United States

The **United States of America**, commonly known as the **United States** or **America**, is a country located in North America. It consists of 48 states, a federal district, and over 200 Indian reservations. The United States shares land borders with Alaska, California, and Texas to the west and maritime borders with The Bahamas and Cuba. With a population of over 275 Million (over 19% of which consisting of non-humans), it is the fifth most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City.

## History

Tensions between the American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. The Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776, formally establishing the United States of America as an independent nation-state. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak central government that operated until 1789, when the U.S. Constitution was adopted.

In 1796, a representative from several allied arks landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, asking for a meeting with the President. President Washington agreed and called for a conference in Atlanta with the ark captains as well as the leader of an ark that crash-landed in Lake Erie. Together with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Washington helped to negotiate the settlement sites for the Vanguard colonists. Unfortunately, the settlement agreement involved the removal and relocation of 60,000 Native Americans to the Northwest Territory.

The 1802 purchase of Canada and Rupert's Land from Great Britain saw a drastic increase in the area of the United States. Soon after, American settlers began expanding northward, leading to a series of wars with local Native American tribes. Spain ceded Florida and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819, leading the integration of further Vanguard colonies into the United States.

In 1820, irreconcilable differences in culture between the southern state governments and Vanguard colonies led to the War of 1820. The war lasted over three years and claimed the lives of a total of over 12 Million people, almost 2/3rd's being southern insurrectionists. Reconstruction began in earnest following the war, with Henry Clay and his successor Richard Rush attempting to foster friendship and forgiveness between the southern states, the Vanguard colonies, and the federal government. During the Reconstruction, southern plantation owners migrated en masse to the Rupert's Land states.

## Government and politics

The United States is a federal republic of 48 states and a federal district. It is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." In the American federalist system, citizens are subjected to three levels of government: federal, state, and local. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. The Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states.

The federal government comprises three branches:

* **Legislative**: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the federal government.
* **Executive**: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to congressional override), and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
* **Judicial**: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.

The House of Representatives has ???, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population.

The Senate has 96 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one-third of Senate seats are up for election every two years. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court, led by the chief justice of the United States, has nine members who can serve for life, but whose membership must be renewed every ten years.

### Political divisions

* Florida
* Jefferson
* Nunavut
* Saskatchewan
* Washington
* West Florida