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The Revolutionary War

The Revolutionary War started on April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord. America was very much unprepared with no central government or army. The congress stepped up as the government and began to organize an army. The Revolutionary War did not end until September 3, 1783 with the signing of the final peace treaty between America and Great Britain. The victory in the Revolution War led to the birth of a new independent nation. After the Revolution it was a time of cooperation. People in the nation were focusing on building a government, migrating west and their new found freedom.

Military actions were more in surrounding areas mainly France, Mexico and Britain. In 1798 was the XYZ affair, an event that led America fighting in the Quasi-War with France. Then the issue of slavery started to rise. This issue, which was an emotional struggle, brought much conflict in all themes and events such as social / cultural, economic, and politically. This conflict was separated into two divisions: North and South. The North was antislavery, and more industrial. The South was pro-slavery and did not contain the factories like the North. The South’s main resource was the cotton because of the ideal soil and climate.

Emotion and conflict started to build and build up, causing more hatred, restrain, and distance between the North and South. Then finally Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe was released in 1852. This effected people greatly and was the last hope for cooperation. Other events that effected people and ideas were the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott decision and talk about states succeeding. In 1855 was the start of the Civil War over territory. In 1861 there was a major battle, in the Civil War, with the firing on Fort Sumter. Before the first battle the first states seceded, which were the lower South states.

After the first battle of the Civil War the Upper states in the South also seceded. Abraham Lincoln was able to persuade Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri to stay in the Union. By doing this Lincoln gained access to the river systems in Kentucky and Missouri that led into the heart of the South. This control effected the 1862 invasions of the south, which provided the North with most of its early military successes. The Civil War was total trench warfare. Technology was the main event that influenced total trench warfare. Technology led to ideas such as strategy, weapons, and transportation.

It wasn’t until 1865 the Civil War ended with the surrender of the South’s army. The Civil War was an event that impacted the United States greatly economically, politically and socially. This impact called for great reconstruction after the Civil War. *Political Constitutional Developments After the American Revolution ended there was a debate on if all ties should be broken with Britain. Support for American Independence rode strong up into 1776. Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet, Common Sense. This pamphlet rebelled against King George III and argues for complete Independence of the American colonies.

On July 4, 1776, a Declaration of Independence was adopted stating the colonies freedom from Britain. The time after the Revolution was a period of political reconstruction. A time were State franchises were developed and a democracy was built. The following was constructed to make the United States successful by people and ideas: starting with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, then in 1789 the First Congress convened in New York, the Judiciary Act was established and the First President, George Washington, was sworn into office.

Then the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. In 1854 the Republican Party was established. All of these events influenced by people and ideas, is still a big role in the government today. Then the conflict of slavery arose in politics. In 1770 was the first American ban on slave holding by the New England Quakers. The Fugitive Slave Law in 1793 denied free blacks the legal protections that the Bill of Rights guaranteed them as citizens. This new law brought conflict such as Gabriel’s Rebellion and Fries Rebellion in Pennsylvania.

Other events that caused conflict to rise was between 1830-1860, slaveholders gained an increasing proportion of the South’s wealth while declining as a proportion of its white population. Then in the 1858, the governor of Florida proposed a law guaranteeing to each white person the ownership of at least one slave. In 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded. Another big source of conflict that led to the Civil War was popular sovereignty. At first it seemed liked a “.. practical solution to slavery in the territories, foundered in Kansas amid civil strife and turmoil over the Lexompton constitution.

As support for popular sovereignty withered, sentiment for free soil gained ground in the North. In the south the Dred Scott decision provided judicial support for the position that Congress had to protect slavery in whatever territories it appeared. ” Then once the Civil War broke out, the government started to exercise powers that were doubted. The government started to pass acts such as the Homestead Act, Legal tender Act, Pacific Railroad Act, Morrill Land Grant Act, First and Second Confiscation Act, and the National Bank Act.

