History of the United States

Fourth Word: Bill of Rights
Category: Foundation

Do you have a bill of rights? Why not? Everybody else does. Google it. Get a list: animals, athletes, children, cows, dummies, mixed race people, students. It?s a common buzz word in American politics.

The term, Bill of Rights, comes from an earlier British document that became part of the British Constitution in the seventeenth century, but on an American history test, it is most probably the answer to the question: What are the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The phrase must have entered into American political dialogue during the debate to ratify the Constitution. Opponents of ratification argued that it lacked a list of the people?s rights. Proponents of ratification promised to amend to the Constitution after ratification. The first Congress passed a list of twelve amendments, a copy of which is on display, along with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the National Archive. Eleven of the amendments have been ratified.

Some of the rights result from events that happened during the American revolution. For example, the right to keep and bear arms must have been included because the Founders knew that the first battle of the Revolutionary War came about as a result of a British attempt to confiscate weapons.

Other rights are part of the British legal tradition. For example, the requirement that seizures be reasonable and compensated may be the result of an earlier British court case. [I read about it here on TFS about a year ago.] John Wilkes, the Rush Limbaugh of the eighteenth century, was a thorn in King George?s side. The king confiscated some of the Wilkes? papers and the papers of some of his associates. The associate sued to get their papers back. They won. The founders must have known about this case when they wrote the Bill of Rights.

Edit:

The Bill of Rights comes with some irony. Probably all of the founders depended on slavery in one way or another, so one must wonder if the lofty ideas might have conflicted with the other details in their lives. I'm thinking that probably they didn't see any conflict because the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to them, were not lofty ideals, but they were practical necessity. Maybe that could be the subject of another essay.

So like you're velcome.

Fifth Word: Thomas Paine
Eighth Word: Common Sense
Twenty-Seventh Word: Enlightenment
Twenty-Fourth Word: Revolutionary War
Thirty-Ninth Word: Benjamin Franklin
Category: Foundation

Short Answer -- Thomas Paine published books that affected the course of the American Revolution. In one of another two books, he answered critics of the French Revolution, and in his last book he published his view about controversial Enlightenment ideas.

How many books get credit for stating wars? I can think of at least two. One, Commons Sense by Thomas Paine sometimes gets credit for turning colonial opinion against the British government, and in that way it started the American Revolution. I?ve read it, but I must confess, I can?t remember its argument. Maybe now, two hundred years later, its argument wouldn?t have much impact.

Paine wrote another book, one of the last books of the Enlightenment, Age of Reason in which he bluntly says what other enlightenment authors hinted at, divine revelation is hearsay. He says that is only his opinion. People, with the exception of Miss California, can believe what they want, but he thinks that Moses?, Saint Paul?s, and Mohamed?s conversations with God are only hearsay. In the absence of any physical evidence, he doesn?t believe it.

Paine immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1774 with the help of another Enlightenment author, Benjamin Franklin. In 1776 he published Common Sense, which became a best seller, and as some word say, tilted the colonists toward treason and independence. He traveled with the Continental Army, and he wrote The Crisis, another best seller. In it he coined an American political buzz phrase, summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, which conservative types use as a label for liberal types because our liberal friends, for whatever reason, are too busy to stand up to bullies like the Soviet Union, Wahhabist terrorists, or street corner drug dealers.

Paine moved back to England where he wrote a defense of the French Revolution, The Rights of Man. It was also an answer to other Enlightenment authors who criticized the Revolution, and because of the book, he had to flee to France, or at least get out of England. In France he went to prison for not endorsing the execution of Louis XVI. He avoided execution. One version of the story says that the guards accidentally executed, in the tradition of Barabbas, somebody else.

He moved back to the United States, but his notoriety as an atheist, or maybe Deist, had overriden his popularity as a patriot. He was an opponent of slavery. I don't know if he could be called an abolitionist.

Sixth Word: Monroe Doctrine
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - A foreign policy speech delivered by President James Monroe in an attempt to prevent European countries from recolonizing newly independent countries in Latin America.

