-
-
http://www.ushistory.org/us/8a.asp
John Smith and the Jamestown settlers were setting up camp in Virginia, France was building permanent settlements of their own. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/9.asp
Ben Franklin sketched this cartoon to illustrate the urgency of his 1754 Albany Plan of Union. He unsuccessfully tried to bring the colonies together to defend themselves against Indian and French threats. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/7f.asp
Coming from France he could not believe the incredible diversity in the American colonies. Living in one area, he encountered people of English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, German, French, Irish, Swedish, Native American, and African descent. "What then is the American, this new man?" -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/14.asp
The American Revolution began the process of creating a new nation in a number of different ways; by protesting British rule through legal and extra-legal actions; by waging a war to end America's status as a colonized territory; and by designing new forms of government for what Patriots hoped would become independent states. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/11.asp
The early stages of war, in 1775, can be best described as British military victories and American moral triumphs. The British routed the minutemen at Lexington, but the relentless colonists unleashed brutal sniper fire on the British returning to Boston from Concord. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/28.asp
Many African-Americans rightly believed that they had helped build this country and deserved to live as free citizens of America. By the end of the decade, a full-blown Abolitionist movement was born. These new Abolitionists were different from their forebears. Anti-slavery societies had existed in America since 1775, but these activists were more radical. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/10g.asp
The declaration is divided into three main parts.The first was a simple statement of intent.Phrases like " all men are created equal ," "unalienable rights," and "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" have bounced from the lips of Americans in grammar school and retirement. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/13a.asp
But what was the Declaration? Why do Americans continue to celebrate its public announcement as the birthday of the United States, July 4, 1776? While that date might just mean a barbecue and fireworks to some today, what did the Declaration mean when it was written in the summer of 1776? -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/16c.asp
The ratification process started when the Congress turned the Constitution over to the state legislatures for consideration through specially elected state conventions of the people.Five state conventions voted to approve the Constitution almost immediately and in all of them the vote was unanimous or lopsided. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/27.asp
"The Peculiar Institution " is slavery. Its history in America begins with the earliest European settlements and ends with the Civil War. Yet its echo continues to reverberate loudly. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/26a.asp
This was a unique and welcome message coming from the mouths of Reverend Finney and other American evangelists who began spreading the news of the Second Great Awakening from New England to the West from approximately 1795 to 1835. This was a message of hope and opportunity. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/25.asp
Canal and railway construction played an important role in transporting people and cargo west, increasing the size of the US marketplace.With the new infrastructure even remote parts of the country gained the ability to communicate and establish trade relationships with the centers of commerce in the East. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/20.asp
Jefferson and his values serve as a useful organizing tool to think about the changes that America experienced in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Jeffersonian Democracy refers to an American ideal as well as to a remarkably successful political movement. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/24c.asp
In 1828, Congress passed a high protective tariff that infuriated the southern states because they felt it only benefited the industrialized north. Calhoun had supported the Tariff of 1816, but he realized that if he were to have a political future in South Carolina, he would need to rethink his position. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/30a.asp
By the standards of his day, David Wilmot could be considered a racist. Yet the Pennsylvania representative was so adamantly against the extension of slavery to lands ceded by Mexico, he made a proposition that would divide the Congress. If he was not opposed to slavery, why would Wilmot propose such an action? -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/29.asp
At the heart of manifest destiny was the pervasive belief in American cultural and racial superiority. Native Americans had long been perceived as inferior, and efforts to "civilize" them had been widespread since the days of John Smith and Miles Standish . -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/31a.asp
It was Kansas. Underlying it all was his desire to build a transcontinental railroad to go through Chicago. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. Kansas with slavery would violate the Missouri Compromise, which had kept the Union from falling apart for the last thirty-four years. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/34a.asp
Americans tend to think of the Civil War as being fought to end slavery. Even one full year into the Civil War, the elimination of slavery was not a key objective of the North. When a Union officer in Kentucky freed local slaves after a major victory, Union soldiers threw down their arms and disbanded. -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/35.asp
RECONSTRUCTION refers to the period following the Civil War of rebuilding the United States. It was a time of great pain and endless questions. On what terms would the Confederacy be allowed back into the Union? Who would establish the terms, Congress or the President? -
http://www.ushistory.org/us/35b.asp
Americans had long been suspicious of the federal government playing too large a role in the affairs of state. But the Radicals felt that extraordinary times called for direct intervention in state affairs and laws designed to protect the emancipated blacks. In 1866, this activist Congress also introduced a bill to extend the life of the Freedmen's Bureau and began work on a Civil Rights Bill .
