triggered a backlash among 

native-born Protestant Americans.

Immigrants brought strange new 

customs and religious practices to 

American shores. They competed 

with the native-born for jobs in cities along the Eastern seaboard. The 

coming of universal white male 

suffrage in the 1820s and 1830s increased their political clout. Displaced patrician politicians blamed 

the immigrants for their fall from 

power. The Catholic Church’s failure 

to support the temperance movement gave rise to charges that Rome 

was trying to subvert the United 

States through alcohol.

The most important of the nativist organizations that sprang up in 

this period was a secret society, the 

Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, 

founded in 1849. When its members refused to identify themselves, 

they were swiftly labeled the “KnowNothings.” In a few years, they became a national organization with 

considerable political power.

The Know-Nothings advocated 

an extension in the period required 

for naturalized citizenship from five 

to 21 years. They sought to exclude 

the foreign-born and Catholics from 

public office. In 1855 they won conCHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

121

trol of legislatures in New York and 

Massachusetts; by then, about 90 

U.S. congressmen were linked to the 

party. That was its high point. Soon 

after, the gathering crisis between 

North and South over the extension 

of slavery fatally divided the party, 

consuming it along with the old debates between Whigs and Democrats that had dominated American 

politics in the second quarter of the 

19th century.

STIRRINGS OF REFORM

The democratic upheaval in politics exemplified by Jackson’s election 

was merely one phase of the long 

American quest for greater rights 

and opportunities for all citizens.

Another was the beginning of labor organization, primarily among 

skilled and semiskilled workers. In 

1835 labor forces in Philadelphia, 

Pennsylvania, succeeded in reducing 

the old “dark-to-dark” workday to 

a 10-hour day. By 1860, the new 

work day had become law in several of the states and was a generally 

accepted standard.

The spread of suffrage had already led to a new concept of 

education. Clear-sighted statesmen 

everywhere understood that universal suffrage required a tutored, 

literate electorate. Workingmen’s 

organizations demanded free, taxsupported schools open to all children. Gradually, in one state after 

another, legislation was enacted to 

provide for such free instruction.

The leadership of Horace Mann in 

Massachusetts was especially effective. The public school system 

became common throughout the 

North. In other parts of the country, however, the battle for public 

education continued for years.

Another influential social movement that emerged during this 

period was the opposition to the sale 

and use of alcohol, or the temperance movement. It stemmed from 

a variety of concerns and motives: 

religious beliefs, the effect of alcohol on the work force, the violence 

and suffering women and children 

experienced at the hands of heavy 

drinkers. In 1826 Boston ministers 

organized the Society for the Promotion of Temperance. Seven years 

later, in Philadelphia, the society 

convened a national convention, 

which formed the American Temperance Union. The union called for 

the prohibition of all alcoholic beverages, and pressed state legislatures 

to ban their production and sale.

Thirteen states had done so by 1855, 

although the laws were subsequently 

challenged in court. They survived 

only in northern New England, but 

between 1830 and 1860 the temperance movement reduced Americans’ 

per capita consumption of alcohol.

Other reformers addressed the 

problems of prisons and care for the 

insane. Efforts were made to turn 

prisons, which stressed punishment, 

into penitentiaries where the guilty 

would undergo rehabilitation. In 

Massachusetts, Dorothea Dix led a 

struggle to improve conditions for 

insane persons, who were kept con-
122

fined in wretched almshouses and 

prisons. After winning improvements in Massachusetts, she took 

her campaign to the South, where 

nine states established hospitals for 

the insane between 1845 and 1852.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Such social reforms brought many 

women to a realization of their own 

unequal position in society. From 

colonial times, unmarried women 

had enjoyed many of the same legal 

rights as men, although custom required that they marry early. With 

matrimony, women virtually lost 

their separate identities in the eyes 

of the law. Women were not permitted to vote. Their education in the 

17th and 18th centuries was limited 

largely to reading, writing, music, 

dancing, and needlework.

The awakening of women began 

with the visit to America of Frances Wright, a Scottish lecturer and 

journalist, who publicly promoted 

women’s rights throughout the United States during the 1820s. At a time 

when women were often forbidden 

to speak in public places, Wright not 

only spoke out, but shocked audiences by her views advocating the 

rights of women to seek information 

on birth control and divorce. By the 

1840s an American women’s rights 

movement emerged. Its foremost 

leader was Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

In 1848 Cady Stanton and her 

colleague Lucretia Mott organized 

a women’s rights convention — the 

first in the history of the world — 

at Seneca Falls, New York. Delegates 

drew up a “Declaration of Sentiments,” demanding equality with 

men before the law, the right to vote, 

and equal opportunities in education and employment. The resolutions passed unanimously with the 

exception of the one for women’s 

suffrage, which won a majority only 

after an impassioned speech in favor by Frederick Douglass, the black 

abolitionist.

At Seneca Falls, Cady Stanton gained national prominence as 

an eloquent writer and speaker for 

women’s rights. She had realized early on that without the right to vote, 

women would never be equal with 

men. Taking the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison as her model, 

she saw that the key to success lay 

in changing public opinion, and not 

in party action. Seneca Falls became 

the catalyst for future change. Soon 

other women’s rights conventions 

were held, and other women would 

come to the forefront of the movement for their political and social 

equality.

In 1848 also, Ernestine Rose, a 

Polish immigrant, was instrumental 

in getting a law passed in the state 

of New York that allowed married 

women to keep their property in 

their own name. Among the first 

laws in the nation of this kind, the 

Married Women’s Property Act encouraged other state legislatures to 

enact similar laws.

In 1869 Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

and another leading women’s rights 

activist, Susan B. Anthony, founded 

CHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

123

the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to promote a constitutional amendment for women’s 

right to the vote. These two would 

become the women’s movement’s 

most outspoken advocates. Describing their partnership, Cady Stanton 

would say, “I forged the thunderbolts 

and she fired them.”

WESTWARD

The frontier did much to shape 

American life. Conditions along the 

entire Atlantic seaboard stimulated migration to the newer regions.

From New England, where the soil 

was incapable of producing high 

yields of grain, came a steady stream 

of men and women who left their 

coastal farms and villages to take 

advantage of the rich interior land 

of the continent. In the backcountry settlements of the Carolinas and 

Virginia, people handicapped by the 

lack of roads and canals giving access to coastal markets and resentful of the political dominance of the 

Tidewater planters also moved westward. By 1800 the Mississippi and 

Ohio River valleys were becoming a 

great frontier region. “Hi-o, away we 

go, floating down the river on the Ohi-o,” became the song of thousands 

of migrants.

The westward flow of population 

in the early 19th century led to the 

division of old territories and the 

drawing of new boundaries. As new 

states were admitted, the political 

map stabilized east of the Mississippi 

River. From 1816 to 1821, six states 

were created — Indiana, Illinois, and 

Maine (which were free states), and 

Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri 

(slave states). The first frontier had 

been tied closely to Europe, the second to the coastal settlements, but 

the Mississippi Valley was independent and its people looked west rather than east.

Frontier settlers were a varied 

group. One English traveler described them as “a daring, hardy 

race of men, who live in miserable 

cabins.... They are unpolished but 

hospitable, kind to strangers, honest, and trustworthy. They raise a 

little Indian corn, pumpkins, hogs, 

and sometimes have a cow or two.

... But the rifle is their principal 

means of support.” Dexterous with 

the ax, snare, and fishing line, these 

men blazed the trails, built the first 

log cabins, and confronted Native 

American tribes, whose land they 

occupied.

As more and more settlers penetrated the wilderness, many became 

farmers as well as hunters. A comfortable log house with glass windows, a chimney, and partitioned 

rooms replaced the cabin; the well 

replaced the spring. Industrious settlers would rapidly clear their land 

of timber, burning the wood for 

potash and letting the stumps decay. They grew their own grain, vegetables, and fruit; ranged the woods 

for deer, wild turkeys, and honey; 

fished the nearby streams; looked 

after cattle and hogs. Land speculators bought large tracts of the 

cheap land and, if land values rose, 
124

sold their holdings and moved still 

farther west, making way for others.

Doctors, lawyers, storekeepers, 

editors, preachers, mechanics, and 

politicians soon followed the farmers. The farmers were the sturdy 

base, however. Where they settled, 

they intended to stay and hoped 

their children would remain after 

them. They built large barns and 

brick or frame houses. They brought 

improved livestock, plowed the land 

skillfully, and sowed productive 

seed. Some erected flour mills, sawmills, and distilleries. They laid out 

good highways, and built churches 

and schools. Incredible transformations were accomplished in a few 

years. In 1830, for example, Chicago, 

Illinois, was merely an unpromising trading village with a fort; but 

long before some of its original settlers had died, it had become one 

of the largest and richest cities in 

the nation.

Farms were easy to acquire. Government land after 1820 could be 

bought for $1.25 for about half a 

hectare, and after the 1862 Homestead Act, could be claimed by 

merely occupying and improving it.

In addition, tools for working the 

land were easily available. It was a 

time when, in a phrase coined by 

Indiana newspaperman John Soule 

and popularized by New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, young 

men could “go west and grow with 

the country.”

Except for a migration into Mexican-owned Texas, the westward 

march of the agricultural frontier 

did not pass Missouri into the vast 

Western territory acquired in the 

Louisiana Purchase until after 1840.

In 1819, in return for assuming the 

claims of American citizens to the 

amount of $5 million, the United 

States obtained from Spain both 

Florida and Spain’s rights to the 

Oregon country in the Far West.

In the meantime, the Far West had 

become a field of great activity in 

the fur trade, which was to have 

significance far beyond the value 

of the skins. As in the first days of 

French exploration in the Mississippi 

Valley, the trader was a pathfinder 

for the settlers beyond the Mississippi. The French and Scots-Irish 

trappers, exploring the great rivers 

and their tributaries and discovering the passes through the Rocky 

and Sierra Mountains, made possible the overland migration of the 

1840s and the later occupation of 

the interior of the nation.

Overall, the growth of the nation was enormous: Population grew 

from 7.25 million to more than 23 

million from 1812 to 1852, and the 

land available for settlement increased by almost the size of Western Europe — from 4.4 million to 

7.8 million square kilometers. Still 

unresolved, however, were the basic conflicts rooted in sectional differences that, by the decade of the 

1860s, would explode into civil war.

Inevitably, too, this westward expansion brought settlers into conflict 

with the original inhabitants of the 

land: the Native Americans.

In the first part of the 19th centuCHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

125

ry, the most prominent figure associated with these conflicts was Andrew Jackson, the first “Westerner” 

to occupy the White House. In the 

midst of the War of 1812, Jackson, 

then in charge of the Tennessee militia, was sent into southern Alabama, 

where he ruthlessly put down an uprising of Creek Indians. The Creeks 

soon ceded two-thirds of their land 

to the United States. Jackson later 

routed bands of Seminoles from 

their sanctuaries in Spanish-owned 

Florida.

In the 1820s, President Monroe’s 

secretary of war, John C. Calhoun, 

pursued a policy of removing the remaining tribes from the old Southwest and resettling them beyond the 

Mississippi. Jackson continued this 

policy as president. In 1830 Congress 

passed the Indian Removal Act, providing funds to transport the eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi.

In 1834 a special Native American 

territory was set up in what is now 

Oklahoma. In all, the tribes signed 

94 treaties during Jackson’s two 

terms, ceding millions of hectares to 

the federal government and removing dozens of tribes from their ancestral homelands.

The most terrible chapter in this 

unhappy history concerned the 

Cherokees, whose lands in western 

North Carolina and Georgia had 

been guaranteed by treaty since 

1791. Among the most progressive 

of the eastern tribes, the Cherokees 

nevertheless were sure to be displaced when gold was discovered on 

their land in 1829. Forced to make 

a long and cruel trek to Oklahoma 

in 1838, the tribe lost many of its 

numbers from disease and privation on what became known as the 

“Trail of Tears.” 9
126

The frontier — the point at which settled territory met unoccupied land — 

began at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. It moved in a westward direction for 

nearly 300 years through densely forested wilderness and barren plains until 

the decennial census of 1890 revealed that at last the United States no longer 

possessed a discernible line of settlement.

At the time it seemed to many that a long period had come to an end — 

one in which the country had grown from a few struggling outposts of 

English civilization to a huge independent nation with an identity of its own. 

It was easy to believe that the experience of settlement and post-settlement 

development, constantly repeated as a people conquered a continent, had been 

the defining factor in the nation’s development.

In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, expressing a widely held 

sentiment, declared that the frontier had made the United States more than an 

extension of Europe. It had created a nation with a culture that was perhaps 

coarser than Europe’s, but also more pragmatic, energetic, individualistic, and 

democratic. The existence of large areas of “free land” had created a nation of 

property holders and had provided a “safety valve” for discontent in cities and 

more settled areas. His analysis implied that an America without a frontier 

would trend ominously toward what were seen as the European ills of stratified social systems, class conflict, and diminished opportunity.

After more than a hundred years scholars still debate the significance of 

the frontier in American history. Few believe it was quite as all-important as 

Turner suggested; its absence does not appear to have led to dire consequences. Some have gone farther, rejecting the Turner argument as a romantic glorification of a bloody, brutal process — marked by a war of conquest against 

Mexico, near-genocidal treatment of Native American tribes, and environmental despoliation. The common experience of the frontier, they argue, was one 

of hardship and failure.

Yet it remains hard to believe that three centuries of westward movement 

had no impact on the national character and suggestive that intelligent foreign 

observers, such as the French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville, were fascinated by the American West. Indeed, the last area of frontier settlement, the 

vast area stretching north from Texas to the Canadian border, which Americans today commonly call “the West,” still seems characterized by ideals of 

individualism, democracy, and opportunity that are more palpable than in the 

rest of the nation. It is perhaps also revealing that many people in other lands, 

when hearing the word “American,” so often identify it with a symbol of that 

final frontier — the “cowboy.” 

THE FRONTIER, “THE WEST,” AND 

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES 
United States of America, showing territorial expansion from 1803 to 1898.

Major Acquisitions of Territory by the United States and Dates of Admission of States

1–6 UNITED STATES SUMMARY

U.S. Department of Commerce

NUMBER OF INHABITANTS

Bureau of Census

OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

127
128
CHAPTER 6

SECTIONAL 

CONFLICT

Slave family picking cotton 

near Savannah, Georgia, 

in the early 1860s.
130

TWO AMERICAS

No visitor to the United States left 

a more enduring record of his travels and observations than the French 

writer and political theorist Alexis 

de Tocqueville, whose Democracy 

in America, first published in 1835, 

remains one of the most trenchant 

and insightful analyses of American social and political practices.

Tocqueville was far too shrewd an 

observer to be uncritical about the 

United States, but his verdict was 

fundamentally positive. “The government of a democracy brings the 

notion of political rights to the level 

of the humblest citizens,” he wrote, 

“just as the dissemination of wealth 

brings the notion of property within 

the reach of all men.” Nonetheless, 

Tocqueville was only one in the first 

of a long line of thinkers to worry 

whether such rough equality could 

survive in the face of a growing factory system that threatened to create 

divisions between industrial workers 

and a new business elite.

Other travelers marveled at the 

growth and vitality of the country, 

where they could see “everywhere 

the most unequivocal proofs of 

prosperity and rapid progress in agriculture, commerce, and great public works.” But such optimistic views 

of the American experiment were 

by no means universal. One skeptic was the English novelist Charles 

Dickens, who first visited the United 

States in 1841-42. “This is not the 

Republic I came to see,” he wrote 

in a letter. “This is not the Republic 

of my imagination.... The more I 

think of its youth and strength, the 

poorer and more trifling in a thousand respects, it appears in my eyes.

CHAPTER 6: SECTIONAL CONFLICT

“A house divided against 

itself cannot stand. I believe 

this government cannot 

endure permanently 

half-slave and half-free.”

 Senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln, 1858
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

131

In everything of which it has made 

a boast — excepting its education of 

the people, and its care for poor children — it sinks immeasurably below 

the level I had placed it upon.”

Dickens was not alone. America 

in the 19th century, as throughout its 

history, generated expectations and 

passions that often conflicted with 

a reality at once more mundane and 

more complex. The young nation’s 

size and diversity defied easy generalization and invited contradiction: 

America was both a freedom-loving 

and slave-holding society, a nation 

of expansive and primitive frontiers, 

a society with cities built on growing 

commerce and industrialization.

LANDS OF PROMISE

By 1850 the national territory 

stretched over forest, plain, and 

mountain. Within its far-flung limits dwelt 23 million people in a Union 

comprising 31 states. In the East, industry boomed. In the Midwest and 

the South, agriculture flourished.

After 1849 the gold mines of California poured their precious ore into 

the channels of trade.

New England and the Middle Atlantic states were the main centers 

of manufacturing, commerce, and 

finance. Principal products of these 

areas were textiles, lumber, clothing, machinery, leather, and woolen goods. The maritime trade had 

reached the height of its prosperity; vessels flying the American flag 

plied the oceans, distributing wares 

of all nations.

The South, from the Atlantic to 

the Mississippi River and beyond, 

featured an economy centered on 

agriculture. Tobacco was important 

in Virginia, Maryland, and North 

Carolina. In South Carolina, rice 

was an abundant crop. The climate 

and soil of Louisiana encouraged 

the cultivation of sugar. But cotton 

eventually became the dominant 

commodity and the one with which 

the South was identified. By 1850 the 

American South grew more than 80 

percent of the world’s cotton. Slaves 

cultivated all these crops.

The Midwest, with its boundless prairies and swiftly growing 

population, flourished. Europe and 

the older settled parts of America 

demanded its wheat and meat 

products. The introduction of labor-saving implements — notably 

the McCormick reaper (a machine 

to cut and harvest grain) — made 

possible an unparalleled increase 

in grain production. The nation’s 

wheat crops swelled from some 35 

million hectoliters in 1850 to nearly 

61 million in 1860, more than half 

grown in the Midwest.

An important stimulus to the 

country’s prosperity was the great 

improvement in transportation facilities; from 1850 to 1857 the Appalachian Mountain barrier was 

pierced by five railway trunk lines 

linking the Midwest and the Northeast. These links established the 

economic interests that would undergird the political alliance of the 

Union from 1861 to 1865. The South 

lagged behind. It was not until the 
132

late 1850s that a continuous line ran 

through the mountains connecting 

the lower Mississippi River area with 

the southern Atlantic seaboard.

SLAVERY AND SECTIONALISM

One overriding issue exacerbated the regional and economic differences between North and South: 

slavery. Resenting the large profits 

amassed by Northern businessmen 

from marketing the cotton crop, 

many Southerners attributed the 

backwardness of their own section 

to Northern aggrandizement. Many 

Northerners, on the other hand, declared that slavery — the “peculiar 

institution” that the South regarded 

as essential to its economy — was 

largely responsible for the region’s 

relative financial and industrial 

backwardness.

As far back as the Missouri 

Compromise in 1819, sectional lines 

had been steadily hardening on the 

slavery question. In the North, sentiment for outright abolition grew 

increasingly powerful. Southerners in general felt little guilt about 

slavery and defended it vehemently.

In some seaboard areas, slavery by 

1850 was well over 200 years old; 

it was an integral part of the basic 

economy of the region.

Although the 1860 census showed 

that there were nearly four million 

slaves out of a total population of 

12.3 million in the 15 slave states, 

only a minority of Southern whites 

owned slaves. There were some 

385,000 slave owners out of about 

1.5 million white families. Fifty percent of these slave owners owned no 

more than five slaves. Twelve percent 

owned 20 or more slaves, the number defined as turning a farmer into 

a planter. Three-quarters of Southern white families, including the 

“poor whites,” those on the lowest 

rung of Southern society, owned no 

slaves.

It is easy to understand the interest of the planters in slave holding. But the yeomen and poor whites 

supported the institution of slavery 

as well. They feared that, if freed, 

blacks would compete with them 

economically and challenge their 

higher social status. Southern whites 

defended slavery not simply on the 

basis of economic necessity but out 

of a visceral dedication to white 

supremacy.

As they fought the weight of 

Northern opinion, political leaders of the South, the professional 

classes, and most of the clergy now 

no longer apologized for slavery but 

championed it. Southern publicists 

insisted, for example, that the relationship between capital and labor 

was more humane under the slavery 

system than under the wage system 

of the North.

Before 1830 the old patriarchal 

system of plantation government, 

with its personal supervision of the 

slaves by their owners or masters, 

was still characteristic. Gradually, 

however, with the introduction of 

large-scale cotton production in 

the lower South, the master gradually ceased to exercise close personal 

CHAPTER 6: SECTIONAL CONFLICT
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

133

supervision over his slaves, and 

employed professional overseers 

charged with exacting from slaves 

a maximum amount of work. In 

such circumstances, slavery could 

become a system of brutality and 

coercion in which beatings and the 

breakup of families through the sale 

of individuals were commonplace.

In other settings, however, it could 

be much milder.

In the end, however, the most 

trenchant criticism of slavery was 

not the behavior of individual masters and overseers. Systematically 

treating African-American laborers 

as if they were domestic animals, 

slavery, the abolitionists pointed out, 

violated every human being’s inalienable right to be free.

THE ABOLITIONISTS

In national politics, Southerners 

chiefly sought protection and enlargement of the interests represented by the cotton/slavery system. They 

sought territorial expansion because 

the wastefulness of cultivating a single crop, cotton, rapidly exhausted 

the soil, increasing the need for new 

fertile lands. Moreover, new territory 

would establish a basis for additional 

slave states to offset the admission of 

new free states. Antislavery Northerners saw in the Southern view a 

conspiracy for proslavery aggrandizement. In the 1830s their opposition became fierce.

An earlier antislavery movement, 

an offshoot of the American Revolution, had won its last victory in 

1808 when Congress abolished the 

slave trade with Africa. Thereafter, 

opposition came largely from the 

Quakers, who kept up a mild but 

ineffectual protest. Meanwhile, the 

cotton gin and westward expansion 

into the Mississippi delta region created an increasing demand for slaves.

The abolitionist movement that 

emerged in the early 1830s was 

combative, uncompromising, and 

insistent upon an immediate end to 

slavery. This approach found a leader 

in William Lloyd Garrison, a young 

man from Massachusetts, who combined the heroism of a martyr with 

the crusading zeal of a demagogue.

On January 1, 1831, Garrison produced the first issue of his newspaper, The Liberator, which bore the 

announcement: “I shall strenuously 

contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population.

... On this subject, I do not wish to 

think, or speak, or write, with moderation.... I am in earnest — I will 

not equivocate — I will not excuse 

— I will not retreat a single inch — 

AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

Garrison’s sensational methods 

awakened Northerners to the evil 

in an institution many had long 

come to regard as unchangeable.

He sought to hold up to public gaze 

the most repulsive aspects of slavery and to castigate slave holders as 

torturers and traffickers in human 

life. He recognized no rights of the 

masters, acknowledged no compromise, tolerated no delay. Other abolitionists, unwilling to subscribe to his 

law-defying tactics, held that reform 
134

should be accomplished by legal and 

peaceful means. Garrison was joined 

by another powerful voice, that of 

Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave 

who galvanized Northern audiences.

Theodore Dwight Weld and many 

other abolitionists crusaded against 

slavery in the states of the old Northwest Territory with evangelical zeal.

One activity of the movement involved helping slaves escape to safe 

refuges in the North or over the border into Canada. The “Underground 

Railroad,” an elaborate network of 

secret routes, was firmly established 

in the 1830s in all parts of the North.

In Ohio alone, from 1830 to 1860, as 

many as 40,000 fugitive slaves were 

helped to freedom. The number of 

local antislavery societies increased 

at such a rate that by 1838 there were 

about 1,350 with a membership of 

perhaps 250,000.

Most Northerners nonetheless either held themselves aloof from the 

abolitionist movement or actively 

opposed it. In 1837, for example, 

a mob attacked and killed the antislavery editor Elijah P. Lovejoy in 

Alton, Illinois. Still, Southern repression of free speech allowed the 

abolitionists to link the slavery issue 

with the cause of civil liberties for 

whites. In 1835 an angry mob destroyed abolitionist literature in the 

Charleston, South Carolina, post office. When the postmaster-general 

stated he would not enforce delivery 

of abolitionist material, bitter debates ensued in Congress. Abolitionists flooded Congress with petitions 

calling for action against slavery. In 

1836 the House voted to table such 

petitions automatically, thus effectively killing them. Former President 

John Quincy Adams, elected to the 

House of Representatives in 1830, 

fought this so-called gag rule as a 

violation of the First Amendment, 

finally winning its repeal in 1844.

TEXAS AND WAR WITH 

MEXICO

Throughout the 1820s, Americans settled in the vast territory of 

Texas, often with land grants from 

the Mexican government. However, 

their numbers soon alarmed the authorities, who prohibited further immigration in 1830. In 1834 General 

Antonio López de Santa Anna established a dictatorship in Mexico, and 

the following year Texans revolted.

Santa Anna defeated the American 

rebels at the celebrated siege of the 

Alamo in early 1836, but Texans 

under Sam Houston destroyed the 

Mexican Army and captured Santa 

Anna a month later at the Battle of 

San Jacinto, ensuring Texan independence.

For almost a decade, Texas remained an independent republic, 

largely because its annexation as a 

huge new slave state would disrupt 

the increasingly precarious balance 

of political power in the United 

States. In 1845, President James K.

Polk, narrowly elected on a platform 

of westward expansion, brought the 

Republic of Texas into the Union.

Polk’s move was the first gambit in 

a larger design. Texas claimed that 

CHAPTER 6: SECTIONAL CONFLICT
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

135

its border with Mexico was the Rio 

Grande; Mexico argued that the 

border stood far to the north along 

the Nueces River. Meanwhile, settlers were flooding into the territories of New Mexico and California.

Many Americans claimed that the 

United States had a “manifest destiny” to expand westward to the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. attempts to purchase from 

Mexico the New Mexico and California territories failed. In 1846, 

after a clash of Mexican and U.S.

troops along the Rio Grande, the 

United States declared war. American troops occupied the lightly 

populated territory of New Mexico, 

then supported a revolt of settlers 

in California. A U.S. force under 

Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico, 

winning victories at Monterrey and 

Buena Vista, but failing to bring the 

Mexicans to the negotiating table. In 

March 1847, a U.S. Army commanded by Winfield Scott landed near 

Veracruz on Mexico’s east coast, 

and fought its way to Mexico City.

The United States dictated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which 

Mexico ceded what would become 

the American Southwest region and 

California for $15 million.

The war was a training ground 

for American officers who would 

later fight on both sides in the Civil 

War. It was also politically divisive.

Polk, in a simultaneous facedown 

with Great Britain, had achieved 

British recognition of American sovereignty in the Pacific Northwest to 

the 49th parallel. Still, antislavery 

forces, mainly among the Whigs, attacked Polk’s expansion as a proslavery plot.

With the conclusion of the Mexican War, the United States gained 

a vast new territory of 1.36 million 

square kilometers encompassing the 

present-day states of New Mexico, 

Nevada, California, Utah, most of 

Arizona, and portions of Colorado 

and Wyoming. The nation also faced 

a revival of the most explosive question in American politics of the time: 

Would the new territories be slave 

or free?

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

Until 1845, it had seemed likely 

that slavery would be confined to the 

areas where it already existed. It had 

been given limits by the Missouri 

Compromise in 1820 and had no opportunity to overstep them. The new 

territories made renewed expansion 

of slavery a real likelihood.

Many Northerners believed that if 

not allowed to spread, slavery would 

ultimately decline and die. To justify their opposition to adding new 

slave states, they pointed to the statements of Washington and Jefferson, 

and to the Ordinance of 1787, which 

forbade the extension of slavery into 

the Northwest. Texas, which already 

permitted slavery, naturally entered 

the Union as a slave state. But the 

California, New Mexico, and Utah 

territories did not have slavery. From 

the beginning, there were strongly 

conflicting opinions on whether 

they should.
136

Southerners urged that all the 

lands acquired from Mexico should 

be thrown open to slave holders.

Antislavery Northerners demanded 

that all the new regions be closed 

to slavery. One group of moderates 

suggested that the Missouri Compromise line be extended to the Pacific with free states north of it and 

slave states to the south. Another 

group proposed that the question 

be left to “popular sovereignty.” The 

government should permit settlers to 

enter the new territory with or without slaves as they pleased. When the 

time came to organize the region 

into states, the people themselves 

could decide.

Despite the vitality of the abolitionist movement, most Northerners 

were unwilling to challenge the existence of slavery in the South. Many, 

however, were against its expansion.

In 1848 nearly 300,000 men voted 

for the candidates of a new Free Soil 

Party, which declared that the best 

policy was “to limit, localize, and 

discourage slavery.” In the immediate aftermath of the war with Mexico, however, popular sovereignty 

had considerable appeal.

In January 1848 the discovery 

of gold in California precipitated a 

headlong rush of settlers, more than 

80,000 in the single year of 1849.

Congress had to determine the status of this new region quickly in 

order to establish an organized government. The venerable Kentucky 

Senator Henry Clay, who twice 

before in times of crisis had come 

forward with compromise arrangements, advanced a complicated and 

carefully balanced plan. His old 

Massachusetts rival, Daniel Webster, supported it. Illinois Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, 

the leading advocate of popular 

sovereignty, did much of the work 

in guiding it through Congress.

The Compromise of 1850 contained the following provisions: (1) 

California was admitted to the Union 

as a free state; (2) the remainder of the 

Mexican cession was divided into the 

two territories of New Mexico and 

Utah and organized without mention 

of slavery; (3) the claim of Texas to a 

portion of New Mexico was satisfied 

by a payment of $10 million; (4) new 

legislation (the Fugitive Slave Act)

was passed to apprehend runaway 

slaves and return them to their masters; and (5) the buying and selling of 

slaves (but not slavery) was abolished 

in the District of Columbia.

The country breathed a sigh of 

relief. For the next three years, the 

compromise seemed to settle nearly all differences. The new Fugitive 

Slave Law, however, was an immediate source of tension. It deeply 

offended many Northerners, who 

refused to have any part in catching slaves. Some actively and violently obstructed its enforcement.

The Underground Railroad became 

more efficient and daring than ever.

A DIVIDED NATION

During the 1850s, the issue of slavery severed the political bonds that 

had held the United States together.

CHAPTER 6: SECTIONAL CONFLICT
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

137

It ate away at the country’s two great 

political parties, the Whigs and the 

Democrats, destroying the first and 

irrevocably dividing the second. It 

produced weak presidents whose 

irresolution mirrored that of their 

parties. It eventually discredited even 

the Supreme Court.

The moral fervor of abolitionist feeling grew steadily. In 1852, 

Harriet Beecher Stowe published 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel provoked by the passage of the Fugitive 

Slave Law. More than 300,000 copies were sold the first year. Presses 

ran day and night to keep up with 

the demand. Although sentimental 

and full of stereotypes, Uncle Tom’s 

Cabin portrayed with undeniable 

force the cruelty of slavery and posited a fundamental conflict between 

free and slave societies. It inspired 

widespread enthusiasm for the antislavery cause, appealing as it did 

to basic human emotions — indignation at injustice and pity for 

the helpless individuals exposed to 

ruthless exploitation.

In 1854 the issue of slavery in 

the territories was renewed and the 

quarrel became more bitter. The region that now comprises Kansas and 

Nebraska was being rapidly settled, 

increasing pressure for the establishment of territorial, and eventually, 

state governments.

Under terms of the Missouri 

Compromise of 1820, the entire region was closed to slavery. Dominant 

slave-holding elements in Missouri 

objected to letting Kansas become a 

free territory, for their state would 

then have three free-soil neighbors 

(Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas) and 

might be forced to become a free 

state as well. Their congressional 

delegation, backed by Southerners, 

blocked all efforts to organize the 

region.

At this point, Stephen A. Douglas enraged all free-soil supporters.

Douglas argued that the Compromise of 1850, having left Utah and 

New Mexico free to resolve the slavery issue for themselves, superseded 

the Missouri Compromise. His plan 

called for two territories, Kansas 

and Nebraska. It permitted settlers 

to carry slaves into them and eventually to determine whether they 

should enter the Union as free or 

slave states.

Douglas’s opponents accused him 

of currying favor with the South in 

order to gain the presidency in 1856.

The free-soil movement, which had 

seemed to be in decline, reemerged 

with greater momentum than ever.

Yet in May 1854, Douglas’s plan in 

the form of the Kansas-Nebraska 

Act passed Congress to be signed by 

President Franklin Pierce. Southern 

enthusiasts celebrated with cannon 

fire. But when Douglas subsequently 

visited Chicago to speak in his own 

defense, the ships in the harbor lowered their flags to half-mast, the 

church bells tolled for an hour, and a 

crowd of 10,000 hooted so loudly that 

he could not make himself heard.

The immediate results of Douglas’s

ill-starred measure were momentous. The Whig Party, which had 

straddled the question of slavery ex-
138

pansion, sank to its death, and in its 

stead a powerful new organization 

arose, the Republican Party, whose 

primary demand was that slavery be 

excluded from all the territories. In 

1856, it nominated John Fremont, 

whose expeditions into the Far West 

had won him renown. Fremont lost 

the election, but the new party swept 

a great part of the North. Such freesoil leaders as Salmon P. Chase and 

William Seward exerted greater influence than ever. Along with them 

appeared a tall, lanky Illinois attorney, Abraham Lincoln.

Meanwhile, the flow of both 

Southern slave holders and antislavery families into Kansas resulted in 

armed conflict. Soon the territory 

was being called “bleeding Kansas.” 

The Supreme Court made things 

worse with its infamous 1857 Dred 

Scott decision.

Scott was a Missouri slave who, 

some 20 years earlier, had been taken by his master to live in Illinois 

and the Wisconsin Territory; in both 

places, slavery was banned. Returning to Missouri and becoming discontented with his life there, Scott 

sued for liberation on the ground of 

his residence on free soil. A majority 

of the Supreme Court — dominated 

by Southerners — decided that Scott 

lacked standing in court because he 

was not a citizen; that the laws of a 

free state (Illinois) had no effect on 

his status because he was the resident of a slave state (Missouri); and 

that slave holders had the right to 

take their “property” anywhere in 

the federal territories. Thus, Congress could not restrict the expansion of slavery. This last assertion 

invalidated former compromises on 

slavery and made new ones impossible to craft.

The Dred Scott decision stirred 

fierce resentment throughout the 

North. Never before had the Court 

been so bitterly condemned. For 

Southern Democrats, the decision 

was a great victory, since it gave judicial sanction to their justification 

of slavery throughout the territories.

LINCOLN, DOUGLAS, AND 

BROWN

Abraham Lincoln had long regarded slavery as an evil. As early as 1854 in a widely publicized 

speech, he declared that all national 

legislation should be framed on the 

principle that slavery was to be restricted and eventually abolished.

He contended also that the principle of popular sovereignty was false, 

for slavery in the western territories was the concern not only of the 

local inhabitants but of the United 

States as a whole.

In 1858 Lincoln opposed Stephen A. Douglas for election to the 

U.S. Senate from Illinois. In the first 

paragraph of his opening campaign 

speech, on June 17, Lincoln struck 

the keynote of American history for 

the seven years to follow:

A house divided against itself 

cannot stand. I believe this 

government cannot endure 

permanently half-slave and halffree. I do not expect the Union to 

CHAPTER 6: SECTIONAL CONFLICT
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

139

be dissolved — I do not expect the 

house to fall — but I do expect it 

will cease to be divided.

Lincoln and Douglas engaged 

in a series of seven debates in the 

ensuing months of 1858. Senator 

Douglas, known as the “Little Giant,” had an enviable reputation as 

an orator, but he met his match in 

Lincoln, who eloquently challenged 

Douglas’s concept of popular sovereignty. In the end, Douglas won 

the election by a small margin, but 

Lincoln had achieved stature as a 

national figure.

By then events were spinning out 

of control. On the night of October 

16, 1859, John Brown, an antislavery 

fanatic who had captured and killed 

five proslavery settlers in Kansas 

three years before, led a band of followers in an attack on the federal 

arsenal at Harper’s Ferry (in what 

is now West Virginia). Brown’s goal 

was to use the weapons seized to 

lead a slave uprising. After two days 

of fighting, Brown and his surviving 

men were taken prisoner by a force 

of U.S. Marines commanded by 

Colonel Robert E. Lee.

Brown’s attempt confirmed the 

worst fears of many Southerners.

Antislavery activists, on the other 

hand, generally hailed Brown as a 

martyr to a great cause. Virginia 

put Brown on trial for conspiracy, 

treason, and murder. On December 

2, 1859, he was hanged. Although 

most Northerners had initially condemned him, increasing numbers 

were coming to accept his view that 

he had been an instrument in the 

hand of God.

THE 1860 ELECTION

In 1860 the Republican Party 

nominated Abraham Lincoln as its 

candidate for president. The Republican platform declared that slavery 

could spread no farther, promised 

a tariff for the protection of industry, and pledged the enactment of 

a law granting free homesteads to 

settlers who would help in the opening of the West. Southern Democrats, unwilling in the wake of the 

Dred Scott case to accept Douglas’s 

popular sovereignty, split from the 

party and nominated Vice President 

John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky 

for president. Stephen A. Douglas 

was the nominee of northern Democrats. Diehard Whigs from the 

border states, formed into the Constitutional Union Party, nominated 

John C. Bell of Tennessee.

Lincoln and Douglas competed in the North, Breckenridge and 

Bell in the South. Lincoln won only 

39 percent of the popular vote, but 

had a clear majority of 180 electoral votes, carrying all 18 free states.

Bell won Tennessee, Kentucky, and 

Virginia; Breckenridge took the other slave states except for Missouri, 

which was won by Douglas. Despite 

his poor showing, Douglas trailed 

only Lincoln in the popular vote. 9
140
7

THE 

CIVIL WAR 

AND 

RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER

President Abraham Lincoln 

(center) at a Union Army 

encampment in October 

1862, following the battle 

of Antietam.
142

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR

Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of November 1860 

made South Carolina’s secession 

from the Union December 20 a 

foregone conclusion. The state had 

long been waiting for an event that 

would unite the South against the 

antislavery forces. By February 1, 

1861, five more Southern states had 

seceded. On February 8, the six 

states signed a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of 

America. The remaining Southern 

states as yet remained in the Union, 

although Texas had begun to move 

on its secession.

Less than a month later, March 4, 

1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn 

in as president of the United States.

In his inaugural address, he declared 

the Confederacy “legally void.” His 

speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, but the 

South turned a deaf ear. On April 

12, Confederate guns opened fire on 

the federal garrison at Fort Sumter 

in the Charleston, South Carolina, 

harbor. A war had begun in which 

more Americans would die than in 

any other conflict before or since.

In the seven states that had seceded, the people responded positively to the Confederate action 

and the leadership of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Both 

sides now tensely awaited the action 

of the slave states that thus far had 

remained loyal. Virginia seceded on 

April 17; Arkansas, Tennessee, and 

North Carolina followed quickly.

No state left the Union with 

greater reluctance than Virginia.

Her statesmen had a leading part in 

the winning of the Revolution and 

the framing of the Constitution, and 

she had provided the nation with 

CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 

“That this nation 

under God 

shall have a 

new birth of freedom.”

President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

143

five presidents. With Virginia went 

Colonel Robert E. Lee, who declined 

the command of the Union Army 

out of loyalty to his native state.

Between the enlarged Confederacy and the free-soil North lay 

the border slave states of Delaware, 

Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, 

which, despite some sympathy with 

the South, would remain loyal to 

the Union.

Each side entered the war with 

high hopes for an early victory. In 

material resources the North enjoyed 

a decided advantage. Twenty-three 

states with a population of 22 million were arrayed against 11 states 

inhabited by nine million, including 

slaves. The industrial superiority of 

the North exceeded even its preponderance in population, providing it 

with abundant facilities for manufacturing arms and ammunition, 

clothing, and other supplies. It had 

a greatly superior railway network.

The South nonetheless had certain advantages. The most important was geography; the South was 

fighting a defensive war on its own 

territory. It could establish its independence simply by beating off the 

Northern armies. The South also 

had a stronger military tradition, 

and possessed the more experienced 

military leaders.

WESTERN ADVANCE, 

EASTERN STALEMATE

The first large battle of the war, 

at Bull Run, Virginia (also known 

as First Manassas) near Washington, 

stripped away any illusions that victory would be quick or easy. It also 

established a pattern, at least in the 

Eastern United States, of bloody 

Southern victories that never translated into a decisive military advantage for the Confederacy.

In contrast to its military failures 

in the East, the Union was able to secure battlefield victories in the West 

and slow strategic success at sea.

Most of the Navy, at the war’s beginning, was in Union hands, but it was 

scattered and weak. Secretary of the 

Navy Gideon Welles took prompt 

measures to strengthen it. Lincoln 

then proclaimed a blockade of the 

Southern coasts. Although the effect of the blockade was negligible 

at first, by 1863 it almost completely 

prevented shipments of cotton to 

Europe and blocked the importation of sorely needed munitions, 

clothing, and medical supplies to 

the South.

A brilliant Union naval commander, David Farragut, conducted 

two remarkable operations. In April 

1862, he took a fleet into the mouth 

of the Mississippi River and forced 

the surrender of the largest city in 

the South, New Orleans, Louisiana.

In August 1864, with the cry, “Damn 

the torpedoes! Full speed ahead,” he 

led a force past the fortified entrance 

of Mobile Bay, Alabama, captured 

a Confederate ironclad vessel, and 

sealed off the port.

In the Mississippi Valley, the 

Union forces won an almost uninterrupted series of victories. They 

began by breaking a long Confeder-
144

ate line in Tennessee, thus making 

it possible to occupy almost all the 

western part of the state. When the 

important Mississippi River port of 

Memphis was taken, Union troops 

advanced some 320 kilometers into 

the heart of the Confederacy. With 

the tenacious General Ulysses S.

Grant in command, they withstood 

a sudden Confederate counterattack 

at Shiloh, on the bluffs overlooking 

the Tennessee River. Those killed 

and wounded at Shiloh numbered 

more than 10,000 on each side, a casualty rate that Americans had never 

before experienced. But it was only 

the beginning of the carnage.

In Virginia, by contrast, Union 

troops continued to meet one defeat after another in a succession of 

bloody attempts to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital. The 

Confederates enjoyed strong defense 

positions afforded by numerous 

streams cutting the road between 

Washington and Richmond. Their 

two best generals, Robert E. Lee and 

Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson, 

both far surpassed in ability their 

early Union counterparts. In 1862 

Union commander George McClellan made a slow, excessively cautious 

attempt to seize Richmond. But in 

the Seven Days’ Battles between June 

25 and July 1, the Union troops were 

driven steadily backward, both sides 

suffering terrible losses.

After another Confederate victory at the Second Battle of Bull 

Run (or Second Manassas), Lee 

crossed the Potomac River and invaded Maryland. McClellan again 

responded tentatively, despite learning that Lee had split his army and 

was heavily outnumbered. The 

Union and Confederate Armies met 

at Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, 

Maryland, on September 17, 1862, in 

the bloodiest single day of the war: 

More than 4,000 died on both sides 

and 18,000 were wounded. Despite 

his numerical advantage, however, 

McClellan failed to break Lee’s lines 

or press the attack, and Lee was able 

to retreat across the Potomac with 

his army intact. As a result, Lincoln 

fired McClellan.

Although Antietam was inconclusive in military terms, its 

consequences were nonetheless 

momentous. Great Britain and 

France, both on the verge of recognizing the Confederacy, delayed 

their decision, and the South never 

received the diplomatic recognition 

and the economic aid from Europe 

that it desperately sought.

Antietam also gave Lincoln the 

opening he needed to issue the 

preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of 

January 1, 1863, all slaves in states rebelling against the Union were free.

In practical terms, the proclamation 

had little immediate impact; it freed 

slaves only in the Confederate states, 

while leaving slavery intact in the 

border states. Politically, however, it 

meant that in addition to preserving 

the Union, the abolition of slavery 

was now a declared objective of the 

Union war effort.

The final Emancipation Proclamation, issued January 1, 1863, 

CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

145

also authorized the recruitment of 

African Americans into the Union 

Army, a move abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglass had 

been urging since the beginning of 

armed conflict. Union forces already 

had been sheltering escaped slaves as 

“contraband of war,” but following 

the Emancipation Proclamation, the 

Union Army recruited and trained 

regiments of African-American 

soldiers that fought with distinction in battles from Virginia to the 

Mississippi. About 178,000 African 

Americans served in the U.S. Colored Troops, and 29,500 served in 

the Union Navy.

Despite the political gains 

represented by the Emancipation 

Proclamation, however, the North’s 

military prospects in the East remained bleak as Lee’s Army of 

Northern Virginia continued to 

maul the Union Army of the Potomac, first at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862 and then 

at Chancellorsville in May 1863. But 

Chancellorsville, although one of 

Lee’s most brilliant military victories, was also one of his most costly.

His most valued lieutenant, General 

“Stonewall” Jackson, was mistakenly shot and killed by his own men.

GETTYSBURG TO 

APPOMATTOX

Yet none of the Confederate victories was decisive. The Union simply mustered new armies and tried 

again. Believing that the North’s 

crushing defeat at Chancellorsville 

gave him his chance, Lee struck 

northward into Pennsylvania at the 

beginning of July 1863, almost reaching the state capital at Harrisburg. A 

strong Union force intercepted him 

at Gettysburg, where, in a titanic 

three-day battle — the largest of the 

Civil War — the Confederates made 

a valiant effort to break the Union 

lines. They failed, and on July 4 Lee’s 

army, after crippling losses, retreated 

behind the Potomac.

More than 3,000 Union soldiers 

and almost 4,000 Confederates died 

at Gettysburg; wounded and missing 

totaled more than 20,000 on each 

side. On November 19, 1863, Lincoln 

dedicated a new national cemetery 

there with perhaps the most famous 

address in U.S. history. He concluded 

his brief remarks with these words:

... we here highly resolve that 

these dead shall not have died in 

vain — that this nation, under 

God, shall have a new birth of 

freedom — and that government 

of the people, by the people, for the 

people, shall not perish from the 

earth.

On the Mississippi, Union control had been blocked at Vicksburg, 

where the Confederates had strongly fortified themselves on bluffs too 

high for naval attack. In early 1863 

Grant began to move below and 

around Vicksburg, subjecting it to 

a six-week siege. On July 4, he captured the town, together with the 

strongest Confederate Army in the 

West. The river was now entirely in 

Union hands. The Confederacy was 

broken in two, and it became almost 
146

impossible to bring supplies from 

Texas and Arkansas.

The Northern victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863 

marked the turning point of the war, 

although the bloodshed continued 

unabated for more than a year-anda-half.

Lincoln brought Grant east and 

made him commander-in-chief of 

all Union forces. In May 1864 Grant 

advanced deep into Virginia and 

met Lee’s Confederate Army in the 

three-day Battle of the Wilderness.

Losses on both sides were heavy, 

but unlike other Union commanders, Grant refused to retreat. Instead, he attempted to outflank Lee, 

stretching the Confederate lines and 

pounding away with artillery and 

infantry attacks. “I propose to fight it 

out along this line if it takes all summer,” the Union commander said 

at Spotsylvania, during five days of 

bloody trench warfare that characterized fighting on the eastern front 

for almost a year.

In the West, Union forces gained 

control of Tennessee in the fall of 

1863 with victories at Chattanooga and nearby Lookout Mountain, 

opening the way for General William T. Sherman to invade Georgia.

Sherman outmaneuvered several 

smaller Confederate armies, occupied the state capital of Atlanta, then 

marched to the Atlantic coast, systematically destroying railroads, 

factories, warehouses, and other 

facilities in his path. His men, cut 

off from their normal supply lines, 

ravaged the countryside for food.

From the coast, Sherman marched 

northward; by February 1865, he 

had taken Charleston, South Carolina, where the first shots of the Civil 

War had been fired. Sherman, more 

than any other Union general, understood that destroying the will and 

morale of the South was as important as defeating its armies.

Grant, meanwhile, lay siege to Petersburg, Virginia, for nine months, 

before Lee, in March 1865, knew that 

he had to abandon both Petersburg 

and the Confederate capital of Richmond in an attempt to retreat south.

But it was too late. On April 9, 1865, 

surrounded by huge Union armies, 

Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Although scattered fighting continued elsewhere 

for several months, the Civil War 

was over.

The terms of surrender at Appomattox were magnanimous, and 

on his return from his meeting with 

Lee, Grant quieted the noisy demonstrations of his soldiers by reminding them: “The rebels are our 

countrymen again.” The war for 

Southern independence had become 

the “lost cause,” whose hero, Robert E. Lee, had won wide admiration 

through the brilliance of his leadership and his greatness in defeat.

WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE

For the North, the war produced 

a still greater hero in Abraham Lincoln — a man eager, above all else, 

to weld the Union together again, 

not by force and repression but by 

CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

147

warmth and generosity. In 1864 he 

had been elected for a second term 

as president, defeating his Democratic opponent, George McClellan, 

the general he had dismissed after 

Antietam. Lincoln’s second inaugural address closed with these words:

With malice toward none; with 

charity for all; with firmness in 

the right, as God gives us to see 

the right, let us strive on to finish 

the work we are in; to bind up the 

nation’s wounds; to care for him 

who shall have borne the battle, 

and for his widow, and his orphan 

— to do all which may achieve 

and cherish a just, and a lasting 

peace, among ourselves, and with 

all nations.

Three weeks later, two days after 

Lee’s surrender, Lincoln delivered 

his last public address, in which he 

unfolded a generous reconstruction 

policy. On April 14, 1865, the president held what was to be his last 

Cabinet meeting. That evening — 

with his wife and a young couple 

who were his guests — he attended 

a performance at Ford’s Theater.

There, as he sat in the presidential 

box, he was assassinated by John 

Wilkes Booth, a Virginia actor embittered by the South’s defeat. Booth 

was killed in a shootout some days 

later in a barn in the Virginia countryside. His accomplices were captured and later executed.

Lincoln died in a downstairs bedroom of a house across the street 

from Ford’s Theater on the morning of April 15. Poet James Russell 

Lowell wrote:

Never before that startled April 

morning did such multitudes of 

men shed tears for the death of 

one they had never seen, as if with 

him a friendly presence had been 

taken from their lives, leaving 

them colder and darker. Never 

was funeral panegyric so eloquent 

as the silent look of sympathy 

which strangers exchanged when 

they met that day. Their common 

manhood had lost a kinsman.

The first great task confronting 

the victorious North — now under 

the leadership of Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson, a Southerner 

who remained loyal to the Union — 

was to determine the status of the 

states that had seceded. Lincoln had 

already set the stage. In his view, 

the people of the Southern states 

had never legally seceded; they had 

been misled by some disloyal citizens into a defiance of federal authority. And since the war was the 

act of individuals, the federal government would have to deal with 

these individuals and not with 

the states. Thus, in 1863 Lincoln 

proclaimed that if in any state 10 

percent of the voters of record in 

1860 would form a government loyal 

to the U.S. Constitution and would 

acknowledge obedience to the laws 

of the Congress and the proclamations of the president, he would recognize the government so created as 

the state’s legal government.

Congress rejected this plan. Many 

Republicans feared it would simply 

entrench former rebels in power; 

they challenged Lincoln’s right 
148

to deal with the rebel states without consultation. Some members of 

Congress advocated severe punishment for all the seceded states; others simply felt the war would have 

been in vain if the old Southern establishment was restored to power.

Yet even before the war was wholly 

over, new governments had been set 

up in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, 

and Louisiana.

To deal with one of its major 

concerns — the condition of former slaves — Congress established 

the Freedmen’s Bureau in March 

1865 to act as guardian over African 

Americans and guide them toward 

self-support. And in December of 

that year, Congress ratified the 13th 

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery.

Throughout the summer of 1865 

Johnson proceeded to carry out Lincoln’s reconstruction program, with 

minor modifications. By presidential 

proclamation he appointed a governor for each of the former Confederate states and freely restored political 

rights to many Southerners through 

use of presidential pardons.

In due time conventions were 

held in each of the former Confederate states to repeal the ordinances 

of secession, repudiate the war debt, 

and draft new state constitutions.

Eventually a native Unionist became 

governor in each state with authority 

to convoke a convention of loyal voters. Johnson called upon each convention to invalidate the secession, 

abolish slavery, repudiate all debts 

that went to aid the Confederacy, 

and ratify the 13th Amendment.

By the end of 1865, this process was 

completed, with a few exceptions.