After the Civil War ended there a was an ideal of a “more perfect Union. ” The government abolished slavery, asserted power over private property and imposed an income tax. The states that seceded came back to the Union. In 1870 the last four states were readmitted. Also during this time people and ideas influenced the fifteenth and fourteenth article to be ratified. In the North the economics was based on farmers and factory workers and in the south the economics was based on cotton because of the ideal climate and soil. The economics between the North and South was cooperative as far as trade.

The following are factors that had a big role in Economics. In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. This technology increased the production of cotton. In 1816 – 1819 there was an increase in cotton prices that stimulates settlements of the southwest. From 1849 – 1860 was the period of the highest cotton prices. Then as far as sugar production in 1849, Louisiana reached its highest peak. In 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad was completed which made trade easier for the North and the South. In 1808 Congress prohibited external slave trade.

But in 1858 Congress considered reopening the external slave trade. People were for this because this would produce a higher population of slaves and at the same time it would decrease the price of the slaves. Reopening external slave trade would give more whites a stake in the institution. In 1848, gold was discovered in California. This caused the Gold Rush. Thousand of pioneers took part in this journey by boat and wagon. The people who were traveling to California were mostly going to take their fortune and return home, few actually stayed.

In 1790 Washington realized that the war would jeopardize national survival, he asked Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury to set the “administration’s domestic priorities. ” This plan met the interest of the Eastern United States but not the interests for the Western part of the United States. This sent the Western, Southern and people from the Mid-Atlantic regions into a political coalition that challenged the Federalists for control of the government and called for a return to the “true principles” of republicanism.

This idea of a plan set the stage for the Whiskey Rebellion that set a milestone in determining limits on public opposition to federal policies. Also during the time of the Revolution to the end of the Civil War there were a few depressions. It started in 1819 when there was an economic panic, which ushered into a 4-year depression. Then in 1837 there was another economic panic, which began a depression that lasted until 1843. As this depression set in the cotton prices started to drop. In 1839 the Bank of the United States failed. Then in 1873 there was another economic panic, which started a depression for the next 5 years.

The Civil War did not ruin the national economy, only the southern part of it. The South lost about 60 percent of its wealth due to the offset of Northern advances. At the end of the Civil War the North had most of the nations wealth and capacity for production. This caused the United States to step forward as the worlds leading industrial nation. Between the time of the Revolution and Civil War there was much reform in Religion for the new nation. This time was the Second Great Awakening, which had a great impact on American religious life. It produced a new, excited form of preaching.

The structure of worship services changed to increased participation. The idea of Revivalism (emphasizes individual religious experience rather than the doctrines of a specific church) also increased through the new nation. Between the North and South the Bible was an issue that had a lot of cooperation. African American religion contained a lot of values that carried over with the slave from Africa. Few had Christian beliefs. Africans differed from each other in their specific beliefs and practices.

The Methodists and Baptists started to make major efforts on converting slave to Christianity. Social / Cultural Patterns and Attitudes After the Revolution, relationships between members of different classes, races, and genders started to change due to the Declaration of Independence and the dislocations caused by the war. Before the revolution the relationship between the elite and common people was distant and restrained. As the revolution started the differences between the elite and common people started to erode. An example is when the elite started to dress the same as common people because of the joint boycott of Britain goods.

This did not last long, during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century the gap between social classes grew. Native Americans, African Americans and women were looked down upon often. They did not have the same civil rights as white land-owning men. Owning slaves in the south was a factor in social class; the more slaves, the higher class you were. The social values of North and South caused huge conflict that led to the Civil War; there was much diversity. The North did not agree with the social values of owning slaves.

The south also did not agree with the social values of the north and how they worked their citizens in factories. The south looked at factory workers as slaves who were getting treated worse than the southern slaves. Women also started to cry out for equality with publications of Sarah Grimke’s Letter on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexed. Another influential publication was Angelina Grimke’s Letters to Cathatrine E. Beecher. The social transformation of 1815-1840 not only changed the private lives of Americans but also brought new political issues about such as equality and what and whom it was meant for.

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