Ming's Answer

The American Revolution started a chain of events such as the end of the French Monarchy; the French being kicked out of Haiti, Africa, Indochina and Louisiana; the Spanish being kicked out of Mexico, Central America, South America, and Africa; the end of the Russian Monarchy, the Portuguese being kicked out of Brazil, India, China, and Africa, the British being kicked out of India, Africa, China, Australia, and Canada.

Probably we should include the Americans being kicked out of Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Central America, the Philippine Islands, Japan, Russia, Germany, Vietnam, Iraq, etc.

I read a book, The Rise of the West, which among other things is a history of how the Europeans became the landlords of all that real estate. Emerson wrote a poem, The Concord Hymn, which includes the famous line, ?the shot heard round the world?, which is a metaphor for the American Revolution.

The American Revolution didn?t cause all the later chaos. The Haitian government must have really mismanaged the island, and Napoleon had too little understanding of cholera, so that his troops who might have reversed the Haitian Revolution died before they could reverse it. Napoleon also had a hand in starting the process in which the Spanish and Portuguese lost control of Latin America. To enforce his Continental Policy, he invaded Iberia. That was something the British encouraged because it gave them greater access to Spanish and Portuguese ports. The King of Portugal escaped being captured by French forces because he left Lisbon on a British ship.

The Monroe Doctrine is the name of one of the American government?s responses to the initial chaos that followed the American Revolution. The American government thought that European governments might reestablish control over Latin America. The American Revolution still lived in people?s memories. President Monroe had been a Lieutenant in the Continental Army during the Battle of Monmouth, where he had counted the American troops as they retreated. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had been in the Continental Army. The Secretary of State had been a diplomat in Europe during the war. Many people, who had lived through the trauma, still lived. Even more people, who had lived during the Adams Administration, could remember how Alexander Hamilton raised an Army for George Washington to command because of a threat of a French invasion.

So the Americans felt threatened, and to counter the threat, President Monroe issued a statement saying that the United States would not interfere with any colonies that still existed, but it would oppose any action to reestablish European control of Latin America. Probably if the British had chosen to ignore the United States, they could have recolonized the area, but maybe they thought they could get everything they wanted by diplomacy. Some people think that they had gotten almost everything they wanted from United States with the stroke of the pen, which had ended the American Revolution. Why use a stick when you can use a little sugar?

The term, Monroe Doctrine has become an American buzz word. Lots of presidents have had doctrines that have modified the original idea. Maybe that could be the subject of another essay.

Seventh Word: Great Compromise
Thirtheenth Word: Virginia Plan
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - A part of the United States Constitution that calls for equal representation in the Senate and representation in the House of Representatives based on population .

Ming?s Answer

American government works on compromise. Maybe any republican government can?t function without compromise. Compromise must be difficult. Civil Wars and other kinds of bloodshed must result from lack of compromise. In one of Plato?s dialogues, one of the dialogues about his trial for corrupting Athenian youth, [maybe I read it in a book, The Last Days of Socrates Socrates tells about how he had been a member of one of the Athenian political factions. They decided to assassinate the opposition. They assigned Socrates to kill one particular opponent. He says he didn?t do it, but he says it in such a matter-of-fact manner. It makes me think that assassination must have been a normal part of Athenian politics.

During the French Revolution, politicians arrested their opponents, and then they executed them. The legalese seems better, but same result. Now, politicians want to arrest their opponents and try them for war crimes. Yes indeed, compromise must be difficult.

The compromise known as the Great Compromise, sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise, occurred during the Constitutional Convention, sometimes called the Philadelphia Convention. One could write a United States history by writing a history of conventions, maybe beginning with the Albany Convention.

The delegates at the Constitutional Convention disagreed about how to elect members of Congress. The Virginia Plan suggested that representation in Congress be based on population. The New Jersey Plan suggested that the numbers of members of Congress should be equal for each state. In a story that might be apocryphal, Benjamin Franklin invited the two sides to dinner where they compromised by giving states equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House.