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION

Both Lincoln and Johnson had 

foreseen that the Congress would 

have the right to deny Southern legislators seats in the U.S. Senate or 

House of Representatives, under the 

clause of the Constitution that says, 

“Each house shall be the judge of 

the ... qualifications of its own members.” This came to pass when, under 

the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens, 

those congressmen called “Radical 

Republicans,” who were wary of a 

quick and easy “reconstruction,” refused to seat newly elected Southern 

senators and representatives. Within 

the next few months, Congress proceeded to work out a plan for the 

reconstruction of the South quite 

different from the one Lincoln had 

started and Johnson had continued.

Wide public support gradually developed for those members of 

Congress who believed that African 

Americans should be given full citizenship. By July 1866, Congress had 

passed a civil rights bill and set up 

a new Freedmen’s Bureau — both 

designed to prevent racial discrimination by Southern legislatures. Following this, the Congress passed a 

14th Amendment to the Constitution, stating that “all persons born 

or naturalized in the United States, 

and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States 

and of the State wherein they reside.” 

CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

149

This repudiated the Dred Scott ruling, which had denied slaves their 

right of citizenship.

All the Southern state legislatures, with the exception of Tennessee, refused to ratify the amendment, 

some voting against it unanimously.

In addition, Southern state legislatures passed “codes” to regulate the 

African-American freedmen. The 

codes differed from state to state, 

but some provisions were common.

African Americans were required 

to enter into annual labor contracts, 

with penalties imposed in case of 

violation; dependent children were 

subject to compulsory apprenticeship and corporal punishments by 

masters; vagrants could be sold into 

private service if they could not pay 

severe fines.

Many Northerners interpreted 

the Southern response as an attempt 

to reestablish slavery and repudiate the hard-won Union victory in 

the Civil War. It did not help that 

Johnson, although a Unionist, was 

a Southern Democrat with an addiction to intemperate rhetoric and 

an aversion to political compromise.

Republicans swept the congressional 

elections of 1866. Firmly in power, 

the Radicals imposed their own vision of Reconstruction.

In the Reconstruction Act of 

March 1867, Congress, ignoring the 

governments that had been established in the Southern states, divided 

the South into five military districts, 

each administered by a Union general. Escape from permanent military 

government was open to those states 

that established civil governments, 

ratified the 14th Amendment, and 

adopted African-American suffrage.

Supporters of the Confederacy who 

had not taken oaths of loyalty to the 

United States generally could not 

vote. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. The 15th Amendment, 

passed by Congress the following 

year and ratified in 1870 by state legislatures, provided that “The right of 

citizens of the United States to vote 

shall not be denied or abridged by 

the United States or any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

The Radical Republicans in 

Congress were infuriated by President Johnson’s vetoes (even though 

they were overridden) of legislation protecting newly freed African 

Americans and punishing former 

Confederate leaders by depriving 

them of the right to hold office.

Congressional antipathy to Johnson 

was so great that, for the first time 

in American history, impeachment 

proceedings were instituted to remove the president from office.

Johnson’s main offense was his 

opposition to punitive congressional 

policies and the violent language he 

used in criticizing them. The most 

serious legal charge his enemies 

could level against him was that, 

despite the Tenure of Office Act 

(which required Senate approval for 

the removal of any officeholder the 

Senate had previously confirmed), 

he had removed from his Cabinet 

the secretary of war, a staunch supporter of the Congress. When the 
150

impeachment trial was held in the 

Senate, it was proved that Johnson 

was technically within his rights in 

removing the Cabinet member. Even 

more important, it was pointed out 

that a dangerous precedent would be 

set if the Congress were to remove a 

president because he disagreed with 

the majority of its members. The final vote was one short of the twothirds required for conviction.

Johnson continued in office until 

his term expired in 1869, but Congress had established an ascendancy 

that would endure for the rest of the 

century. The Republican victor in 

the presidential election of 1868, former Union general Ulysses S. Grant, 

would enforce the reconstruction 

policies the Radicals had initiated.

By June 1868, Congress had readmitted the majority of the former Confederate states back into 

the Union. In many of these reconstructed states, the majority of 

the governors, representatives, and 

senators were Northern men — socalled carpetbaggers — who had 

gone South after the war to make 

their political fortunes, often in 

alliance with newly freed African 

Americans. In the legislatures of 

Louisiana and South Carolina, African Americans actually gained a 

majority of the seats.

Many Southern whites, their political and social dominance threatened, turned to illegal means to 

prevent African Americans from 

gaining equality. Violence against 

African Americans by such extralegal organizations as the Ku Klux 

Klan became more and more frequent. Increasing disorder led to 

the passage of Enforcement Acts in 

1870 and 1871, severely punishing 

those who attempted to deprive the 

African-American freedmen of their 

civil rights.

THE END OF 

RECONSTRUCTION

As time passed, it became more 

and more obvious that the problems 

of the South were not being solved 

by harsh laws and continuing rancor 

against former Confederates. Moreover, some Southern Radical state 

governments with prominent African-American officials appeared 

corrupt and inefficient. The nation 

was quickly tiring of the attempt to 

impose racial democracy and liberal 

values on the South with Union bayonets. In May 1872, Congress passed 

a general Amnesty Act, restoring full 

political rights to all but about 500 

former rebels.

Gradually Southern states began 

electing members of the Democratic 

Party into office, ousting carpetbagger governments and intimidating African Americans from voting 

or attempting to hold public office.

By 1876 the Republicans remained 

in power in only three Southern 

states. As part of the bargaining that 

resolved the disputed presidential 

elections that year in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republicans 

promised to withdraw federal troops 

that had propped up the remaining 

Republican governments. In 1877 

CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

151

Hayes kept his promise, tacitly abandoning federal responsibility for enforcing blacks’ civil rights.

The South was still a region devastated by war, burdened by debt 

caused by misgovernment, and demoralized by a decade of racial warfare. Unfortunately, the pendulum 

of national racial policy swung from 

one extreme to the other. A federal government that had supported 

harsh penalties against Southern 

white leaders now tolerated new and 

humiliating kinds of discrimination against African Americans. The 

last quarter of the 19th century saw 

a profusion of “Jim Crow” laws in 

Southern states that segregated public schools, forbade or limited African-American access to many public 

facilities such as parks, restaurants, 

and hotels, and denied most blacks 

the right to vote by imposing poll 

taxes and arbitrary literacy tests.

“Jim Crow” is a term derived from 

a song in an 1828 minstrel show 

where a white man first performed 

in “blackface.”

Historians have tended to judge 

Reconstruction harshly, as a murky 

period of political conflict, corruption, and regression that failed to 

achieve its original high-minded 

goals and collapsed into a sinkhole 

of virulent racism. Slaves were granted freedom, but the North completely failed to address their economic 

needs. The Freedmen’s Bureau was 

unable to provide former slaves 

with political and economic opportunity. Union military occupiers 

often could not even protect them 

from violence and intimidation.

Indeed, federal army officers and 

agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau 

were often racists themselves. Without economic resources of their own, 

many Southern African Americans 

were forced to become tenant farmers on land owned by their former 

masters, caught in a cycle of poverty 

that would continue well into the 

20th century.

Reconstruction-era governments 

did make genuine gains in rebuilding Southern states devastated by 

the war, and in expanding public 

services, notably in establishing 

tax-supported, free public schools 

for African Americans and whites.

However, recalcitrant Southerners 

seized upon instances of corruption 

(hardly unique to the South in this 

era) and exploited them to bring 

down radical regimes. The failure 

of Reconstruction meant that the 

struggle of African Americans for 

equality and freedom was deferred 

until the 20th century — when it 

would become a national, not just a 

Southern issue. 9
152

The controversies of the 1850s had destroyed the Whig Party, created the 

Republican Party, and divided the Democratic Party along regional lines. 

The Civil War demonstrated that the Whigs were gone beyond recall and 

the Republicans on the scene to stay. It also laid the basis for a reunited 

Democratic Party.

The Republicans could seamlessly replace the Whigs throughout the 

North and West because they were far more than a free-soil/antislavery force. 

Most of their leaders had started as Whigs and continued the Whig interest 

in federally assisted national development. The need to manage a war did not 

deter them from also enacting a protective tariff (1861) to foster American 

manufacturing, the Homestead Act (1862) to encourage Western settlement, 

the Morrill Act (1862) to establish “land grant” agricultural and technical colleges, and a series of Pacific Railway Acts (1862-64) to underwrite a 

transcontinental railway line. These measures rallied support throughout the 

Union from groups to whom slavery was a secondary issue and ensured the 

party’s continuance as the latest manifestation of a political creed that had 

been advanced by Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay.

The war also laid the basis for Democratic reunification because 

Northern opposition to it centered in the Democratic Party. As might be 

expected from the party of “popular sovereignty,” some Democrats believed 

that full-scale war to reinstate the Union was unjustified. This group came to 

be known as the Peace Democrats. Their more extreme elements were called 

“Copperheads.”

Moreover, few Democrats, whether of the “war” or “peace” faction, 

believed the emancipation of the slaves was worth Northern blood. Opposition 

to emancipation had long been party policy. In 1862, for example, virtually 

every Democrat in Congress voted against eliminating slavery in the District 

of Columbia and prohibiting it in the territories.

Much of this opposition came from the working poor, particularly Irish 

and German Catholic immigrants, who feared a massive migration of newly 

freed African Americans to the North. They also resented the establishment of a military draft (March 1863) that disproportionately affected them. 

Race riots erupted in several Northern cities. The worst of these occurred in 

New York, July 13-16, 1863, precipitated by Democratic Governor Horatio 

Seymour’s condemnation of military conscription. Federal troops, who just 

days earlier had been engaged at Gettysburg, were sent to restore order.

THE CIVIL WAR AND NEW PATTERNS 

OF AMERICAN POLITICS

CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

153

The Republicans prosecuted the war with little regard for civil 

liberties. In September 1862, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus 

and imposed martial law on those who interfered with recruitment or gave 

aid and comfort to the rebels. This breech of civil law, although constitutionally justified during times of crisis, gave the Democrats another opportunity 

to criticize Lincoln. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton enforced martial law 

vigorously, and many thousands — most of them Southern sympathizers or 

Democrats — were arrested.

Despite the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863, 

Democratic “peace” candidates continued to play on the nation’s misfortunes 

and racial sensitivities. Indeed, the mood of the North was such that Lincoln 

was convinced he would lose his re-election bid in November 1864. Largely 

for that reason, the Republican Party renamed itself the Union Party and 

drafted the Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson to be Lincoln’s running 

mate. Sherman’s victories in the South sealed the election for them.

Lincoln’s assassination, the rise of Radical Republicanism, and Johnson’s 

blundering leadership all played into a postwar pattern of politics in which 

the Republican Party suffered from overreaching in its efforts to remake the 

South, while the Democrats, through their criticism of Reconstruction, allied themselves with the neo-Confederate Southern white majority. Ulysses S. 

Grant’s status as a national hero carried the Republicans through two presidential elections, but as the South emerged from Reconstruction, it became 

apparent that the country was nearly evenly divided between the two parties.

The Republicans would be dominant in the industrial Northeast until 

the 1930s and strong in most of the rest of the country outside the South. 

However, their appeal as the party of strong government and national development increasingly would be perceived as one of allegiance to big business 

and finance.

When President Hayes ended Reconstruction, he hoped it would be possible to build the Republican Party in the South, using the old Whigs as a 

base and the appeal of regional development as a primary issue. By then, however, Republicanism as the South’s white majority perceived it was 

identified with a hated African-American supremacy. For the next threequarters of a century, the South would be solidly Democratic. For much of 

that time, the national Democratic Party would pay solemn deference to states’ 

rights while ignoring civil rights. The group that would suffer the most as a 

legacy of Reconstruction was the African Americans. 
154
8

GROWTH 

AND 

TRANSFORMATION

CHAPTER

Building the 

transcontinental railroad, 

1868.
156

Between two great wars — the Civil 

War and the First World War — the 

United States of America came of 

age. In a period of less than 50 years 

it was transformed from a rural republic to an urban nation. The frontier vanished. Great factories and 

steel mills, transcontinental railroad 

lines, flourishing cities, and vast 

agricultural holdings marked the 

land. With this economic growth 

and affluence came corresponding 

problems. Nationwide, a few businesses came to dominate whole industries, either independently or in 

combination with others. Working conditions were often poor.

Cities grew so quickly they could 

not properly house or govern their 

growing populations.

TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE

“

The Civil War,” says one writer, 

“cut a wide gash through the history 

of the country; it dramatized in a 

stroke the changes that had begun to 

take place during the preceding 20 

or 30 years....” War needs had enormously stimulated manufacturing, 

speeding an economic process based 

on the exploitation of iron, steam, 

and electric power, as well as the forward march of science and invention. In the years before 1860, 36,000 

patents were granted; in the next 30 

years, 440,000 patents were issued, 

and in the first quarter of the 20th 

century, the number reached nearly 

a million.

As early as 1844, Samuel F.B.

Morse had perfected electrical telegraphy; soon afterward distant 

parts of the continent were linked 

by a network of poles and wires. In 

1876 Alexander Graham Bell exhibited a telephone instrument; within 

half a century, 16 million telephones 

would quicken the social and economic life of the nation. The growth 

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 

“Upon the 

sacredness of property, 

civilization 

itself depends.”

Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, 1889
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

157

of business was hastened by the invention of the typewriter in 1867, 

the adding machine in 1888, and 

the cash register in 1897. The linotype composing machine, invented 

in 1886, and rotary press and paperfolding machinery made it possible 

to print 240,000 eight-page newspapers in an hour. Thomas Edison’s 

incandescent lamp eventually lit 

millions of homes. The talking machine, or phonograph, was perfected 

by Edison, who, in conjunction with 

George Eastman, also helped develop the motion picture. These and 

many other applications of science 

and ingenuity resulted in a new level 

of productivity in almost every field.

Concurrently, the nation’s basic 

industry — iron and steel — forged 

ahead, protected by a high tariff. The 

iron industry moved westward as geologists discovered new ore deposits, notably the great Mesabi range 

at the head of Lake Superior, which 

became one of the largest producers in the world. Easy and cheap to 

mine, remarkably free of chemical 

impurities, Mesabi ore could be processed into steel of superior quality 

at about one-tenth the previously 

prevailing cost.

CARNEGIE AND THE 

ERA OF STEEL

Andrew Carnegie was largely responsible for the great advances in 

steel production. Carnegie, who 

came to America from Scotland as 

a child of 12, progressed from bobbin boy in a cotton factory to a job 

in a telegraph office, then to one on 

the Pennsylvania Railroad. Before 

he was 30 years old he had made 

shrewd and farsighted investments, 

which by 1865 were concentrated in 

iron. Within a few years, he had organized or had stock in companies 

making iron bridges, rails, and locomotives. Ten years later, he built 

the nation’s largest steel mill on the 

Monongahela River in Pennsylvania.

He acquired control not only of new 

mills, but also of coke and coal properties, iron ore from Lake Superior, a 

fleet of steamers on the Great Lakes, 

a port town on Lake Erie, and a connecting railroad. His business, allied 

with a dozen others, commanded 

favorable terms from railroads and 

shipping lines. Nothing comparable 

in industrial growth had ever been 

seen in America before.

Though Carnegie long dominated the industry, he never achieved 

a complete monopoly over the natural resources, transportation, and 

industrial plants involved in the 

making of steel. In the 1890s, new 

companies challenged his preeminence. He would be persuaded to 

merge his holdings into a new corporation that would embrace most of 

the important iron and steel properties in the nation.

CORPORATIONS AND CITIES

The United States Steel Corporation, which resulted from this merger in 1901, illustrated a process under 

way for 30 years: the combination of 

independent industrial enterprises 
158

into federated or centralized companies. Started during the Civil War, 

the trend gathered momentum after 

the 1870s, as businessmen began to 

fear that overproduction would lead 

to declining prices and falling profits. They realized that if they could 

control both production and markets, they could bring competing 

firms into a single organization. The 

“corporation” and the “trust” were 

developed to achieve these ends.

Corporations, making available a 

deep reservoir of capital and giving 

business enterprises permanent life 

and continuity of control, attracted 

investors both by their anticipated 

profits and by their limited liability 

in case of business failure. The trusts 

were in effect combinations of corporations whereby the stockholders 

of each placed stocks in the hands 

of trustees. (The “trust” as a method 

of corporate consolidation soon gave 

way to the holding company, but the 

term stuck.) Trusts made possible 

large-scale combinations, centralized control and administration, and 

the pooling of patents. Their larger 

capital resources provided power 

to expand, to compete with foreign 

business organizations, and to drive 

hard bargains with labor, which was 

beginning to organize effectively. They could also exact favorable 

terms from railroads and exercise 

influence in politics.

The Standard Oil Company, 

founded by John D. Rockefeller, 

was one of the earliest and strongest corporations, and was followed 

rapidly by other combinations — in 

cottonseed oil, lead, sugar, tobacco, 

and rubber. Soon aggressive individual businessmen began to mark 

out industrial domains for themselves. Four great meat packers, chief 

among them Philip Armour and 

Gustavus Swift, established a beef 

trust. Cyrus McCormick achieved 

preeminence in the reaper business.

A 1904 survey showed that more 

than 5,000 previously independent 

concerns had been consolidated into 

some 300 industrial trusts.

The trend toward amalgamation 

extended to other fields, particularly transportation and communications. Western Union, dominant in 

telegraphy, was followed by the Bell 

Telephone System and eventually by 

the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. In the 1860s, Cornelius Vanderbilt had consolidated 

13 separate railroads into a single 

800-kilometer line connecting New 

York City and Buffalo. During the 

next decade he acquired lines to Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan, 

establishing the New York Central 

Railroad. Soon the major railroads 

of the nation were organized into 

trunk lines and systems directed by 

a handful of men.

In this new industrial order, the 

city was the nerve center, bringing 

to a focus all the nation’s dynamic 

economic forces: vast accumulations 

of capital, business, and financial institutions, spreading railroad yards, 

smoky factories, armies of manual 

and clerical workers. Villages, attracting people from the countryside 

and from lands across the sea, grew 

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

159

into towns and towns into cities almost overnight. In 1830 only one of 

every 15 Americans lived in communities of 8,000 or more; in 1860 the 

ratio was nearly one in every six; and 

in 1890 three in every 10. No single 

city had as many as a million inhabitants in 1860; but 30 years later 

New York had a million and a half; 

Chicago, Illinois, and Philadelphia, 

Pennsylvania, each had over a million. In these three decades, Philadelphia and Baltimore, Maryland, 

doubled in population; Kansas City, 

Missouri, and Detroit, Michigan, 

grew fourfold; Cleveland, Ohio, sixfold; Chicago, tenfold. Minneapolis, 

Minnesota, and Omaha, Nebraska, 

and many communities like them 

— hamlets when the Civil War began — increased 50 times or more in 

population.

RAILROADS, REGULATIONS, 

AND THE TARIFF

Railroads were especially important to the expanding nation, and 

their practices were often criticized.

Rail lines extended cheaper freight 

rates to large shippers by rebating a 

portion of the charge, thus disadvantaging small shippers. Freight rates 

also frequently were not proportionate to distance traveled; competition 

usually held down charges between 

cities with several rail connections.

Rates tended to be high between 

points served by only one line. Thus 

it cost less to ship goods 1,280 kilometers from Chicago to New York 

than to places a few hundred kilometers from Chicago. Moreover, to 

avoid competition rival companies 

sometimes divided (“pooled”) the 

freight business according to a prearranged scheme that placed the total earnings in a common fund for 

distribution.

Popular resentment at these practices stimulated state efforts at regulation, but the problem was national 

in character. Shippers demanded 

congressional action. In 1887 President Grover Cleveland signed the 

Interstate Commerce Act, which 

forbade excessive charges, pools, 

rebates, and rate discrimination.

It created an Interstate Commerce 

Commission (ICC) to oversee the 

act, but gave it little enforcement 

power. In the first decades of its existence, virtually all the ICC’s efforts 

at regulation and rate reductions 

failed to pass judicial review.

President Cleveland also opposed 

the protective tariff on foreign goods, 

which had come to be accepted as 

permanent national policy under the 

Republican presidents who dominated the politics of the era. Cleveland, 

a conservative Democrat, regarded 

tariff protection as an unwarranted 

subsidy to big business, giving the 

trusts pricing power to the disadvantage of ordinary Americans. Reflecting the interests of their Southern 

base, the Democrats had reverted 

to their pre-Civil War opposition to 

protection and advocacy of a “tariff 

for revenue only.”

Cleveland, narrowly elected in 

1884, was unsuccessful in achieving 

tariff reform during his first term.
He made the issue the keynote of his 

campaign for reelection, but Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison, 

a defender of protectionism, won in 

a close race. In 1890, the Harrison 

administration, fulfilling its campaign promises, achieved passage of 

the McKinley tariff, which increased 

the already high rates. Blamed for 

high retail prices, the McKinley duties triggered widespread dissatisfaction, led to Republican losses in the 

1890 elections, and paved the way for 

Cleveland’s return to the presidency 

in the 1892 election.

During this period, public antipathy toward the trusts increased.

The nation’s gigantic corporations were subjected to bitter attack 

through the 1880s by reformers such 

as Henry George and Edward Bellamy. The Sherman Antitrust Act, 

passed in 1890, forbade all combinations in restraint of interstate trade 

and provided several methods of 

enforcement with severe penalties.

Couched in vague generalities, the 

law accomplished little immediately 

after its passage. But a decade later, 

President Theodore Roosevelt would 

use it vigorously.

REVOLUTION IN 

AGRICULTURE

Despite the great gains in industry, 

agriculture remained the nation’s 

basic occupation. The revolution 

in agriculture — paralleling that in 

manufacturing after the Civil War 

— involved a shift from hand labor 

to machine farming, and from subsistence to commercial agriculture.

Between 1860 and 1910, the number 

of farms in the United States tripled, 

increasing from two million to six 

million, while the area farmed more 

than doubled from 160 million to 352 

million hectares.

Between 1860 and 1890, the production of such basic commodities 

as wheat, corn, and cotton outstripped all previous figures in the 

United States. In the same period, 

the nation’s population more than 

doubled, with the largest growth in 

the cities. But the American farmer 

grew enough grain and cotton, 

raised enough beef and pork, and 

clipped enough wool not only to 

supply American workers and their 

families but also to create ever-increasing surpluses.

Several factors accounted for this 

extraordinary achievement. One was 

the expansion into the West. Another was a technological revolution.

The farmer of 1800, using a hand 

sickle, could hope to cut a fifth of 

a hectare of wheat a day. With the 

cradle, 30 years later, he might cut 

four-fifths. In 1840 Cyrus McCormick performed a miracle by cutting 

from two to two-and-a-half hectares 

a day with the reaper, a machine he 

had been developing for nearly 10 

years. He headed west to the young 

prairie town of Chicago, where he 

set up a factory — and by 1860 sold a 

quarter of a million reapers.

Other farm machines were developed in rapid succession: the 

automatic wire binder, the threshing 

(Continued on page 177.)

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 

160
161

MONUMENTS AND

MEMORIALS

The monuments of American history span a continent in distance and 

centuries in time. They range from a massive serpent-shaped mound 

created by a long-gone Native-American culture to memorials in 

contemporary Washington, D.C., and New York City.

A PICTURE PROFILE

The silhouette of one of the United States’ most revered Founding Fathers, 

Thomas Jefferson, stands in the shrine dedicated to his memory. 

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against 

every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
The snow-covered Old Granary cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, is burial ground for, 

among other leading American patriots, victims of the Boston Massacre, three signers of 

the Declaration of Independence, and six governors of Massachusetts. Originally founded 

by religious dissidents from England known as Puritans, Massachusetts was a leader in the 

struggle for independence against England. It was the setting for the Boston Tea Party and 

the first battles of the American Revolution — in Lexington and Concord.
163
The historic room in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where delegates drafted 

the Constitution of the United States in the summer of 1787. The Constitution is 

the supreme law of the land. It prescribes the form and authority of the federal 

government, and ensures the fundamental freedoms and rights of the citizens of the 

country through the Bill of Rights.
165
Statues guard the majestic façade of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court 

in the land. The words engraved on the lintel over the Greek pillars embody one 

of America’s founding principles: “Equal Justice Under Law.”

166
The Statue of Liberty, one of the United States’ most beloved monuments, stands 151 

feet high at the entrance to New York harbor. A gift of friendship from the people 

of France to the United States, it was intended to be an impressive symbol of human 

liberty. It was certainly that for the millions of immigrants who came to the United 

States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, seeking freedom and a better life. 

167
Aerial view of the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio. Carbon 

tests of the effigy revealed that the creators of this 1,330-foot monument were 

members of the Native-American Fort Ancient Culture (A.D. 1000-1550).

The Liberty Bell in 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an 

enduring symbol of American 

freedom. First rung on July 

8, 1776, to celebrate the 

adoption of the Declaration 

of Independence, it cracked 

in 1836 during the funeral of 

John Marshall, Chief Justice 

of the U.S. Supreme Court.

168
Two monuments to the central role Spain played in the exploration of what is now 

the United States. Top, the Castillo de San Marcos, built 1672-1695 to guard 

St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement in the continental 

United States. Above, fountain and mission remains of the San Juan Capistrano 

Mission, California, one of nine missions founded by Spanish Franciscan 

missionaries led by Fray Junípero Serra in the 1770s. Serra led the Spanish 

colonization of what is today the state of California. 
170
The faces of four of the most admired American presidents were 

carved by Gutzon Borglum into the southeast face of Mount 

Rushmore in South Dakota, beginning in 1927. From left to right, 

they are: George Washington, commander of the Revolutionary 

Army and first president of the young nation; Thomas Jefferson, 

author of the Declaration of Independence; Theodore Roosevelt, 

who led the country toward progressive reforms and a strong 

foreign policy; and Abraham Lincoln, who led the country through 

the Civil War and freed the slaves.

George Washington’s beloved home, Mount Vernon, 

by the Potomac River in Virginia, where he died on 

December 14, 1799, and is buried along with his wife 

Martha. Among other treasured items owned by the 

first president on display there, visitors can see one of 

the keys to the Bastille, a gift to Washington from the 

Marquis de Lafayette. 

171
Six-year-old Mary Zheng straightens a flower placed at the Vietnam Veterans 

Memorial in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2000. The names of more than 58,000 

servicemen who died in the war or remain missing are etched on the “wall” part of the 

memorial, pictured here. This portion of the monument was designed by Maya Lin, 

then a student at Yale University.

172

An autumnal view of Arlington Cemetery, Virginia, America’s largest and best-known 

national burial grounds. More than 260,000 people are buried at Arlington Cemetery, 

including veterans from all the nation’s wars. 

A mother and daughter viewing documents in the Exhibition Hall 

of the National Archives. The U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of 

Independence, and the Bill of Rights are on display in this Washington, 

D.C., building.
Fireworks celebrating the arrival of the Millennium illuminate two major 

monuments in Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Memorial on the left and the 

obelisk-shaped Washington Monument, center. The Lincoln Memorial’s north and 

south side chambers contain carved inscriptions of his Second Inaugural Address 

and his Gettysburg Address. The tallest structure in the nation’s capital, 

the Washington Monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885.

175
Top, the World War II Memorial, opened in 2004, is the most recent addition to 

the many national monuments in Washington, D.C. It honors the 16 million who 

served in the armed forces of the United States, the more than 400,000 who died, 

and all who supported the war effort from home. Above, the planned design for 

the World Trade Center Memorial in New York City is depicted in this photograph 

of a model unveiled in late 2004. “Reflecting Absence” will preserve not only the 

memory of those who died in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, but the 

visible remnants of the buildings destroyed that morning, too.

176
machine, and the reaper-thresher or 

combine. Mechanical planters, cutters, huskers, and shellers appeared, 

as did cream separators, manure 

spreaders, potato planters, hay driers, poultry incubators, and a hundred other inventions.

Scarcely less important than 

machinery in the agricultural revolution was science. In 1862 the 

Morrill Land Grant College Act allotted public land to each state for 

the establishment of agricultural 

and industrial colleges. These were 

to serve both as educational institutions and as centers for research in 

scientific farming. Congress subsequently appropriated funds for the 

creation of agricultural experiment 

stations throughout the country and 

granted funds directly to the Department of Agriculture for research 

purposes. By the beginning of the 

new century, scientists throughout 

the United States were at work on a 

wide variety of agricultural projects.

One of these scientists, Mark 

Carleton, traveled for the Department of Agriculture to Russia. There 

he found and exported to his homeland the rust- and drought-resistant 

winter wheat that now accounts 

for more than half the U.S. wheat 

crop. Another scientist, Marion 

Dorset, conquered the dreaded hog 

cholera, while still another, George 

Mohler, helped prevent hoof-andmouth disease. From North Africa, 

one researcher brought back Kaffir corn; from Turkestan, another 

imported the yellow-flowering alfalfa. Luther Burbank in California 

produced scores of new fruits and 

vegetables; in Wisconsin, Stephen 

Babcock devised a test for determining the butterfat content of milk; at 

Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, the 

African-American scientist George 

Washington Carver found hundreds 

of new uses for the peanut, sweet potato, and soybean.

In varying degrees, the explosion 

in agricultural science and technology affected farmers all over the 

world, raising yields, squeezing out 

small producers, and driving migration to industrial cities. Railroads 

and steamships, moreover, began to 

pull regional markets into one large 

world market with prices instantly 

communicated by trans-Atlantic cable as well as ground wires. Good 

news for urban consumers, falling 

agricultural prices threatened the 

livelihood of many American farmers and touched off a wave of agrarian discontent.

THE DIVIDED SOUTH

After Reconstruction, Southern 

leaders pushed hard to attract industry. States offered large inducements 

and cheap labor to investors to develop the steel, lumber, tobacco, and 

textile industries. Yet in 1900 the region’s percentage of the nation’s industrial base remained about what 

it had been in 1860. Moreover, the 

price of this drive for industrialization was high: Disease and child 

labor proliferated in Southern mill 

towns. Thirty years after the Civil 

War, the South was still poor, overOUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

177
178

whelmingly agrarian, and economically dependent. Moreover, its race 

relations reflected not just the legacy 

of slavery, but what was emerging as 

the central theme of its history — a 

determination to enforce white supremacy at any cost.

Intransigent white Southerners 

found ways to assert state control 

to maintain white dominance. Several Supreme Court decisions also 

bolstered their efforts by upholding 

traditional Southern views of the appropriate balance between national 

and state power.

In 1873 the Supreme Court found 

that the 14th Amendment (citizenship rights not to be abridged) 

conferred no new privileges or immunities to protect African Americans from state power. In 1883, 

furthermore, it ruled that the 14th 

Amendment did not prevent individuals, as opposed to states, from 

practicing discrimination. And in 

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court 

found that “separate but equal” 

public accommodations for African Americans, such as trains and 

restaurants, did not violate their 

rights. Soon the principle of segregation by race extended into every 

area of Southern life, from railroads 

to restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and 

schools. Moreover, any area of life 

that was not segregated by law was 

segregated by custom and practice.

Further curtailment of the right to 

vote followed. Periodic lynchings 

by mobs underscored the region’s 

determination to subjugate its African-American population.

Faced with pervasive discrimination, many African Americans followed Booker T. Washington, who 

counseled them to focus on modest 

economic goals and to accept temporary social discrimination. Others, led by the African-American 

intellectual W.E.B. DuBois, wanted 

to challenge segregation through 

political action. But with both major parties uninterested in the issue and scientific theory of the time 

generally accepting black inferiority, calls for racial justice attracted 

little support.

THE LAST FRONTIER

In 1865 the frontier line generally 

followed the western limits of the 

states bordering the Mississippi River, but bulged outward beyond the 

eastern sections of Texas, Kansas, 

and Nebraska. Then, running north 

and south for nearly 1,600 kilometers, loomed huge mountain ranges, 

many rich in silver, gold, and other 

metals. To their west, plains and deserts stretched to the wooded coastal 

ranges and the Pacific Ocean. Apart 

from the settled districts in California and scattered outposts, the 

vast inland region was populated 

by Native Americans: among them 

the Great Plains tribes — Sioux and 

Blackfoot, Pawnee and Cheyenne — 

and the Indian cultures of the Southwest, including Apache, Navajo, and 

Hopi.

A mere quarter-century later, 

virtually all this country had been 

carved into states and territories.

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

179

Miners had ranged over the whole 

of the mountain country, tunneling into the earth, establishing little 

communities in Nevada, Montana, 

and Colorado. Cattle ranchers, taking advantage of the enormous 

grasslands, had laid claim to the 

huge expanse stretching from Texas 

to the upper Missouri River. Sheep 

herders had found their way to the 

valleys and mountain slopes. Farmers sank their plows into the plains 

and closed the gap between the East 

and West. By 1890 the frontier line 

had disappeared.

Settlement was spurred by the 

Homestead Act of 1862, which 

granted free farms of 64 hectares 

to citizens who would occupy and 

improve the land. Unfortunately for 

the would-be farmers, much of the 

Great Plains was suited more for 

cattle ranching than farming, and 

by 1880 nearly 22,400,000 hectares 

of “free” land were in the hands of 

cattlemen or the railroads.

In 1862 Congress also voted a 

charter to the Union Pacific Railroad, which pushed westward from 

Council Bluffs, Iowa, using mostly 

the labor of ex-soldiers and Irish immigrants. At the same time, the Central Pacific Railroad began to build 

eastward from Sacramento, California, relying heavily on Chinese 

immigrant labor. The whole country 

was stirred as the two lines steadily 

approached each other, finally meeting on May 10, 1869, at Promontory 

Point in Utah. The months of laborious travel hitherto separating the 

two oceans was now cut to about six 

days. The continental rail network 

grew steadily; by 1884 four great 

lines linked the central Mississippi 

Valley area with the Pacific.

The first great rush of population 

to the Far West was drawn to the 

mountainous regions, where gold 

was found in California in 1848, in 

Colorado and Nevada 10 years later, in Montana and Wyoming in the 

1860s, and in the Black Hills of the 

Dakota country in the 1870s. Miners 

opened up the country, established 

communities, and laid the foundations for more permanent settlements. Eventually, however, though 

a few communities continued to be 

devoted almost exclusively to mining, the real wealth of Montana, 

Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and 

California proved to be in the grass 

and soil. Cattle-raising, long an 

important industry in Texas, flourished after the Civil War, when 

enterprising men began to drive 

their Texas longhorn cattle north 

across the open public land. Feeding as they went, the cattle arrived 

at railway shipping points in Kansas, larger and fatter than when 

they started. The annual cattle drive 

became a regular event; for hundreds 

of kilometers, trails were dotted with 

herds moving northward.

Next, immense cattle ranches 

appeared in Colorado, Wyoming, 

Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakota 

 territory. Western cities flourished 

as centers for the slaughter of cattle and dressing of meat. The cattle boom peaked in the mid-1880s.

By then, not far behind the rancher 
180

creaked the covered wagons of the 

farmers bringing their families, their 

draft horses, cows, and pigs. Under 

the Homestead Act they staked their 

claims and fenced them with a new 

invention, barbed wire. Ranchers 

were ousted from lands they had 

roamed without legal title.

Ranching and the cattle drives 

gave American mythology its last 

icon of frontier culture — the cowboy. The reality of cowboy life was 

one of grueling hardship. As depicted by writers like Zane Grey and 

movie actors such as John Wayne, 

the cowboy was a powerful mythological figure, a bold, virtuous man 

of action. Not until the late 20th century did a reaction set in. Historians and filmmakers alike began to 

depict “the Wild West” as a sordid 

place, peopled by characters more 

apt to reflect the worst, rather than 

the best, in human nature.

THE PLIGHT OF 

THE NATIVE AMERICANS

As in the East, expansion into the 

plains and mountains by miners, 

ranchers, and settlers led to increasing conflicts with the Native Americans of the West. Many tribes of 

Native Americans — from the Utes 

of the Great Basin to the Nez Perces 

of Idaho — fought the whites at one 

time or another. But the Sioux of 

the Northern Plains and the Apache 

of the Southwest provided the most 

significant opposition to frontier advance. Led by such resourceful leaders as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, 

the Sioux were particularly skilled 

at high-speed mounted warfare.

The Apaches were equally adept and 

highly elusive, fighting in their environs of desert and canyons.

Conflicts with the Plains Indians 

worsened after an incident where the 

Dakota (part of the Sioux nation), 

declaring war against the U.S. government because of long-standing 

grievances, killed five white settlers.

Rebellions and attacks continued 

through the Civil War. In 1876 the 

last serious Sioux war erupted, when 

the Dakota gold rush penetrated 

the Black Hills. The Army was supposed to keep miners off Sioux hunting grounds, but did little to protect 

the Sioux lands. When ordered to 

take action against bands of Sioux 

hunting on the range according to 

their treaty rights, however, it moved 

quickly and vigorously.

In 1876, after several indecisive 

encounters, Colonel George Custer, 

leading a small detachment of cavalry encountered a vastly superior 

force of Sioux and their allies on the 

Little Bighorn River. Custer and his 

men were completely annihilated.

Nonetheless the Native-American 

insurgency was soon suppressed.

Later, in 1890, a ghost dance ritual 

on the Northern Sioux reservation 

at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 

led to an uprising and a last, tragic 

encounter that ended in the death 

of nearly 300 Sioux men, women, 

and children.

Long before this, however, the 

way of life of the Plains Indians 

had been destroyed by an expandCHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

181

ing white population, the coming 

of the railroads, and the slaughter of 

the buffalo, almost exterminated in 

the decade after 1870 by the settlers’ 

indiscriminate hunting.

The Apache wars in the Southwest dragged on until Geronimo, the 

last important chief, was captured in 

1886.

Government policy ever since the 

Monroe administration had been 

to move the Native Americans beyond the reach of the white frontier.

But inevitably the reservations had 

become smaller and more crowded. Some Americans began to protest the government’s treatment of 

Native Americans. Helen Hunt Jackson, for example, an Easterner living in the West, wrote A Century of 

Dishonor (1881), which dramatized 

their plight and struck a chord in 

the nation’s conscience. Most reformers believed the Native American should be assimilated into the 

dominant culture. The federal government even set up a school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to 

impose white values and beliefs on 

Native-American youths. (It was at 

this school that Jim Thorpe, often 

considered the best athlete the United States has produced, gained fame 

in the early 20th century.)

In 1887 the Dawes (General Allotment) Act reversed U.S. NativeAmerican policy, permitting the 

president to divide up tribal land 

and parcel out 65 hectares of land 

to each head of a family. Such allotments were to be held in trust by 

the government for 25 years, after 

which time the owner won full title 

and citizenship. Lands not thus distributed, however, were offered for 

sale to settlers. This policy, however 

well-intentioned, proved disastrous, 

since it allowed more plundering of 

Native-American lands. Moreover, 

its assault on the communal organization of tribes caused further 

disruption of traditional culture. In 

1934 U.S. policy was reversed yet 

again by the Indian Reorganization Act, which attempted to protect tribal and communal life on the 

reservations.

AMBIVALENT EMPIRE

The last decades of the 19th century 

were a period of imperial expansion 

for the United States. The American 

story took a different course from 

that of its European rivals, however, 

because of the U.S. history of struggle against European empires and its 

unique democratic development.

The sources of American expansionism in the late 19th century 

were varied. Internationally, the period was one of imperialist frenzy, 

as European powers raced to carve 

up Africa and competed, along with 

Japan, for influence and trade in 

Asia. Many Americans, including 

influential figures such as Theodore 

Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and 

Elihu Root, felt that to safeguard its 

own interests, the United States had 

to stake out spheres of economic influence as well. That view was seconded by a powerful naval lobby, 

which called for an expanded fleet 
182

and network of overseas ports as essential to the economic and political 

security of the nation. More generally, the doctrine of “manifest destiny,” 

first used to justify America’s continental expansion, was now revived 

to assert that the United States had 

a right and duty to extend its influence and civilization in the Western 

Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as 

well as across the Pacific.

At the same time, voices of antiimperialism from diverse coalitions 

of Northern Democrats and reformminded Republicans remained loud 

and constant. As a result, the acquisition of a U.S. empire was piecemeal 

and ambivalent. Colonial-minded 

administrations were often more 

concerned with trade and economic 

issues than political control.

The United States’ first venture 

beyond its continental borders was 

the purchase of Alaska — sparsely 

populated by Inuit and other native 

peoples — from Russia in 1867. Most 

Americans were either indifferent to 

or indignant at this action by Secretary of State William Seward, whose 

critics called Alaska “Seward’s Folly” 

and “Seward’s Icebox.” But 30 years 

later, when gold was discovered on 

Alaska’s Klondike River, thousands 

of Americans headed north, and 

many of them settled in Alaska permanently. When Alaska became the 

49th state in 1959, it replaced Texas 

as geographically the largest state in 

the Union.

The Spanish-American War, 

fought in 1898, marked a turning point in U.S. history. It left the 

United States exercising control or 

influence over islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific.

By the 1890s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of 

Spain’s once vast empire in the New 

World, and the Philippine Islands 

comprised the core of Spanish power 

in the Pacific. The outbreak of war 

had three principal sources: popular 

hostility to autocratic Spanish rule 

in Cuba; U.S. sympathy with the Cuban fight for independence; and a 

new spirit of national assertiveness, 

stimulated in part by a nationalistic 

and sensationalist press.

By 1895 Cuba’s growing restiveness had become a guerrilla war 

of independence. Most Americans 

were sympathetic with the Cubans, 

but President Cleveland was determined to preserve neutrality. Three 

years later, however, during the administration of William McKinley, 

the U.S. warship Maine, sent to Havana on a “courtesy visit” designed 

to remind the Spanish of American 

concern over the rough handling of 

the insurrection, blew up in the harbor. More than 250 men were killed.

The Maine was probably destroyed 

by an accidental internal explosion, 

but most Americans believed the 

Spanish were responsible. Indignation, intensified by sensationalized 

press coverage, swept across the 

country. McKinley tried to preserve 

the peace, but within a few months, 

believing delay futile, he recommended armed intervention.

The war with Spain was swift and 

decisive. During the four months it 

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

183

lasted, not a single American reverse 

of any importance occurred. A week 

after the declaration of war, Commodore George Dewey, commander 

of the six-warship Asiatic Squadron then at Hong Kong, steamed to 

the Philippines. Catching the entire 

Spanish fleet at anchor in Manila 

Bay, he destroyed it without losing 

an American life.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, troops landed near Santiago, where, after winning a rapid series of engagements, 

they fired on the port. Four armored 

Spanish cruisers steamed out of Santiago Bay to engage the American 

navy and were reduced to ruined 

hulks.

From Boston to San Francisco, 

whistles blew and flags waved when 

word came that Santiago had fallen.

Newspapers dispatched correspondents to Cuba and the Philippines, 

who trumpeted the renown of the 

nation’s new heroes. Chief among 

them were Commodore Dewey and 

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who 

had resigned as assistant secretary of 

the navy to lead his volunteer regiment, the “Rough Riders,” to service 

in Cuba. Spain soon sued for an end 

to the war. The peace treaty signed 

on December 10, 1898, transferred 

Cuba to the United States for temporary occupation preliminary to 

the island’s independence. In addition, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and 

Guam in lieu of war indemnity, and 

the Philippines for a U.S. payment of 

$20 million.

Officially, U.S. policy encouraged 

the new territories to move toward 

democratic self-government, a political system with which none of 

them had any previous experience.

In fact, the United States found itself 

in a colonial role. It maintained formal administrative control in Puerto Rico and Guam, gave Cuba only 

nominal independence, and harshly 

suppressed an armed independence 

movement in the Philippines. (The 

Philippines gained the right to elect 

both houses of its legislature in 

1916. In 1936 a largely autonomous 

Philippine Commonwealth was established. In 1946, after World War 

II, the islands finally attained full 

independence.)

U.S. involvement in the Pacific 

area was not limited to the Philippines. The year of the Spanish-American War also saw the beginning of a 

new relationship with the Hawaiian 

Islands. Earlier contact with Hawaii 

had been mainly through missionaries and traders. After 1865, however, 

American investors began to develop the islands’ resources — chiefly 

sugarcane and pineapples.

When the government of Queen 

Liliuokalani announced its intention to end foreign influence in 1893, 

American businessmen joined with 

influential Hawaiians to depose her.

Backed by the American ambassador to Hawaii and U.S. troops stationed there, the new government 

then asked to be annexed to the 

United States. President Cleveland, 

just beginning his second term, rejected annexation, leaving Hawaii 

nominally independent until the 

Spanish-American War, when, with 
184

the backing of President McKinley, 

Congress ratified an annexation 

treaty. In 1959 Hawaii would become the 50th state.

To some extent, in Hawaii especially, economic interests had a role 

in American expansion, but to influential policy makers such as Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, 

and Secretary of State John Hay, 

and to influential strategists such 

as Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, 

the main impetus was geostrategic.

For these people, the major dividend 

of acquiring Hawaii was Pearl Harbor, which would become the major 

U.S. naval base in the central Pacific.

The Philippines and Guam complemented other Pacific bases — Wake 

Island, Midway, and American Samoa. Puerto Rico was an important 

foothold in a Caribbean area that 

was becoming increasingly important as the United States contemplated a Central American canal.

U.S. colonial policy tended toward democratic self-government.

As it had done with the Philippines, 

in 1917 the U.S. Congress granted 

Puerto Ricans the right to elect all 

of their legislators. The same law 

also made the island officially a U.S.

territory and gave its people American citizenship. In 1950 Congress 

granted Puerto Rico complete freedom to decide its future. In 1952, 

the citizens voted to reject either 

statehood or total independence, 

and chose instead a commonwealth 

status that has endured despite the 

efforts of a vocal separatist movement. Large numbers of Puerto Ricans have settled on the mainland, 

to which they have free access and 

where they enjoy all the political and 

civil rights of any other citizen of the 

United States.

THE CANAL AND THE 

AMERICAS

The war with Spain revived U.S.

interest in building a canal across 

the isthmus of Panama, uniting the 

two great oceans. The usefulness of 

such a canal for sea trade had long 

been recognized by the major commercial nations of the world; the 

French had begun digging one in 

the late 19th century but had been 

unable to overcome the engineering 

difficulties. Having become a power 

in both the Caribbean Sea and the 

Pacific Ocean, the United States saw 

a canal as both economically beneficial and a way of providing speedier 

transfer of warships from one ocean 

to the other.

At the turn of the century, what 

is now Panama was the rebellious 

northern province of Colombia.

When the Colombian legislature in 

1903 refused to ratify a treaty giving the United States the right to 

build and manage a canal, a group 

of impatient Panamanians, with the 

support of U.S. Marines, rose in rebellion and declared Panamanian 

independence. The breakaway country was immediately recognized by 

President Theodore Roosevelt. Under the terms of a treaty signed that 

November, Panama granted the 

United States a perpetual lease to a 

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

185

16-kilometer-wide strip of land (the 

Panama Canal Zone) between the 

Atlantic and the Pacific, in return 

for $10 million and a yearly fee of 

$250,000. Colombia later received 

$25 million as partial compensation.

Seventy-five years later, Panama and 

the United States negotiated a new 

treaty. It provided for Panamanian 

sovereignty in the Canal Zone and 

transfer of the canal to Panama on 

December 31, 1999.

The completion of the Panama 

Canal in 1914, directed by Colonel 

George W. Goethals, was a major 

triumph of engineering. The simultaneous conquest of malaria and yellow fever made it possible and was 

one of the 20th century’s great feats 

in preventive medicine.

Elsewhere in Latin America, the 

United States fell into a pattern of 

fitful intervention. Between 1900 

and 1920, the United States carried 

out sustained interventions in six 

Western Hemispheric nations — 

most notably Haiti, the Dominican 

Republic, and Nicaragua. Washington offered a variety of justifications 

for these interventions: to establish 

political stability and democratic 

government, to provide a favorable 

environment for U.S. investment 

(often called dollar diplomacy), to 

secure the sea lanes leading to the 

Panama Canal, and even to prevent 

European countries from forcibly 

collecting debts. The United States 

had pressured the French into removing troops from Mexico in 1867.

Half a century later, however, as part 

of an ill-starred campaign to influence the Mexican revolution and 

stop raids into American territory, 

President Woodrow Wilson sent 

11,000 troops into the northern part 

of the country in a futile effort to 

capture the elusive rebel and outlaw 

Francisco “Pancho” Villa.

Exercising its role as the most 

powerful — and most liberal — of 

Western Hemisphere nations, the 

United States also worked to establish an institutional basis for cooperation among the nations of the 

Americas. In 1889 Secretary of State 

James G. Blaine proposed that the 21 

independent nations of the Western 

Hemisphere join in an organization 

dedicated to the peaceful settlement 

of disputes and to closer economic bonds. The result was the PanAmerican Union, founded in 1890 

and known today as the Organization of American States (OAS).

The later administrations of 

Herbert Hoover (1929-33) and 

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45) repudiated the right of U.S. intervention in Latin America. In particular, 

Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy 

of the 1930s, while not ending all 

tensions between the United States 

and Latin America, helped dissipate 

much of the ill-will engendered by 

earlier U.S. intervention and unilateral actions.

UNITED STATES AND ASIA

Newly established in the Philippines and firmly entrenched in Hawaii at the turn of the century, the 

United States had high hopes for a 
vigorous trade with China. However, 

Japan and various European nations 

had acquired established spheres of 

influence there in the form of naval 

bases, leased territories, monopolistic trade rights, and exclusive concessions for investing in railway 

construction and mining.

Idealism in American foreign 

policy existed alongside the desire 

to compete with Europe’s imperial powers in the Far East. The U.S.

government thus insisted as a matter 

of principle upon equality of commercial privileges for all nations.

In September 1899, Secretary of 

State John Hay advocated an “Open 

Door” for all nations in China — 

that is, equality of trading opportunities (including equal tariffs, harbor duties, and railway rates) in the 

areas Europeans controlled. Despite 

its idealistic component, the Open 

Door, in essence, was a diplomatic 

maneuver that sought the advantages of colonialism while avoiding the 

stigma of its frank practice. It had 

limited success.

With the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, 

the Chinese struck out against foreigners. In June, insurgents seized 

Beijing and attacked the foreign 

legations there. Hay promptly announced to the European powers and 

Japan that the United States would 

oppose any disturbance of Chinese 

territorial or administrative rights 

and restated the Open Door policy.

Once the rebellion was quelled, Hay 

protected China from crushing indemnities. Primarily for the sake of 

American goodwill, Great Britain, 

Germany, and lesser colonial powers 

formally affirmed the Open Door 

policy and Chinese independence.

In practice, they consolidated their 

privileged positions in the country.

A few years later, President 

Theodore Roosevelt mediated the 

deadlocked Russo-Japanese War of 

1904-05, in many respects a struggle for power and influence in the 

northern Chinese province of Manchuria. Roosevelt hoped the settlement would provide open-door 

opportunities for American business, but the former enemies and 

other imperial powers succeeded in 

shutting the Americans out. Here 

as elsewhere, the United States was 

unwilling to deploy military force 

in the service of economic imperialism. The president could at least 

content himself with the award of 

the Nobel Peace Prize (1906). Despite gains for Japan, moreover, U.S.

relations with the proud and newly assertive island nation would be 

intermittently difficult through the 

early decades of the 20th century. 9

CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION 

186
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

187

The rise of American industry required more than great industrialists. Big 

industry required big amounts of capital; headlong economic growth required 

foreign investors. John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan was the most important of the 

American financiers who underwrote both requirements.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Morgan headed the 

nation’s largest investment banking firm. It brokered American securities to 

wealthy elites at home and abroad. Since foreigners needed assurance that 

their investments were in a stable currency, Morgan had a strong interest in 

keeping the dollar tied to its legal value in gold. In the absence of an official 

U.S. central bank, he became the de facto manager of the task.

From the 1880s through the early 20th century, Morgan and Company 

not only managed the securities that underwrote many important corporate 

consolidations, it actually originated some of them. The most stunning of these 

was the U.S. Steel Corporation, which combined Carnegie Steel with several 

other companies. Its corporate stock and bonds were sold to investors at the 

then-unprecedented sum of $1.4 billion.

Morgan originated, and made large profits from, numerous other mergers. Acting as primary banker to numerous railroads, moreover, he effectively 

muted competition among them. His organizational efforts brought stability to 

American industry by ending price wars to the disadvantage of farmers and 

small manufacturers, who saw him as an oppressor. In 1901, when he established the Northern Securities Company to control a group of major railroads, 

President Theodore Roosevelt authorized a successful Sherman Antitrust Act 

suit to break up the merger.

Acting as an unofficial central banker, Morgan took the lead in supporting the dollar during the economic depression of the mid-1890s by marketing 

a large government bond issue that raised funds to replenish Treasury gold 

supplies. At the same time, his firm undertook a short-term guarantee of the 

nation’s gold reserves. In 1907, he took the lead in organizing the New York 

financial community to prevent a potentially ruinous string of bankruptcies. In 

the process, his own firm acquired a large independent steel company, which 

it amalgamated with U.S. Steel. President Roosevelt personally approved the 

action in order to avert a serious depression.

By then, Morgan’s power was so great that most Americans instinctively 

distrusted and disliked him. With some exaggeration, reformers depicted him 

as the director of a “money trust” that controlled America. By the time of his 

death in 1913, the country was in the final stages of at last reestablishing a 

central bank, the Federal Reserve System, that would assume much of the responsibility he had exercised unofficially. 

J.P. MORGAN AND FINANCE CAPITALISM
188
CHAPTER 9

DISCONTENT 

AND 

REFORM

Suffragists march on 

Pennsylvania Avenue, 

Washington, D.C., 

March 3, 1913. 
190

AGRARIAN DISTRESS AND 

THE RISE OF POPULISM

In spite of their remarkable progress, late-19th century American 

farmers experienced recurring periods of hardship. Mechanical improvements greatly increased yield 

per hectare. The amount of land under cultivation grew rapidly throughout the second half of the century, 

as the railroads and the gradual 

displacement of the Plains Indians 

opened up new areas for western 

settlement. A similar expansion of 

agricultural lands in countries such 

as Canada, Argentina, and Australia 

compounded these problems in the 

international market, where much 

of U.S. agricultural production was 

now sold. Everywhere, heavy supply pushed the price of agricultural 

commodities downward.

Midwestern farmers were increasingly restive over what they 

considered excessive railroad 

freight rates to move their goods 

to market. They believed that the 

protective tariff, a subsidy to big 

business, drove up the price of their 

increasingly expensive equipment.

Squeezed by low market prices 

and high costs, they resented everheavier debt loads and the banks 

that held their mortgages. Even the 

weather was hostile. During the late 

1880s droughts devastated the western Great Plains and bankrupted 

thousands of settlers.

In the South, the end of slavery 

brought major changes. Much agricultural land was now worked by 

sharecroppers, tenants who gave 

up to half of their crop to a landowner for rent, seed, and essential 

supplies. An estimated 80 percent 

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM 

“A great democracy will be 

neither great nor a democracy 

if it is not progressive.”

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, circa 1910
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

191

of the South’s African-American 

farmers and 40 percent of its white 

ones lived under this debilitating 

system. Most were locked in a cycle 

of debt, from which the only hope of 

escape was increased planting. This 

led to the over-production of cotton 

and tobacco, and thus to declining 

prices and the further exhaustion 

of the soil.

The first organized effort to address general agricultural problems 

was by the Patrons of Husbandry, 

a farmer’s group popularly known 

as the Grange Movement. Launched 

in 1867 by employees of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, the 

Granges focused initially on social 

activities to counter the isolation 

most farm families encountered.

Women’s participation was actively 

encouraged. Spurred by the Panic 

of 1873, the Grange soon grew to 

20,000 chapters and one-and-a-half 

million members.

The Granges set up their own 

marketing systems, stores, processing plants, factories, and cooperatives, but most ultimately failed. The 

movement also enjoyed some political success. During the 1870s, a few 

states passed “Granger laws,” limiting railroad and warehouse fees.

By 1880 the Grange was in decline 

and being replaced by the Farmers’ 

Alliances, which were similar in 

many respects but more overtly political. By 1890 the alliances, initially 

autonomous state organizations, 

had about 1.5 million members 

from New York to California. A parallel African-American group, the 

Colored Farmers National Alliance, 

claimed over a million members.

Federating into two large Northern and Southern blocs, the alliances promoted elaborate economic 

programs to “unite the farmers of 

America for their protection against 

class legislation and the encroachments of concentrated capital.”

By 1890 the level of agrarian distress, fueled by years of hardship and 

hostility toward the McKinley tariff, was at an all-time high. Working 

with sympathetic Democrats in the 

South or small third parties in the 

West, the Farmers’ Alliances made 

a push for political power. A third 

political party, the People’s (or Populist) Party, emerged. Never before 

in American politics had there been 

anything like the Populist fervor 

that swept the prairies and cotton 

lands. The elections of 1890 brought 

the new party into power in a dozen 

Southern and Western states, and 

sent a score of Populist senators and 

representatives to Congress.

The first Populist convention 

was in 1892. Delegates from farm, 

labor, and reform organizations met 

in Omaha, Nebraska, determined to 

overturn a U.S. political system they 

viewed as hopelessly corrupted by 

the industrial and financial trusts.

Their platform stated:

We are met, in the midst of a 

nation brought to the verge of 

moral, political, and material ruin. 

Corruption dominates the ballotbox, the legislatures, the Congress, 

and touches even the ermine of the 

bench [courts]. ... From the same 
192

prolific womb of governmental 

injustice we breed the two great 

classes — tramps and millionaires.

The pragmatic portion of their 

platform called for the nationalization of the railroads; a low tariff; loans secured by non-perishable 

crops stored in government-owned 

warehouses; and, most explosively, 

currency inflation through Treasury 

purchase and the unlimited coinage of silver at the “traditional” ratio 

of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce 

of gold.

The Populists showed impressive strength in the West and South, 

and their candidate for president 

polled more than a million votes.

But the currency question soon overshadowed all other issues. Agrarian spokesmen, convinced that their 

troubles stemmed from a shortage 

of money in circulation, argued 

that increasing the volume of money would indirectly raise prices for 

farm products and drive up industrial wages, thus allowing debts to 

be paid with inflated currency. Conservative groups and the financial 

classes, on the other hand, responded that the 16:1 price ratio was nearly 

twice the market price for silver. A 

policy of unlimited purchase would 

denude the U.S. Treasury of all its 

gold holdings, sharply devalue the 

dollar, and destroy the purchasing 

power of the working and middle 

classes. Only the gold standard, they 

said, offered stability.

The financial panic of 1893 

heightened the tension of this debate. Bank failures abounded in the 

South and Midwest; unemployment 

soared and crop prices fell badly.

The crisis and President Grover 

Cleveland’s defense of the gold standard sharply divided the Democratic Party. Democrats who were silver 

supporters went over to the Populists as the presidential elections of 

1896 neared.

The Democratic convention that 

year was swayed by one of the most 

famous speeches in U.S. political 

history. Pleading with the convention not to “crucify mankind on a 

cross of gold,” William Jennings 

Bryan, the young Nebraskan champion of silver, won the Democrats’ 

presidential nomination. The Populists also endorsed Bryan.

In the epic contest that followed, 

Bryan carried almost all the Southern and Western states. But he lost 

the more populated, industrial 

North and East — and the election 

— to Republican candidate William 

McKinley.

The following year the country’s 

finances began to improve, in part 

owing to the discovery of gold in 

Alaska and the Yukon. This provided a basis for a conservative 

expansion of the money supply. In 

1898 the Spanish-American War 

drew the nation’s attention further 

from Populist issues. Populism and 

the silver issue were dead. Many of 

the movement’s other reform ideas, 

however, lived on.

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

193

THE STRUGGLES OF LABOR

The life of a 19th-century American industrial worker was hard.

Even in good times wages were low, 

hours long, and working conditions 

hazardous. Little of the wealth that 

the growth of the nation had generated went to its workers. Moreover, 

women and children made up a high 

percentage of the work force in some 

industries and often received but a 

fraction of the wages a man could 

earn. Periodic economic crises swept 

the nation, further eroding industrial wages and producing high levels 

of unemployment.

At the same time, technological improvements, which added so 

much to the nation’s productivity, 

continually reduced the demand for 

skilled labor. Yet the unskilled labor 

pool was constantly growing, as unprecedented numbers of immigrants 

— 18 million between 1880 and 1910 

— entered the country, eager for 

work.

Before 1874, when Massachusetts 

passed the nation’s first legislation 

limiting the number of hours women and child factory workers could 

perform to 10 hours a day, virtually 

no labor legislation existed in the 

country. It was not until the 1930s 

that the federal government would 

become actively involved. Until 

then, the field was left to the state 

and local authorities, few of whom 

were as responsive to the workers as 

they were to wealthy industrialists.

The laissez-faire capitalism that 

dominated the second half of the 

19th century and fostered huge concentrations of wealth and power was 

backed by a judiciary that time and 

again ruled against those who challenged the system. In this, they were 

merely following the prevailing philosophy of the times. Drawing on a 

simplified understanding of Darwinian science, many social thinkers believed that both the growth of 

large business at the expense of small 

enterprise and the wealth of a few 

alongside the poverty of many was 

“survival of the fittest,” and an unavoidable by-product of progress.

American workers, especially the 

skilled among them, appear to have 

lived at least as well as their counterparts in industrial Europe. Still, 

the social costs were high. As late 

as the year 1900, the United States 

had the highest job-related fatality 

rate of any industrialized nation in 

the world. Most industrial workers 

still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours 

in the steel industry), yet earned less 

than the minimum deemed necessary for a decent life. The number of 

children in the work force doubled 

between 1870 and 1900.

The first major effort to organize workers’ groups on a nationwide basis appeared with the Noble 

Order of the Knights of Labor in 

1869. Originally a secret, ritualistic 

society organized by Philadelphia 

garment workers and advocating a 

cooperative program, it was open 

to all workers, including African 

Americans, women, and farmers.

The Knights grew slowly until its 

railway workers’ unit won a strike 
194

against the great railroad baron, Jay 

Gould, in 1885. Within a year they 

added 500,000 workers to their rolls, 

but, not attuned to pragmatic trade 

unionism and unable to repeat this 

success, the Knights soon fell into 

a decline.

Their place in the labor movement was gradually taken by the 

American Federation of Labor 

(AFL). Rather than open membership to all, the AFL, under former cigar union official Samuel Gompers, 

was a group of unions focused on 

skilled workers. Its objectives were 

“pure and simple” and apolitical: increasing wages, reducing hours, and 

improving working conditions. It 

did much to turn the labor movement away from the socialist views 

of most European labor movements.

Nonetheless, both before the 

founding of the AFL and after, 

American labor history was violent.

In the Great Rail Strike of 1877, rail 

workers across the nation went out 

in response to a 10-percent pay cut.

Attempts to break the strike led to rioting and wide-scale destruction in 

several cities: Baltimore, Maryland; 

Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; and San 

Francisco, California. Federal troops 

had to be sent to several locations 

before the strike was ended.

Nine years later, in Chicago’s 

Haymarket Square incident, someone threw a bomb at police about 

to break up an anarchist rally in 

support of an ongoing strike at the 

McCormick Harvester Company in 

Chicago. In the ensuing melee, seven 

policemen and at least four workers 

were reported killed. Some 60 police 

officers were injured.

In 1892, at Carnegie’s steel works 

in Homestead, Pennsylvania, a 

group of 300 Pinkerton detectives 

the company had hired to break a 

bitter strike by the Amalgamated 

Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin 

Workers fought a fierce and losing 

gun battle with strikers. The National Guard was called in to protect 

non-union workers and the strike 

was broken. Unions were not let back 

into the plant until 1937.

In 1894, wage cuts at the Pullman 

Company just outside Chicago led to 

a strike, which, with the support of 

the American Railway Union, soon 

tied up much of the country’s rail 

system. As the situation deteriorated, U.S. Attorney General Richard 

Olney, himself a former railroad 

lawyer, deputized over 3,000 men in 

an attempt to keep the rails open.

This was followed by a federal court 

injunction against union interference with the trains. When rioting 

ensued, President Cleveland sent in 

federal troops, and the strike was 

eventually broken.

The most militant of the strikefavoring unions was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

Formed from an amalgam of unions 

fighting for better conditions in the 

West’s mining industry, the IWW, 

or “Wobblies” as they were commonly known, gained particular 

prominence from the Colorado mine 

clashes of 1903 and the singularly 

brutal fashion in which they were 

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

195

put down. Influenced by militant 

anarchism and openly calling for 

class warfare, the Wobblies gained 

many adherents after they won a difficult strike battle in the textile mills 

of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912.

Their call for work stoppages in the 

midst of World War I, however, led 

to a government crackdown in 1917 

that virtually destroyed them.

THE REFORM IMPULSE

The presidential election of 1900 

gave the American people a chance 

to pass judgment on the Republican 

administration of President McKinley, especially its foreign policy.

Meeting at Philadelphia, the Republicans expressed jubilation over the 

successful outcome of the war with 

Spain, the restoration of prosperity, 

and the effort to obtain new markets through the Open Door policy.

McKinley easily defeated his opponent, once again William Jennings 

Bryan. But the president did not 

live to enjoy his victory. In September 1901, while attending an exposition in Buffalo, New York, he was 

shot down by an assassin, the third 

president to be assassinated since the 

Civil War.

Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley’s 

vice president, assumed the presidency. Roosevelt’s accession coincided with a new epoch in American 

political life and international relations. The continent was peopled; 

the frontier was disappearing. A 

small, formerly struggling republic had become a world power. The 

country’s political foundations had 

endured the vicissitudes of foreign 

and civil war, the tides of prosperity and depression. Immense strides 

had been made in agriculture and 

industry. Free public education had 

been largely realized and a free press 

maintained. The ideal of religious 

freedom had been sustained. The 

influence of big business was now 

more firmly entrenched than ever, 

however, and local and municipal 

government often was in the hands 

of corrupt politicians.

In response to the excesses of 

19th-century capitalism and political corruption, a reform movement 

called “progressivism” arose, which 

gave American politics and thought 

its special character from approximately 1890 until the American entry into World War I in 1917. The 

Progressives had diverse objectives. In general, however, they saw 

themselves as engaged in a democratic crusade against the abuses of 

urban political bosses and the corrupt “robber barons” of big business.

Their goals were greater democracy 

and social justice, honest government, more effective regulation of 

business, and a revived commitment 

to public service. They believed that 

expanding the scope of government 

would ensure the progress of U.S. society and the welfare of its citizens.

The years 1902 to 1908 marked 

the era of greatest reform activity, 

as writers and journalists strongly 

protested practices and principles 

inherited from the 18th-century 

rural republic that were proving 
196

inadequate for a 20th-century urban state. Years before, in 1873, the 

celebrated author Mark Twain had 

exposed American society to critical scrutiny in The Gilded Age. Now, 

trenchant articles dealing with 

trusts, high finance, impure foods, 

and abusive railroad practices began to appear in the daily newspapers and in such popular magazines 

as McClure’s and Collier’s. Their authors, such as the journalist Ida M.

Tarbell, who crusaded against the 

Standard Oil Trust, became known 

as “muckrakers.”

In his sensational novel, The 

Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposed unsanitary conditions in the great 

Chicago meat-packing houses and 

condemned the grip of the beef 

trust on the nation’s meat supply.

Theodore Dreiser, in his novels The 

Financier and The Titan, made it 

easy for laymen to understand the 

machinations of big business. Frank 

Norris’s The Octopus assailed amoral railroad management; his The Pit 

depicted secret manipulations on 

the Chicago grain market. Lincoln 

Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities

bared local political corruption.

This “literature of exposure” roused 

people to action.

The hammering impact of uncompromising writers and an increasingly aroused public spurred 

political leaders to take practical 

measures. Many states enacted laws 

to improve the conditions under 

which people lived and worked. At 

the urging of such prominent social critics as Jane Addams, child 

labor laws were strengthened and 

new ones adopted, raising age 

limits, shortening work hours, restricting night work, and requiring 

school attendance.

ROOSEVELT’S REFORMS

By the early 20th century, most 

of the larger cities and more than 

half the states had established an 

eight-hour day on public works.

Equally important were the workman’s compensation laws, which 

made employers legally responsible 

for injuries sustained by employees 

at work. New revenue laws were also 

enacted, which, by taxing inheritances, incomes, and the property 

or earnings of corporations, sought 

to place the burden of government 

on those best able to pay.

It was clear to many people 

— notably President Theodore 

Roosevelt and Progressive leaders in 

the Congress (foremost among them 

Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette) — that most of the problems 

reformers were concerned about 

could be solved only if dealt with on 

a national scale. Roosevelt declared 

his determination to give all the 

American people a “Square Deal.”

During his first term, he initiated 

a policy of increased government supervision through the enforcement 

of antitrust laws. With his backing, Congress passed the Elkins Act 

(1903), which greatly restricted the 

railroad practice of giving rebates 

to favored shippers. The act made 

published rates the lawful standard, 

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

197

and shippers equally liable with 

railroads for rebates. Meanwhile, 

Congress had created a new Cabinet Department of Commerce and 

Labor, which included a Bureau of 

Corporations empowered to investigate the affairs of large business aggregations.

Roosevelt won acclaim as a 

“trust-buster,” but his actual attitude toward big business was complex. Economic concentration, he 

believed, was inevitable. Some trusts 

were “good,” some “bad.” The task of 

government was to make reasonable 

distinctions. When, for example, the 

Bureau of Corporations discovered 

in 1907 that the American Sugar Refining Company had evaded import 

duties, subsequent legal actions recovered more than $4 million and 

convicted several company officials.

The Standard Oil Company was indicted for receiving secret rebates 

from the Chicago and Alton Railroad, convicted, and fined a staggering $29 million.

Roosevelt’s striking personality 

and his trust-busting activities captured the imagination of the ordinary 

individual; approval of his progressive measures cut across party lines.

In addition, the abounding prosperity of the country at this time led 

people to feel satisfied with the party 

in office. He won an easy victory in 

the 1904 presidential election.

Emboldened by a sweeping electoral triumph, Roosevelt called for 

stronger railroad regulation. In June 

1906 Congress passed the Hepburn 

Act. It gave the Interstate Commerce 

Commission real authority in regulating rates, extended the commission’s jurisdiction, and forced the 

railroads to surrender their interlocking interests in steamship lines 

and coal companies.

Other congressional measures 

carried the principle of federal control still further. The Pure Food and 

Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the use 

of any “deleterious drug, chemical, 

or preservative” in prepared medicines and foods. The Meat Inspection Act of the same year mandated 

federal inspection of all meat-packing establishments engaged in interstate commerce.

Conservation of the nation’s natural resources, managed development of the public domain, and the 

reclamation of wide stretches of neglected land were among the other 

major achievements of the Roosevelt 

era. Roosevelt and his aides were 

more than conservationists, but given the helter-skelter exploitation of 

public resources that had preceded 

them, conservation loomed large on 

their agenda. Whereas his predecessors had set aside 18,800,000 hectares of timberland for preservation 

and parks, Roosevelt increased the 

area to 59,200,000 hectares. They 

also began systematic efforts to prevent forest fires and to re-timber denuded tracts.

TAFT AND WILSON

Roosevelt’s popularity was at its 

peak as the campaign of 1908 neared, 

but he was unwilling to break the 
198

tradition by which no president had 

held office for more than two terms.

Instead, he supported William Howard Taft, who had served under him 

as governor of the Philippines and 

secretary of war. Taft, pledging to 

continue Roosevelt’s programs, defeated Bryan, who was running for 

the third and last time.

The new president continued the 

prosecution of trusts with less discrimination than Roosevelt, further 

strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, established a 

postal savings bank and a parcel post 

system, expanded the civil service, 

and sponsored the enactment of two 

amendments to the Constitution, 

both adopted in 1913.

The 16th Amendment, ratified just before Taft left office, authorized a federal income tax; the 

17th Amendment, approved a few 

months later, mandated the direct 

election of senators by the people, 

instead of state legislatures. Yet balanced against these progressive measures was Taft’s acceptance of a new 

tariff with higher protective schedules; his opposition to the entry of 

the state of Arizona into the Union 

because of its liberal constitution; 

and his growing reliance on the conservative wing of his party.

By 1910 Taft’s party was bitterly 

divided. Democrats gained control 

of Congress in the midterm elections. Two years later, Woodrow 

Wilson, the Democratic, progressive 

governor of the state of New Jersey, 

campaigned against Taft, the Republican candidate — and also against 

Roosevelt who ran as the candidate 

of a new Progressive Party. Wilson, 

in a spirited campaign, defeated both 

rivals.

During his first term, Wilson 

secured one of the most notable legislative programs in American history. The first task was tariff revision.

“The tariff duties must be altered,” 

Wilson said. “We must abolish everything that bears any semblance 

of privilege.” The Underwood Tariff, 

signed on October 3, 1913, provided 

substantial rate reductions on imported raw materials and foodstuffs, 

cotton and woolen goods, iron and 

steel; it removed the duties from 

more than a hundred other items.

Although the act retained many protective features, it was a genuine attempt to lower the cost of living. To 

compensate for lost revenues, it established a modest income tax.

The second item on the Democratic program was a long overdue, 

thorough reorganization of the ramshackle banking and currency system. “Control,” said Wilson, “must 

be public, not private, must be vested 

in the government itself, so that the 

banks may be the instruments, not 

the masters, of business and of individual enterprise and initiative.”

The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913, was Wilson’s most 

enduring legislative accomplishment. Conservatives had favored 

establishment of one powerful central bank. The new act, in line with 

the Democratic Party’s Jeffersonian 

sentiments, divided the country into 

12 districts, with a Federal Reserve 

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

199

Bank in each, all supervised by a national Federal Reserve Board with 

limited authority to set interest rates.

The act assured greater flexibility in 

the money supply and made provision for issuing federal-reserve notes 

to meet business demands. Greater 

centralization of the system would 

come in the 1930s.

The next important task was 

trust regulation and investigation of 

corporate abuses. Congress authorized a Federal Trade Commission 

to issue orders prohibiting “unfair 

methods of competition” by business concerns in interstate trade.

The Clayton Antitrust Act forbade 

many corporate practices that had 

thus far escaped specific condemnation: interlocking directorates, 

price discrimination among purchasers, use of the injunction in 

labor disputes, and ownership by 

one corporation of stock in similar 

enterprises.

Farmers and other workers were 

not forgotten. The Smith-Lever Act 

of 1914 established an “extension 

system” of county agents to assist 

farming throughout the country.

Subsequent acts made credit available to farmers at low rates of interest. The Seamen’s Act of 1915 

improved living and working conditions on board ships. The Federal Workingman’s Compensation 

Act in 1916 authorized allowances 

to civil service employees for disabilities incurred at work and established a model for private enterprise.

The Adamson Act of the same year 

established an eight-hour day for 

railroad labor.

This record of achievement won 

Wilson a firm place in American 

history as one of the nation’s foremost progressive reformers. However, his domestic reputation would 

soon be overshadowed by his record 

as a wartime president who led his 

country to victory but could not 

hold the support of his people for 

the peace that followed. 9
200

No country’s history has been more closely bound to immigration than that 

of the United States. During the first 15 years of the 20th century alone, over 

13 million people came to the United States, many passing through Ellis 

Island, the federal immigration center that opened in New York harbor in 

1892. (Though no longer in service, Ellis Island reopened in 1992 as a 

monument to the millions who crossed the nation’s threshold there.)

The first official census in 1790 had numbered Americans at 3,929,214. 

Approximately half of the population of the original 13 states was of English 

origin; the rest were Scots-Irish, German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Welsh, 

and Finnish. These white Europeans were mostly Protestants. A fifth of the 

population was enslaved Africans.

From early on, Americans viewed immigrants as a necessary resource for 

an expanding country. As a result, few official restrictions were placed upon 

immigration into the United States until the 1920s. As more and more immigrants arrived, however, some Americans became fearful that their culture 

was threatened.

The Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, had been ambivalent 

over whether or not the United States ought to welcome arrivals from every 

corner of the globe. Jefferson wondered whether democracy could ever rest 

safely in the hands of men from countries that revered monarchs or replaced 

royalty with mob rule. However, few supported closing the gates to newcomers 

in a country desperate for labor.

Immigration lagged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as wars disrupted trans-Atlantic travel and European governments restricted movement 

to retain young men of military age. Still, as European populations increased, 

more people on the same land constricted the size of farming lots to a point 

where families could barely survive. Moreover, cottage industries were falling 

victim to an Industrial Revolution that was mechanizing production. Thousands of artisans unwilling or unable to find jobs in factories were out of work 

in Europe.

In the mid-1840s millions more made their way to the United States as 

a result of a potato blight in Ireland and continual revolution in the German 

homelands. Meanwhile, a trickle of Chinese immigrants, most from impoverished Southeastern China, began to make their way to the American West 

Coast.

Almost 19 million people arrived in the United States between 1890 and 

1921, the year Congress first passed severe restrictions. Most of these immiA NATION OF NATIONS

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

201

grants were from Italy, Russia, Poland, Greece, and the Balkans. Non-Europeans came, too: east from Japan, south from Canada, and north from Mexico.

By the early 1920s, an alliance was forged between wage-conscious 

organized labor and those who called for restricted immigration on racial or 

religious grounds, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Immigration Restriction 

League. The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 permanently curtailed 

the influx of newcomers with quotas calculated on nation of origin.

The Great Depression of the 1930s dramatically slowed immigration still 

further. With public opinion generally opposed to immigration, even for persecuted European minorities, relatively few refugees found sanctuary in the 

United States after Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933.

Throughout the postwar decades, the United States continued to cling 

to nationally based quotas. Supporters of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 

argued that quota relaxation might inundate the United States with Marxist 

subversives from Eastern Europe.

In 1965 Congress replaced national quotas with hemispheric ones. Relatives of U.S. citizens received preference, as did immigrants with job skills 

in short supply in the United States. In 1978 the hemispheric quotas were 

replaced by a worldwide ceiling of 290,000, a limit reduced to 270,000 after 

passage of the Refugee Act of 1980.

Since the mid-1970s, the United States has experienced a fresh wave of 

immigration, with arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Latin America transforming 

communities throughout the country. Current estimates suggest a total annual 

arrival of approximately 600,000 legal newcomers to the United States.

Because immigrant and refugee quotas remain well under demand, however, illegal immigration is still a major problem. Mexicans and other Latin 

Americans daily cross the Southwestern U.S. borders to find work, higher 

wages, and improved education and health care for their families. Likewise, 

there is a substantial illegal migration from countries like China and other 

Asian nations. Estimates vary, but some suggest that as many as 600,000 

illegals per year arrive in the United States.

Large surges of immigration have historically created social strains along 

with economic and cultural dividends. Deeply ingrained in most Americans, 

however, is the conviction that the Statue of Liberty does, indeed, stand as a 

symbol for the United States as she lifts her lamp before the “golden door,” 

welcoming those “yearning to breathe free.” This belief, and the sure knowledge that their forebears were once immigrants, has kept the United States a 

nation of nations. 
202
CHAPTER

10

WAR, 

PROSPERITY, 

AND 

DEPRESSION

Depression era soup line, 

1930s.
204

WAR AND NEUTRAL RIGHTS

To the American public of 1914, 

the outbreak of war in Europe — 

with Germany and Austria-Hungary fighting Britain, France, and 

Russia — came as a shock. At first 

the encounter seemed remote, but 

its economic and political effects 

were swift and deep. By 1915 U.S.

industry, which had been mildly depressed, was prospering again with 

munitions orders from the Western Allies. Both sides used propaganda to arouse the public passions 

of Americans — a third of whom 

were either foreign-born or had one 

or two foreign-born parents. Moreover, Britain and Germany both acted against U.S. shipping on the high 

seas, bringing sharp protests from 

President Woodrow Wilson.

Britain, which controlled the 

seas, stopped and searched American carriers, confiscating “contraband” bound for Germany. Germany employed its major naval weapon, 

the submarine, to sink shipping 

bound for Britain or France. President Wilson warned that the United 

States would not forsake its traditional right as a neutral to trade with 

belligerent nations. He also declared 

that the nation would hold Germany to “strict accountability” for the 

loss of American vessels or lives. On 

May 7, 1915, a German submarine 

sunk the British liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, 128 of them Americans. Wilson, reflecting American 

outrage, demanded an immediate 

halt to attacks on liners and merchant ships.

Anxious to avoid war with the 

United States, Germany agreed to 

give warning to commercial vessels — even if they flew the enemy 

flag — before firing on them. But 

CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION

“The chief business 

of the American people 

is business.”

President Calvin Coolidge, 1925
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

205

after two more attacks — the sinking of the British steamer Arabic in 

August 1915, and the torpedoing of 

the French liner Sussex in March 

1916 — Wilson issued an ultimatum 

threatening to break diplomatic relations unless Germany abandoned 

submarine warfare. Germany agreed 

and refrained from further attacks 

through the end of the year.

Wilson won reelection in 1916, 

partly on the slogan: “He kept us out 

of war.” Feeling he had a mandate 

to act as a peacemaker, he delivered 

a speech to the Senate, January 22, 

1917, urging the warring nations to 

accept a “peace without victory.”

UNITED STATES ENTERS 

WORLD WAR I

On January 31, 1917, however, the 

German government resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. After 

five U.S. vessels were sunk, Wilson 

on April 2, 1917, asked for a declaration of war. Congress quickly approved. The government rapidly 

mobilized military resources, industry, labor, and agriculture. By October 1918, on the eve of Allied victory, 

a U.S. army of over 1,750,000 had 

been deployed in France.

In the summer of 1918, fresh 

American troops under the command of General John J. Pershing 

played a decisive role in stopping a 

last-ditch German offensive. That 

fall, Americans were key participants in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which cracked Germany’s 

vaunted Hindenburg Line.

President Wilson contributed 

greatly to an early end to the war 

by defining American war aims that 

characterized the struggle as being waged not against the German 

people but against their autocratic 

government. His Fourteen Points, 

submitted to the Senate in January 

1918, called for: abandonment of secret international agreements; freedom of the seas; free trade between 

nations; reductions in national armaments; an adjustment of colonial 

claims in the interests of the inhabitants affected; self-rule for subjugated 

European nationalities; and, most 

importantly, the establishment of 

an association of nations to afford 

“mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to 

great and small states alike.”

In October 1918, the German government, facing certain defeat, appealed to Wilson to negotiate on the 

basis of the Fourteen Points. After 

a month of secret negotiations that 

gave Germany no firm guarantees, 

an armistice (technically a truce, but 

actually a surrender) was concluded 

on November 11.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

It was Wilson’s hope that the final 

treaty, drafted by the victors, would 

be even-handed, but the passion and 

material sacrifice of more than four 

years of war caused the European 

Allies to make severe demands. Persuaded that his greatest hope for 

peace, a League of Nations, would 

never be realized unless he made 
206

CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION

concessions, Wilson compromised 

somewhat on the issues of self-determination, open diplomacy, and 

other specifics. He successfully resisted French demands for the entire 

Rhineland, and somewhat moderated that country’s insistence upon 

charging Germany the whole cost of 

the war. The final agreement (the 

Treaty of Versailles), however, provided for French occupation of the 

coal- and iron-rich Saar Basin, and 

a very heavy burden of reparations 

upon Germany.

In the end, there was little left of 

Wilson’s proposals for a generous 

and lasting peace but the League of 

Nations itself, which he had made 

an integral part of the treaty. Displaying poor judgment, however, the 

president had failed to involve leading Republicans in the treaty negotiations. Returning with a partisan 

document, he then refused to make 

concessions necessary to satisfy Republican concerns about protecting 

American sovereignty.

With the treaty stalled in a Senate 

committee, Wilson began a national 

tour to appeal for support. On September 25, 1919, physically ravaged 

by the rigors of peacemaking and 

the pressures of the wartime presidency, he suffered a crippling stroke.

Critically ill for weeks, he never fully 

recovered. In two separate votes — 

November 1919 and March 1920 — 

the Senate once again rejected the 

Versailles Treaty and with it the 

League of Nations.

The League of Nations would 

never be capable of maintaining 

world order. Wilson’s defeat showed 

that the American people were not 

yet ready to play a commanding role 

in world affairs. His utopian vision 

had briefly inspired the nation, but 

its collision with reality quickly led 

to widespread disillusion with world 

affairs. America reverted to its instinctive isolationism.

POSTWAR UNREST

The transition from war to peace 

was tumultuous. A postwar economic boom coexisted with rapid 

increases in consumer prices. Labor unions that had refrained from 

striking during the war engaged in 

several major job actions. During the 

summer of 1919, several race riots occurred, reflecting apprehension over 

the emergence of a “New Negro” 

who had seen military service or gone 

north to work in the war industry.

Reaction to these events merged 

with a widespread national fear of 

a new international revolutionary 

movement. In 1917, the Bolsheviks 

had seized power in Russia; after the 

war, they attempted revolutions in 

Germany and Hungary. By 1919, it 

seemed they had come to America.

Excited by the Bolshevik example, 

large numbers of militants split 

from the Socialist Party to found 

what would become the Communist Party of the United States. In 

April 1919, the postal service intercepted nearly 40 bombs addressed to 

prominent citizens. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s residence 

in Washington was bombed. Palmer, 
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

207

in turn, authorized federal roundups 

of radicals and deported many who 

were not citizens. Strikes were often 

blamed on radicals and depicted as 

the opening shots of a revolution.

Palmer’s dire warnings fueled a 

“Red Scare” that subsided by mid1920. Even a murderous bombing in 

Wall Street in September failed to reawaken it. From 1919 on, however, a 

current of militant hostility toward 

revolutionary communism would 

simmer not far beneath the surface 

of American life.

THE BOOMING 1920s

Wilson, distracted by the war, 

then laid low by his stroke, had mishandled almost every postwar issue. The booming economy began 

to collapse in mid-1920. The Republican candidates for president and 

vice president, Warren G. Harding 

and Calvin Coolidge, easily defeated 

their Democratic opponents, James 

M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Following ratification of the 19th 

Amendment to the Constitution, 

women voted in a presidential election for the first time.

The first two years of Harding’s 

administration saw a continuance 

of the economic recession that had 

begun under Wilson. By 1923, however, prosperity was back. For the 

next six years the country enjoyed 

the strongest economy in its history, 

at least in urban areas. Governmental economic policy during the 1920s 

was eminently conservative. It was 

based upon the belief that if government fostered private business, benefits would radiate out to most of the 

rest of the population.

Accordingly, the Republicans 

tried to create the most favorable 

conditions for U.S. industry. The 

Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 

and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 

1930 brought American trade barriers to new heights, guaranteeing U.S.

manufacturers in one field after 

another a monopoly of the domestic market, but blocking a healthy 

trade with Europe that would have 

reinvigorated the international 

economy. Occurring at the beginning of the Great Depression, Hawley-Smoot triggered retaliation from 

other manufacturing nations and 

contributed greatly to a collapsing 

cycle of world trade that intensified 

world economic misery.

The federal government also started a program of tax cuts, reflecting 

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s 

belief that high taxes on individual 

incomes and corporations discouraged investment in new industrial 

enterprises. Congress, in laws passed 

between 1921 and 1929, responded 

favorably to his proposals.

 “The chief business of the American people is business,” declared 

Calvin Coolidge, the Vermont-born 

vice president who succeeded to the 

presidency in 1923 after Harding’s 

death, and was elected in his own 

right in 1924. Coolidge hewed to the 

conservative economic policies of 

the Republican Party, but he was a 

much abler administrator than the 

hapless Harding, whose administra-
208

tion was mired in charges of corruption in the months before his death.

Throughout the 1920s, private 

business received substantial encouragement, including construction loans, profitable mail-carrying 

contracts, and other indirect subsidies. The Transportation Act of 1920, 

for example, had already restored to 

private management the nation’s 

railways, which had been under government control during the war. The 

Merchant Marine, which had been 

owned and largely operated by the 

government, was sold to private operators.

Republican policies in agriculture, however, faced mounting 

criticism, for farmers shared least 

in the prosperity of the 1920s. The 

period since 1900 had been one of 

rising farm prices. The unprecedented wartime demand for U.S.

farm products had provided a strong 

stimulus to expansion. But by the 

close of 1920, with the abrupt end 

of wartime demand, the commercial 

agriculture of staple crops such as 

wheat and corn fell into sharp decline. Many factors accounted for 

the depression in American agriculture, but foremost was the loss of 

foreign markets. This was partly in 

reaction to American tariff policy, 

but also because excess farm production was a worldwide phenomenon.

When the Great Depression struck 

in the 1930s, it devastated an already 

fragile farm economy.

The distress of agriculture aside, 

the Twenties brought the best life 

ever to most Americans. It was the 

decade in which the ordinary family purchased its first automobile, 

obtained refrigerators and vacuum 

cleaners, listened to the radio for entertainment, and went regularly to 

motion pictures. Prosperity was real 

and broadly distributed. The Republicans profited politically, as a result, 

by claiming credit for it.

TENSIONS OVER 

IMMIGRATION

During the 1920s, the United 

States sharply restricted foreign immigration for the first time in its 

history. Large inflows of foreigners 

long had created a certain amount 

of social tension, but most had been 

of Northern European stock and, if 

not quickly assimilated, at least possessed a certain commonality with 

most Americans. By the end of the 

19th century, however, the flow was 

predominantly from southern and 

Eastern Europe. According to the 

census of 1900, the population of the 

United States was just over 76 million. Over the next 15 years, more 

than 15 million immigrants entered 

the country.

Around two-thirds of the inflow 

consisted of “newer” nationalities 

and ethnic groups — Russian Jews, 

Poles, Slavic peoples, Greeks, southern Italians. They were non-Protestant, non-“Nordic,” and, many 

Americans feared, nonassimilable.

They did hard, often dangerous, 

low-pay work — but were accused 

of driving down the wages of nativeborn Americans. Settling in squalid 

CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

209

urban ethnic enclaves, the new immigrants were seen as maintaining 

Old World customs, getting along 

with very little English, and supporting unsavory political machines 

that catered to their needs. Nativists 

wanted to send them back to Europe; 

social workers wanted to Americanize them. Both agreed that they were 

a threat to American identity.

Halted by World War I, mass 

immigration resumed in 1919, but 

quickly ran into determined opposition from groups as varied as the 

American Federation of Labor and 

the reorganized Ku Klux Klan. Millions of old-stock Americans who 

belonged to neither organization accepted commonly held assumptions 

about the inferiority of non-Nordics 

and backed restrictions. Of course, 

there were also practical arguments 

in favor of a maturing nation putting 

some limits on new arrivals.

In 1921, Congress passed a sharply restrictive emergency immigration act. It was supplanted in 1924 by 

the Johnson-Reed National Origins 

Act, which established an immigration quota for each nationality. Those 

quotas were pointedly based on the 

census of 1890, a year in which the 

newer immigration had not yet left 

its mark. Bitterly resented by southern and Eastern European ethnic 

groups, the new law reduced immigration to a trickle. After 1929, the 

economic impact of the Great Depression would reduce the trickle to 

a reverse flow — until refugees from 

European fascism began to press for 

admission to the country.

CLASH OF CULTURES

Some Americans expressed their 

discontent with the character of 

modern life in the 1920s by focusing on family and religion, as an 

increasingly urban, secular society 

came into conflict with older rural 

traditions. Fundamentalist preachers such as Billy Sunday provided an 

outlet for many who yearned for a 

return to a simpler past.

Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of this yearning was the 

religious fundamentalist crusade 

that pitted Biblical texts against the 

Darwinian theory of biological evolution. In the 1920s, bills to prohibit 

the teaching of evolution began appearing in Midwestern and Southern state legislatures. Leading this 

crusade was the aging William Jennings Bryan, long a spokesman for 

the values of the countryside as well 

as a progressive politician. Bryan 

skillfully reconciled his anti-evolutionary activism with his earlier 

economic radicalism, declaring that 

evolution “by denying the need or 

possibility of spiritual regeneration, 

discourages all reforms.”

The issue came to a head in 1925, 

when a young high school teacher, 

John Scopes, was prosecuted for violating a Tennessee law that forbade 

the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The case became a national spectacle, drawing intense news 

coverage. The American Civil Liberties Union retained the renowned 

attorney Clarence Darrow to defend 

Scopes. Bryan wrangled an appoint-
210

ment as special prosecutor, then foolishly allowed Darrow to call him as 

a hostile witness. Bryan’s confused 

defense of Biblical passages as literal 

rather than metaphorical truth drew 

widespread criticism. Scopes, nearly 

forgotten in the fuss, was convicted, 

but his fine was reversed on a technicality. Bryan died shortly after the 

trial ended. The state wisely declined 

to retry Scopes. Urban sophisticates 

ridiculed fundamentalism, but it 

continued to be a powerful force in 

rural, small-town America.

Another example of a powerful clash of cultures — one with 

far greater national consequences 

— was Prohibition. In 1919, after 

almost a century of agitation, the 

18th Amendment to the Constitution was enacted, prohibiting the 

manufacture, sale, or transportation 

of alcoholic beverages. Intended to 

eliminate the saloon and the drunkard from American society, Prohibition created thousands of illegal 

drinking places called “speakeasies,” 

made intoxication fashionable, and 

created a new form of criminal activity — the transportation of illegal liquor, or “bootlegging.” Widely 

observed in rural America, openly 

evaded in urban America, Prohibition was an emotional issue in the 

prosperous Twenties. When the Depression hit, it seemed increasingly 

irrelevant. The 18th Amendment 

would be repealed in 1933.

Fundamentalism and Prohibition 

were aspects of a larger reaction to 

a modernist social and intellectual 

revolution most visible in changing 

manners and morals that caused 

the decade to be called the Jazz Age, 

the Roaring Twenties, or the era of 

“flaming youth.” World War I had 

overturned the Victorian social and 

moral order. Mass prosperity enabled an open and hedonistic life 

style for the young middle classes.

The leading intellectuals were 

supportive. H.L. Mencken, the decade’s most important social critic, 

was unsparing in denouncing sham 

and venality in American life. He 

usually found these qualities in rural areas and among businessmen.

His counterparts of the progressive 

movement had believed in “the people” and sought to extend democracy. Mencken, an elitist and admirer 

of Nietzsche, bluntly called democratic man a boob and characterized 

the American middle class as the 

“booboisie.”

Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the energy, turmoil, and disillusion of the decade in such works 

as The Beautiful and the Damned 

(1922) and The Great Gatsby (1925).

Sinclair Lewis, the first American to 

win a Nobel Prize for literature, satirized mainstream America in Main 

Street (1920) and Babbitt (1922). Ernest Hemingway vividly portrayed 

the malaise wrought by the war in 

The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A 

Farewell to Arms (1929). Fitzgerald, 

Hemingway, and many other writers dramatized their alienation from 

America by spending much of the 

decade in Paris.

African-American culture flowered. Between 1910 and 1930, huge 

CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

211

numbers of African Americans 

moved from the South to the North 

in search of jobs and personal freedom. Most settled in urban areas, 

especially New York City’s Harlem, Detroit, and Chicago. In 1910 

W.E.B. DuBois and other intellectuals had founded the National 

Association for the Advancement 

of Colored People (NAACP), which 

helped African Americans gain a national voice that would grow in importance with the passing years.

An African-American literary 

and artistic movement, called the 

“Harlem Renaissance,” emerged.

Like the “Lost Generation,” its 

writers, such as the poets Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, 

rejected middle-class values and 

conventional literary forms, even 

as they addressed the realities of 

African-American experience. African-American musicians — Duke 

Ellington, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong — first made jazz a staple of 

American culture in the 1920s.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

In October 1929 the booming stock 

market crashed, wiping out many 

investors. The collapse did not in 

itself cause the Great Depression, 

although it reflected excessively easy 

credit policies that had allowed the 

market to get out of hand. It also aggravated fragile economies in Europe 

that had relied heavily on American 

loans. Over the next three years, an 

initial American recession became 

part of a worldwide depression.

Business houses closed their doors, 

factories shut down, banks failed 

with the loss of depositors’ savings.

Farm income fell some 50 percent. By 

November 1932, approximately one 

of every five American workers was 

unemployed.

The presidential campaign of 

1932 was chiefly a debate over the 

causes and possible remedies of the 

Great Depression. President Herbert Hoover, unlucky in entering 

the White House only eight months 

before the stock market crash, had 

tried harder than any other president 

before him to deal with economic 

hard times. He had attempted to organize business, had sped up public 

works schedules, established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation 

to support businesses and financial 

institutions, and had secured from a 

reluctant Congress an agency to underwrite home mortgages. Nonetheless, his efforts had little impact, and 

he was a picture of defeat.

His Democratic opponent, Franklin D. Roosevelt, already popular as 

the governor of New York during 

the developing crisis, radiated infectious optimism. Prepared to use the 

federal government’s authority for 

even bolder experimental remedies, 

he scored a smashing victory — receiving 22,800,000 popular votes 

to Hoover’s 15,700,000. The United 

States was about to enter a new era 

of economic and political change. 9
212
CHAPTER

11

THE 

NEW DEAL 

AND 

WORLD 

WAR II

U.S. battleships West 

Virginia and Tennessee, 

following the Japanese 

attack on Pearl Harbor, 

December 7, 1941.
214

ROOSEVELT AND THE 

NEW DEAL

In 1933 the new president, Franklin 

D. Roosevelt, brought an air of confidence and optimism that quickly 

rallied the people to the banner of 

his program, known as the New 

Deal. “The only thing we have to 

fear is fear itself,” the president declared in his inaugural address to 

the nation.

In one sense, the New Deal 

merely introduced social and economic reforms familiar to many 

Europeans for more than a generation. Moreover, the New Deal 

represented the culmination of a 

long-range trend toward abandonment of “laissez-faire” capitalism, 

going back to the regulation of 

the railroads in the 1880s, and the 

flood of state and national reform 

legislation introduced in the Progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt 

and Woodrow Wilson.

What was truly novel about the 

New Deal, however, was the speed 

with which it accomplished what 

previously had taken generations.

Many of its reforms were hastily 

drawn and weakly administered; 

some actually contradicted others.

Moreover, it never succeeded in restoring prosperity. Yet its actions 

provided tangible help for millions 

of Americans, laid the basis for a 

powerful new political coalition, 

and brought to the individual citizen a sharp revival of interest in 

government.

THE FIRST NEW DEAL

Banking and Finance. When Roosevelt took the presidential oath, the 

banking and credit system of the nation was in a state of paralysis. With 

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

“We must be 

the great arsenal 

of democracy.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

215

astonishing rapidity the nation’s 

banks were first closed — and then 

reopened only if they were solvent.

The administration adopted a policy 

of moderate currency inflation to 

start an upward movement in commodity prices and to afford some 

relief to debtors. New governmental agencies brought generous credit 

facilities to industry and agriculture. The Federal Deposit Insurance 

Corporation (FDIC) insured savings-bank deposits up to $5,000.

Federal regulations were imposed 

upon the sale of securities on the 

stock exchange.

Unemployment. Roosevelt faced 

unprecedented mass unemployment.

By the time he took office, as many 

as 13 million Americans — more 

than a quarter of the labor force 

— were out of work. Bread lines 

were a common sight in most cities. Hundreds of thousands roamed 

the country in search of food, work, 

and shelter. “Brother, can you spare 

a dime?” was the refrain of a popular song.

An early step for the unemployed 

came in the form of the Civilian 

Conservation Corps (CCC), a program that brought relief to young 

men between 18 and 25 years of age.

CCC enrollees worked in camps administered by the army. About two 

million took part during the decade.

They participated in a variety of 

conservation projects: planting trees 

to combat soil erosion and maintain 

national forests; eliminating stream 

pollution; creating fish, game, and 

bird sanctuaries; and conserving 

coal, petroleum, shale, gas, sodium, 

and helium deposits.

A Public Works Administration (PWA) provided employment 

for skilled construction workers on 

a wide variety of mostly mediumto large-sized projects. Among the 

most memorable of its many accomplishments were the Bonneville and 

Grand Coulee Dams in the Pacific 

Northwest, a new Chicago sewer system, the Triborough Bridge in New 

York City, and two aircraft carriers 

(Yorktown and Enterprise) for the 

U.S. Navy.

The Tennessee Valley Authority 

(TVA), both a work relief program 

and an exercise in public planning, 

developed the impoverished Tennessee River valley area through a series of dams built for flood control 

and hydroelectric power generation.

Its provision of cheap electricity for 

the area stimulated some economic 

progress, but won it the enmity of 

private electric companies. New 

Dealers hailed it as an example of 

“grassroots democracy.”

The Federal Emergency Relief 

Administration (FERA), in operation from 1933 to 1935, distributed 

direct relief to hundreds of thousands of people, usually in the form 

of direct payments. Sometimes, it 

assumed the salaries of schoolteachers and other local public service 

workers. It also developed numerous 

small-scale public works projects, as 

did the Civil Works Administration (CWA) from late 1933 into the 

spring of 1934. Criticized as “make 
216

work,” the jobs funded ranged from 

ditch digging to highway repairs 

to teaching. Roosevelt and his key 

officials worried about costs but 

continued to favor unemployment 

programs based on work relief rather than welfare.

Agriculture. In the spring of 1933, 

the agricultural sector of the economy was in a state of collapse. It thereby provided a laboratory for the New 

Dealers’ belief that greater regulation 

would solve many of the country’s 

problems. In 1933, Congress passed 

the Agricultural Adjustment Act 

(AAA) to provide economic relief 

to farmers. The AAA proposed to 

raise crop prices by paying farmers 

a subsidy to compensate for voluntary cutbacks in production. Funds 

for the payments would be generated by a tax levied on industries that 

processed crops. By the time the act 

had become law, however, the growing season was well under way, and 

the AAA paid farmers to plow under 

their abundant crops. Crop reduction and further subsidies through 

the Commodity Credit Corporation, 

which purchased commodities to be 

kept in storage, drove output down 

and farm prices up.

Between 1932 and 1935, farm 

income increased by more than 50 

percent, but only partly because of 

federal programs. During the same 

years that farmers were being encouraged to take land out of production — displacing tenants and 

sharecroppers — a severe drought 

hit the Plains states. Violent wind 

and dust storms during the 1930s 

created what became known as the 

“Dust Bowl.” Crops were destroyed 

and farms ruined.

By 1940, 2.5 million people had 

moved out of the Plains states, the 

largest migration in American history. Of those, 200,000 moved to California. The migrants were not only 

farmers, but also professionals, retailers, and others whose livelihoods 

were connected to the health of the 

farm communities. Many ended up 

competing for seasonal jobs picking 

crops at extremely low wages.

The government provided aid 

in the form of the Soil Conservation Service, established in 1935.

Farm practices that damaged the 

soil had intensified the impact of the 

drought. The service taught farmers 

measures to reduce erosion. In addition, almost 30,000 kilometers of 

trees were planted to break the force 

of winds.

Although the AAA had been 

mostly successful, it was abandoned 

in 1936, when its tax on food processors was ruled unconstitutional 

by the Supreme Court. Congress 

quickly passed a farm-relief act, 

which authorized the government to 

make payments to farmers who took 

land out of production for the purpose of soil conservation. In 1938, 

with a pro-New Deal majority on the 

Supreme Court, Congress reinstated 

the AAA.

By 1940 nearly six million farmers were receiving federal subsidies.

New Deal programs also provided 

loans on surplus crops, insurance for 

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

217

wheat, and a system of planned storage to ensure a stable food supply.

Economic stability for the farmer 

was substantially achieved, albeit at 

great expense and with extraordinary government oversight.

Industry and Labor. The National 

Recovery Administration (NRA), 

established in 1933 with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), 

attempted to end cutthroat competition by setting codes of fair competitive practice to generate more jobs 

and thus more buying. Although 

welcomed initially, the NRA was 

soon criticized for over-regulation 

and was unable to achieve industrial 

recovery. It was declared unconstitutional in 1935.

The NIRA had guaranteed to 

labor the right of collective bargaining through labor unions representing individual workers, but the 

NRA had failed to overcome strong 

business opposition to independent 

unionism. After its demise in 1935, 

Congress passed the National Labor 

Relations Act, which restated that 

guarantee and prohibited employers 

from unfairly interfering with union 

activities. It also created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) 

to supervise collective bargaining, 

administer elections, and ensure 

workers the right to choose the organization that should represent them 

in dealing with employers.

The great progress made in labor 

organization brought working people a growing sense of common interests, and labor’s power increased 

not only in industry but also in politics. Roosevelt’s Democratic Party 

benefited enormously from these 

developments.

THE SECOND NEW DEAL

In its early years, the New Deal 

sponsored a remarkable series of 

legislative initiatives and achieved 

significant increases in production 

and prices — but it did not bring 

an end to the Depression. As the 

sense of immediate crisis eased, new 

demands emerged. Businessmen 

mourned the end of “laissez-faire” 

and chafed under the regulations 

of the NIRA. Vocal attacks also 

mounted from the political left 

and right as dreamers, schemers, 

and politicians alike emerged with 

economic panaceas that drew wide 

audiences. Dr. Francis E. Townsend 

advocated generous old-age pensions.