Twenty-Third Word: Missouri Compromise
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - A series of laws passed by Congress in 1820 that allowed Missouri to become a slave state and Maine to become a free state. It drew a line at Missouri?s southern border that allowed only slave states south of the line and free states north of the line.

Ming?s Answer

From the early days of the Virginia colony to the American Civil War, the British colonists and the American public debated how to deal with bound persons. They came in two classes, slaves and indentured slaves. The British didn?t like the word slave, and they used the term indentured servant. One can get an idea of how politically incorrect the word slave had become by reading the King James Bible. It doesn?t use the words slave or slavery; it uses the words servant and bondage.

However repugnant slavery might have been, the colonial labor shortage made it a necessity. The shortage continued until after the American Revolution. I know that because Adams Smith?s book the Wealth of Nations says that before what he calls the current troubles, the wage rate in the colonies was higher than in Britain.

So right from the gitgo, the British colonists had trouble getting enough people to do what needed to be done. I read a letter (maybe a diary) of a New England man who complained about the lack of Indian wars. He thought Indian wars were necessary because captives could legally become slaves. Also, people who were purchased in the Caribbean could remain slaves.

The debate in New York must have become more intense in the early eighteenth century after a slave rebellion that resulted in many white people?s death. It appears not to have been a big issue until the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution did not allow slavery. It may have become an issue because of manumission, which is the practice of freeing slaves after they are too old to work. Anyone interested in information about the fate of old slaves could read Frederick Douglass? book about his life as a slave. Thoreau?s book, Walden mentions manumitted slaves.

So the Missouri Compromise contributed one step in the debate about slavery. It more or less settled the issue, except for people like William Lloyd Garrison, until the Mexican War added California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to the United States.

Tenth Word: Three-Fifths Compromise
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - A part of the United States Constitution that counts three-fifths of slaves to calculate of a state?s direct taxes and its representation in Congress.

Tenth Word: Three-Kansas Nebraska Act
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - A federal law passed in 1854 that modified the Missouri Compromise of 1820. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The sometimes violent struggle between the people opposed to slavery and the people in favor or slavery lasted until 1861 when Kansas became a free state.

My great grandfather was a slave.

The palliament, striped and blemished, appears to be a prison uniform. I'm going to guess that the picture is not your grandfather. Is that right?

Sixteenth Word: Roger Williams
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - Founder of Rhode Island. A proponent o the separation of church and state.

Eighteenth Word: Northern Economy
Twenty-First Word: Southern Economy
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - Historians divide the Untied States into the North and the South because it split into two parts during the Civil War. The North's econonmy was more industrial even before the Revolutionary War. The north made ships. After the War, the North had more foundries for making steam engines, which were used in factories, locomotives, and ships. The machine tool industry grew in the North. The North had more canals and railroads for transportation. The North had no slaves, but textile factories and sugar refineries depended on cotton and sugar produced by slaves in the South. I've never read about the coal. Did it come from northern or southern mines?

The South's economy was mostly agricultural. Before the Revolutionary War tobacco was the most important crop, along with indigo, rice, and sugar. Cotton dominated the economy after 1800. Slaves produced the labor to grow the crops.

Yes, this thread is supposed to be about the history of the United States, and I'm surprised that so much of it is about slavery. I'm not sure why, but I can think of a couple of reasons. One explanation could be that, like the first posting says, this thread is about a study guide for a particular American History course. Maybe the teacher has a particular interest in slavery. Another explanation could be that so far the material is about events before the Civil War.

An even broader explanation could be that history is about, among other things, finance and labor. Any human activity involves finance and labor. Slavery is both a financial arrangement and a source of labor.

Twenty-Eighth Word: Great Awakening
Twenty-Seventh Word: Jonathan Edwards
Category: Foundation

Short Answer - - A name used by historians to refer to a time in the eighteenth century when people in New England became more aware of religion. Sometimes refers to a time in the nineteenth century called the Second Great Awakening. Could refer to preachers, like Jonathan Edwards, who drew people to church to hear his sermons.