Father Charles Coughlin, the “radio 

priest,” called for inflationary policies 

and blamed international bankers 

in speeches increasingly peppered 

with anti-Semitic imagery. Most 

formidably, Senator Huey P. Long 

of Louisiana, an eloquent and ruthless spokesman for the displaced, 

advocated a radical redistribution 

of wealth. (If he had not been 

assassinated in September 1935, Long 

very likely would have launched a 

presidential challenge to Franklin 

Roosevelt in 1936.)

In the face of these pressures, 

President Roosevelt backed a new 

set of economic and social measures. Prominent among them were 
218

measures to fight poverty, create 

more work for the unemployed, and 

provide a social safety net.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), the principal relief 

agency of the so-called second New 

Deal, was the biggest public works 

agency yet. It pursued small-scale 

projects throughout the country, 

constructing buildings, roads, airports, and schools. Actors, painters, 

musicians, and writers were employed through the Federal Theater 

Project, the Federal Art Project, 

and the Federal Writers Project.

The National Youth Administration gave part-time employment 

to students, established training 

programs, and provided aid to unemployed youth. The WPA only included about three million jobless 

at a time; when it was abandoned 

in 1943, it had helped a total of nine 

million people.

The New Deal’s cornerstone, according to Roosevelt, was the Social 

Security Act of 1935. Social Security 

created a system of state-administered welfare payments for the poor, 

unemployed, and disabled based on 

matching state and federal contributions. It also established a national 

system of retirement benefits drawing on a “trust fund” created by employer and employee contributions.

Many other industrialized nations 

had already enacted such programs, 

but calls for such an initiative in the 

United States had gone unheeded.

Social Security today is the largest 

domestic program administered by 

the U.S. government.

To these, Roosevelt added the 

National Labor Relations Act, the 

“Wealth Tax Act” that increased 

taxes on the wealthy, the Public Utility Holding Company Act to break 

up large electrical utility conglomerates, and a Banking Act that greatly 

expanded the power of the Federal 

Reserve Board over the large private banks. Also notable was the 

establishment of the Rural Electrification Administration, which extended electricity into farming areas 

throughout the country.

A NEW COALITION

In the 1936 election, Roosevelt 

won a decisive victory over his Republican opponent, Alf Landon of 

Kansas. He was personally popular, 

and the economy seemed near recovery. He took 60 percent of the 

vote and carried all but two states.

A broad new coalition aligned with 

the Democratic Party emerged, consisting of labor, most farmers, most 

urban ethnic groups, African Americans, and the traditionally Democratic South. The Republican Party 

received the support of business as 

well as middle-class members of 

small towns and suburbs. This political alliance, with some variation 

and shifting, remained intact for 

several decades.

Roosevelt’s second term was a 

time of consolidation. The president made two serious political 

missteps: an ill-advised, unsuccessful attempt to enlarge the Supreme 

Court and a failed effort to “purge” 

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

219

increasingly recalcitrant Southern 

conservatives from the Democratic 

Party. When he cut high government spending, moreover, the economy collapsed. These events led to 

the rise of a conservative coalition 

in Congress that was unreceptive to 

new initiatives.

From 1932 to 1938 there was 

widespread public debate on the 

meaning of New Deal policies to 

the nation’s political and economic 

life. Americans clearly wanted the 

government to take greater responsibility for the welfare of ordinary 

people, however uneasy they might 

be about big government in general.

The New Deal established the foundations of the modern welfare state 

in the United States. Roosevelt, perhaps the most imposing of the 20thcentury presidents, had established 

a new standard of mass leadership.

No American leader, then or 

since, used the radio so effectively.

In a radio address in 1938, Roosevelt declared: “Democracy has 

disappeared in several other great 

nations, not because the people of 

those nations disliked democracy, 

but because they had grown tired 

of unemployment and insecurity, of 

seeing their children hungry while 

they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government 

weakness through lack of leadership.” Americans, he concluded, 

wanted to defend their liberties at 

any cost and understood that “the 

first line of the defense lies in the 

protection of economic security.”

WAR AND UNEASY 

NEUTRALITY

Before Roosevelt’s second term 

was well under way, his domestic 

program was overshadowed by the 

expansionist designs of totalitarian 

regimes in Japan, Italy, and Germany. In 1931 Japan had invaded 

Manchuria, crushed Chinese resistance, and set up the puppet state 

of Manchukuo. Italy, under Benito 

Mussolini, enlarged its boundaries in Libya and in 1935 conquered 

Ethiopia. Germany, under Nazi 

leader Adolf Hitler, militarized its 

economy and reoccupied the Rhineland (demilitarized by the Treaty of 

Versailles) in 1936. In 1938, Hitler 

incorporated Austria into the German Reich and demanded cession of 

the German-speaking Sudetenland 

from Czechoslovakia. By then, war 

seemed imminent.

The United States, disillusioned 

by the failure of the crusade for 

democracy in World War I, announced that in no circumstances 

could any country involved in the 

conflict look to it for aid. Neutrality legislation, enacted piecemeal 

from 1935 to 1937, prohibited trade 

in arms with any warring nations, 

required cash for all other commodities, and forbade American 

flag merchant ships from carrying 

those goods. The objective was to 

prevent, at almost any cost, the involvement of the United States in a 

foreign war.

With the Nazi conquest of Poland in 1939 and the outbreak of 
220

World War II, isolationist sentiment 

increased, even though Americans 

clearly favored the victims of Hitler’s 

aggression and supported the Allied 

democracies, Britain and France.

Roosevelt could only wait until public opinion regarding U.S. involvement was altered by events.

After the fall of France and the 

beginning of the German air war 

against Britain in mid-1940, the debate intensified between those in the 

United States who favored aiding the 

democracies and the antiwar faction 

known as the isolationists. Roosevelt did what he could to nudge 

public opinion toward intervention.

The United States joined Canada 

in a Mutual Board of Defense, and 

aligned with the Latin American republics in extending collective protection to the nations in the Western 

Hemisphere.

Congress, confronted with the 

mounting crisis, voted immense 

sums for rearmament, and in September 1940 passed the first peacetime conscription bill ever enacted 

in the United States. In that month 

also, Roosevelt concluded a daring 

executive agreement with British 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The United States gave the British 

Navy 50 “overage” destroyers in return for British air and naval bases 

in Newfoundland and the North 

Atlantic.

The 1940 presidential election 

campaign demonstrated that the 

isolationists, while vocal, were a 

minority. Roosevelt’s Republican 

opponent, Wendell Wilkie, leaned 

toward intervention. Thus the November election yielded another 

majority for the president, making 

Roosevelt the first, and last, U.S.

chief executive to be elected to a 

third term.

In early 1941, Roosevelt got Congress to approve the Lend-Lease 

Program, which enabled him to 

transfer arms and equipment to 

any nation (notably Great Britain, 

later the Soviet Union and China) 

deemed vital to the defense of the 

United States. Total Lend-Lease aid 

by war’s end would amount to more 

than $50,000 million.

Most remarkably, in August, he 

met with Prime Minister Churchill 

off the coast of Newfoundland. The 

two leaders issued a “joint statement of war aims,” which they 

called the Atlantic Charter. Bearing 

a remarkable resemblance to Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, it 

called for these objectives: no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes without the consent of 

the people concerned; the right of 

all people to choose their own form 

of government; the restoration of 

self-government to those deprived 

of it; economic collaboration between all nations; freedom from 

war, from fear, and from want for 

all peoples; freedom of the seas; 

and the abandonment of the use 

of force as an instrument of international policy.

America was now neutral in 

name only.

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

221

JAPAN, PEARL HARBOR, 

AND WAR

While most Americans anxiously 

watched the course of the European 

war, tension mounted in Asia. Taking advantage of an opportunity to 

improve its strategic position, Japan 

boldly announced a “new order” in 

which it would exercise hegemony 

over all of the Pacific. Battling for 

survival against Nazi Germany, Britain was unable to resist, abandoning its concession in Shanghai and 

temporarily closing the Chinese supply route from Burma. In the summer of 1940, Japan won permission 

from the weak Vichy government 

in France to use airfields in northern Indochina (North Vietnam).

That September the Japanese formally joined the Rome-Berlin Axis.

The United States countered with an 

embargo on the export of scrap iron 

to Japan.

In July 1941 the Japanese occupied southern Indochina (South 

Vietnam), signaling a probable 

move southward toward the oil, tin, 

and rubber of British Malaya and 

the Dutch East Indies. The United 

States, in response, froze Japanese 

assets and initiated an embargo on 

the one commodity Japan needed 

above all others — oil.

General Hideki Tojo became 

prime minister of Japan that October. In mid-November, he sent a 

special envoy to the United States 

to meet with Secretary of State 

Cordell Hull. Among other things, 

Japan demanded that the United 

States release Japanese assets and 

stop U.S. naval expansion in the 

Pacific. Hull countered with a proposal for Japanese withdrawal from 

all its conquests. The swift Japanese 

rejection on December 1 left the 

talks stalemated.

On the morning of December 7, 

Japanese carrier-based planes executed a devastating surprise attack 

against the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl 

Harbor, Hawaii.

Twenty-one ships were destroyed 

or temporarily disabled; 323 aircraft 

were destroyed or damaged; 2,388 

soldiers, sailors, and civilians were 

killed. However, the U.S. aircraft 

carriers that would play such a critical role in the ensuing naval war in 

the Pacific were at sea and not anchored at Pearl Harbor.

American opinion, still divided about the war in Europe, was 

unified overnight by what President Roosevelt called “a day that 

will live in infamy.” On December 

8, Congress declared a state of war 

with Japan; three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the 

United States.

MOBILIZATION FOR 

TOTAL WAR

The nation rapidly geared itself 

for mobilization of its people and its 

entire industrial capacity. Over the 

next three-and-a-half years, war industry achieved staggering production goals — 300,000 aircraft, 5,000 

cargo ships, 60,000 landing craft, 

86,000 tanks. Women workers, ex-
222

emplified by “Rosie the Riveter,” 

played a bigger part in industrial 

production than ever before. Total 

strength of the U.S. armed forces at 

the end of the war was more than 

12 million. All the nation’s activities — farming, manufacturing, 

mining, trade, labor, investment, 

communications, even education 

and cultural undertakings — were 

in some fashion brought under new 

and enlarged controls.

As a result of Pearl Harbor and 

the fear of Asian espionage, Americans also committed what was later 

recognized as an act of intolerance: 

the internment of Japanese Americans. In February 1942, nearly 

120,000 Japanese Americans residing in California were removed from 

their homes and interned behind 

barbed wire in 10 wretched temporary camps, later to be moved to 

“relocation centers” outside isolated 

Southwestern towns.

Nearly 63 percent of these Japanese Americans were American-born 

U.S. citizens. A few were Japanese 

sympathizers, but no evidence of espionage ever surfaced. Others volunteered for the U.S. Army and fought 

with distinction and valor in two infantry units on the Italian front. Some 

served as interpreters and translators 

in the Pacific.

In 1983 the U.S. government acknowledged the injustice of internment with limited payments to those 

Japanese-Americans of that era who 

were still living.

THE WAR IN NORTH AFRICA 

AND EUROPE

Soon after the United States entered the war, the United States, 

Britain, and the Soviet Union (at 

war with Germany since June 22, 

1941) decided that their primary 

military effort was to be concentrated in Europe.

Throughout 1942, British and 

German forces fought inconclusive 

back-and-forth battles across Libya 

and Egypt for control of the Suez 

Canal. But on October 23, British forces commanded by General 

Sir Bernard Montgomery struck 

at the Germans from El Alamein.

Equipped with a thousand tanks, 

many made in America, they defeated General Erwin Rommel’s army 

in a grinding two-week campaign.

On November 7, American and British armed forces landed in French 

North Africa. Squeezed between 

forces advancing from east and west, 

the Germans were pushed back and, 

after fierce resistance, surrendered 

in May 1943.

The year 1942 was also the turning point on the Eastern Front. The 

Soviet Union, suffering immense 

losses, stopped the Nazi invasion at 

the gates of Leningrad and Moscow.

In the winter of 1942-43, the Red 

Army defeated the Germans at Stalingrad (Volgograd) and began the 

long offensive that would take them 

to Berlin in 1945.

In July 1943 British and American forces invaded Sicily and won 

control of the island in a month.

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

223

During that time, Benito Mussolini 

fell from power in Italy. His successors began negotiations with 

the Allies and surrendered immediately after the invasion of the 

Italian mainland in September.

However, the German Army had by 

then taken control of the peninsula.

The fight against Nazi forces in Italy was bitter and protracted. Rome 

was not liberated until June 4, 1944.

As the Allies slowly moved north, 

they built airfields from which they 

made devastating air raids against 

railroads, factories, and weapon emplacements in southern Germany 

and central Europe, including the oil 

installations at Ploesti, Romania.

Late in 1943 the Allies, after much 

debate over strategy, decided to open 

a front in France to compel the Germans to divert far larger forces from 

the Soviet Union.

U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme 

Commander of the Allied Forces 

in Europe. After immense preparations, on June 6, 1944, a U.S., British, 

and Canadian invasion army, protected by a greatly superior air force, 

landed on five beaches in Normandy. With the beachheads established 

after heavy fighting, more troops 

poured in, and pushed the Germans 

back in one bloody engagement after another. On August 25 Paris was 

liberated.

The Allied offensive stalled that 

fall, then suffered a setback in eastern Belgium during the winter, but 

in March, the Americans and British 

were across the Rhine and the Russians advancing irresistibly from the 

East. On May 7, Germany surrendered unconditionally.

THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC

U.S. troops were forced to surrender in the Philippines in early 1942, 

but the Americans rallied in the 

following months. General James 

“Jimmy” Doolittle led U.S. Army 

bombers on a raid over Tokyo in 

April; it had little actual military 

significance, but gave Americans an 

immense psychological boost.

In May, at the Battle of the Coral 

Sea — the first naval engagement 

in history in which all the fighting 

was done by carrier-based planes — 

a Japanese naval invasion fleet sent 

to strike at southern New Guinea 

and Australia was turned back by a 

U.S. task force in a close battle. A few 

weeks later, the naval Battle of Midway in the central Pacific resulted in 

the first major defeat of the Japanese 

Navy, which lost four aircraft carriers. Ending the Japanese advance 

across the central Pacific, Midway 

was the turning point.

Other battles also contributed 

to Allied success. The six-month 

land and sea battle for the island 

of Guadalcanal (August 1942-February 1943) was the first major U.S.

ground victory in the Pacific. For 

most of the next two years, American and Australian troops fought 

their way northward from the 

South Pacific and westward from 

the Central Pacific, capturing the 

Solomons, the Gilberts, the Mar-
224

shalls, and the Marianas in a series 

of amphibious assaults.

THE POLITICS OF WAR

Allied military efforts were accompanied by a series of important 

international meetings on the political objectives of the war. In January 1943 at Casablanca, Morocco, 

an Anglo-American conference decided that no peace would be concluded with the Axis and its Balkan 

satellites except on the basis of “unconditional surrender.” This term, 

insisted upon by Roosevelt, sought 

to assure the people of all the fighting nations that no separate peace 

negotiations would be carried on 

with representatives of Fascism and 

Nazism and there would be no compromise of the war’s idealistic objectives. Axis propagandists, of course, 

used it to assert that the Allies were 

engaged in a war of extermination.

At Cairo, in November 1943, 

Roosevelt and Churchill met with 

Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang 

Kai-shek to agree on terms for Japan, including the relinquishment 

of gains from past aggression. At 

Tehran, shortly afterward, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet leader 

Joseph Stalin made basic agreements on the postwar occupation of 

Germany and the establishment of a 

new international organization, the 

United Nations.

In February 1945, the three Allied leaders met again at Yalta (now 

in Ukraine), with victory seemingly 

secure. There, the Soviet Union secretly agreed to enter the war against 

Japan three months after the surrender of Germany. In return, the USSR 

would gain effective control of Manchuria and receive the Japanese Kurile Islands as well as the southern 

half of Sakhalin Island. The eastern 

boundary of Poland was set roughly 

at the Curzon line of 1919, thus giving the USSR half its prewar territory. Discussion of reparations to be 

collected from Germany — payment 

demanded by Stalin and opposed 

by Roosevelt and Churchill — was 

inconclusive. Specific arrangements 

were made concerning Allied occupation in Germany and the trial and 

punishment of war criminals. Also 

at Yalta it was agreed that the great 

powers in the Security Council of 

the proposed United Nations should 

have the right of veto in matters affecting their security.

Two months after his return 

from Yalta, Franklin Roosevelt died 

of a cerebral hemorrhage while vacationing in Georgia. Few figures 

in U.S. history have been so deeply 

mourned, and for a time the American people suffered from a numbing 

sense of irreparable loss. Vice President Harry Truman, former senator 

from Missouri, succeeded him.

WAR, VICTORY, AND 

THE BOMB

The final battles in the Pacific were 

among the war’s bloodiest. In June 

1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea 

effectively destroyed Japanese naval 

air power, forcing the resignation of 

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

225

Japanese Prime Minister Tojo. General Douglas MacArthur — who 

had reluctantly left the Philippines 

two years before to escape Japanese 

capture — returned to the islands in 

October. The accompanying Battle 

of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval engagement ever fought, was the final 

decisive defeat of the Japanese Navy.

By February 1945, U.S. forces had 

taken Manila.

Next, the United States set its 

sight on the strategic island of Iwo 

Jima in the Bonin Islands, about 

halfway between the Marianas and 

Japan. The Japanese, trained to die 

fighting for the Emperor, made 

suicidal use of natural caves and 

rocky terrain. U.S. forces took the 

island by mid-March, but not before 

losing the lives of some 6,000 U.S.

Marines. Nearly all the Japanese defenders perished. By now the United 

States was undertaking extensive air 

attacks on Japanese shipping and 

airfields and wave after wave of incendiary bombing attacks against 

Japanese cities.

At Okinawa (April 1-June 21, 

1945), the Americans met even fiercer resistance. With few of the defenders surrendering, the U.S. Army 

and Marines were forced to wage a 

war of annihilation. Waves of Kamikaze suicide planes pounded the 

offshore Allied fleet, inflicting more 

damage than at Leyte Gulf. Japan 

lost 90-100,000 troops and probably 

as many Okinawan civilians. U.S.

losses were more than 11,000 killed 

and nearly 34,000 wounded. Most 

Americans saw the fighting as a preview of what they would face in a 

planned invasion of Japan.

The heads of the U.S., British, 

and Soviet governments met at Potsdam, a suburb outside Berlin, from 

July 17 to August 2, 1945, to discuss 

operations against Japan, the peace 

settlement in Europe, and a policy 

for the future of Germany. Perhaps 

presaging the coming end of the alliance, they had no trouble on vague 

matters of principle or the practical issues of military occupation, but 

reached no agreement on many tangible issues, including reparations.

The day before the Potsdam 

Conference began, U.S. nuclear scientists engaged in the secret Manhattan Project exploded an atomic 

bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The test was the culmination of 

three years of intensive research in 

laboratories across the United States.

It lay behind the Potsdam Declaration, issued on July 26 by the United 

States and Britain, promising that 

Japan would neither be destroyed 

nor enslaved if it surrendered. If 

Japan continued the war, however, it would meet “prompt and utter destruction.” President Truman, 

calculating that an atomic bomb 

might be used to gain Japan’s surrender more quickly and with fewer 

casualties than an invasion of the 

mainland, ordered that the bomb be 

used if the Japanese did not surrender by August 3.

A committee of U.S. military and 

political officials and scientists had 

considered the question of targets 

for the new weapon. Secretary of 
War Henry L. Stimson argued successfully that Kyoto, Japan’s ancient 

capital and a repository of many 

national and religious treasures, be 

taken out of consideration. Hiroshima, a center of war industries and 

military operations, became the first 

objective.

On August 6, a U.S. plane, the 

Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb 

on the city of Hiroshima. On August 9, a second atomic bomb was 

dropped, this time on Nagasaki.

The bombs destroyed large sections 

of both cities, with massive loss of 

life. On August 8, the USSR declared 

war on Japan and attacked Japanese 

forces in Manchuria. On August 14, 

Japan agreed to the terms set at Potsdam. On September 2, 1945, Japan 

formally surrendered. Americans 

were relieved that the bomb hastened the end of the war. The realization of the full implications of 

nuclear weapons’ awesome destructiveness would come later.

Within a month, on October 24, 

the United Nations came into existence following the meeting of representatives of 50 nations in San 

Francisco, California. The constitution they drafted outlined a world 

organization in which international differences could be discussed 

peacefully and common cause made 

against hunger and disease. In contrast to its rejection of U.S. membership in the League of Nations 

after World War I, the U.S. Senate 

promptly ratified the U.N. Charter 

by an 89 to 2 vote. This action confirmed the end of the spirit of isolationism as a dominating element in 

American foreign policy.

In November 1945 at Nuremberg, Germany, the criminal trials 

of 22 Nazi leaders, provided for at 

Potsdam, took place. Before a group 

of distinguished jurists from Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and 

the United States, the Nazis were 

accused not only of plotting and 

waging aggressive war but also of 

violating the laws of war and of humanity in the systematic genocide, 

known as the Holocaust, of European Jews and other peoples. The trials 

lasted more than 10 months. Twentytwo defendants were convicted, 12 

of them sentenced to death. Similar 

proceedings would be held against 

Japanese war leaders. 9

CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

226
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

227

While the 1920s were years of relative prosperity in the United States, the 

workers in industries such as steel, automobiles, rubber, and textiles benefited 

less than they would later in the years after World War II. Working conditions 

in many of these industries did improve. Some companies in the 1920s began 

to institute “welfare capitalism” by offering workers various pension, profitsharing, stock option, and health plans to ensure their loyalty. Still, shop floor 

environments were often hard and authoritarian.

The 1920s saw the mass production industries redouble their efforts to 

prevent the growth of unions, which under the American Federation of Labor 

(AFL) had enjoyed some success during World War I. They did so by using 

spies and armed strikebreakers and by firing those suspected of union sympathies. Independent unions were often accused of being Communist. At the 

same time, many companies formed their own compliant employee organizations, often called “company unions.”

Traditionally, state legislatures, reflecting the views of the American middle class, supported the concept of the “open shop,” which prevented a union 

from being the exclusive representative of all workers. This made it easier for 

companies to deny unions the right to collective bargaining and block unionization through court enforcement.

Between 1920 and 1929, union membership in the United States 

dropped from about five million to three-and-a-half million. The large unskilled or semi-skilled industries remained unorganized.

The onset of the Great Depression led to widespread unemployment. By 

1933 there were over 12 million Americans out of work. In the automobile industry, for example, the work force was cut in half between 1929 and 1933. At 

the same time, wages dropped by two-thirds.

The election of Franklin Roosevelt, however, was to change the status of 

the American industrial worker forever. The first indication that Roosevelt was 

interested in the well-being of workers came with the appointment of Frances 

Perkins, a prominent social welfare advocate, to be his secretary of labor. 

(Perkins was also the first woman to hold a Cabinet-level position.) The farreaching National Industrial Recovery Act sought to raise industrial wages, 

limit the hours in a work week, and eliminate child labor. Most importantly, 

the law recognized the right of employees “to organize and bargain collectively 

through representatives of their own choosing.”

John L. Lewis, the feisty and articulate head of the United Mine Workers 

(UMW), understood more than any other labor leader what the New Deal 

meant for workers. Stressing Roosevelt’s support, Lewis engineered a major 

THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL UNIONS
CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

228

unionizing campaign, rebuilding the UMW’s declining membership from 

150,000 to over 500,000 within a year.

Lewis was eager to get the AFL, where he was a member of the Executive Council, to launch a similar drive in the mass production industries. But 

the AFL, with its historic focus on the skilled trade worker, was unwilling to 

do so. After a bitter internal feud, Lewis and a few others broke with the AFL 

to set up the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), later the Congress 

of Industrial Organizations. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act 

(NLRA) in 1935 and the friendly attitude of the National Labor Relations 

Board put the power and authority of the federal government behind the CIO.

Its first targets were the notoriously anti-union auto and steel industries. 

In late 1936 a series of sit-down strikes, orchestrated by the fledgling United 

Auto Workers union under Walter Reuther, erupted at General Motors plants 

in Cleveland, Ohio, and Flint, Michigan. Soon 135,000 workers were involved 

and GM production ground to a halt.

With the sympathetic governor of Michigan refusing to evict the strikers, 

a settlement was reached in early 1937. By September of that year, the United 

Auto Workers had contracts with 400 companies involved in the automobile 

industry, assuring workers a minimum wage of 75 cents per hour and a 40-

hour work week.

In the first six months of its existence, the Steel Workers Organizing 

Committee (SWOC), headed by Lewis lieutenant Philip Murray, picked up 

125,000 members. The major American steel company, U.S. Steel, realizing 

that times had changed, also came to terms in 1937. That same year the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRA. Subsequently, smaller 

companies, traditionally even more anti-union than the large corporations, 

gave in. One by one, other industries — rubber, oil, electronics, and textiles 

— also followed suit.

The rise of big labor had two major long-term impacts. It became the 

organizational core of the national Democratic Party, and it gained material 

benefits for its members that all but erased the economic distinction between 

working-class and middle-class America. 
229

TURMOIL AND

CHANGE

For the United States, the 20th century was a period of extraordinary 

turmoil and change. In these decades, the nation endured the worst 

economic depression in its history; emerged triumphant, with the 

Allies, in World War II; assumed a role of global leadership in the 

century’s twilight conflict known as the Cold War; and underwent a 

remarkable social, economic, and political transition at home. Where 

once the United States transformed itself over the slow march of 

centuries, it now seemed to reinvent itself almost by decades.

A PICTURE PROFILE

In the depths of the Great Depression, March 1933, anxious depositors line up 

outside of a New York bank. The new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 

had just temporarily closed the nation’s banks to end the drain on the 

banks’ reserves. Only those banks that were still solvent were permitted 

to reopen after a four-day “bank holiday.”
230

Men and women strikers dance the time away on March 11, 1937, during a strike 

at the Chevrolet Fisher Body Plants in St. Louis, Missouri. Strikes such as these 

succeeded in winning union recognition for industrial workers throughout 

the country in the 1930s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs perhaps the most far-reaching legislation 

of the New Deal: the Social Security Act of 1935. Today, Social Security, one of 

the largest government programs in the United States, provides retirement and 

disability income to millions of Americans. 
231

World War II in the Pacific was characterized by large-scale naval and air battles. 

Here, a Japanese plane plunges in flames during an attack on a U.S. carrier fleet in the 

Mariana Islands, June 1944. U.S. Army and Marine forces’ “island hopping” campaign 

began at Guadalcanal in August 1942 and ended with the assault on 

Okinawa in April 1945.
232

Top, General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander in Europe, talks with 

paratroopers shortly before the Normandy invasion, June 6, 1944. 

Above, General Douglas MacArthur (center) had declared, “I shall return,” 

when he escaped from advancing Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1942. 

Two years later, he made good on his promise and waded ashore at Leyte as 

American forces began the liberation of the Philippines. 
233

Japanese Americans await 

relocation to internment 

camps in the worst violation 

of human rights that occurred 

inside the United States 

during World War II.

Assembly line of P-38 Lightning 

fighter planes during World War II. 

With its massive output of war 

materiel, the United States became, 

in the words of President Roosevelt, 

“the arsenal of democracy.”
234

U.S. troops witness a 

nuclear test in the Nevada 

desert in 1951. The threat of 

nuclear weapons remained 

a constant and ominous fact 

of life throughout the

 Cold War era.

Meeting of British Prime 

Minister Winston Churchill, 

President Roosevelt, and 

Soviet leader Josef Stalin 

at Yalta in February 1945. 

Disagreements over the 

future of Europe anticipated 

the division of the European 

continent that remained a 

fixture of the Cold War.
U.S. infantry fire against North Korean forces invading South Korea in 1951, 

in a conflict that lasted three painful years. 

In perhaps the most 

famous photograph 

in American political 

history, President Harry 

Truman holds aloft a 

newspaper wrongly 

announcing his defeat 

by Republican nominee 

Thomas Dewey in 

the 1948 presidential 

election. Truman’s 

come-from-behind 

victory surprised all 

political experts 

that day.
236

At a congressional hearing in 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy points to a map 

purportedly showing Communist Party influence in the United States in 1950. 

His chief antagonist at the hearing, lawyer Joseph Welch, sits at left. Welch 

successfully discredited McCarthy at these hearings, which were among the 

first to be televised across the country.

Portrait of President Dwight 

Eisenhower, whose genial, 

reassuring personality 

dominated the decade of 

the 1950s.
237

Jackie Robinson, sliding home in a 1948 baseball game. Robinson broke the 

color barrier against black professional baseball players when he joined the 

Brooklyn Dodgers and became one of the stars of the game.
238

America’s first star of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, performing on television’s “Ed 

Sullivan Show,” September 9, 1956. Today, years after his death, he is still 

revered by legions of his fans as “The King.”
239

Lucille Ball (second from left) with her supporting cast, including husband 

Desi Arnaz (standing), on one of the most popular television comedy shows of the 

1950s, I Love Lucy. The show established many of the techniques and conventions 

shared by hundreds of the televised “situation comedies” that followed.
240

Above, Rosa Parks sits in one of the front seats of a city bus following 

the successful boycott of the bus system in 1955-56 by AfricanAmerican citizens of Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott was 

organized to protest the practice of segregation in which African 

Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus. The Supreme 

Court agreed that this practice was a constitutional violation a 

year after the boycott began. The great leader of the civil rights 

movement in America, Martin Luther King Jr., gained national 

prominence through the Montgomery bus boycott.

Opposite page, right, Martin Luther King Jr. escorts children to a 

previously all-white public school in Grenada, Mississippi, in 1966. 

Although school segregation was outlawed in the landmark Brown 

v. Board of Education decision of the Supreme Court in 1954, it took 

decades of protest, political pressure, and additional court decisions 

to enforce school desegregation across the country.
241
242

President John F. Kennedy addresses nearly a quarter of a million Germans in 

West Berlin in June 1963. Honoring the courage of those living in one of the 

flash points of the Cold War, he said, “All free men, wherever they may live, are 

citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein 

Berliner’ (I am a Berliner).”
Ratification document for 

the 1963 Limited Nuclear 

Test Ban Treaty, one of 

the first arms control 

agreements between the 

West and the Soviet bloc, 

which ended atmospheric 

nuclear testing.
244

Thurgood Marshall, one of the champions of equal rights for all Americans. As 

a counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 

(NAACP), Marshall successfully argued the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of 

Education case before the Supreme Court, which outlawed segregation in public 

schools. He later served a distinguished career as a justice of the Supreme Court.
245

President Lyndon B. Johnson, born in Texas, was Senate majority leader in the 

Eisenhower years and vice president under John F. Kennedy before becoming 

president. One of the most powerful political personalities to serve in Washington, 

Johnson engineered the most ambitious domestic legislative agenda through 

Congress since Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Vietnam War ended his presidency, 

however, since it divided the nation.

A U.S. Army unit searches for snipers while on 

patrol in South Vietnam in 1965. From 60,000 

troops in 1965, U.S. forces grew to more than 

540,000 by 1969, in a conflict that divided 

the nation more bitterly than any other in the 

20th century. The last U.S. combat forces left 

Vietnam in 1973. 

247
248

Antiwar demonstrators and police clash during violent protests at the 1968 

Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Antiwar candidates at 

the convention lost the presidential nomination to Lyndon Johnson’s vice 

president, Hubert Humphrey.

Two of the leaders of the women’s movement in the 1960s: Kate Millett (left), 

author of a controversial book of the time, Sexual Politics, and journalist and 

activist Gloria Steinem.
249

The crest of the counterculture wave in the United 

States: the three-day 1969 outdoor rock concert 

and gathering known as Woodstock. 
250

Mexican-American labor activist César 

Chávez (center) talking with grape 

pickers in the field in 1968. Head of the 

United Farm Workers Union in California, 

Chávez was a leading voice for the 

rights of migrant farm workers, focusing 

national attention on their terrible 

working conditions.
251

President Richard M. Nixon, with his wife Pat Nixon 

and Secretary of State William Rogers (far right), 

walks along a portion of the Great Wall of China. 

Nixon’s 1972 opening to the People’s Republic of 

China was a major diplomatic triumph at a time 

when U.S. forces were slowly withdrawing from 

South Vietnam.
252

Participant in a demonstration by Native 

Americans in Washington, D.C., in 1978. 

They also have sought to assert their rights 

and identity in recent decades. 

Oil fires burn behind a destroyed Iraqi 

tank at the conclusion of the Gulf 

War in February 1991. The United 

States led a coalition of more than 30 

nations in an air and ground campaign 

called Desert Storm that ended Iraq’s 

occupation of Kuwait.
253

Civil rights leader and political activist Jesse Jackson at a political 

rally in 1984. For more than four decades, Jackson has remained 

among the most prominent, politically active, and eloquent 

representatives of what he has termed a “Rainbow Coalition” 

of the poor, African Americans, and other minorities.
254

A launch of a space shuttle, the first reusable space vehicle. The versatile shuttle, 

which has been used to place satellites in orbit and conduct wide-ranging experiments, 

is indispensable in the assemblage (beginning June 1998) and running of the 

International Space Station. 
255

President George 

H.W. Bush with 

Poland’s Lech Walesa 

(center) and First 

Lady Barbara Bush 

in Warsaw, July 1989. 

That remarkable year 

saw the end of the 

Cold War, as well 

as the end to the 

40-year division of 

Europe into hostile 

East and West blocs. 

President William (Bill) 

J. Clinton, delivering 

his inaugural address 

to the nation, January 

21, 1993. During his 

administration, the 

United States enjoyed 

more peace and 

economic well-being 

than at any time in its 

history. He was the 

second U.S. president 

to be impeached and 

found not guilty.
256
CHAPTER

12

POSTWAR 

AMERICA

Moving day in a newly 

opened suburban 

community, 1953.
258

CONSENSUS AND CHANGE

The United States dominated global affairs in the years immediately 

after World War II. Victorious in 

that great struggle, its homeland 

undamaged from the ravages of 

war, the nation was confident of its 

mission at home and abroad. U.S.

leaders wanted to maintain the democratic structure they had defended 

at tremendous cost and to share the 

benefits of prosperity as widely as 

possible. For them, as for publisher 

Henry Luce of Time magazine, this 

was the “American Century.” 

For 20 years most Americans remained sure of this confident approach. They accepted the need 

for a strong stance against the Soviet Union in the Cold War that 

unfolded after 1945. They endorsed 

the growth of government authority and accepted the outlines of the 

rudimentary welfare state first formulated during the New Deal. They 

enjoyed a postwar prosperity that 

created new levels of affluence.

But gradually some began to 

question dominant assumptions.

Challenges on a variety of fronts 

shattered the consensus. In the 

1950s, African Americans launched 

a crusade, joined later by other minority groups and women, for a larger share of the American dream. In 

the 1960s, politically active students 

protested the nation’s role abroad, 

particularly in the corrosive war in 

Vietnam. A youth counterculture 

emerged to challenge the status quo.

Americans from many walks of life 

sought to establish a new social and 

political equilibrium.

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA

“We must build a new world, 

a far better world — 

one in which the 

eternal dignity of man 

is respected.”

President Harry S. Truman, 1945
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

259

COLD WAR AIMS

The Cold War was the most important political and diplomatic issue of the early postwar period. It 

grew out of longstanding disagreements between the Soviet Union and 

the United States that developed after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Soviet Communist Party under V.I. Lenin considered itself the 

spearhead of an international movement that would replace the existing political orders in the West, and 

indeed throughout the world. In 

1918 American troops participated 

in the Allied intervention in Russia 

on behalf of anti-Bolshevik forces.

American diplomatic recognition of 

the Soviet Union did not come until 

1933. Even then, suspicions persisted. During World War II, however, 

the two countries found themselves 

allied and downplayed their differences to counter the Nazi threat.

At the war’s end, antagonisms 

surfaced again. The United States 

hoped to share with other countries 

its conception of liberty, equality, 

and democracy. It sought also to 

learn from the perceived mistakes of 

the post-WWI era, when American 

political disengagement and economic protectionism were thought 

to have contributed to the rise of dictatorships in Europe and elsewhere.

Faced again with a postwar world 

of civil wars and disintegrating 

empires, the nation hoped to provide the stability to make peaceful 

reconstruction possible. Recalling 

the specter of the Great Depression 

(1929-40), America now advocated 

open trade for two reasons: to create markets for American agricultural and industrial products, and 

to ensure the ability of Western European nations to export as a means 

of rebuilding their economies. Reduced trade barriers, American 

policy makers believed, would promote economic growth at home and 

abroad, bolstering U.S. friends and 

allies in the process.

The Soviet Union had its own 

agenda. The Russian historical tradition of centralized, autocratic 

government contrasted with the 

American emphasis on democracy.

Marxist-Leninist ideology had been 

downplayed during the war but still 

guided Soviet policy. Devastated by 

the struggle in which 20 million 

Soviet citizens had died, the Soviet 

Union was intent on rebuilding and 

on protecting itself from another 

such terrible conflict. The Soviets 

were particularly concerned about 

another invasion of their territory from the west. Having repelled 

Hitler’s thrust, they were determined 

to preclude another such attack.

They demanded “defensible” borders and “friendly” regimes in Eastern Europe and seemingly equated 

both with the spread of Communism, regardless of the wishes of 

native populations. However, the 

United States had declared that one 

of its war aims was the restoration 

of independence and self-government to Poland, Czechoslovakia, 

and the other countries of Central 

and Eastern Europe.
260

HARRY TRUMAN’S 

LEADERSHIP

The nation’s new chief executive, 

Harry S. Truman, succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as president before 

the end of the war. An unpretentious 

man who had previously served as 

Democratic senator from Missouri, 

then as vice president, Truman initially felt ill-prepared to govern.

Roosevelt had not discussed complex postwar issues with him, and he 

had little experience in international 

affairs. “I’m not big enough for this 

job,” he told a former colleague.

Still, Truman responded quickly 

to new challenges. Sometimes impulsive on small matters, he proved 

willing to make hard and carefully 

considered decisions on large ones.

A small sign on his White House 

desk declared, “The Buck Stops 

Here.” His judgments about how 

to respond to the Soviet Union ultimately determined the shape of the 

early Cold War.

ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR

The Cold War developed as differences about the shape of the 

postwar world created suspicion and 

distrust between the United States 

and the Soviet Union. The first — 

and most difficult — test case was 

Poland, the eastern half of which had 

been invaded and occupied by the 

USSR in 1939. Moscow demanded 

a government subject to Soviet influence; Washington wanted a more 

independent, representative government following the Western model.

The Yalta Conference of February 

1945 had produced an agreement on 

Eastern Europe open to different interpretations. It included a promise 

of “free and unfettered” elections.

Meeting with Soviet Minister 

of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov less than two weeks after becoming president, Truman stood 

firm on Polish self-determination, 

lecturing the Soviet diplomat about 

the need to implement the Yalta accords. When Molotov protested, “I 

have never been talked to like that 

in my life,” Truman retorted, “Carry 

out your agreements and you won’t 

get talked to like that.” Relations deteriorated from that point onward.

During the closing months of 

World War II, Soviet military forces 

occupied all of Central and Eastern 

Europe. Moscow used its military 

power to support the efforts of the 

Communist parties in Eastern Europe and crush the democratic parties. Communists took over one 

nation after another. The process 

concluded with a shocking coup 

d’etat in Czechoslovakia in 1948.

Public statements defined the beginning of the Cold War. In 1946 

Stalin declared that international 

peace was impossible “under the 

present capitalist development of 

the world economy.” Former British 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill 

delivered a dramatic speech in Fulton, Missouri, with Truman sitting 

on the platform. “From Stettin in 

the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” 

Churchill said, “an iron curtain has 

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

261

descended across the Continent.” 

Britain and the United States, he declared, had to work together to counter the Soviet threat.

CONTAINMENT

Containment of the Soviet Union 

became American policy in the 

postwar years. George Kennan, a 

top official at the U.S. embassy in 

Moscow, defined the new approach 

in the Long Telegram he sent to 

the State Department in 1946. He 

extended his analysis in an article under the signature “X” in the 

prestigious journal Foreign Affairs.

Pointing to Russia’s traditional sense 

of insecurity, Kennan argued that 

the Soviet Union would not soften 

its stance under any circumstances.

Moscow, he wrote, was “committed 

fanatically to the belief that with the 

United States there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal 

harmony of our society be disrupted.” Moscow’s pressure to expand

its power had to be stopped through 

“firm and vigilant containment of 

Russian expansive tendencies....”

The first significant application 

of the containment doctrine came in 

the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean. In early 1946, the United States demanded, and obtained, 

a full Soviet withdrawal from Iran, 

the northern half of which it had occupied during the war. That summer, the United States pointedly 

supported Turkey against Soviet 

demands for control of the Turkish 

straits between the Black Sea and the 

Mediterranean. In early 1947, American policy crystallized when Britain 

told the United States that it could 

no longer afford to support the government of Greece against a strong 

Communist insurgency.

In a strongly worded speech to 

Congress, Truman declared, “I believe that it must be the policy of the 

United States to support free peoples 

who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Journalists quickly 

dubbed this statement the “Truman 

Doctrine.” The president asked 

Congress to provide $400 million for 

economic and military aid, mostly to 

Greece but also to Turkey. After an 

emotional debate that resembled the 

one between interventionists and 

isolationists before World War II, the 

money was appropriated.

Critics from the left later charged 

that to whip up American support 

for the policy of containment, Truman overstated the Soviet threat to 

the United States. In turn, his statements inspired a wave of hysterical 

anti-Communism throughout the 

country. Perhaps so. Others, however, would counter that this argument ignores the backlash that likely 

would have occurred if Greece, Turkey, and other countries had fallen 

within the Soviet orbit with no opposition from the United States.

Containment also called for extensive economic aid to assist the recovery of war-torn Western Europe.

With many of the region’s nations 

economically and politically unsta-
262

ble, the United States feared that local Communist parties, directed by 

Moscow, would capitalize on their 

wartime record of resistance to the 

Nazis and come to power. “The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate,” declared Secretary of State 

George C. Marshall. In mid-1947 

Marshall asked troubled European 

nations to draw up a program “directed not against any country or 

doctrine but against hunger, poverty, 

desperation, and chaos.”

The Soviets participated in the 

first planning meeting, then departed rather than share economic data 

and submit to Western controls on 

the expenditure of the aid. The remaining 16 nations hammered out a 

request that finally came to $17,000 

million for a four-year period. In 

early 1948 Congress voted to fund 

the “Marshall Plan,” which helped 

underwrite the economic resurgence of Western Europe. It is generally regarded as one of the most 

successful foreign policy initiatives 

in U.S. history.

Postwar Germany was a special 

problem. It had been divided into 

U.S., Soviet, British, and French 

zones of occupation, with the former German capital of Berlin (itself divided into four zones), near 

the center of the Soviet zone. When 

the Western powers announced 

their intention to create a consolidated federal state from their zones, 

Stalin responded. On June 24, 1948, 

Soviet forces blockaded Berlin, cutting off all road and rail access from 

the West.

American leaders feared that 

losing Berlin would be a prelude to 

losing Germany and subsequently all 

of Europe. Therefore, in a successful 

demonstration of Western resolve 

known as the Berlin Airlift, Allied air 

forces took to the sky, flying supplies 

into Berlin. U.S., French, and British 

planes delivered nearly 2,250,000 

tons of goods, including food and 

coal. Stalin lifted the blockade after 

231 days and 277,264 flights.

By then, Soviet domination of 

Eastern Europe, and especially the 

Czech coup, had alarmed the Western Europeans. The result, initiated 

by the Europeans, was a military alliance to complement economic efforts at containment. The Norwegian 

historian Geir Lundestad has called 

it “empire by invitation.” In 1949 the 

United States and 11 other countries 

established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). An attack 

against one was to be considered an 

attack against all, to be met by appropriate force. NATO was the first 

peacetime “entangling alliance” with 

powers outside the Western hemisphere in American history.

The next year, the United States 

defined its defense aims clearly. The 

National Security Council (NSC) 

— the forum where the President, 

Cabinet officers, and other executive branch members consider national security and foreign affairs 

issues — undertook a full-fledged 

review of American foreign and 

defense policy. The resulting document, known as NSC-68, signaled a 

new direction in American security 

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

263

policy. Based on the assumption that 

“the Soviet Union was engaged in 

a fanatical effort to seize control of 

all governments wherever possible,” 

the document committed America 

to assist allied nations anywhere in 

the world that seemed threatened by 

Soviet aggression. After the start of 

the Korean War, a reluctant Truman 

approved the document. The United 

States proceeded to increase defense 

spending dramatically.

THE COLD WAR IN ASIA AND 

THE MIDDLE EAST

While seeking to prevent Communist ideology from gaining further adherents in Europe, the United 

States also responded to challenges 

elsewhere. In China, Americans 

worried about the advances of Mao 

Zedong and his Communist Party.

During World War II, the Nationalist government under Chiang Kaishek and the Communist forces 

waged a civil war even as they fought 

the Japanese. Chiang had been a 

war-time ally, but his government 

was hopelessly inefficient and corrupt. American policy makers had 

little hope of saving his regime and 

considered Europe vastly more important. With most American aid 

moving across the Atlantic, Mao’s 

forces seized power in 1949. Chiang’s 

government fled to the island of Taiwan. When China’s new ruler announced that he would support the 

Soviet Union against the “imperialist” United States, it appeared that 

Communism was spreading out of 

control, at least in Asia.

The Korean War brought armed 

conflict between the United States 

and China. The United States and 

the Soviet Union had divided Korea along the 38th parallel after liberating it from Japan at the end of 

World War II. Originally a matter 

of military convenience, the dividing line became more rigid as both 

major powers set up governments 

in their respective occupation zones 

and continued to support them even 

after departing.

In June 1950, after consultations 

with and having obtained the assent 

of the Soviet Union, North Korean 

leader Kim Il-sung dispatched his 

Soviet-supplied army across the 38th 

parallel and attacked southward, 

overrunning Seoul. Truman, perceiving the North Koreans as Soviet 

pawns in the global struggle, readied American forces and ordered 

World War II hero General Douglas 

MacArthur to Korea. Meanwhile, 

the United States was able to secure 

a U.N. resolution branding North 

Korea as an aggressor. (The Soviet 

Union, which could have vetoed any 

action had it been occupying its seat 

on the Security Council, was boycotting the United Nations to protest 

a decision not to admit Mao’s new 

Chinese regime.) 

The war seesawed back and forth.

U.S. and Korean forces were initially pushed into an enclave far to the 

south around the city of Pusan. A 

daring amphibious landing at Inchon, the port for the city of Seoul, 

drove the North Koreans back and 
264

threatened to occupy the entire 

peninsula. In November, China 

entered the war, sending massive 

forces across the Yalu River. U.N.

forces, largely American, retreated 

once again in bitter fighting. Commanded by General Matthew B.

Ridgway, they stopped the overextended Chinese, and slowly fought 

their way back to the 38th parallel.

MacArthur meanwhile challenged 

Truman’s authority by attempting 

to orchestrate public support for 

bombing China and assisting an 

invasion of the mainland by Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. In April 1951, 

Truman relieved him of his duties 

and replaced him with Ridgway.

The Cold War stakes were high.

Mindful of the European priority, the U.S. government decided 

against sending more troops to Korea and was ready to settle for the 

prewar status quo. The result was 

frustration among many Americans 

who could not understand the need 

for restraint. Truman’s popularity plunged to a 24-percent approval 

rating, the lowest to that time of any 

president since pollsters had begun 

to measure presidential popularity.

Truce talks began in July 1951. The 

two sides finally reached an agreement in July 1953, during the first 

term of Truman’s successor, Dwight 

Eisenhower.

Cold War struggles also occurred 

in the Middle East. The region’s strategic importance as a supplier of oil 

had provided much of the impetus 

for pushing the Soviets out of Iran in 

1946. But two years later, the United 

States officially recognized the new 

state of Israel 15 minutes after it was 

proclaimed — a decision Truman 

made over strong resistance from 

Marshall and the State Department.

The result was an enduring dilemma 

— how to maintain ties with Israel 

while keeping good relations with 

bitterly anti-Israeli (and oil-rich) 

Arab states.

EISENHOWER AND THE 

COLD WAR

In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Republican president 

in 20 years. A war hero rather than 

a career politician, he had a natural, common touch that made him 

widely popular. “I like Ike” was the 

campaign slogan of the time. After 

serving as Supreme Commander 

of Allied Forces in Western Europe 

during World War II, Eisenhower 

had been army chief of staff, president of Columbia University, and 

military head of NATO before seeking the Republican presidential 

nomination. Skillful at getting people to work together, he functioned 

as a strong public spokesman and 

an executive manager somewhat removed from detailed policy making.

Despite disagreements on detail, 

he shared Truman’s basic view of 

American foreign policy. He, too, 

perceived Communism as a monolithic force struggling for world 

supremacy. In his first inaugural address, he declared, “Forces of good 

and evil are massed and armed and 

opposed as rarely before in history.

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

265

Freedom is pitted against slavery, 

lightness against dark.”

The new president and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had 

argued that containment did not go 

far enough to stop Soviet expansion.

Rather, a more aggressive policy 

of liberation was necessary, to free 

those subjugated by Communism.

But when a democratic rebellion 

broke out in Hungary in 1956, the 

United States stood back as Soviet 

forces suppressed it.

Eisenhower’s basic commitment 

to contain Communism remained, 

and to that end he increased American reliance on a nuclear shield. The 

United States had created the first 

atomic bombs. In 1950 Truman had 

authorized the development of a new 

and more powerful hydrogen bomb.

Eisenhower, fearful that defense 

spending was out of control, reversed Truman’s NSC-68 policy of a 

large conventional military buildup.

Relying on what Dulles called “massive retaliation,” the administration 

signaled it would use nuclear weapons if the nation or its vital interests 

were attacked.

In practice, however, the nuclear 

option could be used only against 

extremely critical attacks. Real 

Communist threats were generally 

peripheral. Eisenhower rejected the 

use of nuclear weapons in Indochina, when the French were ousted by 

Vietnamese Communist forces in 

1954. In 1956, British and French 

forces attacked Egypt following 

Egyptian nationalization of the Suez 

Canal and Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai. The president exerted 

heavy pressure on all three countries 

to withdraw. Still, the nuclear threat 

may have been taken seriously by 

Communist China, which refrained 

not only from attacking Taiwan, but 

from occupying small islands held 

by Nationalist Chinese just off the 

mainland. It may also have deterred 

Soviet occupation of Berlin, which 

reemerged as a festering problem 

during Eisenhower’s last two years 

in office.

THE COLD WAR AT HOME

Not only did the Cold War shape 

U.S. foreign policy, it also had a profound effect on domestic affairs.

Americans had long feared radical subversion. These fears could at 

times be overdrawn, and used to justify otherwise unacceptable political restrictions, but it also was true 

that individuals under Communist 

Party discipline and many “fellow 

traveler” hangers-on gave their political allegiance not to the United 

States, but to the international Communist movement, or, practically 

speaking, to Moscow. During the 

Red Scare of 1919-1920, the government had attempted to remove perceived threats to American society.

After World War II, it made strong 

efforts against Communism within 

the United States. Foreign events, 

espionage scandals, and politics created an anti-Communist hysteria.

When Republicans were victorious in the midterm congressional elections of 1946 and appeared 
266

ready to investigate subversive activity, President Truman established a 

Federal Employee Loyalty Program.

It had little impact on the lives of 

most civil servants, but a few hundred were dismissed, some unfairly.

In 1947 the House Committee 

on Un-American Activities investigated the motion-picture industry 

to determine whether Communist 

sentiments were being reflected in 

popular films. When some writers 

(who happened to be secret members of the Communist Party) refused to testify, they were cited for 

contempt and sent to prison. After 

that, the film companies refused to 

hire anyone with a marginally questionable past.

In 1948, Alger Hiss, who had 

been an assistant secretary of state 

and an adviser to Roosevelt at Yalta, was publicly accused of being 

a Communist spy by Whittaker 

Chambers, a former Soviet agent.

Hiss denied the accusation, but in 

1950 he was convicted of perjury.

Subsequent evidence indicates that 

he was indeed guilty.

In 1949 the Soviet Union shocked 

Americans by testing its own atomic 

bomb. In 1950, the government uncovered a British-American spy network that transferred to the Soviet 

Union materials about the development of the atomic bomb. Two of 

its operatives, Julius Rosenberg and 

his wife Ethel, were sentenced to 

death. Attorney General J. Howard 

McGrath declared there were many 

American Communists, each bearing “the germ of death for society.”

The most vigorous anti-Communist warrior was Senator Joseph R.

McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin. He gained national attention 

in 1950 by claiming that he had a list 

of 205 known Communists in the 

State Department. Though McCarthy subsequently changed this figure 

several times and failed to substantiate any of his charges, he struck a 

responsive public chord.

McCarthy gained power when 

the Republican Party won control 

of the Senate in 1952. As a committee chairman, he now had a forum 

for his crusade. Relying on extensive press and television coverage, 

he continued to search for treachery 

among second-level officials in the 

Eisenhower administration. Enjoying the role of a tough guy doing 

dirty but necessary work, he pursued 

presumed Communists with vigor.

McCarthy overstepped himself 

by challenging the U.S. Army when 

one of his assistants was drafted.

Television brought the hearings into 

millions of homes. Many Americans saw McCarthy’s savage tactics 

for the first time, and public support began to wane. The Republican 

Party, which had found McCarthy 

useful in challenging a Democratic 

administration when Truman was 

president, began to see him as an 

embarrassment. The Senate finally 

condemned him for his conduct.

McCarthy in many ways represented the worst domestic excesses 

of the Cold War. As Americans repudiated him, it became natural 

for many to assume that the ComCHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

267

munist threat at home and abroad 

had been grossly overblown. As the 

country moved into the 1960s, antiCommunism became increasingly 

suspect, especially among intellectuals and opinion-shapers.

THE POSTWAR ECONOMY: 

1945-1960

In the decade and a half after 

World War II, the United States experienced phenomenal economic 

growth and consolidated its position 

as the world’s richest country. Gross 

national product (GNP), a measure 

of all goods and services produced 

in the United States, jumped from 

about $200,000-million in 1940 to 

$300,000-million in 1950 to more 

than $500,000-million in 1960.

More and more Americans now 

considered themselves part of the 

middle class.

The growth had different sources. The economic stimulus provided 

by large-scale public spending for 

World War II helped get it started.

Two basic middle-class needs did 

much to keep it going. The number 

of automobiles produced annually 

quadrupled between 1946 and 1955.

A housing boom, stimulated in part 

by easily affordable mortgages for 

returning servicemen, fueled the 

expansion. The rise in defense 

spending as the Cold War escalated 

also played a part.

After 1945 the major corporations 

in America grew even larger. There 

had been earlier waves of mergers in 

the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the 

1950s another wave occurred. Franchise operations like McDonald’s 

fast-food restaurants allowed small 

entrepreneurs to make themselves 

part of large, efficient enterprises.

Big American corporations also developed holdings overseas, where labor costs were often lower.

Workers found their own lives 

changing as industrial America 

changed. Fewer workers produced 

goods; more provided services. As 

early as 1956 a majority of employees held white-collar jobs, working 

as managers, teachers, salespersons, and office operatives. Some 

firms granted a guaranteed annual 

wage, long-term employment contracts, and other benefits. With such 

changes, labor militancy was undermined and some class distinctions 

began to fade.

Farmers — at least those with 

small operations — faced tough 

times. Gains in productivity led 

to agricultural consolidation, and 

farming became a big business.

More and more family farmers left 

the land.

Other Americans moved too.

The West and the Southwest grew 

with increasing rapidity, a trend that 

would continue through the end 

of the century. Sun Belt cities like 

Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Phoenix, Arizona, expanded rapidly. Los 

Angeles, California, moved ahead of 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the 

third largest U.S. city and then surpassed Chicago, metropolis of the 

Midwest. The 1970 census showed 
268

that California had displaced New 

York as the nation’s largest state.

By 2000, Texas had moved ahead of 

New York into second place.

An even more important form of 

movement led Americans out of inner cities into new suburbs, where 

they hoped to find affordable housing for the larger families spawned 

by the postwar baby boom. Developers like William J. Levitt built new 

communities — with homes that 

all looked alike — using the techniques of mass production. Levitt’s 

houses were prefabricated — partly 

assembled in a factory rather than 

on the final location — and modest, 

but Levitt’s methods cut costs and 

allowed new owners to possess a part 

of the American dream.

As suburbs grew, businesses 

moved into the new areas. Large 

shopping centers containing a great 

variety of stores changed consumer 

patterns. The number of these centers rose from eight at the end of 

World War II to 3,840 in 1960. With 

easy parking and convenient evening hours, customers could avoid 

city shopping entirely. An unfortunate by-product was the “hollowingout” of formerly busy urban cores.

New highways created better access to the suburbs and its shops.

The Highway Act of 1956 provided 

$26,000-million, the largest public 

works expenditure in U.S. history, to 

build more than 64,000 kilometers 

of limited access interstate highways 

to link the country together.

Television, too, had a powerful 

impact on social and economic patterns. Developed in the 1930s, it was 

not widely marketed until after the 

war. In 1946 the country had fewer 

than 17,000 television sets. Three 

years later consumers were buying 

250,000 sets a month, and by 1960 

three-quarters of all families owned 

at least one set. In the middle of the 

decade, the average family watched 

television four to five hours a day.

Popular shows for children included 

Howdy Doody Time and The Mickey 

Mouse Club; older viewers preferred 

situation comedies like I Love Lucy 

and Father Knows Best. Americans of all ages became exposed to 

increasingly sophisticated advertisements for products said to be necessary for the good life.

THE FAIR DEAL

The Fair Deal was the name given 

to President Harry Truman’s domestic program. Building on Roosevelt’s 

New Deal, Truman believed that the 

federal government should guarantee economic opportunity and social 

stability. He struggled to achieve those 

ends in the face of fierce political opposition from legislators determined 

to reduce the role of government.

Truman’s first priority in the 

immediate postwar period was to 

make the transition to a peacetime 

economy. Servicemen wanted to 

come home quickly, but once they 

arrived they faced competition for 

housing and employment. The G.I.

Bill, passed before the end of the war, 

helped ease servicemen back into civilian life by providing benefits such 

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

269

as guaranteed loans for home-buying and financial aid for industrial 

training and university education.

More troubling was labor unrest.

As war production ceased, many 

workers found themselves without 

jobs. Others wanted pay increases 

they felt were long overdue. In 1946, 

4.6 million workers went on strike, 

more than ever before in American 

history. They challenged the automobile, steel, and electrical industries.

When they took on the railroads and 

soft-coal mines, Truman intervened 

to stop union excesses, but in so doing he alienated many workers.

While dealing with immediately 

pressing issues, Truman also provided a broader agenda for action. Less 

than a week after the war ended, he 

presented Congress with a 21-point 

program, which provided for protection against unfair employment 

practices, a higher minimum wage, 

greater unemployment compensation, and housing assistance. In 

the next several months, he added 

proposals for health insurance and 

atomic energy legislation. But this 

scattershot approach often left Truman’s priorities unclear.

Republicans were quick to attack.

In the 1946 congressional elections 

they asked, “Had enough?” and voters responded that they had. Republicans, with majorities in both 

houses of Congress for the first time 

since 1928, were determined to reverse the liberal direction of the 

Roosevelt years.

Truman fought with the Congress 

as it cut spending and reduced taxes.

In 1948 he sought reelection, despite 

polls indicating that he had little 

chance. After a vigorous campaign, 

Truman scored one of the great upsets in American politics, defeating 

the Republican nominee, Thomas 

Dewey, governor of New York. Reviving the old New Deal coalition, 

Truman held on to labor, farmers, 

and African-American voters.

When Truman finally left office in 1953, his Fair Deal was but 

a mixed success. In July 1948 he 

banned racial discrimination in federal government hiring practices and 

ordered an end to segregation in the 

military. The minimum wage had 

risen, and social security programs 

had expanded. A housing program 

brought some gains but left many 

needs unmet. National health insurance, aid-to-education measures, 

reformed agricultural subsidies, and 

his legislative civil rights agenda 

never made it through Congress.

The president’s pursuit of the Cold 

War, ultimately his most important 

objective, made it especially difficult 

to develop support for social reform 

in the face of intense opposition.

EISENHOWER’S APPROACH

When Dwight Eisenhower succeeded Truman as president, he 

accepted the basic framework of government responsibility established 

by the New Deal, but sought to hold 

the line on programs and expenditures. He termed his approach “dynamic conservatism” or “modern 

Republicanism,” which meant, he ex-
270

plained, “conservative when it comes 

to money, liberal when it comes to 

human beings.” A critic countered 

that Eisenhower appeared to argue 

that he would “strongly recommend 

the building of a great many schools 

... but not provide the money.”

Eisenhower’s first priority was 

to balance the budget after years of 

deficits. He wanted to cut spending 

and taxes and maintain the value of 

the dollar. Republicans were willing 

to risk unemployment to keep inflation in check. Reluctant to stimulate 

the economy too much, they saw 

the country suffer three economic 

recessions in the eight years of the 

Eisenhower presidency, but none 

was very severe.

 In other areas, the administration transferred control of offshore 

oil lands from the federal government to the states. It also favored private development of electrical power 

rather than the public approach the 

Democrats had initiated. In general, 

its orientation was sympathetic to 

business.

Compared to Truman, Eisenhower had only a modest domestic program. When he was active 

in promoting a bill, it likely was to 

trim the New Deal legacy a bit — as 

in reducing agricultural subsidies 

or placing mild restrictions on labor unions. His disinclination to 

push fundamental change in either 

direction was in keeping with the 

spirit of the generally prosperous 

Fifties. He was one of the few presidents who left office as popular as 

when he entered it.

THE CULTURE OF THE 1950s

During the 1950s, many cultural commentators pointed out 

that a sense of uniformity pervaded 

American society. Conformity, they 

asserted, was numbingly common.

Though men and women had been 

forced into new employment patterns during World War II, once the 

war was over, traditional roles were 

reaffirmed. Men expected to be the 

breadwinners in each family; women, even when they worked, assumed 

their proper place was at home. In his 

influential book, The Lonely Crowd, 

sociologist David Riesman called 

this new society “other-directed,” 

characterized by conformity, but 

also by stability. Television, still very 

limited in the choices it gave its viewers, contributed to the homogenizing 

cultural trend by providing young 

and old with a shared experience reflecting accepted social patterns.

Yet beneath this seemingly 

bland surface, important segments 

of American society seethed with 

rebellion. A number of writers, 

collectively known as the “Beat Generation,” went out of their way to 

challenge the patterns of respectability and shock the rest of the 

culture. Stressing spontaneity and 

spirituality, they preferred intuition 

over reason, Eastern mysticism over 

Western institutionalized religion.

The literary work of the beats 

displayed their sense of alienation 

and quest for self-realization. Jack 

Kerouac typed his best-selling novel 

On the Road on a 75-meter roll of 

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

271

paper. Lacking traditional punctuation and paragraph structure, the 

book glorified the possibilities of the 

free life. Poet Allen Ginsberg gained 

similar notoriety for his poem 

“Howl,” a scathing critique of modern, mechanized civilization. When 

police charged that it was obscene 

and seized the published version, 

Ginsberg successfully challenged 

the ruling in court.

Musicians and artists rebelled as 

well. Tennessee singer Elvis Presley 

was the most successful of several 

white performers who popularized 

a sensual and pulsating style of African-American music, which began 

to be called “rock and roll.” At first, 

he outraged middle-class Americans with his ducktail haircut and 

undulating hips. But in a few years 

his performances would seem relatively tame alongside the antics of 

later performers such as the British 

Rolling Stones. Similarly, it was in 

the 1950s that painters like Jackson 

Pollock discarded easels and laid out 

gigantic canvases on the floor, then 

applied paint, sand, and other materials in wild splashes of color. All of 

these artists and authors, whatever 

the medium, provided models for 

the wider and more deeply felt social 

revolution of the 1960s.

ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL 

RIGHTS MOVEMENT

African Americans became increasingly restive in the postwar 

years. During the war they had challenged discrimination in the military services and in the work force, 

and they had made limited gains.

Millions of African Americans had 

left Southern farms for Northern cities, where they hoped to find better 

jobs. They found instead crowded 

conditions in urban slums. Now, 

African-American servicemen returned home, many intent on rejecting second-class citizenship.

Jackie Robinson dramatized the 

racial question in 1947 when he 

broke baseball’s color line and began playing in the major leagues. A 

member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, 

he often faced trouble with opponents and teammates as well. But an 

outstanding first season led to his 

acceptance and eased the way for 

other African-American players, 

who now left the Negro leagues to 

which they had been confined.

Government officials, and many 

other Americans, discovered the 

connection between racial problems 

and Cold War politics. As the leader 

of the free world, the United States 

sought support in Africa and Asia.

Discrimination at home impeded 

the effort to win friends in other 

parts of the world.

Harry Truman supported the 

early civil rights movement. He personally believed in political equality, 

though not in social equality, and 

recognized the growing importance 

of the African-American urban vote.

When apprised in 1946 of a spate 

of lynchings and anti-black violence 

in the South, he appointed a committee on civil rights to investigate 

discrimination. Its report, To Secure 
272

These Rights, issued the next year, 

documented African Americans’ 

second-class status in American life 

and recommended numerous federal measures to secure the rights 

guaranteed to all citizens.

Truman responded by sending 

a 10-point civil rights program to 

Congress. Southern Democrats in 

Congress were able to block its enactment. A number of the angriest, 

led by Governor Strom Thurmond 

of South Carolina, formed a States 

Rights Party to oppose the president 

in 1948. Truman thereupon issued 

an executive order barring discrimination in federal employment, ordered equal treatment in the armed 

forces, and appointed a committee 

to work toward an end to military 

segregation, which was largely ended 

during the Korean War.

African Americans in the South 

in the 1950s still enjoyed few, if any, 

civil and political rights. In general, they could not vote. Those who 

tried to register faced the likelihood 

of beatings, loss of job, loss of credit, 

or eviction from their land. Occasional lynchings still occurred. Jim 

Crow laws enforced segregation of 

the races in streetcars, trains, hotels, 

restaurants, hospitals, recreational 

facilities, and employment.

DESEGREGATION

The National Association for the 

Advancement of Colored People 

(NAACP) took the lead in efforts to 

overturn the judicial doctrine, established in the Supreme Court case 

Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, that segregation of African-American and 

white students was constitutional if 

facilities were “separate but equal.” 

That decree had been used for decades to sanction rigid segregation 

in all aspects of Southern life, where 

facilities were seldom, if ever, equal.

African Americans achieved their 

goal of overturning Plessy in 1954 

when the Supreme Court — presided over by an Eisenhower appointee, Chief Justice Earl Warren 

— handed down its Brown v. Board 

of Education ruling. The Court declared unanimously that “separate 

facilities are inherently unequal,” 

and decreed that the “separate but 

equal” doctrine could no longer be 

used in public schools. A year later, 

the Supreme Court demanded that 

local school boards move “with all 

deliberate speed” to implement the 

decision.

Eisenhower, although sympathetic to the needs of the South as it faced 

a major transition, nonetheless acted to see that the law was upheld in 

the face of massive resistance from 

much of the South. He faced a major crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 

1957, when Governor Orval Faubus 

attempted to block a desegregation 

plan calling for the admission of nine 

black students to the city’s previously all-white Central High School.

After futile efforts at negotiation, the 

president sent federal troops to Little 

Rock to enforce the plan.

Governor Faubus responded by 

ordering the Little Rock high schools 

closed down for the 1958-59 school 

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

273

year. However, a federal court 

ordered them reopened the following year. They did so in a tense atmosphere with a tiny number of 

African-American students. Thus, 

school desegregation proceeded at a 

slow and uncertain pace throughout 

much of the South.

Another milestone in the civil 

rights movement occurred in 1955 in 

Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks, 

a 42-year-old African-American 

seamstress who was also secretary 

of the state chapter of the NAACP, 

sat down in the front of a bus in a 

section reserved by law and custom 

for whites. Ordered to move to the 

back, she refused. Police came and 

arrested her for violating the segregation statutes. African-American 

leaders, who had been waiting for 

just such a case, organized a boycott 

of the bus system.

Martin Luther King Jr., a young 

minister of the Baptist church 

where the African Americans met, 

became a spokesman for the protest. “There comes a time,” he said, 

“when people get tired ... of being 

kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression.” King was arrested, as he 

would be again and again; a bomb 

damaged the front of his house. But 

African Americans in Montgomery 

sustained the boycott. About a year 

later, the Supreme Court affirmed 

that bus segregation, like school 

segregation, was unconstitutional.

The boycott ended. The civil rights 

movement had won an important 

victory — and discovered its most 

powerful, thoughtful, and eloquent 

leader in Martin Luther King Jr.

African Americans also sought to 

secure their voting rights. Although 

the 15th Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution guaranteed the right to 

vote, many states had found ways to 

circumvent the law. The states would 

impose a poll (“head”) tax or a literacy test — typically much more 

stringently interpreted for African 

Americans — to prevent poor African Americans with little education 

from voting. Eisenhower, working 

with Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, lent his support to 

a congressional effort to guarantee 

the vote. The Civil Rights Act of 

1957, the first such measure in 82 

years, marked a step forward, as it 

authorized federal intervention in 

cases where African Americans 

were denied the chance to vote. Yet 

loopholes remained, and so activists pushed successfully for the Civil 

Rights Act of 1960, which provided 

stiffer penalties for interfering with 

voting, but still stopped short of authorizing federal officials to register 

African Americans.

Relying on the efforts of African 

Americans themselves, the civil 

rights movement gained momentum in the postwar years. Working 

through the Supreme Court and 

through Congress, civil rights supporters had created the groundwork 

for a dramatic yet peaceful “revolution” in American race relations in 

the 1960s. 9
274
CHAPTER

13

DECADES 

OF 

CHANGE: 

1960-1980

Module Pilot Edwin Aldrin Jr. 

on the moon, July 20, 1969.
276

By 1960, the United States was on 

the verge of a major social change.

American society had always been 

more open and fluid than that of 

the nations in most of the rest of the 

world. Still, it had been dominated 

primarily by old-stock, white males.

During the 1960s, groups that previously had been submerged or subordinate began more forcefully and 

successfully to assert themselves: African Americans, Native Americans, 

women, the white ethnic offspring of 

the “new immigration,” and Latinos.

Much of the support they received 

came from a young population larger than ever, making its way through 

a college and university system that 

was expanding at an unprecedented 

pace. Frequently embracing “countercultural” lifestyles and radical 

politics, many of the offspring of the 

World War II generation emerged as 

advocates of a new America characterized by a cultural and ethnic 

pluralism that their parents often 

viewed with unease.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS 

MOVEMENT 1960-1980

The struggle of African Americans 

for equality reached its peak in the 

mid-1960s. After progressive victories in the 1950s, African Americans became even more committed 

to nonviolent direct action. Groups 

like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), made up 

of African-American clergy, and 

the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), composed 

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980

“I have a dream that one day 

on the red hills of Georgia, 

sons of former slaves and 

the sons of former slave 

owners will be able to sit 

down together at the table 

of brotherhood.”

Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

277

of younger activists, sought reform 

through peaceful confrontation.

In 1960 African-American college students sat down at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in 

North Carolina and refused to leave.

Their sit-in captured media attention and led to similar demonstrations throughout the South. The next 

year, civil rights workers organized 

“freedom rides,” in which African 

Americans and whites boarded buses heading south toward segregated 

terminals, where confrontations 

might capture media attention and 

lead to change.

They also organized rallies, the 

largest of which was the “March on 

Washington” in 1963. More than 

200,000 people gathered in the nation’s capital to demonstrate their 

commitment to equality for all. The 

high point of a day of songs and 

speeches came with the address of 

Martin Luther King Jr., who had 

emerged as the preeminent spokesman for civil rights. “I have a dream 

that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the 

sons of former slave owners will be 

able to sit down together at the table 

of brotherhood,” King proclaimed.

Each time he used the refrain “I have 

a dream,” the crowd roared.

The level of progress initially 

achieved did not match the rhetoric 

of the civil rights movement. President Kennedy was initially reluctant to press white Southerners for 

support on civil rights because he 

needed their votes on other issues.

Events, driven by African Americans 

themselves, forced his hand. When 

James Meredith was denied admission to the University of Mississippi 

in 1962 because of his race, Kennedy 

sent federal troops to uphold the law.

After protests aimed at the desegregation of Birmingham, Alabama, 

prompted a violent response by the 

police, he sent Congress a new civil 

rights bill mandating the integration 

of public places. Not even the March 

on Washington, however, could extricate the measure from a congressional committee, where it was still 

bottled up when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

President Lyndon B. Johnson 

was more successful. Displaying 

negotiating skills he had so frequently employed during his years 

as Senate majority leader, Johnson 

persuaded the Senate to limit delaying tactics preventing a final vote 

on the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 

1964, which outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations.

The next year’s Voting Rights Act 

of 1965 authorized the federal government to register voters where 

local officials had prevented African Americans from doing so. By 

1968 a million African Americans 

were registered in the deep South.

Nationwide, the number of AfricanAmerican elected officials increased 

substantially. In 1968, the Congress 

passed legislation banning discrimination in housing.

Once unleashed, however, the 

civil rights revolution produced 

leaders impatient with both the pace 

of change and the goal of channel-
278

ing African Americans into mainstream white society. Malcolm X, 

an eloquent activist, was the most 

prominent figure arguing for African-American separation from the 

white race. Stokely Carmichael, a 

student leader, became similarly disillusioned by the notions of nonviolence and interracial cooperation.

He popularized the slogan “black 

power,” to be achieved by “whatever 

means necessary,” in the words of 

Malcolm X.

Violence accompanied militant 

calls for reform. Riots broke out in 

several big cities in 1966 and 1967.

In the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. fell before an assassin’s 

bullet. Several months later, Senator 

Robert Kennedy, a spokesman for 

the disadvantaged, an opponent of 

the Vietnam War, and the brother 

of the slain president, met the same 

fate. To many these two assassinations marked the end of an era of innocence and idealism. The growing 

militancy on the left, coupled with 

an inevitable conservative backlash, 

opened a rift in the nation’s psyche 

that took years to heal.

By then, however, a civil rights 

movement supported by court decisions, congressional enactments, 

and federal administrative regulations was irreversibly woven into the 

fabric of American life. The major 

issues were about implementation 

of equality and access, not about the 

legality of segregation or disenfranchisement. The arguments of the 

1970s and thereafter were over matters such as busing children out of 

their neighborhoods to achieve racial balance in metropolitan schools 

or about the use of “affirmative action.” These policies and programs 

were viewed by some as active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as 

in education and employment, and 

by others as reverse discrimination.

The courts worked their way 

through these problems with decisions that were often inconsistent. In 

the meantime, the steady march of 

African Americans into the ranks 

of the middle class and once largely white suburbs quietly reflected a 

profound demographic change.

THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

During the 1950s and 1960s, increasing numbers of married women entered the labor force, but in 

1963 the average working woman 

earned only 63 percent of what a 

man made. That year Betty Friedan 

published The Feminine Mystique, 

an explosive critique of middleclass living patterns that articulated 

a pervasive sense of discontent that 

Friedan contended was felt by many 

women. Arguing that women often 

had no outlets for expression other 

than “finding a husband and bearing children,” Friedan encouraged 

her readers to seek new roles and responsibilities and to find their own 

personal and professional identities, 

rather than have them defined by a 

male-dominated society.

The women’s movement of the 

1960s and 1970s drew inspiration 

from the civil rights movement. It 

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

279

was made up mainly of members of 

the middle class, and thus partook 

of the spirit of rebellion that affected 

large segments of middle-class youth 

in the 1960s.

Reform legislation also prompted 

change. During debate on the 1964 

Civil Rights bill, opponents hoped 

to defeat the entire measure by proposing an amendment to outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender as 

well as race. First the amendment, 

then the bill itself, passed, giving 

women a valuable legal tool.

In 1966, 28 professional women, 

including Friedan, established the 

National Organization for Women (NOW) “to take action to bring 

American women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now.” While NOW and 

similar feminist organizations boast 

of substantial memberships today, 

arguably they attained their greatest 

influence in the early 1970s, a time 

that also saw the journalist Gloria 

Steinem and several other women found Ms. magazine. They also 

spurred the formation of counterfeminist groups, often led by women, 

including most prominently the political activist Phyllis Schlafly. These 

groups typically argued for more 

“traditional” gender roles and opposed the proposed “Equal Rights” 

constitutional amendment.

Passed by Congress in 1972, 

that amendment declared in part, 

“Equality of rights under the law 

shall not be denied or abridged by 

the United States or by any State on 

account of sex.” Over the next several years, 35 of the necessary 38 states 

ratified it. The courts also moved to 

expand women’s rights. In 1973 the 

Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade sanctioned women’s right to obtain an 

abortion during the early months of 

pregnancy — seen as a significant 

victory for the women’s movement 

— but Roe also spurred the growth 

of an anti-abortion movement.

In the mid- to late-1970s, however, the women’s movement seemed 

to stagnate. It failed to broaden its 

appeal beyond the middle class.

Divisions arose between moderate 

and radical feminists. Conservative 

opponents mounted a campaign 

against the Equal Rights Amendment, and it died in 1982 without 

gaining the approval of the 38 states 

needed for ratification.

THE LATINO MOVEMENT

In post-World War II America, 

Americans of Mexican and Puerto 

Rican descent had faced discrimination. New immigrants, coming from 

Cuba, Mexico, and Central America — often unskilled and unable to 

speak English — suffered from discrimination as well. Some Hispanics 

worked as farm laborers and at times 

were cruelly exploited while harvesting crops; others gravitated to the 

cities, where, like earlier immigrant 

groups, they encountered difficulties 

in their quest for a better life.

Chicanos, or Mexican-Americans, mobilized in organizations 

like the radical Asociación Nacional Mexico-Americana, yet did 
280

not become confrontational until the 1960s. Hoping that Lyndon 

Johnson’s poverty program would 

expand opportunities for them, 

they found that bureaucrats failed 

to respond to less vocal groups.

The example of black activism in 

particular taught Hispanics the importance of pressure politics in a 

pluralistic society.

The National Labor Relations Act 

of 1935 had excluded agricultural 

workers from its guarantee of the 

right to organize and bargain collectively. But César Chávez, founder of the overwhelmingly Hispanic 

United Farm Workers, demonstrated that direct action could achieve 

employer recognition for his union.

California grape growers agreed to 

bargain with the union after Chávez 

led a nationwide consumer boycott. Similar boycotts of lettuce and 

other products were also successful.

Though farm interests continued to 

try to obstruct Chávez’s organization, the legal foundation had been 

laid for representation to secure 

higher wages and improved working 

conditions.

Hispanics became politically active as well. In 1961 Henry B.

González won election to Congress 

from Texas. Three years later Eligio 

(“Kika”) de la Garza, another Texan, 

followed him, and Joseph Montoya 

of New Mexico went to the Senate. Both González and de la Garza 

later rose to positions of power as 

committee chairmen in the House.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of 

Hispanic political involvement increased. Several prominent Hispanics have served in the Bill Clinton 

and George W. Bush cabinets.

THE NATIVE-AMERICAN 

MOVEMENT

In the 1950s, Native Americans 

struggled with the government’s policy of moving them off reservations 

and into cities where they might assimilate into mainstream America.

Many of the uprooted often had difficulties adjusting to urban life. In 

1961, when the policy was discontinued, the U.S. Commission on Civil 

Rights noted that, for Native Americans, “poverty and deprivation are 

common.” 

In the 1960s and 1970s, watching both the development of Third 

World nationalism and the progress 

of the civil rights movement, Native 

Americans became more aggressive 

in pressing for their own rights. A 

new generation of leaders went to 

court to protect what was left of tribal 

lands or to recover those which had 

been taken, often illegally, in previous times. In state after state, they 

challenged treaty violations, and in 

1967 won the first of many victories 

guaranteeing long-abused land and 

water rights. The American Indian 

Movement (AIM), founded in 1968, 

helped channel government funds to 

Native-American-controlled organizations and assisted neglected Native 

Americans in the cities.

Confrontations became more 

common. In 1969 a landing party 

of 78 Native Americans seized AlcaCHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

281

traz Island in San Francisco Bay and 

held it until federal officials removed 

them in 1971. In 1973 AIM took over 

the South Dakota village of Wounded Knee, where soldiers in the late 

19th century had massacred a Sioux 

encampment. Militants hoped to 

dramatize the poverty and alcoholism in the reservation surrounding 

the town. The episode ended after 

one Native American was killed and 

another wounded, with a government agreement to re-examine treaty rights.

Still, Native-American activism brought results. Other Americans became more aware of 

Native-American needs. Government officials responded with 

measures including the Education 

Assistance Act of 1975 and the 1996 

Native-American Housing and SelfDetermination Act. The Senate’s 

first Native-American member, Ben 

Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, 

was elected in 1992.

THE COUNTERCULTURE

The agitation for equal opportunity sparked other forms of upheaval.

Young people in particular rejected 

the stable patterns of middle-class 

life their parents had created in the 

decades after World War II. Some 

plunged into radical political activity; many more embraced new standards of dress and sexual behavior.

The visible signs of the counterculture spread through parts of 

American society in the late 1960s 

and early 1970s. Hair grew longer and beards became common.

Blue jeans and tee shirts took the 

place of slacks, jackets, and ties.

The use of illegal drugs increased.

Rock and roll grew, proliferated, 

and transformed into many musical variations. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and other British groups 

took the country by storm. “Hard 

rock” grew popular, and songs with 

a political or social commentary, 

such as those by singer-songwriter 

Bob Dylan, became common. The 

youth counterculture reached its 

apogee in August 1969 at Woodstock, a three-day music festival in 

rural New York State attended by 

almost half-a-million persons. The 

festival, mythologized in films and 

record albums, gave its name to the 

era, the Woodstock Generation.

A parallel manifestation of the 

new sensibility of the young was 

the rise of the New Left, a group of 

young, college-age radicals. The New 

Leftists, who had close counterparts 

in Western Europe, were in many instances the children of the older generation of radicals. Nonetheless, they 

rejected old-style Marxist rhetoric.

Instead, they depicted university 

students as themselves an oppressed 

class that possessed special insights 

into the struggle of other oppressed 

groups in American society.

New Leftists participated in the 

civil rights movement and the struggle against poverty. Their greatest 

success — and the one instance in 

which they developed a mass following — was in opposing the Vietnam 

War, an issue of emotional interest 
282

to their draft-age contemporaries.

By the late 1970s, the student New 

Left had disappeared, but many of its 

activists made their way into mainstream politics.

ENVIRONMENTALISM

The energy and sensibility that fueled the civil rights movement, the 

counterculture, and the New Left 

also stimulated an environmental 

movement in the mid-1960s. Many 

were aroused by the publication in 

1962 of Rachel Carson’s book Silent 

Spring, which alleged that chemical 

pesticides, particularly DDT, caused 

cancer, among other ills. Public 

concern about the environment 

continued to increase throughout 

the 1960s as many became aware of 

other pollutants surrounding them 

— automobile emissions, industrial 

wastes, oil spills — that threatened 

their health and the beauty of their 

surroundings. On April 22, 1970, 

schools and communities across the 

United States celebrated Earth Day 

for the first time. “Teach-ins” educated Americans about the dangers 

of environmental pollution.

Few denied that pollution was a 

problem, but the proposed solutions 

involved expense and inconvenience. Many believed these would 

reduce the economic growth upon 

which many Americans’ standard 

of living depended. Nevertheless, in 

1970, Congress amended the Clean 

Air Act of 1967 to develop uniform 

national air-quality standards. It 

also passed the Water Quality Improvement Act, which assigned to 

the polluter the responsibility of 

cleaning up off-shore oil spills. Also, 

in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created as 

an independent federal agency to 

spearhead the effort to bring abuses under control. During the next 

three decades, the EPA, bolstered by 

legislation that increased its authority, became one of the most active 

agencies in the government, issuing 

strong regulations covering air and 

water quality.

KENNEDY AND THE 

RESURGENCE OF BIG 

GOVERNMENT LIBERALISM

By 1960 government had become 

an increasingly powerful force in 

people’s lives. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, new executive agencies were created to deal 

with many aspects of American life.

During World War II, the number 

of civilians employed by the federal government rose from one million to 3.8 million, then stabilized 

at 2.5 million in the 1950s. Federal 

expenditures, which had stood at 

$3,100-million in 1929, increased to 

$75,000-million in 1953 and passed 

$150,000-million in the 1960s.

Most Americans accepted government’s expanded role, even 

as they disagreed about how far 

that expansion should continue.

Democrats generally wanted the 

government to ensure growth and 

stability. They wanted to extend 

federal benefits for education, health, 

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

283

and welfare. Many Republicans 

accepted a level of government 

responsibility, but hoped to cap 

spending and restore a larger 

measure of individual initiative. The 

presidential election of 1960 revealed 

a nation almost evenly divided 

between these visions.

John F. Kennedy, the Democratic 

victor by a narrow margin, was at 

43 the youngest man ever to win the 

presidency. On television, in a series 

of debates with opponent Richard 

Nixon, he appeared able, articulate, 

and energetic. In the campaign, he 

spoke of moving aggressively into 

the new decade, for “the New Frontier is here whether we seek it or 

not.” In his first inaugural address, 

he concluded with an eloquent plea: 

“Ask not what your country can do 

for you — ask what you can do for 

your country.” Throughout his brief 

presidency, Kennedy’s special combination of grace, wit, and style — 

far more than his specific legislative 

agenda — sustained his popularity 

and influenced generations of politicians to come.

Kennedy wanted to exert strong 

leadership to extend economic benefits to all citizens, but a razor-thin 

margin of victory limited his mandate. Even though the Democratic Party controlled both houses of 

Congress, conservative Southern 

Democrats often sided with the Republicans on issues involving the 

scope of governmental intervention 

in the economy. They resisted plans 

to increase federal aid to education, 

provide health insurance for the elderly, and create a new Department 

of Urban Affairs. And so, despite 

his lofty rhetoric, Kennedy’s policies 

were often limited and restrained.

One priority was to end the recession, in progress when Kennedy took 

office, and restore economic growth.

But Kennedy lost the confidence of 

business leaders in 1962, when he 

succeeded in rolling back what the 

administration regarded as an excessive price increase in the steel industry. Though the president achieved 

his immediate goal, he alienated an 

important source of support. Persuaded by his economic advisers that 

a large tax cut would stimulate the 

economy, Kennedy backed a bill providing for one. Conservative opposition in Congress, however, appeared 

to destroy any hopes of passing a bill 

most congressmen thought would 

widen the budget deficit.

The overall legislative record of the 

Kennedy administration was meager.

The president made some gestures 

toward civil rights leaders but did not 

embrace the goals of the civil rights 

movement until demonstrations led 

by Martin Luther King Jr. forced 

his hand in 1963. Like Truman 

before him, he could not secure 

congressional passage of federal aid 

to public education or for a medical 

care program limited to the elderly.

He gained only a modest increase 

in the minimum wage. Still, he did 

secure funding for a space program, 

and established the Peace Corps to 

send men and women overseas to 

assist developing countries in meeting 

their own needs.
284

KENNEDY AND THE 

COLD WAR

President Kennedy came into office pledging to carry on the Cold 

War vigorously, but he also hoped 

for accommodation and was reluctant to commit American power.

During his first year-and-a-half 

in office, he rejected American intervention after the CIA-guided 

Cuban exile invasion at the Bay of 

Pigs failed, effectively ceded the 

landlocked Southeast Asian nation 

of Laos to Communist control, and 

acquiesced in the building of the 

Berlin Wall. Kennedy’s decisions 

reinforced impressions of weakness 

that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had formed in their only personal meeting, a summit meeting at 

Vienna in June 1961.

It was against this backdrop that 

Kennedy faced the most serious 

event of the Cold War, the Cuban 

missile crisis.

In the fall of 1962, the administration learned that the Soviet Union 

was secretly installing offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba. After considering different options, Kennedy 

decided on a quarantine to prevent 

Soviet ships from bringing additional supplies to Cuba. He demanded 

publicly that the Soviets remove the 

weapons and warned that an attack 

from that island would bring retaliation against the USSR. After several days of tension, during which the 

world was closer than ever before to 

nuclear war, the Soviets agreed to 

remove the missiles. Critics charged 

that Kennedy had risked nuclear disaster when quiet diplomacy might 

have been effective. But most Americans and much of the non-Communist world applauded his decisiveness.

The missile crisis made him for the 

first time the acknowledged leader of 

the democratic West.

In retrospect, the Cuban missile crisis marked a turning point 

in U.S.-Soviet relations. Both sides 

saw the need to defuse tensions that 

could lead to direct military conflict. The following year, the United 

States, the Soviet Union, and Great 

Britain signed a landmark Limited 

Test Ban Treaty prohibiting nuclear 

weapons tests in the atmosphere.

Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), a French possession before 

World War II, was still another Cold 

War battlefield. The French effort to 

reassert colonial control there was 

opposed by Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese Communist, whose Viet 

Minh movement engaged in a guerrilla war with the French army.

Both Truman and Eisenhower, 

eager to maintain French support for 

the policy of containment in Europe, 

provided France with economic aid 

that freed resources for the struggle 

in Vietnam. But the French suffered 

a decisive defeat in Dien Bien Phu in 

May 1954. At an international conference in Geneva, Laos and Cambodia 

were given their independence. Vietnam was divided, with Ho in power 

in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem, a 

Roman Catholic anti-Communist in 

a largely Buddhist population, heading the government in the South.

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

285

Elections were to be held two years 

later to unify the country. Persuaded 

that the fall of Vietnam could lead to 

the fall of Burma, Thailand, and Indonesia, Eisenhower backed Diem’s 

refusal to hold elections in 1956 and 

effectively established South Vietnam as an American client state.

Kennedy increased assistance, 

and sent small numbers of military 

advisers, but a new guerrilla struggle between North and South continued. Diem’s unpopularity grew 

and the military situation worsened. In late 1963, Kennedy secretly 

assented to a coup d’etat. To the 

president’s surprise, Diem and his 

powerful brother-in-law, Ngo Dien 

Nu, were killed. It was at this uncertain juncture that Kennedy’s presidency ended three weeks later.

THE SPACE PROGRAM

During Eisenhower’s second 

term, outer space had become an 

arena for U.S.-Soviet competition.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched 

Sputnik — an artificial satellite — 

thereby demonstrating it could 

build more powerful rockets than 

the United States. The United States 

launched its first satellite, Explorer I, 

in 1958. But three months after Kennedy became president, the USSR 

put the first man in orbit. Kennedy 

responded by committing the United States to land a man on the moon 

and bring him back “before this decade is out.” With Project Mercury 

in 1962, John Glenn became the first 

U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth.

After Kennedy’s death, President 

Lyndon Johnson enthusiastically 

supported the space program. In 

the mid-1960s, U.S. scientists developed the two-person Gemini spacecraft. Gemini achieved several firsts, 

including an eight-day mission in 

August 1965 — the longest space 

flight at that time — and in November 1966, the first automatically 

controlled reentry into the Earth’s 

atmosphere. Gemini also accomplished the first manned linkup of 

two spacecraft in flight as well as the 

first U.S. walks in space.

 The three-person Apollo spacecraft achieved Kennedy’s goal and 

demonstrated to the world that the 

United States had surpassed Soviet 

capabilities in space. On July 20, 

1969, with hundreds of millions of 

television viewers watching around 

the world, Neil Armstrong became 

the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.

Other Apollo flights followed, but 

many Americans began to question 

the value of manned space flight. In 

the early 1970s, as other priorities 

became more pressing, the United 

States scaled down the space program. Some Apollo missions were 

scrapped; only one of two proposed 

Skylab space stations was built.

DEATH OF A PRESIDENT

John Kennedy had gained world 

prestige by his management of the 

Cuban missile crisis and had won 

great popularity at home. Many believed he would win re-election eas-
286

ily in 1964. But on November 22, 

1963, he was assassinated while riding in an open car during a visit to 

Dallas, Texas. His death, amplified 

by television coverage, was a traumatic event, just as Roosevelt’s had 

been 18 years earlier.

In retrospect, it is clear that Kennedy’s reputation stems more from 

his style and eloquently stated ideals 

than from the implementation of his 

policies. He had laid out an impressive agenda but at his death much remained blocked in Congress. It was 

largely because of the political skill 

and legislative victories of his successor that Kennedy would be seen 

as a force for progressive change.

LYNDON JOHNSON AND 

THE GREAT SOCIETY

Lyndon Johnson, a Texan who was 

majority leader in the Senate before 

becoming Kennedy’s vice president, 

was a masterful politician. He had 

been schooled in Congress, where 

he developed an extraordinary ability to get things done. He excelled 

at pleading, cajoling, or threatening 

as necessary to achieve his ends. His 

liberal idealism was probably deeper than Kennedy’s. As president, he 

wanted to use his power aggressively 

to eliminate poverty and spread the 

benefits of prosperity to all.

Johnson took office determined 

to secure the passage of Kennedy’s 

legislative agenda. His immediate 

priorities were his predecessor’s bills 

to reduce taxes and guarantee civil 

rights. Using his skills of persuasion 

and calling on the legislators’ respect 

for the slain president, Johnson succeeded in gaining passage of both 

during his first year in office. The 

tax cuts stimulated the economy.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the 

most far-reaching such legislation 

since Reconstruction.

Johnson addressed other issues as 

well. By the spring of 1964, he had 

begun to use the name “Great Society” to describe his socio-economic 

program. That summer he secured 

passage of a federal jobs program for 

impoverished young people. It was 

the first step in what he called the 

“War on Poverty.” In the presidential election that November, he won 

a landslide victory over conservative 

Republican Barry Goldwater. Significantly, the 1964 election gave liberal 

Democrats firm control of Congress 

for the first time since 1938. This 

would enable them to pass legislation over the combined opposition 

of Republicans and conservative 

Southern Democrats.

The War on Poverty became the 

centerpiece of the administration’s 

Great Society program. The Office 

of Economic Opportunity, established in 1964, provided training 

for the poor and established various community-action agencies, 

guided by an ethic of “participatory 

democracy” that aimed to give the 

poor themselves a voice in housing, 

health, and education programs.

Medical care came next. Under 

Johnson’s leadership, Congress enacted Medicare, a health insurance 

program for the elderly, and MedCHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

287

icaid, a program providing healthcare assistance for the poor.

Johnson succeeded in the effort 

to provide more federal aid for elementary and secondary schooling, 

traditionally a state and local function. The measure that was enacted 

gave money to the states based on 

the number of their children from 

low-income families. Funds could 

be used to assist public- and privateschool children alike.

Convinced the United States confronted an “urban crisis” characterized by declining inner cities, the 

Great Society architects devised a 

new housing act that provided rent 

supplements for the poor and established a Department of Housing and 

Urban Development.

Other legislation had an impact on many aspects of American 

life. Federal assistance went to artists and scholars to encourage their 

work. In September 1966, Johnson 

signed into law two transportation 

bills. The first provided funds to 

state and local governments for developing safety programs, while the 

other set up federal safety standards 

for cars and tires. The latter program 

reflected the efforts of a crusading 

young radical, Ralph Nader. In his 

1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The 

Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, Nader argued that 

automobile manufacturers were sacrificing safety features for style, and 

charged that faulty engineering contributed to highway fatalities.

In 1965, Congress abolished the 

discriminatory 1924 national-origin 

immigration quotas. This triggered 

a new wave of immigration, much 

of it from South and East Asia and 

Latin America.

The Great Society was the largest burst of legislative activity since 

the New Deal. But support weakened 

as early as 1966. Some of Johnson’s 

programs did not live up to expectations; many went underfunded. The 

urban crisis seemed, if anything, to 

worsen. Still, whether because of the 

Great Society spending or because of 

a strong economic upsurge, poverty 

did decline at least marginally during the Johnson administration.

THE WAR IN VIETNAM

Dissatisfaction with the Great Society came to be more than matched 

by unhappiness with the situation in 

Vietnam. A series of South Vietnamese strong men proved little 

more successful than Diem in mobilizing their country. The Viet Cong, 

insurgents supplied and coordinated 

from North Vietnam, gained ground 

in the countryside.

Determined to halt Communist 

advances in South Vietnam, Johnson 

made the Vietnam War his own. After a North Vietnamese naval attack 

on two American destroyers, Johnson won from Congress on August 7, 

1964, passage of the Gulf of Tonkin 

Resolution, which allowed the president to “take all necessary measures 

to repel any armed attack against 

the forces of the United States and 

to prevent further aggression.” After 

his re-election in November 1964, he 
288

embarked on a policy of escalation.

From 25,000 troops at the start of 

1965, the number of soldiers — both 

volunteers and draftees — rose to 

500,000 by 1968. A bombing campaign wrought havoc in both North 

and South Vietnam.

Grisly television coverage with a 

critical edge dampened support for 

the war. Some Americans thought it 

immoral; others watched in dismay 

as the massive military campaign 

seemed to be ineffective. Large protests, especially among the young, 

and a mounting general public dissatisfaction pressured Johnson to begin negotiating for peace.

THE ELECTION OF 1968

By 1968 the country was in turmoil over both the Vietnam War 

and civil disorder, expressed in urban riots that reflected AfricanAmerican anger. On March 31, 1968, 

the president renounced any intention of seeking another term. Just 

a week later, Martin Luther King 

Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, 

Tennessee. John Kennedy’s younger 

brother, Robert, made an emotional 

anti-war campaign for the Democratic nomination, only to be assassinated in June.

At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, protesters fought street battles with police.

A divided Democratic Party nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, once the hero of the liberals 

but now seen as a Johnson loyalist. White opposition to the civil 

rights measures of the 1960s galvanized the third-party candidacy of 

Alabama Governor George Wallace, a Democrat who captured his 

home state, Mississippi, and Arkansas, Louisiana, and Georgia, states 

typically carried in that era by the 

Democratic nominee. Republican 

Richard Nixon, who ran on a plan to 

extricate the United States from the 

war and to increase “law and order” 

at home, scored a narrow victory.

NIXON, VIETNAM, AND THE 

COLD WAR

Determined to achieve “peace 

with honor,” Nixon slowly withdrew 

American troops while redoubling 

efforts to equip the South Vietnamese army to carry on the fight. He 

also ordered strong American offensive actions. The most important of 

these was an invasion of Cambodia 

in 1970 to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines to South Vietnam.

This led to another round of protests 

and demonstrations. Students in 

many universities took to the streets.

At Kent State in Ohio, the National 

Guard troops who had been called in 

to restore order panicked and killed 

four students.

By the fall of 1972, however, 

troop strength in Vietnam was below 50,000 and the military draft, 

which had caused so much campus discontent, was all but dead. A 

cease-fire, negotiated for the United 

States by Nixon’s national security 

adviser, Henry Kissinger, was signed 

in 1973. Although American troops 

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

289

departed, the war lingered on into 

the spring of 1975, when Congress 

cut off assistance to South Vietnam 

and North Vietnam consolidated its 

control over the entire country.

The war left Vietnam devastated, 

with millions maimed or killed. It 

also left the United States traumatized. The nation had spent over 

$150,000-million in a losing effort 

that cost more than 58,000 American lives. Americans were no longer 

united by a widely held Cold War 

consensus, and became wary of further foreign entanglements.

Yet as Vietnam wound down, 

the Nixon administration took historic steps toward closer ties with 

the major Communist powers. The 

most dramatic move was a new relationship with the People’s Republic 

of China. In the two decades since 

Mao Zedong’s victory, the United 

States had argued that the Nationalist government on Taiwan represented all of China. In 1971 and 

1972, Nixon softened the American 

stance, eased trading restrictions, 

and became the first U.S. president 

ever to visit Beijing. The “Shanghai 

Communique” signed during that 

visit established a new U.S. policy: 

that there was one China, that Taiwan was a part of China, and that a 

peaceful settlement of the dispute of 

the question by the Chinese themselves was a U.S. interest.

With the Soviet Union, Nixon was 

equally successful in pursuing the 

policy he and his Secretary of State 

Henry Kissinger called détente. He 

held several cordial meetings with 

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 

which they agreed to limit stockpiles 

of missiles, cooperate in space, and 

ease trading restrictions. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) 

culminated in 1972 in an arms control agreement limiting the growth 

of nuclear arsenals and restricting 

anti-ballistic missile systems.

NIXON’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

AND DEFEATS

Vice president under Eisenhower 

before his unsuccessful run for the 

presidency in 1960, Nixon was seen 

as among the shrewdest of American politicians. Although Nixon 

subscribed to the Republican value 

of fiscal responsibility, he accepted 

a need for government’s expanded 

role and did not oppose the basic contours of the welfare state.

He simply wanted to manage its 

programs better. Not opposed to 

African-American civil rights on 

principle, he was wary of large 

federal civil rights bureaucracies.

Nonetheless, his administration 

vigorously enforced court orders 

on school desegregation even as it 

courted Southern white voters.

Perhaps his biggest domestic 

problem was the economy. He inherited both a slowdown from its 

Vietnam peak under Johnson, and 

a continuing inflationary surge that 

had been a by-product of the war. He 

dealt with the first by becoming the 

first Republican president to endorse 

deficit spending as a way to stimulate the economy; the second by 
290

imposing wage and price controls, 

a policy in which the Right had no 

long-term faith, in 1971. In the short 

run, these decisions stabilized the 

economy and established favorable 

conditions for Nixon’s re-election in 

1972. He won an overwhelming victory over peace-minded Democratic 

Senator George McGovern.

Things began to sour very quickly into the president’s second term.

Very early on, he faced charges that 

his re-election committee had managed a break-in at the Watergate 

building headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and that 

he had participated in a cover-up.

Special prosecutors and congressional committees dogged his presidency thereafter.

Factors beyond Nixon’s control 

undermined his economic policies.

In 1973 the war between Israel and 

Egypt and Syria prompted Saudi 

Arabia to embargo oil shipments to 

Israel’s ally, the United States. Other 

member nations of the Organization 

of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quadrupled their prices. Americans faced both shortages, 

exacerbated in the view of many by 

over-regulation of distribution, and 

rapidly rising prices. Even when the 

embargo ended the next year, prices 

remained high and affected all areas 

of American economic life: In 1974, 

inflation reached 12 percent, causing 

disruptions that led to even higher 

unemployment rates. The unprecedented economic boom America 

had enjoyed since 1948 was grinding 

to a halt.

Nixon’s rhetoric about the need 

for “law and order” in the face of rising crime rates, increased drug use, 

and more permissive views about 

sex resonated with more Americans 

than not. But this concern was insufficient to quell concerns about 

the Watergate break-in and the 

economy. Seeking to energize and 

enlarge his own political constituency, Nixon lashed out at demonstrators, attacked the press for distorted 

coverage, and sought to silence his 

opponents. Instead, he left an unfavorable impression with many who 

saw him on television and perceived 

him as unstable. Adding to Nixon’s troubles, Vice President Spiro 

Agnew, his outspoken point man 

against the media and liberals, was 

forced to resign in 1973, pleading 

“no contest” to a criminal charge of 

tax evasion.

Nixon probably had not known 

in advance of the Watergate burglary, but he had tried to cover it up, 

and had lied to the American people 

about it. Evidence of his involvement mounted. On July 27, 1974, the 

House Judiciary Committee voted 

to recommend his impeachment.

Facing certain ouster from office, he 

resigned on August 9, 1974.

THE FORD INTERLUDE

Nixon’s vice president, Gerald 

Ford (appointed to replace Agnew), 

was an unpretentious man who had 

spent most of his public life in Congress. His first priority was to restore 

trust in the government. However, 

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

291

feeling it necessary to head off the 

spectacle of a possible prosecution of 

Nixon, he issued a blanket pardon to 

his predecessor. Although it was perhaps necessary, the move was nonetheless unpopular.

In public policy, Ford followed 

the course Nixon had set. Economic 

problems remained serious, as inflation and unemployment continued 

to rise. Ford first tried to reassure 

the public, much as Herbert Hoover 

had done in 1929. When that failed, 

he imposed measures to curb inflation, which sent unemployment 

above 8 percent. A tax cut, coupled 

with higher unemployment benefits, helped a bit but the economy 

remained weak.

In foreign policy, Ford adopted 

Nixon’s strategy of détente. Perhaps 

its major manifestation was the 

Helsinki Accords of 1975, in which 

the United States and Western European nations effectively recognized 

Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe 

in return for Soviet affirmation 

of human rights. The agreement 

had little immediate significance, 

but over the long run may have 

made maintenance of the Soviet empire more difficult. Western 

nations effectively used periodic 

“Helsinki review meetings” to call 

attention to various abuses of human rights by Communist regimes 

of the Eastern bloc.

THE CARTER YEARS

Jimmy Carter, former Democratic 

governor of Georgia, won the presidency in 1976. Portraying himself 

during the campaign as an outsider 

to Washington politics, he promised 

a fresh approach to governing, but 

his lack of experience at the national 

level complicated his tenure from the 

start. A naval officer and engineer by 

training, he often appeared to be a 

technocrat, when Americans wanted someone more visionary to lead 

them through troubled times.

In economic affairs, Carter at 

first permitted a policy of deficit spending. Inflation rose to 

10 percent a year when the Federal 

Reserve Board, responsible for setting monetary policy, increased 

the money supply to cover deficits.

Carter responded by cutting the 

budget, but cuts affected social programs at the heart of Democratic 

domestic policy. In mid-1979, anger 

in the financial community practically forced him to appoint Paul 

Volcker as chairman of the Federal 

Reserve. Volcker was an “inflation 

hawk” who increased interest rates 

in an attempt to halt price increases, 

at the cost of negative consequences 

for the economy.

Carter also faced criticism for his 

failure to secure passage of an effective energy policy. He presented 

a comprehensive program, aimed 

at reducing dependence on foreign 

oil, that he called the “moral equivalent of war.” Opponents thwarted 

it in Congress.

Though Carter called himself a 

populist, his political priorities were 

never wholly clear. He endorsed 

government’s protective role, but 
then began the process of deregulation, the removal of governmental controls in economic life.

Arguing that some restrictions over 

the course of the past century limited competition and increased consumer costs, he favored decontrol in 

the oil, airline, railroad, and trucking industries.

Carter’s political efforts failed to 

gain either public or congressional 

support. By the end of his term, his 

disapproval rating reached 77 percent, and Americans began to look 

toward the Republican Party again.

Carter’s greatest foreign policy 

accomplishment was the negotiation 

of a peace settlement between Egypt, 

under President Anwar al-Sadat, and 

Israel, under Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Acting as both mediator and participant, he persuaded 

the two leaders to end a 30-year state 

of war. The subsequent peace treaty 

was signed at the White House in 

March 1979.

After protracted and often emotional debate, Carter also secured 

Senate ratification of treaties ceding the Panama Canal to Panama by 

the year 2000. Going a step farther 

than Nixon, he extended formal diplomatic recognition to the People’s 

Republic of China.

But Carter enjoyed less success 

with the Soviet Union. Though he 

assumed office with détente at high 

tide and declared that the United 

States had escaped its “inordinate 

fear of Communism,” his insistence 

that “our commitment to human 

rights must be absolute” antagonized 

the Soviet government. A SALT II 

agreement further limiting nuclear 

stockpiles was signed, but not ratified by the U.S. Senate, many of 

whose members felt the treaty was 

unbalanced. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan killed the treaty 

and triggered a Carter defense buildup that paved the way for the huge 

expenditures of the 1980s.

Carter’s most serious foreign policy challenge came in Iran. After an 

Islamic fundamentalist revolution 

led by Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini replaced a 

corrupt but friendly regime, Carter 

admitted the deposed shah to the 

United States for medical treatment.

Angry Iranian militants, supported 

by the Islamic regime, seized the 

American embassy in Tehran and 

held 53 American hostages for more 

than a year. The long-running hostage crisis dominated the final year 

of his presidency and greatly damaged his chances for re-election. 9

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980

292
293

The first years of the new century unleashed a new threat to 

peace and democracy: international terrorist attacks that killed and 

maimed thousands in the United States and around the world. 

Just as it has with earlier dangers, the United States took up this 

formidable challenge in unison with its allies. At the same time, 

it coped with changes sparked by globalization, fast-paced 

technological developments, and new waves of immigration that 

have made American society more diverse than in the past. 

The country sought to build upon the achievements of its history, 

and to honor those who have sacrificed for its cause.

A PICTURE PROFILE

The digital revolution of the past decade has transformed 

the economy and the way Americans live, influencing work; 

interactions with colleagues, family, and friends; access to 

information; even shopping and leisure-time habits.

21STCENTURY

NATION
294

Malalai Joya, one of 

about 100 women 

delegates to the 

constitutional council 

in Afghanistan, speaks 

to the council in Kabul, 

December 17, 2003. 

Afghanistan has its first 

democratically elected 

government as a result 

of the U.S., allied, and 

Northern Alliance 

military action in 2001 

that toppled the Taliban 

for sheltering Osama bin 

Laden, mastermind of 

the September 11, 2001, 

terrorist attacks against 

the United States.
President George W. Bush 

(center) meets with British 

Prime Minister Tony Blair 

(left), National Security 

Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 

and Secretary of State Colin 

Powell (right) at the White 

House during his first term. 

Great Britain has been a key 

U.S. ally in the fight against 

terrorism.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wave goodbye from 

Gardermoen Airport outside Oslo, Norway. President Obama was in Oslo to 

receive the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2009.

295
296

Top, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates talks with Antwoinette Hayes, a participant 

in a Microsoft initiative to provide technology access to children and teens. 

Above, Apple founder and chief executive officer Steve Jobs with his 

company’s iPod mini. Gates and Jobs are seen as the most powerful symbols of 

the creative and commercial talent that shaped the digital era.
Cable News Network (CNN) report from Moscow: The combination of hundreds 

of cable television channels and 24-hour news services like CNN gives an 

unprecedented impact and immediacy to news developments around the world.

Combine youth, rock and hip hop music, and 24-hour television, and you get MTV, 

a television network whose influence extends beyond music videos to fashion, 

advertising, and sales.
298

Bales of sorted recyclables are stacked for processing 

at the Rumpke recycling center in Columbus, Ohio. 

Growing environmental consciousness in the United 

States has led to huge recycling efforts for materials 

such as glass, paper, steel, and aluminum.
299

The massive AIDS quilt, with each square commemorating an individual who 

has died of the disease. The United States is a leading contributor to the 

fight against this global pandemic.
300

Americans’ love affair with the automobile continues, resulting 

in increased traffic congestion as well as considerable efforts by 

government and industry to reduce air pollution.

302

Iraqis queuing to vote for a Transitional National Assembly at a polling station in the 

center of Az Zubayr, Iraq, January 30, 2005. More than 8.5 million Iraqis braved 

threats of violence and terrorist attacks to participate in the elections. The vote 

followed the 2003 war, led by the United States and other coalition members, which 

rid Iraq of dictator Saddam Hussein.
303

A new generation peers into its future.

With husbands and wives in the typical family both working outside the home, 

daycare centers for children are commonplace throughout the United States.
304
CHAPTER

14

THE

NEW

CONSERVATISM

AND 

A 

NEW 

WORLD 

ORDER

President Ronald Reagan 

and USSR President 

Mikhail Gorbachev after 

signing the Intermediate–

Range Nuclear Forces 

(INF) Treaty, December 

1987.
306

A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION 

Shifts in the structure of American society, begun years or even decades earlier, had become apparent 

by the time the 1980s arrived. The 

composition of the population and 

the most important jobs and skills 

in American society had undergone 

major changes.

The dominance of service jobs in 

the economy became undeniable. By 

the mid-1980s, nearly three-fourths 

of all employees worked in the service sector, for instance, as retail 

clerks, office workers, teachers, physicians, and government employees.

Service-sector activity benefited 

from the availability and increased 

use of the computer. The information age arrived, with hardware and 

software that could aggregate previously unimagined amounts of data 

about economic and social trends.

The federal government had made 

significant investments in computer 

technology in the 1950s and 1960s 

for its military and space programs.

In 1976, two young California entrepreneurs, working out of a garage, 

assembled the first widely marketed 

computer for home use, named it 

the Apple, and ignited a revolution.

By the early 1980s, millions of microcomputers had found their way 

into U.S. businesses and homes, and 

in 1982, Time magazine dubbed the 

computer its “Machine of the Year.” 

Meanwhile, America’s “smokestack industries” were in decline.

The U.S. automobile industry reeled 

under competition from highly efCHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER

“I have always believed that 

there was some divine plan 

that placed this great continent 

between two oceans to be sought 

out by those who were possessed 

of an abiding love of freedom 

and a special kind of courage.”

California Governor Ronald Reagan, 1974
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

307

ficient Japanese carmakers. By 1980 

Japanese companies already manufactured a fifth of the vehicles sold 

in the United States. American 

manufacturers struggled with some 

success to match the cost efficiencies and engineering standards of 

their Japanese rivals, but their former dominance of the domestic car 

market was gone forever. The giant old-line steel companies shrank 

to relative insignificance as foreign 

steel makers adopted new technologies more readily.

Consumers were the beneficiaries 

of this ferocious competition in the 

manufacturing industries, but the 

painful struggle to cut costs meant 

the permanent loss of hundreds of 

thousands of blue-collar jobs. Those 

who could made the switch to the 

service sector; others became unfortunate statistics.

Population patterns shifted as 

well. After the end of the postwar 

“baby boom” (1946 to 1964), the 

overall rate of population growth 

declined and the population grew 

older. Household composition also 

changed. In 1980 the percentage of 

family households dropped; a quarter of all groups were now classified as “nonfamily households,” in 

which two or more unrelated persons lived together.

New immigrants changed the 

character of American society in 

other ways. The 1965 reform in immigration policy shifted the focus 

away from Western Europe, facilitating a dramatic increase in new arrivals from Asia and Latin America. In 

1980, 808,000 immigrants arrived, 

the highest number in 60 years, as the 

country once more became a haven 

for people from around the world.

Additional groups became active 

participants in the struggle for equal 

opportunity. Homosexuals, using 

the tactics and rhetoric of the civil 

rights movement, depicted themselves as an oppressed group seeking 

recognition of basic rights. In 1975, 

the U.S. Civil Service Commission 

lifted its ban on employment of homosexuals. Many states enacted anti-discrimination laws.

Then, in 1981, came the discovery of AIDS (Acquired Immune 

Deficiency Syndrome). Transmitted 

sexually or through blood transfusions, it struck homosexual men and 

intravenous drug users with particular virulence, although the general population proved vulnerable as 

well. By 1992, over 220,000 Americans had died of AIDS. The AIDS epidemic has by no means been limited 

to the United States, and the effort 

to treat the disease now encompasses 

physicians and medical researchers 

throughout the world.

CONSERVATISM AND THE 

RISE OF RONALD REAGAN 

For many Americans, the economic, social, and political trends of 

the previous two decades — crime 

and racial polarization in many urban centers, challenges to traditional 

values, the economic downturn and 

inflation of the Carter years — engendered a mood of disillusionment.
308

It also strengthened a renewed suspicion of government and its ability 

to deal effectively with the country’s 

social and political problems.

Conservatives, long out of power 

at the national level, were well positioned politically in the context of 

this new mood. Many Americans 

were receptive to their message of 

limited government, strong national 

defense, and the protection of traditional values.

This conservative upsurge had 

many sources. A large group of fundamentalist Christians were particularly concerned about crime and 

sexual immorality. They hoped to 

return religion or the moral precepts 

often associated with it to a central 

place in American life. One of the 

most politically effective groups in 

the early 1980s, the Moral Majority, 

was led by a Baptist minister, Jerry 

Falwell. Another, led by the Reverend 

Pat Robertson, built an organization, 

the Christian Coalition, that by the 

1990s was a significant force in the 

Republican Party. Using television to 

spread their messages, Falwell, Robertson, and others like them developed substantial followings.

Another galvanizing issue for 

conservatives was divisive and emotional: abortion. Opposition to the 

1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. 

Wade, which upheld a woman’s right 

to an abortion in the early months of 

pregnancy, brought together a wide 

array of organizations and individuals. They included, but were not 

limited to, Catholics, political conservatives, and religious evangelicals, most of whom regarded 

abortion under virtually any circumstances as tantamount to murder. Pro-choice and pro-life (that is, 

pro- and anti-abortion rights) demonstrations became a fixture of the 

political landscape.

Within the Republican Party, the 

conservative wing grew dominant 

once again. They had briefly seized 

control of the Republican Party in 

1964 with its presidential candidate, 

Barry Goldwater, then faded from 

the spotlight. By 1980, however, with 

the apparent failure of liberalism under Carter, a “New Right” was poised 

to return to dominance.

Using modern direct mail techniques as well as the power of mass 

communications to spread their 

message and raise funds, drawing on 

the ideas of conservatives like economist Milton Friedman, journalists 

William F. Buckley and George Will, 

and research institutions like the 

Heritage Foundation, the New Right 

played a significant role in defining 

the issues of the 1980s.

The “Old” Goldwater Right had 

favored strict limits on government 

intervention in the economy. This 

tendency was reinforced by a significant group of “New Right” “libertarian conservatives” who distrusted 

government in general and opposed 

state interference in personal behavior. But the New Right also encompassed a stronger, often evangelical 

faction determined to wield state 

power to encourage its views. The 

New Right favored tough measures 

against crime, a strong national deCHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

309

fense, a constitutional amendment 

to permit prayer in public schools, 

and opposition to abortion.

The figure that drew all these 

disparate strands together was Ronald Reagan. Reagan, born in Illinois, achieved stardom as an actor 

in Hollywood movies and television 

before turning to politics. He first 

achieved political prominence with a 

nationwide televised speech in 1964 

in support of Barry Goldwater. In 

1966 Reagan won the governorship 

of California and served until 1975.

He narrowly missed winning the Republican nomination for president in 

1976 before succeeding in 1980 and 

going on to win the presidency from 

the incumbent, Jimmy Carter.

President Reagan’s unflagging 

optimism and his ability to celebrate 

the achievements and aspirations 

of the American people persisted 

throughout his two terms in office.

He was a figure of reassurance and 

stability for many Americans. Wholly at ease before the microphone and 

the television camera, Reagan was 

called the “Great Communicator.” 

Taking a phrase from the 17thcentury Puritan John Winthrop, he 

told the nation that the United States 

was a “shining city on a hill,” invested with a God-given mission to defend the world against the spread of 

Communist totalitarianism.

Reagan believed that government 

intruded too deeply into American 

life. He wanted to cut programs 

he contended the country did not 

need, and to eliminate “waste, fraud, 

and abuse.” Reagan accelerated the 

program of deregulation begun by 

Jimmy Carter. He sought to abolish many regulations affecting the 

consumer, the workplace, and the 

environment. These, he argued, were 

inefficient, expensive, and detrimental to economic growth.

Reagan also reflected the belief 

held by many conservatives that the 

law should be strictly applied against 

violators. Shortly after becoming 

president, he faced a nationwide 

strike by U.S. air transportation 

controllers. Although the job action 

was forbidden by law, such strikes 

had been widely tolerated in the past.

When the air controllers refused to 

return to work, he ordered them all 

fired. Over the next few years the 

system was rebuilt with new hires.

THE ECONOMY IN THE 1980s

President Reagan’s domestic program was rooted in his belief that the 

nation would prosper if the power of 

the private economic sector was unleashed. The guiding theory behind 

it, “supply side” economics, held 

that a greater supply of goods and 

services, made possible by measures 

to increase business investment, 

was the swiftest road to economic 

growth. Accordingly, the Reagan 

administration argued that a large 

tax cut would increase capital investment and corporate earnings, 

so that even lower taxes on these 

larger earnings would increase government revenues.

Despite only a slim Republican 

majority in the Senate and a House 
310

of Representatives controlled by the 

Democrats, President Reagan succeeded during his first year in office 

in enacting the major components 

of his economic program, including 

a 25-percent tax cut for individuals to be phased in over three years.

The administration also sought and 

won significant increases in defense 

spending to modernize the nation’s 

military and counter what it felt was 

a continual and growing threat from 

the Soviet Union.

Under Paul Volcker, the Federal 

Reserve’s draconian increases in interest rates squeezed the runaway 

inflation that had begun in the late 

1970s. The recession hit bottom in 

1982, with the prime interest rates 

approaching 20 percent and the 

economy falling sharply. That year, 

real gross domestic product (GDP) 

fell by 2 percent; the unemployment 

rate rose to nearly 10 percent, and 

almost one-third of America’s industrial plants lay idle. Throughout the 

Midwest, major firms like General 

Electric and International Harvester 

released workers. Stubbornly high 

petroleum prices contributed to the 

decline. Economic rivals like Germany and Japan won a greater share 

of world trade, and U.S. consumption of goods from other countries 

rose sharply.

Farmers also suffered hard times.

During the 1970s, American farmers had helped India, China, the 

Soviet Union, and other countries 

suffering from crop shortages, and 

had borrowed heavily to buy land 

and increase production. But the 

rise in oil prices pushed up costs, 

and a worldwide economic slump in 

1980 reduced the demand for agricultural products. Their numbers 

declined, as production increasingly 

became concentrated in large operations. Those small farmers who survived had major difficulties making 

ends meet.

The increased military budget — 

combined with the tax cuts and the 

growth in government health spending — resulted in the federal government spending far more than it 

received in revenues each year. Some 

analysts charged that the deficits 

were part of a deliberate administration strategy to prevent further 

increases in domestic spending 

sought by the Democrats. However, 

both Democrats and Republicans in 

Congress refused to cut such spending. From $74,000-million in 1980, 

the deficit soared to $221,000-million in 1986 before falling back to 

$150,000-million in 1987.

The deep recession of the early 

1980s successfully curbed the runaway inflation that had started during the Carter years. Fuel prices, 

moreover, fell sharply, with at least 

part of the drop attributable to Reagan’s decision to abolish controls 

on the pricing and allocation of 

gasoline. Conditions began to improve in late 1983. By early 1984, 

the economy had rebounded. By 

the fall of 1984, the recovery was 

well along, allowing Reagan to run 

for re-election on the slogan, “It’s 

morning again in America.” He defeated his Democratic opponent, 

CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

311

former Senator and Vice President 

Walter Mondale, by an overwhelming margin.

The United States entered one 

of the longest periods of sustained 

economic growth since World War 

II. Consumer spending increased in 

response to the federal tax cut. The 

stock market climbed as it reflected 

the optimistic buying spree. Over a 

five-year period following the start 

of the recovery, gross national product grew at an annual rate of 4.2 

percent. The annual inflation rate 

remained between 3 and 5 percent 

from 1983 to 1987, except in 1986 

when it fell to just under 2 percent, 

the lowest level in decades. The nation’s GNP grew substantially during the 1980s; from 1982 to 1987, its 

economy created more than 13 million new jobs.

Steadfast in his commitment 

to lower taxes, Reagan signed the 

most sweeping federal tax-reform 

measure in 75 years during his second term. This measure, which had 

widespread Democratic as well as 

Republican support, lowered income 

tax rates, simplified tax brackets, 

and closed loopholes.

However, a significant percentage 

of this growth was based on deficit spending. Moreover, the national 

debt, far from being stabilized by 

strong economic growth, nearly tripled. Much of the growth occurred 

in skilled service and technical areas. Many poor and middle-class 

families did less well. The administration, although an advocate of free 

trade, pressured Japan to agree to a 

voluntary quota on its automobile 

exports to the United States.

The economy was jolted on October 19, 1987, “Black Monday,” when 

the stock market suffered the greatest one-day crash in its history, 22.6 

percent. The causes of the crash included the large U.S. international 

trade and federal-budget deficits, the 

high level of corporate and personal 

debt, and new computerized stock 

trading techniques that allowed instantaneous selling of stocks and futures. Despite the memories of 1929 

it evoked, however, the crash was a 

transitory event with little impact.

In fact, economic growth continued, 

with the unemployment rate dropping to a 14-year low of 5.2 percent 

in June 1988.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

In foreign policy, Reagan sought 

a more assertive role for the nation, 

and Central America provided an 

early test. The United States provided El Salvador with a program of 

economic aid and military training 

when a guerrilla insurgency threatened to topple its government. It also 

actively encouraged the transition to 

an elected democratic government, 

but efforts to curb active right-wing 

death squads were only partly successful. U.S. support helped stabilize the government, but the level of 

violence there remained undiminished. A peace agreement was finally 

reached in early 1992.

U.S. policy toward Nicaragua 

was more controversial. In 1979 
312

revolutionaries calling themselves 

Sandinistas overthrew the repressive right-wing Somoza regime and 

established a pro-Cuba, pro-Soviet 

dictatorship. Regional peace efforts 

ended in failure, and the focus of 

administration efforts shifted to 

support for the anti-Sandinista resistance, known as the contras.

Following intense political debate 

over this policy, Congress ended all 

military aid to the contras in October 1984, then, under administration pressure, reversed itself in the 

fall of 1986, and approved $100 million in military aid. However, a lack 

of success on the battlefield, charges 

of human rights abuses, and the revelation that funds from secret arms 

sales to Iran (see below) had been diverted to the contras undercut congressional support to continue this 

aid.

Subsequently, the administration 

of President George H.W. Bush, who 

succeeded Reagan as president in 

1989, abandoned any effort to secure 

military aid for the contras. The Bush 

administration also exerted pressure 

for free elections and supported an 

opposition political coalition, which 

won an astonishing upset election in 

February 1990, ousting the Sandinistas from power.

The Reagan administration was 

more fortunate in witnessing a return to democracy throughout the 

rest of Latin America, from Guatemala to Argentina. The emergence of 

democratically elected governments 

was not limited to Latin America; in 

Asia, the “people power” campaign 

of Corazon Aquino overthrew the 

dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, 

and elections in South Korea ended 

decades of military rule.

By contrast, South Africa remained intransigent in the face of 

U.S. efforts to encourage an end to 

racial apartheid through the controversial policy of “constructive engagement,” quiet diplomacy coupled 

with public endorsement of reform.

In 1986, frustrated at the lack of 

progress, the U.S. Congress overrode 

Reagan’s veto and imposed a set of 

economic sanctions on South Africa. In February 1990, South African 

President F.W. de Klerk announced 

Nelson Mandela’s release and began 

the slow dismantling of apartheid.

Despite its outspoken anti-Communist rhetoric, the Reagan administration’s direct use of military 

force was restrained. On October 25, 

1983, U.S. forces landed on the Caribbean island of Grenada after an 

urgent appeal for help by neighboring countries. The action followed 

the assassination of Grenada’s leftist 

prime minister by members of his 

own Marxist-oriented party. After a 

brief period of fighting, U.S. troops 

captured hundreds of Cuban military and construction personnel 

and seized caches of Soviet-supplied 

arms. In December 1983, the last 

American combat troops left Grenada, which held democratic elections 

a year later.

The Middle East, however, 

presented a far more difficult situation. A military presence in Lebanon, where the United States was 

CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

313

attempting to bolster a weak, but 

moderate pro-Western government, 

ended tragically, when 241 U.S. Marines were killed in a terrorist bombing in October 1983. In April 1986, 

U.S. Navy and Air Force planes 

struck targets in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, in retaliation for Libyaninstigated terrorist attacks on U.S.

military personnel in Europe.

In the Persian Gulf, the earlier 

breakdown in U.S.-Iranian relations 

and the Iran-Iraq War set the stage 

for U.S. naval activities in the region.

Initially, the United States responded 

to a request from Kuwait for protection of its tanker fleet; but eventually the United States, along with 

naval vessels from Western Europe, 

kept vital shipping lanes open by escorting convoys of tankers and other neutral vessels traveling up and 

down the Gulf.

 In late 1986 Americans learned 

that the administration had secretly 

sold arms to Iran in an attempt to 

resume diplomatic relations with the 

hostile Islamic government and win 

freedom for American hostages held 

in Lebanon by radical organizations 

that Iran controlled. Investigation 

also revealed that funds from the 

arms sales had been diverted to the 

Nicaraguan contras during a period 

when Congress had prohibited such 

military aid.

The ensuing Iran-contra hearings 

before a joint House-Senate committee examined issues of possible illegality as well as the broader question 

of defining American foreign policy interests in the Middle East and 

Central America. In a larger sense, 

the hearings were a constitutional 

debate about government secrecy 

and presidential versus congressional authority in the conduct of foreign relations. Unlike the celebrated 

Senate Watergate hearings 14 years 

earlier, they found no grounds for 

impeaching the president and could 

reach no definitive conclusion about 

these perennial issues.

U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS 

In relations with the Soviet Union, 

President Reagan’s declared policy 

was one of peace through strength.

He was determined to stand firm 

against the country he would in 

1983 call an “evil empire.” Two 

early events increased U.S.-Soviet 

tensions: the suppression of the Solidarity labor movement in Poland in 

December 1981, and the destruction 

with 269 fatalities of an off-course 

civilian airliner, Korean Airlines 

Flight 007, by a Soviet jet fighter on 

September 1, 1983. The United States 

also condemned the continuing Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and 

continued aid begun by the Carter 

administration to the mujahedeen 

resistance there.

During Reagan’s first term, the 

United States spent unprecedented 

sums for a massive defense buildup, including the placement of intermediate-range nuclear missiles 

in Europe to counter Soviet deployments of similar missiles. And on 

March 23, 1983, in one of the most 

hotly debated policy decisions of his 
314

presidency, Reagan announced the 

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) research program to explore advanced 

technologies, such as lasers and 

high-energy projectiles, to defend 

against intercontinental ballistic 

missiles. Although many scientists 

questioned the technological feasibility of SDI and economists pointed 

to the extraordinary sums of money 

involved, the administration pressed 

ahead with the project.

After re-election in 1984, Reagan softened his position on arms 

control. Moscow was amenable to 

agreement, in part because its economy already expended a far greater 

proportion of national output on its 

military than did the United States.

Further increases, Soviet leader 

Mikhail Gorbachev felt, would cripple his plans to liberalize the Soviet 

economy.

In November 1985, Reagan and 

Gorbachev agreed in principle to 

seek 50-percent reductions in strategic offensive nuclear arms as well 

as an interim agreement on intermediate-range nuclear forces. In 

December 1987, they signed the 

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces 

(INF) Treaty providing for the destruction of that entire category of 

nuclear weapons. By then, the Soviet Union seemed a less menacing adversary. Reagan could take 

much of the credit for a greatly diminished Cold War, but as his administration ended, almost no one 

realized just how shaky the USSR 

had become.

THE PRESIDENCY OF 

GEORGE H. W. BUSH 

President Reagan enjoyed unusually high popularity at the end of 

his second term in office, but under 

the terms of the U.S. Constitution 

he could not run again in 1988. The 

Republican nomination went to Vice 

President George Herbert Walker 

Bush, who was elected the 41st president of the United States.

Bush campaigned by promising 

voters a continuation of the prosperity Reagan had brought. In addition, he argued that he would 

support a strong defense for the 

United States more reliably than 

the Democratic candidate, Michael 

Dukakis. He also promised to work 

for “a kinder, gentler America.” Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, claimed that less fortunate 

Americans were hurting economically and that the government had 

to help them while simultaneously 

bringing the federal debt and defense spending under control. The 

public was much more engaged, 

however, by Bush’s economic message: No new taxes. In the balloting, 

Bush finished with a 54-to-46-percent popular vote margin.

During his first year in office, 

Bush followed a conservative fiscal 

program, pursuing policies on taxes, 

spending, and debt that were faithful 

to the Reagan administration’s economic program. But the new president soon found himself squeezed 

between a large budget deficit and a 

deficit-reduction law. Spending cuts 

CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

315

seemed necessary, and Bush possessed little leeway to introduce new 

budget items.

The Bush administration advanced new policy initiatives in areas not requiring major new federal 

expenditures. Thus, in November 

1990, Bush signed sweeping legislation imposing new federal standards 

on urban smog, automobile exhaust, 

toxic air pollution, and acid rain, 

but with industrial polluters bearing most of the costs. He accepted 

legislation requiring physical access 

for the disabled, but with no federal assumption of the expense of 

modifying buildings to accommodate wheelchairs and the like. The 

president also launched a campaign 

to encourage volunteerism, which 

he called, in a memorable phrase, “a 

thousand points of light.”

BUDGETS AND DEFICITS 

Bush administration efforts to 

gain control over the federal budget 

deficit, however, were more problematic. One source of the difficulty was 

the savings and loan crisis. Savings 

banks — formerly tightly regulated, 

low-interest safe havens for ordinary 

people — had been deregulated, allowing these institutions to compete more aggressively by paying 

higher interest rates and by making 

riskier loans. Increases in the government’s deposit insurance guaranteed reduced consumer incentive to 

shun less-sound institutions. Fraud, 

mismanagement, and the choppy 

economy produced widespread insolvencies among these thrifts (the 

umbrella term for consumer-oriented institutions like savings and loan 

associations and savings banks). By 

1993, the total cost of selling and 

shuttering failed thrifts was staggering, nearly $525,000-million.

In January 1990, President Bush 

presented his budget proposal to 

Congress. Democrats argued that 

administration budget projections 

were far too optimistic, and that 

meeting the deficit-reduction law 

would require tax increases and 

sharper cuts in defense spending.

That June, after protracted negotiations, the president agreed to a tax 

increase. All the same, the combination of economic recession, losses 

from the savings and loan industry rescue operation, and escalating 

health care costs for Medicare and 

Medicaid offset all the deficit-reduction measures and produced a shortfall in 1991 at least as large as the 

previous year’s.

END TO THE COLD WAR 

When Bush became president, 

the Soviet empire was on the verge 

of collapse. Gorbachev’s efforts to 

open up the USSR’s economy appeared to be floundering. In 1989, 

the Communist governments in 

one Eastern European country after another simply collapsed, after 

it became clear that Russian troops 

would not be sent to prop them up.

In mid-1991, hard-liners attempted 

a coup d’etat, only to be foiled by 

Gorbachev rival Boris Yeltsin, presi-
316

dent of the Russian republic. At the 

end of that year, Yeltsin, now dominant, forced the dissolution of the 

Soviet Union.

The Bush administration adeptly 

brokered the end of the Cold War, 

working closely with Gorbachev and 

Yeltsin. It led the negotiations that 

brought the unification of East and 

West Germany (September 1990), 

agreement on large arms reductions 

in Europe (November 1990), and 

large cuts in nuclear arsenals (July 

1991). After the liquidation of the 

Soviet Union, the United States and 

the new Russian Federation agreed 

to phase out all multiple-warhead 

missiles over a 10-year period. 

The disposal of nuclear materials and the ever-present concerns 

of nuclear proliferation now superseded the threat of nuclear conflict 

between Washington and Moscow.

THE GULF WAR 

The euphoria caused by the drawing down of the Cold War was 

dramatically overshadowed by the 

August 2, 1990, invasion of the small 

nation of Kuwait by Iraq. Iraq, under 

Saddam Hussein, and Iran, under its 

Islamic fundamentalist regime, had 

emerged as the two major military 

powers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf 

area. The two countries had fought a 

long, inconclusive war in the 1980s.

Less hostile to the United States than 

Iran, Iraq had won some support 

from the Reagan and Bush administrations. The occupation of Kuwait, 

posing a threat to Saudi Arabia, 

changed the diplomatic calculation 

overnight.

President Bush strongly condemned the Iraqi action, called for 

Iraq’s unconditional withdrawal, 

and sent a major deployment of U.S.

troops to the Middle East. He assembled one of the most extraordinary 

military and political coalitions of 

modern times, with military forces 

from Asia, Europe, and Africa, as 

well as the Middle East.

In the days and weeks following the invasion, the U.N. Security 

Council passed 12 resolutions condemning the Iraqi invasion and 

imposing wide-ranging economic 

sanctions on Iraq. On November 29, 

it approved the use of force if Iraq 

did not withdraw from Kuwait by 

January 15, 1991. Gorbachev’s Soviet 

Union, once Iraq’s major arms supplier, made no effort to protect its 

former client.

Bush also confronted a major 

constitutional issue. The U.S. Constitution gives the legislative branch 

the power to declare war. Yet in the 

second half of the 20th century, the 

United States had become involved 

in Korea and Vietnam without an 

official declaration of war and with 

only murky legislative authorization. On January 12, 1991, three days 

before the U.N. deadline, Congress 

granted President Bush the authority he sought in the most explicit and 

sweeping war-making power given 

a president in nearly half a century.

The United States, in coalition 

with Great Britain, France, Italy, 

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other 

CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

317

countries, succeeded in liberating 

Kuwait with a devastating, U.S.-led 

air campaign that lasted slightly 

more than a month. It was followed 

by a massive invasion of Kuwait and 

Iraq by armored and airborne infantry forces. With their superior 

speed, mobility, and firepower, the 

allied forces overwhelmed the Iraqi 

forces in a land campaign lasting 

only 100 hours.

The victory, however, was incomplete and unsatisfying. The U.N. resolution, which Bush enforced to the 

letter, called only for the expulsion of 

Iraq from Kuwait. Saddam Hussein 

remained in power, savagely repressing the Kurds in the north and the 

Shiites in the south, both of whom 

the United States had encouraged to 

rebel. Hundreds of oil-well fires, deliberately set in Kuwait by the Iraqis, 

took until November 1991 to extinguish. Saddam’s regime also apparently thwarted U.N. inspectors who, 

operating in accordance with Security Council resolutions, worked to 

locate and destroy Iraq’s weapons of 

mass destruction, including nuclear 

facilities more advanced than had 

previously been suspected and huge 

stocks of chemical weapons.

The Gulf War enabled the United 

States to persuade the Arab states, 

Israel, and a Palestinian delegation 

to begin direct negotiations aimed 

at resolving the complex and interlocked issues that could eventually 

lead to a lasting peace in the region.

The talks began in Madrid, Spain, 

on October 30, 1991. In turn, they set 

the stage for the secret negotiations 

in Norway that led to what at the 

time seemed a historic agreement 

between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed at the 

White House on September 13, 1993.

PANAMA AND NAFTA 

The president also received broad 

bipartisan congressional backing for 

the brief U.S. invasion of Panama 

on December 20, 1989, that deposed 

dictator General Manuel Antonio 

Noriega. In the 1980s, addiction to 

crack cocaine reached epidemic proportions, and President Bush put the 

“War on Drugs” at the center of his 

domestic agenda. Moreover, Noriega, an especially brutal dictator, 

had attempted to maintain himself 

in power with rather crude displays 

of anti-Americanism. After seeking refuge in the Vatican embassy, 

Noriega turned himself over to U.S.

authorities. He was later tried and 

convicted in U.S. federal court in 

Miami, Florida, of drug trafficking 

and racketeering.

On the economic front, the Bush 

administration negotiated the North 

America Free Trade Agreement 

(NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada.

It would be ratified after an intense 

debate in the first year of the Clinton 

administration. 9
318

The United States is often thought of as functioning under a two-party system. In practical effect this is true: Either a Democrat or a Republican has 

occupied the White House every year since 1852. At the same time, however, 

the country has produced a plethora of third and minor parties over the years. 

For example, 58 parties were represented on at least one state ballot during 

the 1992 presidential elections. Among these were obscure parties such as the 

Apathy, the Looking Back, the New Mexico Prohibition, the Tish Independent 

Citizens, and the Vermont Taxpayers.

Third parties organize around a single issue or set of issues. They tend 

to fare best when they have a charismatic leader. With the presidency out of 

reach, most seek a platform to publicize their political and social concerns.

Theodore Roosevelt. The most successful third-party candidate of 

the 20th century was a Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, the former president. His Progressive or Bull Moose Party won 27.4 percent of the vote in the 

1912 election. The progressive wing of the Republican Party, having grown 

disenchanted with President William Howard Taft, whom Roosevelt had 

hand-picked as his successor, urged Roosevelt to seek the party nomination in 

1912. This he did, defeating Taft in a number of primaries. Taft controlled the 

party machinery, however, and secured the nomination.

Roosevelt’s supporters then broke away and formed the Progressive Party. 

Declaring himself as fit as a bull moose (hence the party’s popular name), 

Roosevelt campaigned on a platform of regulating “big business,” women’s 

suffrage, a graduated income tax, the Panama Canal, and conservation. His 

effort was sufficient to defeat Taft. By splitting the Republican vote, however, 

he helped ensure the election of the Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

Socialists. The Socialist Party also reached its high point in 1912, 

attaining 6 percent of the popular vote. Perennial candidate Eugene Debs won 

nearly 900,000 votes that year, advocating collective ownership of the transportation and communication industries, shorter working hours, and public 

works projects to spur employment. Convicted of sedition during World War I, 

Debs campaigned from his cell in 1920.

Robert La Follette. Another Progressive was Senator Robert La Follette, who won more than 16 percent of the vote in the 1924 election. Long a 

champion of farmers and industrial workers, and an ardent foe of big business, 

La Follette was a prime mover in the recreation of the Progressive movement 

following World War I. Backed by the farm and labor vote, as well as by 

Socialists and remnants of Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party, La Follette ran on 

a platform of nationalizing railroads and the country’s natural resources. He 

THIRD-PARTY AND INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES

CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

319

also strongly supported increased taxation on the wealthy and the right of collective bargaining. He carried only his home state of Wisconsin.

Henry Wallace. The Progressive Party reinvented itself in 1948 with 

the nomination of Henry Wallace, a former secretary of agriculture and vice 

president under Franklin Roosevelt. Wallace’s 1948 platform opposed the 

Cold War, the Marshall Plan, and big business. He also campaigned to end 

discrimination against African Americans and women, backed a minimum 

wage, and called for the elimination of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His failure to repudiate the U.S. Communist Party, which had 

endorsed him, undermined his popularity and he wound up with just over 2.4 

percent of the popular vote.

Dixiecrats. Like the Progressives, the States Rights or Dixiecrat Party, 

led by South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, emerged in 1948 as a spin-off 

from the Democratic Party. Its opposition stemmed from Truman’s civil rights 

platform. Although defined in terms of “states’ rights,” the party’s goal was 

continuing racial segregation and the “Jim Crow” laws that sustained it.

George Wallace. The racial and social upheavals of the 1960s helped 

bring George Wallace, another segregationist Southern governor, to national 

attention. Wallace built a following through his colorful attacks against civil 

rights, liberals, and the federal government. Founding the American Independent Party in 1968, he ran his campaign from the statehouse in Montgomery, 

Alabama, winning 13.5 percent of the overall presidential vote.

H. Ross Perot. Every third party seeks to capitalize on popular dissatisfaction with the major parties and the federal government. At few times in 

recent history, however, has this sentiment been as strong as it was during the 

1992 election. A hugely wealthy Texas businessman, Perot possessed a knack 

for getting his message of economic common sense and fiscal responsibility 

across to a wide spectrum of the people. Lampooning the nation’s leaders and 

reducing his economic message to easily understood formulas, Perot found 

little difficulty gaining media attention. His campaign organization, United We 

Stand, was staffed primarily by volunteers and backed by his personal fortune. 

Far from resenting his wealth, many admired Perot’s business success and the 

freedom it brought him from soliciting campaign funds from special interests. 

Perot withdrew from the race in July. Re-entering it a month before the election, he won over 19 million votes as the Reform Party standard-bearer, nearly 

19 percent of the total cast. This was by far the largest number ever tallied by 

a third-party candidate and second only to Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 showing as a percentage of the total. 
320
CHAPTER

15

BRIDGE 

TO 

THE 

21st

CENTURY

Firefighters beneath 

the destroyed vertical 

struts of the World Trade 

Center’s twin towers after 

the September 11, 2001, 

terrorist attacks in New 

York and Washington, D.C.
322

For most Americans the 1990s 

would be a time of peace, prosperity, and rapid technological change.

Some attributed this to the “Reagan Revolution” and the end of the 

Cold War, others to the return of a 

Democrat to the presidency. During 

this period, the majority of Americans—political affiliation aside— 

asserted their support for traditional family values, often grounded in their faiths. New York Times

columnist David Brooks suggested 

that the country was experiencing “moral self-repair,” as “many of 

the indicators of social breakdown, 

which shot upward in the late 1960s 

and 1970s, and which plateaued at 

high levels in the 1980s,” were now 

in decline.

Improved crime and other social 

statistics aside, American politics remained ideological, emotional, and 

characterized by intense divisions.

Shortly after the nation entered the 

new millennium, moreover, its postCold War sense of security was jolted 

by an unprecedented terrorist attack 

that launched it on a new and 

difficult international track.

THE 1992 PRESIDENTIAL 

ELECTION 

As the 1992 presidential election approached, Americans found 

themselves in a world transformed 

in ways almost unimaginable four 

years earlier. The familiar landmarks of the Cold War—from the 

CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY

“As we look ahead 

into the next century, 

leaders will be those who

empower others.”

Microsoft co-founder and chairman 

Bill Gates, 2007
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

323

Berlin Wall to intercontinental missiles and bombers on constant high 

alert—were gone. Eastern Europe 

was independent, the Soviet Union 

had dissolved, Germany was united, Arabs and Israelis were engaged 

in direct negotiations, and the 

threat of nuclear conflict was greatly diminished. It was as though one 

great history volume had closed and 

another had opened.

Yet at home, Americans were less 

sanguine, and they faced some familiar problems. The United States 

found itself in its deepest recession 

since the early 1980s. Many of the 

job losses were occurring among 

white-collar workers in middle 

management positions, not solely, as 

earlier, among blue-collar workers 

in the manufacturing sector. Even 

when the economy began recovering in 1992, its growth was virtually imperceptible until late in the 

year. Moreover, the federal deficit 

continued to mount, propelled most 

strikingly by rising expenditures for 

health care.

President George Bush and Vice 

President Dan Quayle easily won renomination by the Republican Party.

On the Democratic side, Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, defeated 

a crowded field of candidates to win 

his party’s nomination. As his vice 

presidential nominee, he selected 

Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, generally acknowledged as one of the 

Congress’s strongest advocates of 

environmental protection.

The country’s deep unease over 

the direction of the economy also 

sparked the emergence of a remarkable independent candidate, wealthy 

Texas entrepreneur H. Ross Perot.

Perot tapped into a deep wellspring 

of frustration over the inability of 

Washington to deal effectively with 

economic issues, principally the federal deficit. He possessed a colorful 

personality and a gift for the telling 

one-line political quip. He would be 

the most successful third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 

1912.

The Bush re-election effort was 

built around a set of ideas traditionally used by incumbents: experience and trust. George Bush, 68, 

the last of a line of presidents who 

had served in World War II, faced 

a young challenger in Bill Clinton 

who, at age 46, had never served in 

the military and had participated in 

protests against the Vietnam War. In 

emphasizing his experience as president and commander-in-chief, Bush 

drew attention to Clinton’s inexperience at the national level.

Bill Clinton organized his campaign around another of the oldest 

and most powerful themes in electoral politics: youth and change. As 

a high school student, Clinton had 

once met President Kennedy; 30 

years later, much of his rhetoric consciously echoed that of Kennedy in 

the 1960 presidential campaign.

As governor of Arkansas for 12 

years, Clinton could point to his experience in wrestling with the very 

issues of economic growth, education, and health care that were, according to public opinion polls, 
324

among President Bush’s chief vulnerabilities. Where Bush offered an 

economic program based on lower 

taxes and cuts in government spending, Clinton proposed higher taxes 

on the wealthy and increased spending on investments in education, 

transportation, and communications that, he believed, would boost 

the nation’s productivity and growth 

and thereby lower the deficit. Similarly, Clinton’s health care proposals 

called for much heavier involvement 

by the federal government than 

Bush’s.

Clinton proved to be a highly 

effective communicator, not least 

on television, a medium that highlighted his charm and intelligence.

The incumbent’s very success in 

handling the end of the Cold War 

and reversing the Iraqi thrust into 

Kuwait lent strength to Clinton’s 

implicit argument that foreign affairs had become relatively less important, given pressing social and 

economic needs at home.

On November 3, Clinton won 

election as the 42nd president of the 

United States, with 43 percent of the 

popular vote against 37 percent for 

Bush and 19 percent for Perot.

A NEW PRESIDENCY

Clinton was in many respects the 

perfect leader for a party divided between liberal and moderate wings.

He ran as a pragmatic centrist who 

could moderate the demands of 

various Democratic Party interest 

groups without alienating them.

Avoiding ideological rhetoric 

that declared big government to be 

a positive good, he proposed a number of programs that earned him 

the label “New Democrat.” Control 

of the federal bureaucracy and judicial appointments provided one 

means of satisfying political claims 

of organized labor and civil rights 

groups. On the ever-controversial 

abortion issue, Clinton supported 

the Roe v. Wade decision, but also 

declared that abortion should be 

“safe, legal, and rare.” 

President Clinton’s closest collaborator was his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the campaign, 

he had quipped that those who 

voted for him “got two for the price 

of one.” As energetic and as activist 

as her husband, Ms. Clinton assumed 

a more prominent role in the administration than any first lady before 

her, even Eleanor Roosevelt. Her first 

important assignment would be to 

develop a national health program. In 

2000, with her husband’s administration coming to a close, she would 

be elected a U.S. senator from New 

York.

LAUNCHING A 

NEW DOMESTIC 

POLICY

In practice, Clinton’s centrism 

demanded choices that sometimes 

elicited vehement emotions. The 

president’s first policy initiative was 

designed to meet the demands of 

gays, who, claiming a group status

as victims of discrimination, had 

CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

325

become an important constituency 

for the Democratic Party.

Immediately after his inauguration, President Clinton issued 

an executive order rescinding the 

long-established military policy of 

dismissing known gays from the 

service. The order quickly drew furious criticism from the military, 

most Republicans, and large segments of American society. Clinton 

quickly modified it with a “don’t 

ask, don’t tell” order that effectively 

restored the old policy but discouraged active investigation of one’s 

sexual practices.

The effort to achieve a national 

health plan proved to be a far larger setback. The administration set 

up a large task force, chaired by 

Hillary Clinton. Composed of 

prominent policy intellectuals and 

political activists, it labored in secrecy for months to develop a plan 

that would provide medical coverage for every American citizen.

The working assumption behind the plan was that a government-managed “single-payer” plan 

could deliver health services to the 

entire nation more efficiently than 

the current decentralized system 

with its thousands of insurers and 

disconnected providers. As finally 

delivered to Congress in September 

1993, however, the plan mirrored 

the complexity of its subject. Most 

Republicans and some Democrats 

criticized it as a hopelessly elaborate 

federal takeover of American medicine. After a year of discussion, it 

died without a vote in Congress.

President Clinton was more 

successful on another matter with 

great repercussions for the domestic economy. The previous president, George Bush, had negotiated 

the North American Free Trade 

Agreement (NAFTA) to establish 

fully open trade between Canada, 

the United States, and Mexico. Key 

Democratic constituencies opposed 

the agreement. Labor unions believed it would encourage the export 

of jobs and undermine American 

labor standards. Environmentalists 

asserted that it would lead American industries to relocate to countries with weak pollution controls.

These were the first indications of a 

growing movement on the left wing 

of American politics against the 

vision of an integrated world economic system.

Clinton nonetheless accepted 

the argument that open trade was 

ultimately beneficial to all parties 

because it would lead to a greater 

flow of more efficiently produced 

goods and services. His administration not only submitted NAFTA 

to the Senate, it also backed the establishment of a greatly liberalized 

international trading system to be 

administered by the World Trade 

Organization (WTO). After a vigorous debate, Congress approved 

NAFTA in 1993. It would approve 

membership in the WTO a year 

later.

Although Clinton had talked 

about a “middle-class tax cut” during the presidential campaign, he 

submitted to Congress a budget 
326

calling for a general tax increase.

It originally included a wide tax 

on energy consumption designed 

to promote conservation, but that 

was quickly replaced by a nominal increase in the federal gasoline 

tax. It also taxed social security 

benefits for recipients of moderate 

income and above. The big emphasis, however, was on increasing the 

income tax for high earners. The 

subsequent debate amounted to a 

rerun of the arguments between tax 

cutters and advocates of “fiscal responsibility” that had marked the 

Reagan years. In the end, Clinton 

got his way, but very narrowly. The 

tax bill passed the House of Representatives by only one vote.

By then, the congressional election campaigns of 1994 were under 

way. Although the administration 

already had made numerous foreign 

policy decisions, issues at home 

were clearly most important to the 

voters. The Republicans depicted 

Clinton and the Democrats as unreformed tax and spenders. Clinton 

himself was already beleaguered 

with charges of past financial impropriety in an Arkansas real estate 

project and new claims of sexual 

impropriety.

In November, the voters gave the 

Republicans control of both houses 

of Congress for the first time since 

the election of 1952. Many observers 

believed that Bill Clinton would likely be a one-term president. Apparently making a decision to conform 

to new political realities, Clinton instead moderated his political course.

Policy initiatives for the remainder 

of his presidency were few. Contrary 

to Republican predictions of doom, 

the tax increases of 1993 did not get 

in the way of a steadily improving 

economy.

The new Republican leadership 

in the House of Representatives, by 

contrast, pressed hard to achieve 

its policy objectives, a sharp contrast with the administration’s new 

moderate tone. When right-wing 

extremists bombed an Oklahoma 

City federal building in April 1995, 

Clinton responded with a tone of 

moderation and healing that heightened his stature and implicitly raised 

some doubts about his conservative 

opponents. At the end of the year, 

he vetoed a Republican budget bill, 

shutting down the government for 

weeks. Most of the public seemed to 

blame the Republicans.

The president also co-opted 

part of the Republican program.

In his State of the Union address 

of January 1996, he ostentatiously 

declared, “The era of big government is over.” That summer, on the 

eve of the presidential campaign, he 

signed a major welfare reform bill 

that was essentially a Republican 

product. Designed to end permanent support for most welfare recipients and move them to work, it 

was opposed by many in his own 

party. By and large, it would prove 

successful in operation over the 

next decade.

CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

327

THE AMERICAN ECONOMY 

IN THE 1990s

By the mid-1990s, the country 

had not simply recovered from the 

brief, but sharp, recession of the 

Bush presidency. It was entering an 

era of booming prosperity, and doing so despite the decline of its traditional industrial base. Probably the 

major force behind this new growth 

was the blossoming of the personal 

computer (PC).

Less than 20 years after its introduction, the PC had become a familiar item, not simply in business 

offices of all types, but in homes 

throughout America. Vastly more 

powerful than anyone could have 

imagined two decades earlier, able 

to store enormous amounts of data, 

available at the cost of a good refrigerator, it became a common appliance in American homes.

Employing prepackaged software, 

people used it for bookkeeping, 

word processing, or as a depository 

for music, photos, and video. The 

rise of the Internet, which grew out 

of a previously closed defense data 

network, provided access to information of all sorts, created new 

shopping opportunities, and established e-mail as a common mode 

of communication. The popularity 

of the mobile phone created a huge 

new industry that cross-fertilized 

with the PC.

Instant communication and 

lightning-fast data manipulation 

speeded up the tempo of many businesses, greatly enhancing productivity and creating new opportunities 

for profit. Fledgling industries that 

fed demand for the new equipment 

became multi-billion-dollar companies almost overnight, creating an 

enormous new middle class of software technicians, managers, marketers, and publicists.

A final impetus was the turn of 

the millennium. A huge push to upgrade outdated computing equipment that might not recognize the 

year 2000 brought data technology 

spending to a peak.

These developments began to 

take shape during Clinton’s first 

term. By the end of his second one 

they were fueling a surging economy.

When he had been elected president, unemployment was at 7.4 percent. When he stood for re-election 

in 1996, it was at 5.4 percent. When 

voters went to the polls to choose 

his successor in November 2000, it 

was 3.9 percent. In many places, the 

issue was less one of taking care of 

the jobless than of finding employable workers.

No less a figure than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan 

viewed a rapidly escalating stock 

market with concern and warned 

of “irrational exuberance.” Investor 

exuberance, at its greatest since the 

1920s, continued in the conviction 

that ordinary standards of valuation had been rendered obsolete 

by a “new economy” with unlimited potential. The good times were 

rolling dangerously fast, but most 
328

Americans were more inclined to 

enjoy the ride while it lasted than to 

plan for a coming bust.

THE ELECTION OF 1996 

AND THE POLITICAL 

AFTERMATH

President Clinton undertook his 

campaign for re-election in 1996 

under the most favorable of circumstances. If not an imposing personality in the manner of a Roosevelt, 

he was a natural campaigner, whom 

many felt had an infectious charm.

He presided over a growing economic recovery. He had positioned himself on the political spectrum in a 

way that made him appear a man of 

the center leaning left. His Republican opponent, Senator Robert Dole 

of Kansas, Republican leader in the 

upper house, was a formidable legislator but less successful as a presidential candidate.

Clinton, promising to “build a 

bridge to the 21st century,” easily 

defeated Dole in a three-party race, 

49.2 percent to 40.7 percent, with 

8.4 percent to Ross Perot. He thus 

became the second American president to win two consecutive elections with less than a majority of the 

total vote. (The other was Woodrow 

Wilson in 1912 and 1916.) The Republicans, however, retained control 

of both the House of Representatives 

and the Senate.

Clinton never stated much of a 

domestic program for his second 

term. The highlight of its first year 

was an accord with Congress designed to balance the budget, further reinforcing the president’s 

standing as a fiscally responsible 

moderate liberal.

In 1998, American politics entered a period of turmoil with the 

revelation that Clinton had carried on an affair inside the White 

House with a young intern. At first 

the president denied this, telling the 

American people: “I did not have 

sexual relations with that woman.” 

The president had faced similar 

charges in the past. In a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a woman 

he had known in Arkansas, Clinton 

denied under oath the White House 

affair. This fit most Americans’ definition of perjury. In October 1998, 

the House of Representatives began 

impeachment hearings, focusing on 

charges of perjury and obstruction 

of justice.

Whatever the merits of that approach, a majority of Americans 

seemed to view the matter as a private one to be sorted out with one’s 

family, a significant shift in public 

attitude. Also significantly, Hillary 

Clinton continued to support her 

husband. It surely helped also that 

the times were good. In the midst 

of the House impeachment debate, 

the president announced the largest 

budget surplus in 30 years. Public 

opinion polls showed Clinton’s approval rating to be the highest of his 

six years in office.

That November, the Republicans 

took further losses in the midterm 

congressional elections, cutting 

their majorities to razor-thin marCHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

329

gins. House Speaker Newt Gingrich 

resigned, and the party attempted to 

develop a less strident image. Nevertheless, in December the House 

voted the first impeachment resolution against a sitting president since 

Andrew Johnson (1868), thereby 

handing the case to the Senate for 

a trial.

Clinton’s impeachment trial, 

presided over by the Chief Justice 

of the United States, held little suspense. In the midst of it, the president delivered his annual State of 

the Union address to Congress. He 

never testified, and no serious observer expected that any of the several charges against him would win 

the two-thirds vote required for removal from office. In the end, none 

got even a simple majority. On February 12, 1999, Clinton was acquitted of all charges.

AMERICAN FOREIGN 

RELATIONS IN THE 

CLINTON YEARS

Bill Clinton did not expect to be 

a president who emphasized foreign 

policy. However, like his immediate 

predecessors, he quickly discovered 

that all international crises seemed 

to take a road that led through 

Washington.

He had to deal with the messy aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. Having failed to depose Saddam Hussein, 

the United States, backed by Britain, 

attempted to contain him. A United Nations-administered economic 

sanctions regime, designed to allow 

Iraq to sell enough oil to meet humanitarian needs, proved relatively 

ineffective. Saddam funneled much 

of the proceeds to himself, leaving 

large masses of his people in misery.

Military “no-fly zones,” imposed to 

prevent the Iraqi government from 

deploying its air power against rebellious Kurds in the north and Shiites 

in the south, required constant U.S.

and British air patrols, which regularly fended off anti-aircraft missiles.

The United States also provided 

the main backing for U.N. weapons 

inspection teams, whose mission 

was to ferret out Iraq’s chemical, 

biological, and nuclear programs, 

verify the destruction of existing 

weapons of mass destruction, and 

suppress ongoing programs to manufacture them. Increasingly obstructed, the U.N. inspectors were 

finally expelled in 1998. On this, as 

well as earlier occasions of provocation, the United States responded 

with limited missile strikes. Saddam, Secretary of State Madeline 

Albright declared, was still “in his 

box.”

The seemingly endless IsraeliPalestinian dispute inevitably engaged the administration, although 

neither President Clinton nor former 

President Bush had much to do with 

the Oslo agreement of 1993, which 

established a Palestinian “authority” 

to govern the Palestinian population 

within the West Bank and the Gaza 

Strip and obtained Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

As with so many past Middle 

Eastern agreements in principle, 
330

however, Oslo eventually fell apart 

when details were discussed. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected 

final offers from peace-minded Israeli leader Ehud Barak in 2000 and 

January 2001. A full-scale Palestinian insurgency, marked by the use 

of suicide bombers, erupted. Barak 

fell from power, to be replaced by 

the far tougher Ariel Sharon. U.S.

identification with Israel was considered by some a major problem 

in dealing with other issues in the 

region, but American diplomats 

could do little more than hope to 

contain the violence. After Arafat’s 

death in late 2004, new Palestinian 

leadership appeared more receptive 

to a peace agreement, and American policy makers resumed efforts 

to promote a settlement.

President Clinton also became 

closely engaged with “the troubles” 

in Northern Ireland. On one side 

was the violent Irish Republican 

Army, supported primarily by those 

Catholic Irish who wanted to incorporate these British counties into the 

Republic of Ireland. On the other 

side were Unionists, with equally violent paramilitary forces, supported 

by most of the Protestant Scots-Irish 

population, who wanted to remain 

in the United Kingdom.

Clinton gave the separatists 

greater recognition than they ever 

had obtained in the United States, 

but also worked closely with the 

British governments of John Major 

and Tony Blair. The ultimate result, 

the Good Friday peace accords of 

1998, established a political process but left many details to be 

worked out. Over the next several 

years, peace and order held better in 

Northern Ireland than in the Middle East, but remained precarious.

The final accord continued to elude 

negotiators.

The post-Cold War disintegration of Yugoslavia—a state ethnically and religiously divided among 

Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnian 

Muslims, and Albanian Kosovars 

—also made its way to Washington after European governments 

failed to impose order. The Bush 

administration had refused to get 

involved in the initial violence; 

the Clinton administration finally 

did so with great reluctance after 

being urged to do so by the European allies. In 1995, it negotiated 

an accord in Dayton, Ohio, to establish a semblance of peace in Bosnia.

In 1999, faced with Serbian massacres of Kosovars, it led a threemonth NATO bombing campaign 

against Serbia, which finally forced 

a settlement.

In 1994, the administration restored ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti, 

where he would rule for nine years 

before being ousted again. The intervention was largely a result of Aristide’s carefully cultivated support 

in the United States and American 

fears of waves of Haitian illegal immigrants.

In sum, the Clinton administration remained primarily inward 

looking, willing to tackle international problems that could not be 

CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

331

avoided, and, in other instances, 

forced by the rest of the world 

to do so.

INTIMATIONS OF 

TERRORISM

Near the close of his administration, George H.W. Bush sent American troops to the chaotic East African 

nation of Somalia. Their mission was 

to spearhead a U.N. force that would 

allow the regular movement of food 

to a starving population.

Somalia became yet another legacy for the Clinton administration.

Efforts to establish a representative 

government there became a “nation-building” enterprise. In October 1993, American troops sent 

to arrest a recalcitrant warlord ran 

into unexpectedly strong resistance, 

losing an attack helicopter and suffering 18 deaths. The warlord was 

never arrested. Over the next several months, all American combat 

units were withdrawn.

From the standpoint of the administration, it seemed prudent 

enough simply to end a marginal, 

ill-advised commitment and concentrate on other priorities. It only 

became clear later that the Somalian 

warlord had been aided by a shadowy and emerging organization that 

would become known as al-Qaida, 

headed by a fundamentalist Muslim 

named Osama bin Laden. A fanatical enemy of Western civilization, 

bin Laden reportedly felt confirmed 

in his belief that Americans would 

not fight when attacked.

By then the United States had 

already experienced an attack by 

Muslim extremists. In February 

1993, a huge car bomb was exploded in an underground parking garage beneath one of the twin towers 

of the World Trade Center in lower 

Manhattan. The blast killed seven 

people and injured nearly a thousand, but it failed to bring down the 

huge building with its thousands of 

workers. New York and federal authorities treated it as a criminal act, 

apprehended four of the plotters, 

and obtained life prison sentences 

for them. Subsequent plots to blow 

up traffic tunnels, public buildings, 

and even the United Nations were 

all discovered and dealt with in a 

similar fashion.

Possible foreign terrorism was 

nonetheless overshadowed by domestic terrorism, primarily the 

Oklahoma City bombing. The work 

of right-wing extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, 

it killed 166 and injured hundreds, 

a far greater toll than the 1993 Trade 

Center attack. But on June 25, 1996, 

another huge bomb exploded at the 

Khobar Towers U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 and wounding 515. A federal 

grand jury indicted 13 Saudis and 

one Lebanese man for the attack, 

but Saudi Arabia ruled out any extraditions.

Two years later, on August 7, 

1998, powerful bombs exploding 

simultaneously destroyed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 301 people and injuring more 
332

than 5,000. In retaliation Clinton 

ordered missile attacks on terrorist 

training camps run by bin Laden 

in Afghanistan, but they appear to 

have been deserted. He also ordered 

a missile strike to destroy a suspect 

chemical factory in Sudan, a country which earlier had given sanctuary to bin Laden.

On October 12, 2000, suicide 

bombers rammed a speedboat into 

the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole, on a 

courtesy visit to Yemen. Heroic action by the crew kept the ship afloat, 

but 17 sailors were killed. Bin Laden had pretty clearly been behind 

the attacks in Saudi Arabia, Africa, and Yemen, but he was beyond 

reach unless the administration was 

prepared to invade Afghanistan to 

search for him.

The Clinton administration was 

never willing to take such a step. It 

even shrank from the possibility of 

assassinating him if others might be 

killed in the process. The attacks had 

been remote and widely separated.

It was easy to accept them as unwelcome but inevitable costs associated 

with superpower status. Bin Laden 

remained a serious nuisance, but not 

a top priority for an administration 

that was nearing its end.

THE PRESIDENTIAL 

ELECTION OF 2000 AND 

THE WAR ON TERROR

The Democratic Party nominated 

Vice President Al Gore to head its 

ticket in 2000. To oppose him, the 

Republicans chose George W. Bush, 

the governor of Texas and son of former president George H.W. Bush.

Gore ran as a dedicated liberal, 

intensely concerned with damage 

to the environment and determined 

to seek more assistance for the less 

privileged sectors of American society. He seemed to position himself to 

the left of President Clinton.

Bush established a position on 

the right wing of the Republican 

Party, closer to the heritage of Ronald Reagan than to that of his father.

He softened this image by displaying a special interest in education 

and calling himself a “compassionate conservative.” His embrace of 

evangelical Christianity, which he 

declared had changed his life after 

a misspent youth, was of particular 

note. It underscored an attachment 

to traditional cultural values that 

contrasted sharply to Gore’s technocratic modernism. Corporate critic 

Ralph Nader ran well to Gore’s left 

as the candidate of the Green Party. Conservative Republican Patrick 

Buchanan mounted an independent 

candidacy.

The final vote was nearly evenly 

divided nationally; so were the electoral votes. The pivotal state was 

Florida, where a razor-thin margin

separated Bush and Gore and thousands of ballots were disputed. After a series of court challenges at the 

state and federal levels, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a narrow decision that effectively gave the 

election to Bush. The Republicans 

maintained control of both houses 

of Congress by a small margin.

CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

333

The final totals underscored the 

tightness of the election: Bush won 

271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266, but 

Gore led him in the national popular vote 48.4 percent to 47.9 percent.

Nader polled 2.1 percent and Buchanan .4 percent. Gore, his states 

colored blue in media graphics, 

swept the Northeast and the West 

Coast; he also ran well in the Midwestern industrial heartland. Bush, 

whose states were colored red, beat 

his opponent in the South, the rest 

of the Midwest, and the mountain 

states. Commentators everywhere 

commented on the vast gap between 

“red” and “blue” America, a divide 

characterized by cultural and social, 

rather than economic, differences, 

and all the more deep-seated and 

emotional for that reason. George W.

Bush took office in a climate of extreme partisan bitterness.

Bush expected to be a president 

primarily concerned with domestic 

policy. He wanted to meld traditional Republican Party belief in private 

enterprise, low taxation, and small 

government with a sense of social 

responsibility for the less fortunate 

groups in American society. He had 

talked during his campaign about 

reforming the Social Security system. Impressed by Reagan’s supplyside economics, he advocated lower 

taxes to stimulate economic growth.

The economy was beginning to 

slip back from its lofty peak of the 

late 1990s. This helped Bush secure 

passage of a tax cut in May 2001.

Lower taxes would indeed buoy the 

economy, but at the cost of an ominously growing federal budget deficit. At the end of the year, Bush also 

obtained the “No Child Left Behind” 

Act, which required public schools 

to test reading and mathematical 

proficiency on an annual basis; it 

prescribed penalties for schools 

unable to achieve a specified standard. Social Security remained unaddressed despite Bush’s efforts to 

make it a priority in his second term.

The Bush presidency changed 

irrevocably on September 11, 2001, 

as the United States suffered the 

most devastating foreign attack ever 

against its mainland. That morning, Middle Eastern terrorists simultaneously hijacked four passenger 

airplanes and used two of them as 

suicide vehicles to destroy the twin 

towers of the World Trade Center in 

New York City. A third crashed into 

the Pentagon building, the Defense 

Department headquarters just outside of Washington, D.C. The fourth, 

probably aimed at the U.S. Capitol, 

dived into the Pennsylvania countryside as passengers fought the hijackers.

The death toll, most of it consisting of civilians at the Trade Center, 

was approximately 3,000, exceeding 

that of the Japanese attack on Pearl 

Harbor. The economic costs were 

also heavy. Several other buildings 

near the Trade Center also were destroyed, shutting down the financial 

markets for several days. The effect 

was to prolong the already developing recession.

As the nation began to recover 

from the attack, an unknown person 
334

or group sent out letters containing 

small amounts of anthrax bacteria.

Some went to members of Congress 

and administration officials, others 

to obscure individuals. No notable 

person was infected. But five victims 

died, and several others suffered serious illness. The mailings touched 

off a wave of national hysteria, then 

stopped as suddenly as they had begun, and remained a mystery. In 

2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that the likely 

culprit was a troubled government 

scientist who had committed suicide.

The administration obtained passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. Designed to fight domestic 

terrorism, the new law considerably 

broadened the search, seizure, and 

detention powers of the federal government. Its opponents argued that 

it violated constitutionally protected 

individual rights. Its backers responded that a country at war needed to protect itself.

After initial hesitation, the Bush 

administration also decided to support the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security.

Authorized in November 2002 and 

designed to coordinate the fight 

against domestic terrorist attack, 

the new department consolidated 22 

federal agencies.

The administration, like its predecessor, had been unprepared for 

the unimaginable. However, it retaliated quickly. Determining that 

the attack had been an al-Qaida 

operation, it launched a military offensive against Osama bin Laden 

and the fundamentalist Muslim 

Taliban government of Afghanistan 

that had provided him refuge. The 

United States secured the passive 

cooperation of the Russian Federation, established relationships with 

the former Soviet republics that bordered Afghanistan, and, above all, 

resumed a long-neglected alliance 

with Pakistan, which provided political support and access to air bases.

Utilizing U.S. Army Special Forces 

and Central Intelligence Agency 

paramilitary operatives, the administration allied with long-marginalized Afghan rebels. Given 

effective air support the coalition 

ousted the Taliban government in 

two months. Bin Laden, Taliban 

leaders, and many of their fighters, 

however, escaped into remote, semiautonomous areas of Northeastern 

Pakistan. From there they would try 

to regroup and attack the new Afghan government.

In the meantime, the Bush administration was looking elsewhere for 

sources of enemy terrorism. In his 

2002 State of the Union address, the 

president identified an “axis of evil” 

that he thought threatened the nation: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Of 

these three, Iraq seemed to him and 

his advisers the most troublesome 

and probably easiest to bring down.

Saddam Hussein had ejected 

United Nations weapons inspectors.

The economic sanctions against Iraq 

were breaking down, and, although 

the regime was not believed to be 

involved in the 9/11 attacks, it had 

engaged in some contacts with alCHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

335

Qaida. It was widely believed, not 

just in the United States but throughout the world, that Iraq had large 

stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and might be working 

to acquire a nuclear capability. Why 

else throw out the inspection teams 

and endure continuing sanctions?

Throughout the year, the administration pressed for a United Nations 

resolution demanding resumption 

of weapons inspection with full and 

free access. In October 2002, Iraq 

declared it would comply. Nonetheless, the new inspectors complained 

of bad faith. In January, their chief, 

Hans Blix, presented a report to the 

UN declaring that Iraq had failed 

to account for its weapons of mass 

destruction, although he recommended a resumption of weapons 

inspections before withdrawing.

Bush in the meantime had received a Senate authorization by a 

vote of 77–23 for the use of military force. The U.S. military began 

a buildup of personnel and materiel 

in Kuwait.

The American plans for war 

with Iraq encountered unusually 

strong opposition in much of Europe. France, Russia, and Germany 

all were against the use of force. Even 

in those nations whose governments 

supported the United States, there 

was strong popular hostility to cooperation. Britain became the major 

U.S. ally in the war that followed; 

most of the newly independent Eastern European nations contributed 

assistance. The governments of Italy and (for a time) Spain also lent 

their backing. Turkey, long a reliable 

American ally, declined to do so.

Nevertheless, on March 19, 2003, 

American and British troops, supported by small contingents from 

several other countries, began an invasion of Iraq from the South.

Groups airlifted into the North coordinated with Kurdish militia. On 

both fronts, resistance was occasionally fierce, but usually melted away.

Baghdad fell on April 8. On April 14, 

the military campaign in Iraq was 

declared over.

Taking Iraq turned out to be far 

easier than administering it. In the 

first days after the end of major combat, the country experienced pervasive looting. Hit-and-run attacks on 

allied troops followed and became 

increasingly organized, despite the 

capture of Saddam Hussein and the 

deaths of his two sons and heirs. Different Iraqi factions seemed on the 

verge of war with each other.

New weapons inspection teams 

were unable to find the expected 

stockpiles of chemical and biological 

weaponry. It became clear that Iraq 

had never restarted the nuclear program it had been pursuing before the 

first Gulf War. After his apprehension, Saddam Hussein admitted that 

he had engaged in a gigantic bluff to 

forestall attack from abroad or insurrection at home.

In the year and a quarter after the 

fall of Baghdad, the United States and 

the United Kingdom, with increasing cooperation from the United 

Nations, moved ahead with establishment of a provisional govern-
336

ment that would assume sovereignty 

over Iraq. The effort occurred amidst 

increasing violence that included attacks not only on allied troops, but 

also on Iraqis connected in any way 

with the new government. Most of 

the insurgents appeared to be Saddam loyalists; some were indigenous 

Muslim sectarians; others likely 

were foreign fighters.

THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL 

ELECTION AND GEORGE W. 

BUSH’S SECOND TERM

By mid-2004, with the United 

States facing a violent insurgency 

in Iraq, considerable foreign opposition to the war there, and increasingly sharp divisions about the 

conflict at home, the country faced 

another presidential election. The 

Democrats nominated Senator John 

Kerry of Massachusetts, a decorated 

Vietnam veteran in his fourth Senate 

term. Kerry’s dignified demeanor 

and speaking skills made him a formidable candidate. A reliable liberal 

on domestic issues, he was a critic of 

the Iraq war. Bush, renominated 

without opposition by the Republicans, portrayed himself as frank and 

consistent in speech and deed, a man 

of action willing to take all necessary 

steps to protect the United States.

Marked by intense feelings on 

both sides about the war and the 

cultural conflicts that increasingly 

defined the differences between the 

two major parties, the campaign revealed a nation nearly as divided as 

in 2000. The strong emotions of the 

race fueled a voter turnout 20 percent higher than four years earlier.

Bush won a narrow victory, 51 percent to 48 percent with the remainder of the vote going to Ralph Nader 

and other independents. The Republicans scored small but important 

gains in Congress.

George W. Bush began his second term in January 2005, facing 

challenges aplenty: Iraq, increasing 

federal budget deficits, a chronic 

international balance-of-payments 

shortfall, the escalating cost of social 

entitlements, and a shaky currency.

None were susceptible to quick or 

easy solutions.

Iraq was the largest and most visible problem. The country had adopted a new constitution and held 

parliamentary elections in 2005.

Saddam Hussein, tried by an Iraqi 

tribunal, was executed in December 

2006. All the same, American forces 

and the new government faced a 

mounting insurgency. Composed of 

antagonistic factions—among them 

Sunni supporters of Saddam and 

dissident Shiites aided by Iran—the 

insurgency could be contained, but 

not quelled without using harsh tactics that would be unacceptable at 

home and would alienate the Iraqi 

population. The constitutional Iraqi 

government lacked the power and 

stability needed to impose order, yet 

the costs—human and financial—of 

the American occupation eroded 

support at home.

In January 2007, the president 

adopted an anti-insurgency strategy advocated by General David PeCHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

337

traeus—one of outreach and support 

for Sunni leaders willing to accept a 

new democratic order in Iraq, along 

with continued backing of the predominantly Shiite government in 

Baghdad. He accompanied this with 

a “surge” of additional troops. Over 

the next year, the strategy appeared 

to calm the country. The United 

States began to turn over increased 

security responsibilities to the Iraqis and negotiated an agreement for 

complete withdrawal by 2011. Nonetheless, Iraq remained very unstable, 

its fragile peace regularly disrupted 

by bombings and assassinations, its 

Sunni-Shiite conflict complicated by 

Kurdish separatists. It was not clear 

whether a liberal-democratic nation 

could be created out of such chaos, 

but certain that the United States 

could not impose one if the Iraqis 

did not want it.

As Iraq progressed uncertainly 

toward stability, Afghanistan moved 

in the other direction. The post-Taliban government of Hamid Karzai 

proved unable to establish effective 

control over the historically decentralized country. Operating from the 

Pakistani tribal areas to which they 

had escaped in 2001, the Taliban and 

al-Qaida began to filter back into 

Afghanistan and establish significant areas of control in the southern 

provinces. Using remote-controlled 

drone aircraft equipped with guided 

missiles, U.S. forces staged attacks 

against enemy encampments and 

leaders within Pakistan. In 2009, 

the new American president, Barack 

Obama, approved a U.S. military 

buildup and anti-insurgency effort 

similar to the Iraq surge. As with 

Iraq, the outcome remained in 

doubt.

As the first decade of the 21st century drew to a close, the United 

States found itself adjusting to a 

world considerably more complex 

than that of the Cold War. The bipolar rivalry of that era, for all its 

dangers and challenges, had imposed an unprecedented simplicity 

on international affairs. The newer, 

messier world order (or disorder) 

featured the rapid rise of China as a 

major economic force. India and 

Brazil were not far behind. Post-Soviet Russia re-emerged as an oil and 

natural gas power seeking to regain 

lost influence in Eastern Europe.

The United States remained the preeminent power in the world, but was 

now first in a complex multipolar international system.

At home, the nation remained 

generally prosperous through most 

of the Bush years. After a weak first 

year, gross domestic product grew 

at a relatively steady, if unspectacular, rate and unemployment held at 

fairly low levels. Yet the prosperity 

was fragile. Most noticeable was the 

rapid decline of American manufacturing, a trend that was well along by 

the time George W. Bush became 

president and was in sharp contrast 

to the rise of China as an industrial 

power. Increasingly, the economy was 

sustained by consumer spending, 

finance, and a construction boom 

led by residential housing. Federal 

policy, reflecting the American ideal 
338

that every person should have an 

opportunity to own a home, encouraged the extension of mortgage loans 

to individuals whose prospects for 

repayment were dim. The financial 

institutions in turn repackaged these 

loans into complex securities, represented them as sound investments, 

and sold them to institutional investors. These ultimately unsustainable 

investments were fueled to excess by 

an easy-money policy as the nation’s 

central bank, the Federal Reserve 

System, held interest rates at low levels. Similar economic currents 

flowed in much of the rest of the developed Western world, but the United States was the pacesetter.

In line with the theme of compassionate conservatism, Bush proposed 

a major overhaul of the Social Security system that would allow individuals some discretion in investing the 

taxes they paid into it. The plan 

aroused nearly unanimous Democratic opposition, generated little 

public enthusiasm, and never got 

to a vote in Congress. Bush’s other 

major project—the enhancement 

of Medicare by the addition of a voluntary prescription drug program—

proved much more popular. It appeased conservative qualms about 

big government by subsidizing 

qualified private insurance plans, 

required fairly large out-of-pocket 

payments from those who bought 

into it, but still provided real savings 

to elderly patients who required multiple medications. Yet, as was the 

case with already existing Medicare 

provisions, the costs of the drug 

program were not fully covered. It 

added substantially to a federal deficit that seemed uncontrollable.

The growing deficit became a 

major issue among not simply opposition Democrats but many Republican conservatives, who thought their 

party was spending too freely. In addition, the difficult war in Iraq was 

increasingly unpopular. In the 2006 

midterm elections, Republicans lost 

control of Congress to the opposition 

Democrats, who more than ever 

looked with confidence to the next 

presidential election. 9

CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY
 

President George W. Bush walks down the White House Colonnade with his 

successor, Barack Obama, on November 10, 2008, six days after Obama’s 

election as 44th president of the United States.

339
340
Democratic presidential 

candidate Senator 

Barack Obama (Illinois)

at a campaign rally in 

Charlotte, North Carolina, 

September, 2008. 

POLITICS 

OF 

HOPE

 

16

CHAPTER
342

CHAPTER 16: POLITICS OF HOPE 

 “The strongest democracies

flourish from frequent and lively 

debate, but they endure when 

people of every background and 

belief find a way to set aside 

smaller differences in service 

 of a greater purpose.”

President Barack Obama, 2009

THE ELECTION OF 2008 

AND THE EMERGENCE OF 

BARACK OBAMA

Having served two terms, President George W. Bush was constitutionally prohibited from being elected 

again to the presidency. After a spirited preconvention campaign, the 

Republicans chose as their candidate Senator John McCain of Arizona. A Vietnam veteran respected 

for his heroic resistance as a prisoner of war, McCain possessed strong 

foreign policy credentials and was 

a relatively moderate conservative 

on domestic issues. He chose as his 

running mate Governor Sarah Palin 

of Alaska. Much admired by Christian evangelicals and cultural conservatives, she drew almost as much 

attention as McCain himself.

In late 2007, it seemed nearly certain that the Democratic nomination 

would go to Senator Hillary Rodham 

Clinton of New York. The wife of 

former president Bill Clinton, 

she had quickly established herself 

as a leading member of Congress 

and possessed a strong national constituency among women and liberal 

Democrats. However, she faced a phenomenon not unusual in democratic 

societies—a relatively unknown, but 

charismatic, challenger whose appeal rested not on ideological or programmatic differences but on style 

and personal background.

Barack Hussein Obama was only 

in his second year as a U.S. senator 

from Illinois, but his comparative 

youth and freshness were assets in a 

year when the electorate was weary 

of politics as usual. So was his multi-
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

343

cultural background. His father was 

from Kenya; his mother was a white 

American sociologist. Born in Hawaii, he had spent his early years in 

Indonesia, where he attended a Muslim school. After his father left the 

family and his mother died at an early age, he had been raised by his 

grandmother. These family crises 

notwithstanding, he became a successful student at two of the best 

universities in the United States—

Columbia and Harvard. His personal style mixed a rare speaking talent 

with a hip informality that had great 

appeal to younger voters. Americans 

of all ages could consider him an 

emblematic representative of their 

society’s tradition of providing opportunity for all.

After a close, hard-fought six 

months of party caucuses and primary elections, Obama eked out a 

narrow victory over Clinton. He 

made Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware his vice-presidential selection.

Most measures of popular sentiment 

indicated that the public wanted a 

change. The two candidates were 

ahead in many public opinion polls 

as the fall campaign season began.

Any chance that McCain and 

Palin could pull ahead was ended 

by the sharp financial crisis that began in the last half of September and 

sent the economy crashing. Caused 

by excessive speculation in risky 

mortgage-backed securities and 

other unstable investment vehicles, 

the crash led to the bankruptcy of 

the venerable Lehman Brothers investment house and momentarily 

imperiled the entire financial superstructure of the nation. The Federal 

Deposit Insurance Corporation 

(FDIC), created during the New 

Deal, shut down numerous banks 

without loss to depositors, but had 

no jurisdiction over the giant financial investment companies that did 

not engage in commercial banking.

Moreover, it had only limited capabilities to deal with those corporations that did both.

Fearing a general financial meltdown reminiscent of the darkest 

days of the Great Depression, the 

U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve engineered a Troubled Assets 

Relief Program (TARP) that was 

funded by a $700 billion congressional appropriation. The TARP

program kept the endangered investment banks afloat. What it could not 

do was stave off a sharp economic 

collapse in which millions of Americans lost their jobs.

That November, the voters elected Obama president of the United 

States, with approximately 53 percent of the vote to McCain’s 46.

 OBAMA: THE FIRST YEAR

Obama was inaugurated president 

of the United States on January 20, 

2009, in an atmosphere of hope and 

high expectations. In his inaugural 

address, he declared: “The time has 

come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to 

carry forward that precious gift, that 

noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given 
344

CHAPTER 16: POLITICS OF HOPE

promise that all are equal, all are 

free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” 

He proclaimed an agenda of “remaking America” by reviving and transforming the economy in ways that 

would provide better and less-expensive health care for all, foster environmentally friendly energy, and 

develop an educational system better 

suited to the needs of a new century.

Speaking to the international 

community, he pledged U.S. cooperation in facing the problem of 

global warming. He also delivered 

a general message of international 

engagement based on compassion 

for poorer, developing countries and 

respect for other cultures. “To the 

Muslim world,” Obama said, “we 

seek a new way forward, based on 

mutual interest and mutual respect.”

The speech revealed the wide 

scope of Obama’s aspirations. His 

rhetoric and his strong personal 

presence won wide approval—so 

much so that in October, he was 

awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 

recognition of his goals. But, as 

always in the complex system of 

American representative government, it was easier to state large 

ambitions than to realize them.

At home, the administration addressed the mounting economic 

crisis with a $787 billion stimulus 

act designed to bring growing unemployment down to manageable 

levels. The legislation doubtless saved 

or created many jobs, but it failed to

prevent unemployment—officially

estimated at 7.7 percent of the labor 

force when Obama took office—

from increasing to a high of 10.1 percent, then receding just a bit. The 

loans to large investment and commercial banks begun during the 

Bush administration with the objective of restoring a stable financial 

system were mostly repaid with a 

profit to the government, but a few 

remained outstanding as the president began his second year in office.

In addition, the government invested 

heavily in two giant auto makers

—General Motors and Chrysler—

shepherding them through bankruptcy and attempting to reestablish 

them as major manufacturers.

Obama’s other major objective—

the establishment of a national health 

care system—had long been a goal 

of American liberalism. With large 

Democratic majorities in both houses 

of Congress, it seemed achievable.

However, developing a plan that had 

to meet the medical needs of more 

than 300 million Americans proved 

extraordinarily difficult. The concerns of numerous interests had to be 

dealt with—insurance companies, 

hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, and the large majority of Americans who were already 

covered and reasonably satisfied. In 

addition, a comprehensive national 

plan had to find some way to control 

skyrocketing costs. In the spring of 

2010, the president signed complex 

legislation that mandated health in-
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

345

surance for every American, with 

implementation to take place over 

several years.

In foreign policy, Obama sought 

to reach out to the non-Western 

world, and especially to Muslims 

who might interpret the American military actions in Iraq and 

Afghanistan as part of a general 

war on Islam. “America and Islam 

are not exclusive and need not be 

in competition,” he told an audience at Cairo University. In Tokyo, 

he reassured Asians that America 

would remain engaged with the 

world’s fastest-growing region.

While hoping to distinguish itself 

in tone from the Bush administration, the Obama government found 

itself following the broad outlines 

of Bush’s War on Terror. It affirmed 

the existing agreement to withdraw 

American troops from Iraq in 2011 

and reluctantly accepted military 

plans for a surge in Afghanistan. In 

his Nobel acceptance speech, President Obama quoted the celebrated American theologian Reinhold 

Niebuhr to the effect that evil existed in the world and could be defeated only by force.

At the conclusion of his first 

year in office, Obama remained, for 

many Americans, a compelling personification of their ideals of liberty 

and equal opportunity.

AFTERWORD 

From its origins as a set of obscure 

colonies hugging the Atlantic coast, 

the United States has undergone a 

remarkable transformation into 

what political analyst Ben Wattenberg has called “the first universal 

nation,” a population of almost 300 

million people representing virtually every nationality and ethnic 

group in the world. It is also a nation where the pace and extent of 

change—economic, technological, 

cultural, demographic, and social

—is unceasing. The United States is 

often the harbinger of the modernization and change that inevitably 

sweep up other nations and societies 

in an increasingly interdependent, 

interconnected world.

Yet the United States also maintains a sense of continuity, a set of 

core values that can be traced to its 

founding. They include a faith in 

individual freedom and democratic 

government, and a commitment to 

economic opportunity and progress for all. The continuing task of 

the United States will be to ensure 

that its values of freedom, democracy, and opportunity—the legacy 

of a rich and turbulent history—are 

protected and flourish as the nation, 

and the world, move through the 

21st century. 9

 
346

RECENT PRIZE-WINNING 

BOOKS

The Bancroft Prize for 

American History

Awarded by the Trustees 

of Columbia University

2010

Dorothea Lange: A Life 

Beyond Limits 

By Linda Gordon 

W.W. Norton & Company

Abigail Adams 

By Woody Holton

Free Press

White Mother to a Dark Race: 

Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, 

and the Removal of Indigenous 

Children in the American West 

and Australia, 1880-1940.

By Margaret D. Jacobs

University of Nebraska Press

2009

Killing for Coal: America’s 

Deadliest Labor War 

By Thomas G. Andrews

Harvard University Press 

This Republic of Suffering: Death 

and the American Civil War

By Drew Gilpin Faust

Alfred A. Knopf 

The Comanche Empire

By Pekka Hämäläinen

Yale University Press

2008

The Cigarette Century: The Rise, 

Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the 

Product That Defined America 

By Allan M. Brandt

Basic Books 

The Populist Vision

By Charles Postel

Oxford University Press 

Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian 

War Transformed Early America

By Peter Silver

W.W. Norton & Company

2007

Mockingbird Song: Ecological 

Landscapes of the South

By Jack Temple Kirby

University of North Carolina Press 

William James: In the Maelstrom 

of American Modernism

By Robert D. Richardson

Houghton Mifflin Company

2006

Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic

By Erskine Clarke

Yale University Press

The Global Cold War: Third 

World Interventions and the 

Making of Our Times

By Odd Arne Westad

Cambridge University Press

BIBLIOGRAPHY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

347

The Rise of American Democracy: 

Jefferson to Lincoln

By Sean Wilentz

W.W. Norton & Company

Pulitzer Prize for a distinguished 

book upon the history of the 

United States

Awarded by Columbia University 

Graduate School of Journalism

2010

Lords of Finance: The Bankers 

Who Broke the World

By Liaquat Ahamed

The Penguin Press

2009

The Hemingses of Monticello: 

An American Family

By Annette Gordon-Reed

W.W. Norton & Company

2008

What God Hath Wrought: 

The Transformation of America, 

1815-1848

By Daniel Walker Howe

Oxford University Press

2007

The Race Beat: The Press, 

the Civil Rights Struggle, and 

the Awakening of a Nation

By Gene Roberts and 

Hank Klibanoff

Alfred A. Knopf

2006

Polio: An American Story

By David Oshinsky

Oxford University Press

SELECTED INTERNET 

RESOURCES 

American Historical Association 

http://www.historians.org

American History: A Documentary 

Record

1492–Present

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_

menus/chrono.asp

The Avalon Project at the Yale Law 

School: Major Collections

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_

menus/major.asp

Biography of America

http://www.learner.org/

biographyofamerica/

Digital History

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/

Documents for the Study of 

American History

http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/

Gilder Lehrman Institute of 

American History

http://www.gilderlehrman.org

Historicalstatistics.org 

http://www.historicalstatistics.org/

index2.html

History Matters

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/
348

The Library of Congress 

American Memory: Historical 

Collections for the National 

Digital Library

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/

The Library of Congress 

American Memory: Timeline

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/

ndlpedu/features/timeline/

index.html

National Archives and Records 

Administration

http://www.nara.gov

National Archives and Records 

Administration: Digital Classroom

http://www.archives.gov/digital_

classroom/

National Archives and Records 

Administration: Our Documents:

A National Initiative on American 

History, Civics, and Service

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/

index.php?flash=true&

National Archives and Records 

Administration: Presidential 

Libraries

http://www.archives.gov/

presidential-libraries

National Atlas of the United States 

http://nationalatlas.gov

National Endowment for 

the Humanities: We the People

http://www.wethepeople.gov 

National Park Service: 

Discover History

http://www.nps.gov/history/

Organization of American 

Historians 

http://www.oah.org/

Smithsonian

http://www.si.edu/

The Historical Society

http://www.bu.edu/historic/

U.S. Department of State 

Office of the Historian

http://history.state.gov/

WWW Virtual Library 

History: United States

http://vlib.iue.it/history/USA/

The U.S. Department of State 

assumes no responsibility for 

the content and availability 

of the resources from other 

agencies and organizations 

listed above. All Internet links 

were active as of fall 2010.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

349

INDEX

Page references in boldface type 

refer to illustrations.

A

Abolition of slavery

Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry 

(1859), 139

constitutional amendment 

(13th), 148

Democratic Party and, 152

Douglass as abolitionist leader, 91

Emancipation Proclamation, 144-

145

Freedmen’s Bureau, 148, 151

Garrison and The Liberator on, 91, 

122, 133-134

Missouri Compromise (1820), 80, 

114, 132, 135, 137

Northwest Ordinance slavery ban, 

71, 73, 113, 135

religious social activism and, 87

as a sectional conflict/divided 

nation, 128-139

as sharecroppers and tenant 

farmers, 190-191

southern statesmen on, 113

Underground Railroad, 91, 134, 136

See also Slavery

Adams, John, 52, 64, 72, 82-83

Adams, John Quincy, 115, 116, 134

Adams, Samuel, 56-57

Adamson Act, 199

Addams, Jane, 196

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(Twain), 97

Afghanistan, U.S. relations, 294, 

334, 345

AFL. See American Federation of 

Labor (AFL)

African Americans

bus boycott (Montgomery, 

Alabama), 240

civil rights movement, 240, 258, 

271-272

color barrier broken in sports, 237, 

271

Colored Farmers National Alliance, 

191

culture, 210-211

Freedmen’s Bureau and, 148, 151

“Harlem Renaissance,” 211

jazz musicians, 211

labor unions and, 193

lynchings and violence against, 

150, 178, 271

members of Congress, 96

as sharecroppers and tenant 

farmers, 190-191

U.S. Colored Troops in Union 

Army, 145

See also Abolition of slavery; 

Civil rights; Racial discrimination; 

Slavery

Agnew, Spiro, 290

Agricultural Adjustment Act 

(AAA), 216

Agriculture

farm-relief act, 216

Farmers’ Alliances, 191

Grange movement, 191

land grant and technical colleges, 

152, 177

New Deal programs, 216-217

Patrons of Husbandry (Grange), 191

plantation settlements, 26, 28, 

113-114, 128-129

post-Revolutionary period, 70

Republican policy, 79, 208

scientific research, 177
350

sharecroppers and tenant farmers, 

190-191

small farmers and agricultural 

consolidation, 267

technological revolution, 110-111, 

160, 177

westward expansion and, 125

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency 

Syndrome)

epidemic, 307

quilt (Washington, D.C.), 299

AIM. See American Indian Movement 

Alaska

gold rush, 192

purchase, known as “Seward’s 

Folly,” 182

Albany Plan of Union, 33, 69

Albright, Madeleine, 329

Alien Act, 82, 117

Amalgamated Association of Iron, 

Steel, and Tin Workers, 194

American Bible Society, 87

American Civil Liberties Union, 209

American Federation of Labor (AFL), 

194, 209, 227

American Independent Party, 319

American Indian Movement (AIM), 281

American Philosophical Society, 28

American Railway Union, 194

American Revolution, 50-65

Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57

British move through the South, 

63-64

colonial declaration of war, 60

Concord and Lexington battles 

(1775), 59-60

economic aftermath, 70

factors leading to, 50-59

first shots fired at Lexington, 

44-45, 59

Franco-American alliance, 62-63

Long Island, battle of (1776), 61

Loyalists and, 60, 65

Olive Branch Petition, 60

significance of, 65

Treaty of Paris (1783), 47, 64

Yorktown, British surrender at, 

47-48, 64

American Sugar Refining Company, 

197

American Telephone and Telegraph 

(AT&T), 158

American Temperance Union, 121

Amity and Commerce, Treaty of 

(France-American colonies), 63

Amnesty Act (1872), 150

Anasazi, 8, 20

Andros, Sir Edmund, 31

Anthony, Susan B., 90, 122

Antifederalists, 76

Antitrust legislation, 160, 187, 

196-197, 199

Apache Indians, 180, 181

Aquino, Corazon, 312

Arafat, Yasser, 330

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 330

Arlington Cemetery (Virginia), 174

Armour, Philip, 158

Arms control. See Nuclear weapons

Armstrong, Louis, 211

Armstrong, Neil, 285

Arnaz, Desi, 239

Arnold, Benedict, 62

Articles of the Confederation, 69-70

Asia, Cold War, 263-264

Atlantic Charter (U.S.-Britain), 220

Automobile industry

auto worker strikes, 228, 230

automobile safety crusade, 287

environmental issues/traffic 

congestion, 282, 300-301

unemployment, 227

B

Babcock, Stephen, 177

Ball, Lucille, 239

Banking Act, 218

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

351

Banking and finance

currency question and gold 

standard, 192

Federal Reserve Board, 199, 218

Federal Reserve System, 119, 187, 

198-199

financial panic (1893), 192

First Bank of the United States, 79

insured savings (FDIC), 215

national bank, 79-80

New Deal program reforms, 214-215

regional and local bank charters, 119

Second Bank of the United States, 

118-119

state banking system, 119

stock market crash (1929), 211

Baptists, 87, 88

Barak, Ehud, 330

Beard, Charles, 75

“Beat Generation” (1950s), 270

Begin, Menachim, 292

Bell, Alexander Graham, 107, 156

Bell, John C., 139

Bell Telephone System, 158

Bellamy, Edward, 160

Biddle, Nicholas, 119

Biden, Joseph, 343

Bill of Rights, 77

bin Laden, Osama, 331, 332, 334

Blaine, James G., 185

Blair, Tony, 294-295, 330

Blix, Hans, 335

Bolívar, Simon, 114

Booth, John Wilkes, 147

Borglum, Gutzon, 171

Bosnia, 330

Boston Massacre (1770), 56

Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57

Breckenridge, John C., 139

Brezhnev, Leonid, 289

British colonization. See English 

colonization

Brooks, David, 322

Brown, John, 139

Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 

240, 244, 272

Bryan, William Jennings, 192, 195, 

198, 209-210

Buchanan, Pat, 332

Buckley, William F., 308

Bull Moose Party, 318

Burbank, Luther, 177

Burgoyne, John, 62

Bush, George Herbert Walker, 255

budgets and deficits, 315

domestic policy, 314-315

end of Cold War, 315-316

foreign policy, 312, 316-317

presidential election (1998), 314; 

(1992), 322, 324

“war on drugs,” 317

Bush, George W.

Afghanistan invasion, 334

with Barack Obama, 339

as a “compassionate conservative,” 

332

domestic and foreign policy, 332-

336

on freedom, 322

Iraq War, 334-336

on peace, 322

presidential elections (2000), 333; 

(2004), 336-337

with Tony Blair, 294-295

C

Cable News Network, 297

Cabot, John, 9

Cady Stanton, Elizabeth, 90, 122-123

Calhoun, John C., 112, 116, 117, 125

California

as a free state, 136

gold rush, 131, 136, 179

migrant farm workers’ unions, 

279-280

territory, 135

Calvinism, 13, 29, 34, 65

Campbell, Ben Nighthorse, 281
352

Capitalism, 187, 193, 214

Carleton, Mark, 177

Carmichael, Stokely, 278

Carnegie, Andrew, 97, 156-157, 

187, 194

Carson, Rachel, 282

Carter, Jimmy, 291-292

Cartier, Jacques, 10

Carver, George Washington, 177

Cattle ranching, 179-180

Central Pacific Railroad, 179

A Century of Dishonor (Jackson), 181

Chambers, Whittaker, 266

Charles I (British king), 12, 13, 15

Charles II (British king), 17, 18, 31

Chase, Salmon P., 138

Chávez, César, 250, 280

Cherokee Indians, 125

Chiang Kai-shek, 224, 263, 264

Chicanos. See Latino movement

Child labor, 102-103, 177, 193, 196

China, People’s Republic of

Boxer Rebellion (1900), 186

Taiwan relations, 263, 265, 289

U.S. diplomatic relations, 186, 

289, 292

Christian Coalition, 308

Churchill, Winston

on the “iron curtain,” 260-261

U.S. support for war effort, 220

at Yalta, 224, 234

CIO. See Committee for Industrial 

Organization (CIO); Congress of 

Industrial Organizations (CIO)

Citizenship, 82, 148-149, 178

Civil rights

bus boycott (Montgomery, 

Alabama), 240, 273

desegregation, 272-273

desegregation of schools, 240, 241, 

244, 272-273, 277

desegregation of the military, 

269, 272

Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow 

Coalition,” 253

Truman 10-point civil rights 

program, 271-272

See also Civil rights movement; 

Individual rights; Racial 

discrimination

Civil Rights Act (1957), 273

Civil Rights Act (1960), 273

Civil Rights Act (1964), 277, 286

Civil rights movement (1960-80), 

276-278

“black power” activists, 277-278

“freedom rides,” 277

“March on Washington” (1963), 277

origins of the, 271-272

riots (1960s), 278

sit-ins, 277

Civil Service Commission, 307

Civil War (1861-65)

African Americans in U.S. Colored 

Troops in Union Army, 145

Alexandria, Union troop 

encampment, 94

Antietam campaign (1862), 141, 144

Bull Run (First Manassas), 143

Bull Run (Second Manassas), 144

casualties, 92, 144, 145

Chancellorsville campaign (1863), 

92-93, 145

Chattanooga and Lookout 

Mountain campaigns (1863), 146

Gettysburg address, by Lincoln, 

142, 145

Gettysburg campaign (1863), 92, 

145, 146

Petersburg campaign (1865), 146

postwar politics, 152-153

secession from the Union, 142-143

Sherman’s march through the 

South, 146

Shiloh campaign, 144

Spotsylvania (Battle of the 

Wilderness, 1864), 146

surrender at Appomattox 

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

353

Courthouse, 146

Vicksburg campaign (1863), 145, 146

See also Reconstruction Era

Civil Works Administration 

(CWA), 215-216

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 215

Clark, William, 47

Clay, Henry

compromise agreements, 114, 136

portrait of, 90

presidential elections, 116, 119

protective tariffs, 112, 117, 118

Whig Party statesman, 120, 152

Clayton Antitrust Act, 199

Clean Air Act (1967), 282

Clemenceau, Georges, 108

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 97, 196

Cleveland, Grover, 159, 182, 183, 

192, 194

Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 324, 325, 

328, 342

Clinton, William “Bill”

Arkansas real estate 

investigation, 326

Cabinet appointments, 280

domestic policy, 324-326

foreign policy, 329-331

impeachment hearings/trial, 

328, 329

presidential election (1992), 

322-324; (1996), 328

presidential inaugural address 

(1993), 255

sexual impropriety/intern scandal, 

326, 328

Coercive or Intolerable Acts (England), 

57-59

Cold War, 258-267

in Asia, 263-264

Eisenhower Administration, 

264-265

end of, 255, 315-316, 324

in the Middle East, 264

Kennedy Administration, 284-285

origins of, 260-261

Truman Administration, 261, 265

College of William and Mary, 27

Colonial period

cultural developments, 27-29

Dutch colonies, 14, 15, 17, 24

early settlements, 10-12, 24

English settlers, 10-12, 13-15, 17, 24

French and Indian Wars, 32-33

German settlers, 24, 25, 26

government of the colonies, 29-32

Jamestown colony (Virginia), 10, 

12-13, 16

Massachusetts colonies, 13-14, 24-25

middle colonies, 25-26

Native American relations, 15-17, 

18, 39

New Amsterdam, 14, 15, 26

New England colonies, 24-25

New England Confederation, 17

Pennsylvania colony, 18, 25, 27-28, 

30, 39, 69

rural country daily life, 26-27

Scots and Scots-Irish settlers, 24, 

25, 26

southern colonies, 26-27

Swedish colonies, 15, 24

Virginia colonies, 10, 12-13, 16, 26, 

28-30, 68-69

Colored Farmers National Alliance, 

191

Columbus, Christopher, 9

Commission on Civil Rights, 280

Committee for Industrial Organization 

(CIO), 228

Committees of Correspondence, 

56-57

Commodity Credit Corporation, 216

Common Sense (Paine), 60

Communism, 206-207

Cold War and, 258-267, 315-316

Eisenhower containment policy, 

264-265

Federal Employee Loyalty 
354

Program, 266

House Committee on 

Un-American Activities, 266

McCarthy Senate hearings on, 

236, 266

Red Scare (1919-20), 207, 265

spread of, 263

Truman Doctrine of containment, 

261-263

Communist Party, 206, 263, 265, 266

Compromise of 1850, 90, 135-136

Confederation Congress, 71

Congress of Industrial Organizations 

(CIO), 228

Congress, U.S.

African-American members, 96

first Native American member, 281

Hispanic members, 280

power to make laws, 75

representation in House and 

Senate, 73

Conservatism, 307-309

Constitution, state constitutions, 68-69

Constitution, U.S.

amendments

1st thru 12th, 77

13th (abolishing slavery), 148

14th (citizenship rights), 148-

149, 178

15th (voting rights), 149, 273

16th (federal income tax), 198

17th (direct election of 

senators), 198

18th (prohibition), 210

19th (voting rights for women), 

207

amendments process, 74

Bill of Rights, 77

Congressional powers, 75

debate and compromise, 73-75

declaration of war powers, 316-317

on display at National Archives, 

174

motivations of Founding Fathers, 75

ratification, 75-76

separation of powers principle, 74

signing of, at Constitution Hall 

(Philadelphia), 164

Constitutional Convention 

(Philadelphia, 1787), 66-67, 71-77

Constitutional Union Party, 139

Continental Association, 58-59

Continental Congress, First (1774), 58

Continental Congress, Second (1775), 

60, 61, 69, 71

Coolidge, Calvin, 204, 207

Cornwallis, Lord Charles, 46-47, 64

Coronado, Francisco Vázquez de, 9

Corporations, 158-159

Coughlin, Charles, 217

Counterculture (1960s), 281-282

New Leftists, 281-282

Vietnam War demonstrations, 281

“Woodstock Generation,” 249, 281

Cox, James M., 207

Crawford, William, 116

Crazy Horse (Sioux chief), 180

Creek Indians, 125

Cromwell, Oliver, 12, 17, 31

Cuba, Spanish-American War and, 

182-183

Cuban missile crisis (1962), 284

Cullen, Countee, 211

Culture

of the 1950s, 270-271

in the colonies, 27-29

counterculture of the 1960s, 281-282

See also Libraries; Literary works; 

Music, American

Currency Act (England, 1764), 53

Custer, George, 98-99, 180

D

Dakota Sioux, 98, 180, 281

Darrow, Clarence, 209-210

Darwinian theory

Scopes trial, 209-210

“survival of the fittest,” 193

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

355

Davis, Jefferson, 142

Dawes (General Allotment) Act 

(1887), 181

De Soto, Hernando, 9

Declaration of Independence, 61, 68

burial site for three signers of, 

162-163

Declaratory Act (England), 55

Delaware Indians, 18, 39

Democracy in America (Tocqueville), 

130

Democratic Party, 116, 137, 152, 153, 

192, 218-219

Depression. See Great Depression

Dewey, George, 183

Dewey, Thomas, 235, 269

Dickens, Charles, 130-131

Dickinson, Emily, 96

Dickinson, John, 55, 69

Digital revolution, 293, 296

e-mail communication, 327

mobile phones, 327

personal computer (PC) growth, 

306, 327

Dix, Dorothea, 121

Dixiecrats, 319

Dole, Robert, 328

Doolittle, James “Jimmy,” 223

Dorset, Marion, 177

Douglas, Stephen A., 136, 137, 138-139

Douglass, Frederick, 91, 122, 134, 145

Drake, Francis, 10

Dred Scott decision, 138, 149

Dreiser, Theodore, 196

DuBois, W.E.B., 178, 211

Dukakis, Michael, 314

Dulles, John Foster, 265

Dunmore, Lord, 60

Dutch colonization, 14, 15, 17

patroon system, 14-15

Dutch East India Company, 14

Dylan, Bob, 281

E

East India Company, 57

Eastman, George, 106, 157

Economic crisis bailout, 344

Edison, Thomas, 106, 157

Education

in the colonies, 27-29

computer technology and, 303

day care centers, 303

No Child Left Behind Act, 333

private schools, 27

private tutors, 28

public school systems, 121

school desegregation, 240, 244, 

272-273, 277

Edwards, Jonathan, 29

Eisenhower, Dwight David

civil rights supporter, 272, 273

Cold War and foreign policy, 264-265

domestic policy of “dynamic 

conservatism,” 269-270

portrait of, 236

as president of U.S., 264-265, 269-270

as Supreme Commander of Allied 

Forces, 223, 232, 264

Electoral College, 116, 117

Elkins Act (1903), 196

Ellington, Duke, 211

Ellis Island Monument, 102, 103, 200

Emancipation Proclamation, 144-145

Embargo Act (1807), 84

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 59

Enforcement Acts (1870 and 

1871), 150

English Civil War (1642-49), 31

English colonization

early settlements, 10-12

French and Indian War and, 32-33

map of, 36-37

in Maryland, 15

in Massachusetts, 13-14

New England Confederation, 17

English common law, 30

Enola Gay (U.S. bomber), attacks on 
356

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 226

Environmental movement, 282, 

298, 344

Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA), 282

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 279

Erik the Red, 9

F

Falwell, Jerry, 308

Farragut, David, 143

Faubus, Orval, 272

Federal Aid Road Act (1916), 113

Federal Artists Project, 218

Federal Deposit and Insurance 

Corporation (FDIC), 215, 343

Federal Emergency Relief 

Administration (FERA), 215

Federal Employee Loyalty Program, 

266

Federal Reserve Act (1913), 198

Federal Reserve Board, 199, 218, 

291, 310, 343

Federal Reserve System, 119, 187, 

198-199

Federal Theatre Project, 218

Federal Trade Commission, 199

Federal Workingman’s Compensation 

Act (1916), 199

Federal Writers Project, 218

The Federalist Papers, 43, 76

Federalists, 76, 78, 81, 82, 86, 116

The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 278

The Financier (Dreiser), 196

Finney, Charles, Grandison, 87

Firefighters, 321

“First universal nation,” 345

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 210

Force Act, 118

Ford, Gerald, 290-291

Ford, Henry, 109

Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922), 207

Foreign policy. See U.S. foreign policy

France

Louisiana Territory sold to U.S., 

83-84

New World exploration, 9-10

U.S. diplomatic relations, 82-83

XYZ Affair, 82

Franco-American Treaty of Alliance 

(1778), 62-63, 80, 82

Franklin, Benjamin, 28, 33, 43, 63, 

64, 72, 75

Free Soil Party, 136, 137, 138

Freedmen’s Bureau, 148, 151

Fremont, John, 138

French and Indian War, 32-33

French exploration, 10

French Huguenots, 24

French Revolution, 34, 79, 80, 81

Friedan, Betty, 278, 279

Friedman, Milton, 308

Fugitive Slave Act, 136, 137

Fundamentalism, religious, 209, 

210, 308

G

Gage, Thomas, 59

Gallatin, Albert, 83

Garrison, William Lloyd, 91, 122, 

133-134

Garza, Eligio “Kika” de la, 280

Gates, Bill, 296

Gates, Horatio, 62, 63-64

Gay rights, 307, 324-325

Genet, Edmond Charles, 80-81

George, Henry, 160

George III (British king), 55, 59

Georgia

colonial royal government, 31

early settlement, 18

Native American tribes relocated, 

118

German unification, 316

Germany

Berlin Airlift, 262

Kennedy speech in West Berlin, 

242-243

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

357

postwar period, 262

reparations, World War I, 224

Germany in World War II

Holocaust (Jewish genocide), 226

Nazism, 219, 224, 226

North African campaign, 222

Nuremberg war crime trials, 226

reparations, 206

submarine warfare, 204-205

Geronimo (Apache chief), 181

Gerry, Elbridge, 72, 73

Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 85

Gilbert, Humphrey, 10

The Gilded Age (Twain), 196

Ginsberg, Allen, 271

Glenn, John, 285

Global warming, 344

Glorious Revolution (1688-89), 31, 32

Goethals, George W., 185

Goldwater, Barry, 286, 308, 309

Gompers, Samuel, 194

González, Henry B., 280

Gorbachev, Mikhail, 304-305, 314, 

315, 316

Gore, Al, 323, 332, 333

Gould, Jay, 194

Grange movement, 191

Grant, Ulysses S.

as president of U.S., 150, 153

as Union Army general, 144, 145

portrait of, 95

Great Depression (1929-40)

decline in immigration, 201

“Dust Bowl” migration, 216

New Deal programs, 214-218

soup lines, 202-203

stock market crash (1929), 211

“Great Society,” 286-287

Greeley, Horace, 112, 124

Green Party, 332

Greenspan, Alan, 327

Grey, Zane, 180

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 135

Guam, U.S. relations, 184

H

Haiti, political situation, 330

Hamilton, Alexander

and Bank of the United States, 

79, 118

Constitutional Convention 

delegate, 71, 72

Federalist Papers and, 43, 76

as first Secretary of the Treasury 

(Department of the Treasury), 77

portrait of, 48

and Republican Party, 152

vs. Jefferson, 48, 78-80

Hamilton, Andrew, 28

Harding, Warren G., 207

Harrison, Benjamin, 160

Harrison, William Henry, 85, 120

Hartford Convention (1814), 117

Harvard College, 27

Hawaii, statehood (1959), 184

Hawaiian Islands, U.S. policy of 

annexation, 183-184

Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (1930), 207

Hay, John, 184, 186

Hayes, Rutherford B., 150-151, 153

Haymarket Square incident, 194

Health care, 344

Health insurance, 344-345

Helsinki Accords (1975), 291

Hemingway, Ernest, 109, 210

Henry, Patrick, 42, 54, 76, 77

Hepburn Act (1906), 197

Hidalgo, Miguel de, 114

Highway Act (1956), 268

Hispanics

in politics, 280

See also Latino movement

Hiss, Alger, 266

Hitler, Adolf, 201, 219

Ho Chi Minh, 284

Hohokam settlements, 7

Holy Alliance, 115

Homeland Security Department, 334

Homestead Act (1862), 124, 152, 
358

179, 180

Hoover, Herbert, 185, 211

Hopewellians, 7

Hopi Indians, 8

Housing and Urban Development 

Department, 287

Houston, Sam, 134

Howe, William, 61-62

Hudson, Henry, 14

Hughes, Langston, 211

Hull, Cordell, 221

Humphrey, Hubert, 288

Hungary, rebellion (1956), 265

Hutchinson, Anne, 14

I

Immigrants and immigration

diversity of immigrants, 200-201

Ellis Island Monument, 102, 

103, 200

illegal immigrants, 201

immigration quotas, 201, 209

“Little Italy” in New York City, 

104-105

Nativists and, 209

policy reform, 307

restrictions on immigration, 

208-209

Immigration Restriction League, 201

Imperialism, 181-182

Indentured servants, 18-19

Indian Removal Act (1830), 125

Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 181

Indian Wars

Apache wars, 180, 181

Custer’s Last Stand at Little 

Bighorn, 98-99, 180

French and Indian War, 32-33

Pequot War (1637), 16

and westward expansion, 124, 

180-181

Indians of North America. See Native 

Americans

Individual rights, 34, 65, 76-77

See also Civil rights

Industrial development. See under 

names of industry

Industrial Workers of the World 

(IWW), 194

Interstate Commerce Commission 

(ICC), 159, 197, 198

Inventions

adding machine, 157

airplane, 107

cash register, 157

cotton gin, 114, 133

light bulb/incandescent lamp, 

106, 157

linotype machine, 157

motion picture projector, 106, 157

reaper (farm machine), 131, 

158, 160

telegraph, 156

telephone, 107, 156

television, 268

typewriter, 157

Iran, U.S. relations, 292

Axis of evil, 334

Iraq

elections (2005), 302

provisional government, 335

U.N. weapons inspections, 329, 

334-335

U.S.-led invasion, 335

Iron and steel industry, 157, 187

strikes, 194, 228

Iroquois Indians, 14, 16-17, 33

Islam, 345

Isolationism, 78, 206, 220

Israel

Egypt invasion, 265

Palestinian relations, 330

U.S. policy, 264

J

Jacinto, Battle of, 134

Jackson, Andrew

conflicts with Indians, 125

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

359

as general in War of 1812, 86

portrait of, 89

as president of U.S., 89, 117-118

presidential election (1824), 116

presidential election (1828), 117

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 181

Jackson, Jesse, 253

Jackson, Thomas J. (“Stonewall”), 

144, 145

James I (British king), 12

James II (British king), 31

Jamestown colony (Virginia), 10, 

12-13, 16

Japan

attack on Pearl Harbor, 212-213, 

221, 222

Kamikaze suicide missions, 225

surrender (1945), 226

U.S. attacks on Hiroshima and 

Nagasaki, 226

U.S. relations, 186

Japanese-Americans, internment 

camps, 222, 233

Jay, John, 43, 64, 76, 81, 82

Jay Treaty (Britain-U.S.), 81, 82

Jazz Age, 210

Jefferson Memorial (Wash., D.C.), 161

Jefferson, Thomas

on abolition of slavery, 114

as drafter of Declaration of 

Independence, 61

face of (Mount Rushmore), 

170-171

as first Secretary of State (U.S.

Department of State), 77

portrait of, 46

as president of U.S., 83

on right of self-government, 68

on slavery, 114

as U.S. minister to France, 72, 79-80

vs. Adams, 82

vs. Hamilton, 48, 78-80

“Jim Crow” laws (separate but equal 

segregation), 151, 240, 272, 319

Jobs, Steve, 296

Johnson, Andrew

impeachment trial, 149-150

as president of U.S., 147-149, 153

Johnson, Lyndon B.

civil rights supporter, 273, 277

Great Society programs, 286-287

portrait of, 245

space program, 285

Vietnam War policy, 287-288

“War on Poverty,” 286

Johnson-Reed National Origins Act 

(1924), 201, 209

The Jungle (Sinclair), 196

K

Kansas

slavery issue and, 138

territory (“bleeding Kansas”), 137, 

138

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 137

Kennan, George, 261

Kennedy, John F.

assassination of, 277, 286

Bay of Pigs invasion, 284

civil rights policy, 277, 283

Cold War and, 284-285

Cuban missile crisis, 284

as president of U.S., 282-285

space program, 285-286

Vietnam War policy, 284-285

West Berlin speech during Cold 

War, 242-243

Kennedy, Robert, assassination of, 

278, 288

Kentucky

Resolutions (1798), 117

statehood (1792), 7-8

Kerouac, Jack, 270

Kerry, John F., 336-337

Khomeini, Ayatollah, 292

Khrushchev, Nikita, 284

Kim Il-sung, 263

King, Martin Luther, Jr.
360

assassination of, 278, 288

civil rights movement and, 240, 

241, 273, 283

“I have a dream” speech, 276, 277

King, Rufus, 72

Kissinger, Henry, 289

Know-Nothing Party, 120

Korean War, 235, 263, 264

Kosciusko, Thaddeus, 65

Ku Klux Klan, 150, 201, 209

L

La Follette, Robert, 196, 318-319

Labor unions, 121, 193-195

air controllers strike, 309

auto workers strikes, 228

collective bargaining, 217

Haymarket Square incident, 194

membership in U.S., 227-228

migrant farm workers, 250, 279-280

mine workers membership/strikes, 

194-195, 227-228

New Deal programs, 217

post-World War I strikes, 206

post-World War II strikes, 269

railway worker strikes, 193, 194

steel worker strikes, 194, 228

textile worker strikes, 195

“Wobblies,” 194-195

See also under names of specific 

unions

Lafayette, Marquis de, 65

Landon, Alf, 218

Latin America, U.S. intervention, 

184-185

Latin American Revolution, 114-116

Latino movement, 279-280

League of Nations, 205-206, 226

Lee, Richard Henry, 61, 64

Lee, Robert E.

capture of John Brown at Harper’s 

Ferry, 139

commander of Confederate 

Army, 144

declines command of Union 

Army, 143

portrait of, 95

surrender at Appomattox 

Courthouse, 146

Leif (son of Erik the Red), 9

Lenin, V.I., 259

Levitt, William J., 268

Lewis and Clark expedition, 

bicentennial commemorative 

stamp, 46

Lewis, John L., 227-228

Lewis, Meriwether, 47

Lewis, Sinclair, 210

The Liberator, 91, 133

Libraries

American Philosophical Society 

(Philadelphia), 28

in the colonies, 27, 28

public libraries endowed by 

Carnegie, 97

subscription, 28

Lincoln, Abraham

assassination of, 147, 153

at Civil War Union encampment, 

140-141

Emancipation Proclamation, 

144-145

face of (Mount Rushmore), 170-171

Free-Soil Party and, 138

Gettysburg address, 142, 145

on Grant, 95

as president during Civil War,

142-147

presidential election (1860), 139

presidential election (1864), 

147, 153

presidential inaugural address, 142

senatorial campaign (1858), 

138-139

on slavery and the Union, 130, 138

Lincoln, Benjamin, 63, 70

Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858), 138-139

Literary works

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

361

“Beat Generation” (1950s), 270-271

colonial period, 28-29

“Harlem Renaissance,” 211

“Lost Generation” (1920s), 109, 211

New Deal programs and, 218

See also names of individual authors 

or works

Lloyd George, David, 108

Locke, John, 17, 32, 34, 61, 65, 73

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 181, 184

Logan, James, 28

The Lonely Crowd (Riesman), 270

Long, Huey P., assassination of, 217

“Lost Generation” (1920s), 109, 211

Louis XVI (French king), 64, 80

Louisiana Purchase, 83-84

Lovejoy, Elijah P., 134

Lowell, James Russell, 147

Luce, Henry, 258

Lundestad, Geir, 262

M

MacArthur, Douglas, 225, 232, 263

Macdonough, Thomas, 85

Madison, James, 43, 72, 75, 76, 

84-86, 113

as “Father of the Constitution,” 72

Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 184

Maine (U.S. warship) incident, 182

Major, John, 330

Malcolm X, 277

Manhattan. See New York

Manhattan project (atomic bomb 

development), 225

Mann, Horace, 121

Mao Zedong, 263, 289

Marbury v. Madison (1803), 113

Marcos, Ferdinand, 312

Marshall, George C., 262

Marshall, John

as chief justice of the Supreme 

Court, 49, 113

funeral of, 168

portrait of, 49

Marshall Plan, 262

Marshall, Thurgood, 244

Martin, Josiah, 60

Maryland

Calvert family charter, 15, 30

Catholic settlements, 15

St. Mary’s, first town in, 15

Toleration Act and religious 

freedom, 17

Mason, George, 76

Massachusetts

Boston Massacre (1770), 56

Boston Port Bill, 57

Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57

colonial government charter, 30-31

early settlements, 13-14

Old Granary Cemetery (Boston), 

162-163

Salem witch trials, 35

schools and education, 27

Shays Rebellion, 70

trade and economic development, 

24-25

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 25, 31

Massachusetts Bay Company, 18

Mather, Cotton, 28, 40

Mayflower Compact, 13, 22-23, 30

Mayflower (ship), 13

McCain, John

(2008) presidential election 342-343

McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 201

McCarthy, Joseph R., 236, 266

McClellan, George, 144, 147

McCormick, Cyrus, 131, 158, 160

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), 113

McGovern, George, 290

McGrath, J. Howard, 266

McKinley, William

assassination of, 195

Hawaii annexation treaty, 184

Maine (U.S. warship) incident, 182

Open Door foreign policy, 195

as president of U.S., 182, 184, 

192, 195
362

McVeigh, Timothy, 331

Meat Inspection Act, 197

Meat-packing industry, 158, 196, 197

Mellon, Andrew, 207

Mencken, H.L., 210

Menéndez, Pedro, 10

Merchant Marine, 208

Meredith, James, 277

Methodists, 87, 88

Mexican-Americans. See Latino 

movement

Mexican War, 134-135

Mexico

conquest of, 9

revolution, 185

Spanish colonization, 11

Middle colonies, 25-26

Middle East

Palestinians, 329-330

peace negotiations, 329-330

Persian Gulf War, 316-317

U.S. policy, 264, 292, 313, 329-330

Millet, Kate, 248

Mining industry strikes, 194-195

Miranda, Francisco, 114

Missouri Compromise (1820), 90, 114, 

132, 135, 137

Mohler, George, 177

Molasses Act (England, 1733), 53

Molotov, Vyacheslav, 260

Mondale, Walter, 311

Monetary policy. See U.S. monetary 

policy

Monroe Doctrine, 114-116

Monroe, James, 113, 115, 116

Montgomery, Bernard, 222

Montoya, Joseph, 280

Monuments and memorials, 161-176

See also under names of individual 

memorials

Moral Majority, 308

Morgan, John Pierpoint (J.P.), 187

Morrill Land Grant College Act 

(1862), 152, 177

Morris, Gouverneur, 72

Morse, Samuel F.B., 156

Mott, Lucretia, 122

Mound builders, 7

Mount Rushmore Monument (South 

Dakota), 170-171

Mount Vernon (Virginia), 

Washington’s plantation home, 170-171

Ms. (feminist magazine), 279

MTV, 297

Murray-Philip, 228

Music, American

Beatles, 281

“hard rock,” 281

Jazz Age (1920s), 210

Jazz musicians, 211

rock and roll (1950s), 271, 281

Rolling Stones, 271, 281

Woodstock (outdoor rock concert, 

1969), 249, 281

Muslims, 344, 345

Mussolini, Benito, 219, 223

Mutual Board of Defense (U.S.-

Canada), 220

N

NAACP. See National Association for 

the Advancement of Colored People 

(NAACP)

Nader, Ralph, 287, 332, 336

NAFTA. See North American Free 

Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Napoleon, 82, 83, 84

National Association for the 

Advancement of Colored People 

(NAACP), 211, 244, 272, 273

National health care system, 344-345

National Industrial Recovery Act 

(NIRA), 217, 227

National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 

217, 218, 228, 280

National Labor Relations Board 

(NLRB), 217

National Organization for Women 

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

363

(NOW), 279

National Recovery Administration 

(NRA), 217

National Security Council (NSC), 

NSC-68 security report on Soviet 

Union, 262-263, 265

National Woman Suffrage Association 

(NWSA), 123

National Youth Administration, 218

Native-American movement, 280-281

American Indian Movement 

(AIM), 281

Wounded Knee (South Dakota) 

incident, 180, 281

Native Americans

cultural groups, map of, 21

demonstration in Washington 

(1978), 252

effect of European disease on, 8

European contact, 9-10

Great Serpent Mound, Ohio, 168

Indian uprisings, 16-17, 180-181

Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, 4-5, 8

migration across Beringia land 

bridge, 6

mound builders of Ohio, 7

Northwest Passage and, 9, 10

oral tradition, 8

Pacific Northwest potlatches, 8

population, 8

Pueblo Indians, 8, 20

relations with European settlers, 

15-17, 18, 39

religious beliefs, 8

slave trade, 18

Trail of Tears (Cherokee forced 

relocation), 125

U.S. policy, 181

Westward expansion and, 178

See also Indian Wars; and see under 

names of individual tribes

Nativists, 209

Naturalization Act, 82

Nebraska, territory, 137

New Amsterdam. See under New York

New Deal programs, 214-218

New England colonies, 17, 

24-25, 30-31

New England Confederation, 17

New Mexico territory, 136

New World exploration, 9-11

New World settlements. See Colonial 

period

New York

colonial royal government, 31

Dutch settlers, 14, 15, 25-26

Manhattan, early settlement, 14, 15, 

25-26

New Amsterdam/New Netherland 

settlement, 14, 15, 26

polyglot of early settlers, 25-26

New York Weekly Journal, 28

Ngo Dien Nu, 285

Ngo Dinh Diem, 285

Nichols, Terry, 331

Niebuhr, Reinhold, 345

NIRA. See National Industrial 

Recovery Act (NIRA)

Nixon, Richard M.

China-U.S. diplomatic relations, 

289

at Great Wall of China, 250-251

impeachment and resignation, 290

as president of U.S., 288-290

presidential elections (1960, 1968, 

1972), 283, 288, 290

Soviet Union détente policy, 289

Watergate affair, 290

NLRA. See National Labor Relations 

Act (NLRA)

No Child Left Behind Act, 333

Nobel Peace Prize, 344, 345

Noble Order of the Knights of Labor 

(1869), 193

Non-Intercourse Act (1809), 84

Noriega, Manuel Antonio, 317

Norris, Frank, 196

North American Free Trade 
364

Agreement (NAFTA), 317, 325

North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO), 262

North Carolina colony, 17, 30

Northern Securities Company, 187

Northwest Ordinance (1787), 71, 73, 

113, 135

Northwest Passage, 9, 10

Northwest Territory, 71, 113

NOW. See National Organization for 

Women (NOW)

Nuclear weapons

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces 

(INF) Treaty, 304-305, 314

Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 

(1963), 243, 284

Manhattan Project (atomic bomb 

development), 225

SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation 

Talks), 289

SALT II agreement, 292

Soviet atomic bomb testing, 266

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 

313-314

test bans, 284

U.S. attacks on Hiroshima and 

Nagasaki, 226

U.S. defense buildup, 314

U.S. military defense buildup, 314

U.S. nuclear testing, 234

U.S. policy during Cold War, 265

Nullification doctrine, 83, 117-118

O

Oath of office, presidential, 77

Obama, Barack H.

background, 342-343

at Cairo University, 345

on democracies, 342

financial crisis, 343-344

health care, 344-345

inaugural address, 343-344

Nobel Peace Prize, 344-345

parents, 343

as presidential candidate, 341

presidential campaign (2008), 343

with George W. Bush, 339

with Michelle Obama, 295

The Octopus (Norris), 196

Office of Economic Opportunity, 286

Oglethorpe, James, 18

Oklahoma Territory, City, homestead 

claims, 101

Oliver, King, 211

Olney, Richard, 194

On the Road (Kerouac), 270

Organization of American States 

(formerly Pan American Union), 185

Organization of the Petroleum 

Exporting Countries (OPEC), 290

Organized labor. See Labor unions

Orlando, Vittorio, 108

P

Pacific Railway Acts (1862-64), 152

Paine, Thomas, 60

Palin, Sarah, 342

Palmer, A. Mitchell, 206-207

Panama, U.S. invasion, 317

Panama Canal

Gatun locks, 100-101

treaties, 101, 184-185, 292

Paris Peace Conference (1919), 108

Paris, Treaty of (1783), 47, 64

Parker, John, 59

Parks, Rosa, 240, 273

Patroon system, 14-15

Peace Democrats or “Copperheads,” 152

Peace of Paris (1763), 33

Penn, William, 18, 25, 30, 39

Pennsylvania colony

colonial government, 30

cultural developments, 27-28

German settlers, 25

population, 25

Quakers as early settlers, 18, 25, 27

relations with Native Americans, 

18, 39

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

365

schools and education, 27-28

state constitution, 69

See also Philadelphia

Pequot Indian War (1637), 16

Perkins, Frances, 227

Perot, H. Ross, 319, 323, 328

Perry, Oliver Hazard, 85

Pershing, John J., 205

Persian Gulf War, 316-317

Desert Storm campaign, 252-253

Philadelphia

American Philosophical Society, 28

as “City of Brotherly Love,” 18

colonial period in, 18, 25

Friends Public School, 27

Independence Hall, 164-165

Liberty Bell, 168

private schools, 27

subscription libraries, 28

Philippine Islands

elections, 312

MacArthur’s return, 232

U.S. relations, 183, 184

World War II battles, 224-225, 232

Pierce, Franklin, 137

Pilgrims, 13, 22-23, 30, 65

Pinckney, Charles, 81

The Pit (Norris), 196

Pitcairn, John, 59

Pizarro, Francisco, 9

Plains Indians, 10, 98, 180-181

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 178, 272

Political parties

American Independent, 319

Bull Moose Party, 318

Constitutional Union Party, 139

Democrats, 116, 137, 152, 153, 

192, 218-219

Dixiecrats, 319

Federalists, 76, 78, 81, 82, 86, 116

Free Soil Party, 136, 137, 138

Green Party, 332

Know-Nothings, 120

Populists, 191-192

Progressive, 318-319

Radical Republicans, 148-151

Reform Party, 319

Republicans (or DemocraticRepublicans), 78, 81, 138, 139, 

152, 153, 218

Socialists, 206, 318

Southern Democrats, 139

States Rights, 272

third-party and independent 

candidates, 318-319

Whigs, 119-121, 137-138, 152, 153

Polk, James K., 134, 135

Ponce de Léon, Juan, 9

Population growth

in cities and towns, 159

household composition, 307

postwar migrations, 267-268

Population, U.S.

in 1690, 24

in 1775, 24

1790 census, 200

1812 to 1852, 124

1860 census, 132

Populist Party, 191-192

Powell, Colin, 294-295

Presidency, U.S.

Cabinet, 77-78, 280

impeachment, 149-150, 290, 

328, 329

oath of office, 77

role of first lady, 324

See also names of individual 

presidents

Presidential elections

1789 (Washington, first), 77

1797 (Adams), 82

1800 (Jefferson), 83

1824 (Jackson), 116

1828 (Jackson), 117

1860 (Lincoln), 139

1864 (Lincoln), 147, 153

1868 (Grant), 150

1884 (Cleveland), 159
366

1892 (Cleveland), 160

1896 (McKinley), 192

1900 (McKinley), 195

1904 (Roosevelt), 197

1908 (Taft), 197-198

1912 (Wilson), 318, 328

1916 (Wilson), 205, 328

1920 (Harding), 207

1924 (Coolidge), 318-319

1932 (Roosevelt), 211

1936 (Roosevelt), 218

1940 (Roosevelt), 220

1948 (Truman), 235, 269, 319

1960 (Kennedy), 283

1964 (Johnson), 286, 308, 309

1968 (Nixon), 288, 319

1972 (Nixon), 290

1976 (Carter), 291

1980 (Reagan), 309

1984 (Reagan), 310-311

1988 (Bush), 314

1992 (Clinton), 319, 322-324

1996 (Clinton), 328-329

2000 (Bush), 332-333

2004 (Bush), 336-337

2008 (Obama), 342-343

Presley, Elvis, 238, 271

Press

Cable News Network (CNN), 297

first newspaper, 28

first printing press in colonies, 27

freedom of the, 28-29

Progressive Party, 318-319

Progressivism, 195, 196

Prohibition, 121, 210

Protestant religion

Baptists, 87, 88

Great Awakening, 29

Methodists, 87, 88

revivals in “Burned-Over District,” 87

Second Great Awakening and, 87-88

See also Pilgrims; Puritans

Public Utility Holding Company 

Act, 218

Public Works Administration 

(PWA), 215

Pueblo Indians, 8, 20

Puerto Rico

ceded to U.S., 182-183

as U.S. commonwealth, 184

Pulitzer Prize, 347

Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 197

Puritans, 13-14, 40, 40, 65

Q

Quakers

abolition movement and, 133

and British government relations, 59

Pennsylvania settlements, 18, 25

schools and education, 27

Quartering Act (England, 1765), 

53-54, 58

Quayle, Dan, 323

Quebec Act (England), 58

Quotations, notable

“Ask not what your country can do 

for you — ask what you can do for 

your country” (Kennedy), 283

“axis of evil” (Bush), 334

“The Buck Stops Here,” 260

“city upon a hill” (Winthrop), 

13, 309

“Damn the torpedoes! Full speed 

ahead” (Farragut), 143

“a day that will live in infamy” 

(Roosevelt), 221

“Give me liberty, or give me death” 

(Henry), 42

“Go west, young man” (Greeley), 

112, 124

“A house divided against itself 

cannot stand” (Lincoln), 130, 138

“I have a dream...” (King, Jr.), 276

“I shall return” (MacArthur), 232

“Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a 

Berliner) (Kennedy), 242

“iron curtain” (Churchill), 260-261

“shot heard round the world” 

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

367

(Emerson), 59

“thousand points of light” 

(Bush), 315

“tyranny over the mind of man” 

(Jefferson), 161

“With malice towards none” 

(Lincoln), 147

R

Race riots, 152, 206

Racial discrimination

bus segregation, 240, 273

color barrier broken by Jackie 

Robinson, 237, 271

in federal government employment, 

269, 272

“Jim Crow” laws (segregation), 151, 

272, 319

lynchings and violence against 

African Americans, 150, 178, 271

military segregation, 269, 272

school segregation, 240, 244

separate but equal 

accommodations, 178, 240, 272

South African apartheid, 312

white supremacy and belief in black 

inferiority, 178

Radical Republicans, 148-151

Railroad industry, 131-132

Great Rail Strike (1877), 194

nationalization of, 192

Pullman Company, 194

regulation, 159, 197

transcontinental link at 

Promontory Point (1869), 179

transcontinental railroad, 154-155

westward expansion and, 179

workers’ hours, 199

workers’ strikes, 193, 194

Raleigh, Walter, 10

Reagan, Ronald

conservatism and, 307-309

economic policy, 309-311

foreign policy, 311-313

as “Great Communicator,” 309

Grenada invasion, 312-313

Iran-Contra affair, 312-313

with Mikhail Gorbachev, 304-305

Reconstruction Act (1867), 148

Reconstruction Era, 148-151

African-American members in 

Congress during, 96

Lincoln’s program, 147-148

Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 

211

Red Cloud (Sioux chief), 180

Reform Party, 319

Refugee Act (1980), 201

Religion

camp meetings and revivals, 87-88

Christian Coalition, 308

Christian evangelicals, 332, 336

circuit riders, 88

fundamentalism, 209, 210, 308

Great Awakening, 29

Moral Majority, 308

Salem witch trials, 35

Second Great Awakening, 87-88

Religious freedom

Coercive or Intolerable Acts and, 58

freedom of worship, 32

and tolerance, 17, 29, 32

“Remaking America,” 344

Republicanism, 65, 68

Republicans (or DemocraticRepublicans), 78, 81, 138, 139, 152, 

153, 218

Reuther, Walter, 228

Revels, H.R., 96

Revolution. See American Revolution; 

French Revolution; Latin American 

Revolution

Revolutionary War. See American 

Revolution

Rhode Island colony, 14, 31, 41

Rice, Condoleeza, 295

Ridgway, Matthew B., 264

Riesman, David, 270
368

“Roaring Twenties,” 109, 210

Robertson, Pat, 308

Robinson, Jackie, 237, 271

Rochambeau, Comte Jean de, 64

Rockefeller, John D., 158

Roe v. Wade (1973), 279, 308, 324

Rogers, William, 251

Rolfe, John, 12

Rommel, Erwin, 222

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 324

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

death of, 224

on democracy, 214, 219

foreign policy, 185

Good Neighbor Policy, 185

labor unions and, 227

New Deal programs, 214-218

presidential elections (1932, 1936, 

1940), 207, 211, 218, 220

Social Security Act, signing of, 230

Social Security program, 218, 230

World War II and, 219-220

World War II peace 

negotiations, 224

at Yalta (1945), 224, 234

Roosevelt, Theodore

accession to the presidency, 195

on democracy, 190

face of (Mount Rushmore), 

170-171

foreign policy, 181, 184, 186

Nobel Peace Prize recipient 

(1906), 186

Panama Canal treaty, 184-185

presidential election (1912), 318

“Rough Riders” in the SpanishAmerican War, 183

“Square Deal,” 196

as “trust-buster” and antitrust laws, 

160, 187, 196-197

Root, Elihu, 181

Rose, Ernestine, 122

Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, 266

“Rosie the Riveter,” 222

Royal Proclamation (England, 1763), 53

Rural Electrification Administration, 218

Russian Revolution (1917), 206, 259

Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), 186

S

Sadat, Anwar al-, 292

Saddam Hussein, 316, 317, 329, 

334-335

San Martin, José de, 114

Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 134

Scopes, John, 209

Scopes trial, 209-210

Scott, Dred, 138

Scott, Winfield, 135

Seamen’s Act (1915), 199

Second Treatise on Government

(Locke), 32, 61

Sectionalism, and slavery issue, 

128-139

Sedition Act, 82, 117

Seminole Indians, 125

Separation of church and state, 14

Separation of powers principle, 74

Separatists, 13

Seven Years’ War, 33, 63, 83

Seventh Day Adventists, 87

Seward, William, 138, 182

Seymour, Horatio, 152

The Shame of the Cities (Steffens), 196

Sharon, Ariel, 330

Shays, Daniel, 70

Shays’s Rebellion (1787), 70, 73

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 

160, 187

Sherman, Roger, 72, 73

Sherman, William T., 146

Silent Spring (Carson), 282

Sinclair, Upton, 196

Sioux Indians, 98, 180, 281

Sitting Bull (Sioux chief), 98

Slave family, 128-129

Slave owners, 132

Slave population, 132

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

369

Slave trade, 19, 25, 133, 136

Slavery

African slaves, 19, 24

constitutional amendment (13th) 

abolishing, 148

Dred Scott decision, 138, 149

Emancipation Proclamation, 

144-145

equal rights and, 69

extension of, 113-114

free vs. slave states, 114, 123

Fugitive Slave Laws, 136, 137

Indian slaves, 17-18

Missouri Compromise (1820), 90, 

114, 132, 135, 137

Northwest Ordinance ban on, 71, 

73, 113, 135

as the “peculiar institution,” 132

plantations in the south and, 113-

114, 128-129

revolt in Haiti, 83

as a sectional conflict/divided 

nation, 128-139

in the territories, 71, 73, 113, 135, 

136-138

See also Abolition of slavery

Smith, Capt. John, 6, 12, 36

Smith-Lever Act (1914), 199

Social activism, 87

Social-contract (theory of 

government), 61

Social liberalism, 34

Social reforms, 121-122, 195-196

Great Society programs, 286-287

Medicaid program, 287

Medicare program, 286

mental health care, 121-122

New Deal programs, 214-218

prison reform, 121

progressivism, 195

prohibition and the temperance 

movement, 121, 210

Social Security, 218

Truman Fair Deal programs, 

268-269

War on Poverty, 286

welfare state and, 219

Social Security Act (1935), 218, 230

Socialist Party, 206, 318

Society for the Promotion of 

Temperance, 87, 121

Soil Conservation Service, 216

Somalia, 331

Sons of Liberty, 54

Soule, John, 124

South Africa, racial apartheid, 312

South Carolina

colonial government, 30

during American Revolution, 63-64

early settlements, 17, 26

French Huguenots, 24

nullification crisis, 117-118

protective tariffs, 117

secession from the Union, 142

Southern Christian Leadership 

Conference (SCLC), 276

Southern colonies, 26-27

Southern Democrats, 139

Soviet Union

Cold War, 258-265

Sputnik and the space program, 285

U.S. containment doctrine, 261-263

U.S. détente policy, 289, 291, 292

U.S. relations, 284, 313-314

Space program, 254, 274-275, 285

Spain, and American Revolution, 63

Spanish-American War (1898), 

182, 183

Spanish exploration

European settlement, 9, 11, 169

missions in California, 169

Seven Cities of Cibola and, 9

St. Augustine (Florida), first St.

John de Crèvecoeur, J. Hector, 24

St. Mary’s (Maryland), 15

Stalin, Joseph, at Yalta, 224, 234

Stamp Act (England), 54, 55

Standard Oil Company, 158, 196, 197
370

Stanton, Edwin, 153

State constitutions, 68-69

Statehood, 78

States’ rights, 79, 80

nullification doctrine, 83, 117-118

States Rights Party, 272

Statue of Liberty (New York City), 

167, 201

Steel industry. See Iron and steel 

industry

Steel Workers Organizing Committee 

(SWOC), 228

Steffens, Lincoln, 196

Steinem, Gloria, 248, 279

Steuben, Friedrich von, 65

Stevens, Thaddeus, 148

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 137

Student Nonviolent Coordinating 

Committee (SNCC), 276

Sugar Act (England, 1764), 53, 55

Sunday, Billy, 209

Supreme Court Building (Wash., 

D.C.), 166

Supreme Court, U.S.

cases

Brown v. Board of Education, 

241, 244, 272

Marbury v. Madison, 113

McCulloch v. Maryland, 113

Plessy v. Ferguson, 178, 272

Roe v. Wade, 279, 308, 324

decisions, 113

Court’s right of judicial review, 49

Dred Scott, 138, 149

enlargement proposal, 218-219

See also Marshall, John; Marshall, 

Thurgood

Swedish colonization, 15, 200

Swift, Gustavus, 158

T

Taft, William Howard, 197-198, 318

Taiwan, 263, 265, 289

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 82

Tarbell, Ida M., 196

TARP, see Troubled Assets Relief 

Program

Taxation

Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57

British right to tax colonies 

(Declaratory Act), 55

colonial period, 33, 53-59

Committees of Correspondence, 

56-57

“without representation,” 53, 54-55

See also names of individual acts

Taylor, Zachary, 135

Technology. See Inventions

Television

Cable News Network (CNN), 297

growth of, 268

impact of, 268, 297

MTV, 297

programming, 239, 268

Temperance movement, 87, 121

Tennessee, statehood (1796), 78

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 215

Tenure of Office Act, 149

Terrorism

anthrax poisoning scare, 333-334

Cole (U.S. Navy destroyer) bombing 

(Yemen), 332

Khobar Towers U.S. military 

housing (Saudi Arabia, 1996), 331

Oklahoma City bombing (1995), 

326, 331

Palestinian suicide bombings, 330

September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S., 

320-321, 333

U.S. embassies (Kenya and 

Tanzania, 1998), 331-332

World Trade Center bombings 

(1993), 331

Texas

Alamo, battle of, 134

Battle of San Jacinto, 134

territory of, 134

and War with Mexico, 134-135

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

371

Textile industry strikes, 195

Thorpe, Jim, 181

Thurmond, Strom, 272, 319

The Titan (Dreiser), 196

To Secure These Rights, 271-272

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 126, 130

Tojo, Hideki, 221, 225

Toleration Act (England, 1689), 31

Toleration Act (Maryland), 17

Townsend, Francis E., 217

Townshend Acts (England), 55-56

Townshend, Charles, 55

Trade policy. See U.S. trade policy

Transportation Act (1920), 208

Treaties. See under name of individual 

treaty

Troubled Assets Relief Program 

(TARP), 343

Truman Doctrine, 261

Truman, Harry S.

accession to the presidency, 224

civil rights program, 271-272

Fair Deal domestic program, 

268-269

Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic 

bomb attacks, 226

labor unions and, 269

NSC-68 defense policy, 262, 265

as president of U.S., 258, 260

presidential election (1948), 235, 269

Trusts, 158

Tubman, Harriet, 91

Turner, Frederick Jackson, 126

Twain, Mark. See Clemens, Samuel 

Langhorne

Tyler, John, 120

U

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 137

Underground Railroad, 91, 134, 136

Unemployment, 344-345

Union Army of the Potomac, 145

Union Pacific Railroad, 179

United Auto Workers, 228

United Mine Workers (UMW), 

227-228

United Nations, 224, 226

United States Steel Corporation, 

157-158, 187

U.S. economy

in the 1980s, 309-311

in the 1990s, 327-328

in the 2000s, 344-345

“Black Monday” (stock market 

crash, 1987), 311

federal budget deficits, 310-311, 315

migration patterns in U.S., 267

post-World War II period, 267-268

stock market crash (1929), 211

suburban development and, 268

“supply side” economics, 309

unemployment, 215-216, 227, 327

See also Banking and finance; Great 

Depression

U.S. foreign policy, 80-82, 181-186

in Asia, 185-186

Bush (George W.) Administration, 

332-337

Clinton Administration, 328-331

Cold War and, 258-267

imperialism and “Manifest 

Destiny,” 181-182

Iran-Contra affair, 312-313

isolationism, 78, 206, 220

Jay Treaty with Britain, 81

in Latin America, 185

Monroe Doctrine, 115-116

Obama administration, 345

Open Door policy, 186, 195

in the Pacific area, 183-184

Panama Canal treaty, 184-185

Reagan Administration, 313-314

Truman Doctrine of containment, 

261-263

XYZ Affair with France, 82

U.S. monetary policy, 79-80, 343 

currency question, 192

gold standard, 192
372

See also Banking and finance; 

Federal Reserve Board

U.S. trade policy

economic impact of War of 1812, 86

Embargo Act (1807), 84

Fordney-McCumber Tariff 

(1922), 207

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930), 207

Massachusetts Bay Company 

“triangular U.S. trade policy,” 25

McKinley tariff, 160, 191

Native Americans with European 

settlers, 15-16

Non-Intercourse Act (1809), 84

North American Free Trade 

Agreement, 317, 325

protective tariffs, 112, 117, 152, 159

slave trade, 19, 25, 133

Underwood Tariff (1913), 198

World Trade Organization 

(WTO), 325

U.S. Treasury (Department of), 343

USA Patriot Act, 334

Utah territory, 136

V

Van Buren, Martin, 120

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 158

Vermont, statehood (1791), 78

Verrazano, Giovanni da, 10

Versailles, Treaty of, 206

Vespucci, Amerigo, 9

Vietnam

French involvement, 284-285

U.S. involvement, 285

Viet Minh movement, 284

Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Wash., 

D.C.), 172-173

Vietnam War

antiwar demonstrations, 248, 258, 

281, 288-289

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 287

Kent State (Ohio) student 

demonstration, 288

military draft, 288

U.S. forces in, 246-247

Villa, Francisco “Pancho,” 185

Virginia

Antifederalists, 76

colonial government, 29-30

Declaration of Rights, 77

education by private tutors, 28

Jamestown colony, 10, 12-13, 16

Resolutions (1798), 117

secession from the Union, 142-143

state constitution, 68-69

Tidewater region plantation 

settlements, 26, 28

Virginia Company, 12, 18, 29-30

Volcker, Paul, 291, 310

Voting rights

for African Americans, 273, 277

church membership requirement, 14

Pennsylvania constitution, 69

for women, 122

Voting Rights Act (1965), 277

W

Wallace, George, 288, 319

Wallace, Henry, 319

Wampanoag Indians, 13

War of 1812, 85-86, 112

War on terror, 345

Warren, Earl, 272

Washington, Booker T., 178

Washington, George

on abolition of slavery, 113

as commander in American 

Revolution, 60-62

Constitutional Convention 

presiding officer (1787), 66-67, 71

crossing the Delaware (1776), 62

face of (Mount Rushmore), 170-

171

as first U.S. president, 77-78

Long Island, battle of (1776), 61

Mount Vernon plantation, home of, 

170-171

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

373

presidential oath of office, 77

retirement from presidency, 82

at Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), 62

as Virginia militia commander, 33

Yorktown, British surrender, 46-47

Washington Monument (Wash., D.C.), 

175

Water Quality Improvement Act, 282

Wattenberg, Ben, 337, 345

Webster, Daniel, 120, 136

Welch, Joseph, 236

Weld, Theodore Dwight, 134

Welfare state. See Social reforms

Welles, Gideon, 143

“The West.” See Westward expansion

West, Benjamin, 39

Western Union, 158

Westward expansion

cowboy life and “The Wild West,” 

180

frontier settlers’ life, 123-124

Homestead Act (1862), 124, 152, 

179, 180

homesteading in the last frontier/ 

“The West,” 126, 179-180

Louisiana Purchase and, 83-84

map of, 127

Northwest Ordinance (1787), 71, 

73, 135

in Oklahoma Territory, 101

problems of, 53, 70-71

Whig Party, 119-121, 137-138, 152, 

153

Whitefield, George, 29

Whitney, Eli, 114

Wigglesworth, Rev. Michael, 28

Will, George, 308

Williams, Roger, 14, 41

Wilson, James, 72

Wilson, Woodrow

Fourteen Points for WWI 

armistice, 205

League of Nations and, 205-206

portrait of, 108

as president of U.S., 198-199, 

204-206

presidential elections (1912 and 

1916), 205, 328

relations with Mexico, 185

U.S. neutrality policy, 204-205

Winthrop, John, 13, 309

“Witch hunt,” origin of the term, 35

Women

constitutional council 

(Afghanistan) delegates, 294

education in the home arts, 27, 122

labor unions and, 193

no political rights, 69

role of first lady, 324

role of Native American, 8

workers in war production (“Rosie 

the Riveter”), 222

working conditions, 193

Women’s rights, 122-123

abortion issue, 308

Equal Rights Amendment 

(ERA), 279

feminism and, 278-279

Married Women’s Property Act, 122

in Pennsylvania colony, 18

state constitutions and, 69

Women’s rights movement, 90, 248, 

278-279

Women’s suffrage, 90, 122

march on Washington (1913), 

188-189

“Woodstock Generation” (1960s), 

249, 281

Works Progress Administration 

(WPA), 218

World Trade Center Memorial 

(New York City), 176

World Trade Organization 

(WTO), 325

World War I

American infantry forces, 108

“Big Four” at Paris Peace 

Conference (1919), 108
374

German submarine warfare, 204-205

postwar unrest, 206-207

U.S. involvement, 205

U.S. neutrality policy, 204-205

Wilson’s Fourteen Points for 

armistice, 205

World War II

Atlantic Charter, 220

Coral Sea, Battle of the (1942), 223

Doolittle’s Tokyo bombing raid, 223

Eastern Front, 222

G.I. Bill (veterans benefits), 

268-269

Guadalcanal, Battle of, 223, 231

Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic 

bomb attacks, 225, 226

Holocaust (Jewish genocide), 226

in the Pacific arena, 223-224, 224-

225, 231

Iwo Jima campaign, 225

Japanese-American internment 

camps, 222, 233

Japanese Kamikaze suicide 

missions, 225

Lend-Lease Program, 220

Leyte Gulf, Battle of, 225

Manhattan Project, 225

Midway, Battle of, 223

Normandy allied invasion, 223, 232

North African campaign, 222-223

Nuremberg war crime trials, 226

Okinawa campaign, 225

peace-time conscription bill, 220

Pearl Harbor, Japanese attack on 

(1941), 212-213, 221

politics of, 224

postwar economy, 267-268

postwar period, 258

Potsdam Declaration, 225

Roosevelt call for “unconditional 

surrender,” 224

Russian defense of Leningrad and 

Moscow, 222

U.S. mobilization, 221-222

U.S. neutrality policy, 219-220

World War II Memorial (Wash., D.C.), 

176

Wright, Frances, 122

Wright, Orville (and Wilbur), 107

X

XYZ Affair, 82

Y

Yale University (formerly Collegiate 

School of Connecticut), 27

Yalta Conference (1945), 224, 234, 260

Yeltsin, Boris, 315-316

Yorktown, British surrender at, 46-47, 

64

Yugoslavia, post-Cold War, 330

Z

Zenger, John Peter, 28

INDEX
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

375

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Outline of U.S. History is a publication of the U.S.

Department of State. The first edition (1949-50) was 

produced under the editorship of Francis Whitney, 

first of the State Department Office of International 

Information and later of the U.S. Information Agency. 

Richard Hofstadter, professor of history at Columbia 

University, and Wood Gray, professor of American 

history at The George Washington University, 

served as academic consultants. D. Steven Endsley 

of Berkeley, California, prepared additional material. 

It has been updated and revised extensively over the 

years by, among others, Keith W. Olsen, professor of 

American history at the University of Maryland, and 

Nathan Glick, writer and former editor of the USIA 

journal, Dialogue. Alan Winkler, professor of history 

at Miami University (Ohio), wrote the post-World 

War II chapters for previous editions.

This new edition was completely revised and updated 

by Alonzo L. Hamby, Distinguished Professor of 

History at Ohio University in 2005. Chapter 16 

was added in 2010-11. Professor Hamby has written 

extensively on American politics and society. Among 

his books are Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. 

Truman and For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin 

Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s. He lives 

and works in Athens, Ohio.

Executive Editor: Michael Jay Friedman 

Editorial Director: Mary T. Chunko

Managing Editor: Chandley McDonald

Cover Design: Lisa Jusino

Photo Research: Maggie Johnson Sliker

Ann Monroe Jacobs
Credits from left to right are separated by 

semicolons, from top to bottom by dashes.

Cover design: Lisa Jusino. Cover images, 

left column, from top: Photos 1-2: AP/Wide 

World Photo. Photo 3: Virginia Museum of 

Fine Arts, Richmond. Photos 4-5: 

© Bettmann/CORBIS. Photo 6: LOC. 

Photo 7: California State Railroad Museum 

Library. Center photo: Mario Tama/AFP/

Getty Images. Right column, from top: 

Photo 1: AP/Wide World Photo. 

Photo 2: The American History Slide 

Collection, © (IRC). Photos 3-4: AP/Wide 

World Photo. Photo 5: NASA. Photo 6: Dirck 

Halstead/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images. 

Photo 7: AP/Wide World Photo. 

Pages 4, 5: © Russ Finley/Finley-Holiday 

Films. 21: National Atlas of the United States. 

22-38: Library of Congress (3). 

39: Courtesy The Pennsylvania Academy 

of Fine Arts. 40, 41: USIA Library – Library 

of Congress (2). 42, 43: Library of Congress 

(LOC); Time Life Pictures/Getty Images 

– The American History Slide Collection, 

© Instructional Resources Corporation 

(IRC). 44, 45: Painting by Don Troiani, www.

historicalprints.com. 46, 47: AP/Wide World 

Photo; LOC – courtesy www.texasphilatelic.

org. 48: National Portrait Gallery, 

Smithsonian Institution. 49: AP/Wide World 

Photo. 50, 51: LOC. 66, 67: Virginia Museum 

of Fine Arts, Richmond. Gift of Edgar William 

and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch.

89, 90: LOC (3). 91-93: The National Archives 

(NARA) – LOC (3). 94, 95: American History 

Slide Collection, © IRC (2), top right, LOC. 

96: LOC – Amherst College Archives 

and Special Collections, by permission 

of the Trustees of Amherst College. 97: 

LOC – AP/Wide World Photo. 98, 99: 

LOC; NARA. 100, 101: courtesy Oklahoma 

Historical Society – AP/Wide World Photo. 

102, 103: Culver – LOC. 104, 105: LOC. 

106, 107: Edison Birthday Committee; 

© Bettmann/CORBIS – Fox Photos/Getty 

Images. 108: The National Archives (2). 

109: Hulton Archive/Getty Images – AP/

Wide World Photo. 110, 111: © Bettmann/

CORBIS. 127: Courtesy Bureau of Census, 

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, 

University of Texas. 128, 129: © Bettmann/

CORBIS. 140, 141: LOC. 154, 155: California 

State Railroad Museum Library. 161-166: 

© Robert Llewellyn. 167: © James Casserly. 

168: Mark C. Burnett/Photo Researchers, 

Inc. – Interior Department/National Park 

Service. 169: © Miles Ertman/Masterfile 

– © Chuck Place. 170, 171: AP/Wide World 

Photo – Cameron Davidson/FOLIO, Inc. 172, 

173: Shawn Thew/AFP/Getty Images. 

174: PhotoSpin, Inc. – Michael Ventura/FOLIO, 

Inc. 175: Mario Tama/AFP/Getty Images. 176: 

Joe Raedle/Getty Images – AP/Wide World 

Photo. 188, 189: LOC. 202, 203: The American 

History Slide Collection, © (IRC). 212, 213: 

The National Archives. 229: New York 

Daily News. 230: AP/Wide World (2). 

231: The National Archives. 232: U.S. Army – The 

National Archives. 233: Lockheed – American 

History Slide Collection, © IRC. 234: U.S. Army 

– LOC. 235: © Bettmann/CORBIS – U.S. Army. 

236: © Bettmann/CORBIS – Yousuf Karsh. 

237: AP/Wide World Photo. 238: AP/Wide 

World Photo. 239: Culver. 240: © Bettmann/

CORBIS. 241: AP/Wide World Photo. 

242, 243: USIS Berlin – © Bettmann/CORBIS. 

244: Ebony Magazine. 245: AP/Wide World 

Photo. 246, 247: U.S. Army. 248, 249: CORBIS 

– AP/Wide World Photo; Culver. 250, 251: 

Arthur Schatz/Time Life Pictures/Getty 

Images; © Bettmann/CORBIS. 252, 253: 

Barbara Ann Richards; Carol Hightower 

– John Wicart. 254: National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration (NASA). 255: 

David Valdez/The White House – Dwight 

Somers. 256, 257: J.R. Eyerman/Time Life 

Pictures/Getty Images. 274, 275: NASA.

293: Chris Honduras/Newsmakers/Getty 

Images. 294: AP/Wide World Photo (2).

295: © AP Images/Heiko Junge. 296: Jeff 

Christensen/AFP/Getty Images – AP/Wide 

World Photos. 297: Courtesy CNN – 

Courtesy MTV. 298, 299: AP/Wide World 

Photo; © John Harrington/Black Star. 300, 

301: Kevin Horan. 302: AP/Wide World 

Photo. 303. Ken White – © Steve Krongard. 

304, 305: Dirck Halstead/Time Life Pictures/

Getty Images. 320, 321: AP/Wide World 

Photo. 339: © AP Images/Gerald Herber. 

340, 341: © AP Images/Chris Carlson.

PHOTO CREDITS:

GPS Printed by Global Publishing Solutions (A/GIS/GPS) © (11-0150-E-2.0)

Bureau of International Information Programs

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

2011