# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Native American societies before contact (video) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Renaissance - that cultural, political, scientific and intellectual explosion in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries - represents perhaps the most profoundly important period in human development since the fall of Ancient Rome.

From its origins in 14th-century Florence, the Renaissance spread across Europe - the fluidity of its ideas changing and evolving to match local cultural thinking and conditions, although always remaining true to its ideals.

It coincided with a boom in exploration, trade, marriage and diplomatic excursions... and even war. As with the Ancient Greeks and Romans (from whom the Renaissance took so much inspiration), a conquering army could bring not only a regime change but also a cultural overhaul.

The Renaissance changed the world in just about every way one could think of. It had a kind of snowball effect: each new intellectual advance paved the way for further advancements.

Italy in the 14th century was fertile ground for a cultural revolution. The Black Death had wiped out millions of people in Europe - by some estimates killing as many as one in three between 1346 and 1353.

By the simplest laws of economics, it meant that those who survived were left with proportionally greater wealth: either from fewer people inheriting more, or simply by virtue of supply and demand - with fewer workers available, wages naturally rose.

At the top of Italian society was a new breed of rulers, keen to demonstrate their wealth in a way that set them apart. Families such as the Medici of Florence looked to the Ancient Roman and Greek civilisations for inspiration - and so did those artists who relied on their patronage.

Italy was flooded with "lost" classics from the ancient world, and artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello took their tales, heroes and gods as a starting point to creating extraordinary art.

Renaissance art did not limit itself to simply looking pretty, however. Behind it was a new intellectual discipline: perspective was developed, light and shadow were studied, and the human anatomy was pored over - all in pursuit of a new realism and a desire to capture the beauty of the world as it really was.

If the Renaissance was about rediscovering the intellectual ambition of the Classical civilisations, it was also about pushing the boundaries of what we know - and what we could achieve.

Even as the artists were creating a bold new realism, scientists were engaged in a revolution of their own. Copernicus and Galileo had developed an unprecedented understanding of our planet's place in the cosmos, proving that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

Advances in chemistry led to the rise of gunpowder, while a new model of mathematics stimulated new financial trading systems and made it easier than ever to navigate across the world.

And navigate the Renaissance men did. Columbus discovered America, Ferdinand Magellan led an expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

Even as our world shrank in size and significance when placed in the context of our new understanding of the universe, so it grew in physical terms, as new continents were found, new lands colonised, new cultures discovered whose own beliefs and understandings were added to the great intellectual firestorm raging across Europe.

Radical thinkers such as the Protestant Luther and the humanist Erasmus expounded a new way of looking at the world that owed less to blind subservience to the Catholic Church and more to the possibilities inherent in the human mind.

Never before (or since) had there been such a coming together of art, science and philosophy. And never before had there been such an opportunity for it to be so widely disseminated.

The very same scientific advances that the Renaissance was developing also contributed to one of its great legacies: the printing press.

In 1440, Gutenberg introduced the printing press to the world - meaning that for the first time, books could be mass-produced. A single press could churn out 3,600 pages a day, resulting in an explosion of literature and ideas unprecedented in history.

By 1500, printing presses in Western Europe had produced more than 20 million volumes. And by 1600, that had risen to 200 million.

Luther and Erasmus became bestsellers - and later so did poets, dramatists and novelists. The new ideas of free-thinkers, mathematicians and scientists all became accessible to the masses, and art and science became, for the first time in human history, truly democratic.

The seeds of the modern world were sown and grown in the Renaissance. From circumnavigating the world to the discovery of the solar system, from the beauty of Michelangelo's David to the perfection of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, from the genius of Shakespeare to the daring of Luther and Erasmus, and via breathtaking advances in science and mathematics, man achieved new heights in this tumultuous period.

The Renaissance changed the world. You might even say it created all of what we now know as modern life.

Find out more

Visit priceless.com/London and sign up to Priceless London emails

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Renaissance - why it changed the world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Renaissance - that cultural, political, scientific and intellectual explosion in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries - represents perhaps the most profoundly important period in human development since the fall of Ancient Rome.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Spanish claim to territories that are today the United States rested upon the 16th century exploits of Ponce de Leon, Hernando De Soto, and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado.

St. Augustine in Florida was established as a Spanish fort in 1565, the first permanent settlement in what would become the United States. The impact of this settlement was slight, however, since it served primarily as a base camp for other exploratory ventures and also as the center of efforts to convert the area's natives to Roman Catholicism. A handful of Spanish settlements was established in outlying areas, but they soon fell prey to Indian attacks or economic insufficiency.

Greater progress was made by Spanish colonizers on the other side of the continent. In 1598, Don Juan Oñante led 500 men from Mexico northward into Pueblo lands in present-day New Mexico. The invaders brought with them a labor system known as the encomienda, which had originally developed in Spain.

Under this scheme, large New World land grants were made by the Crown to favored Spanish individuals. The grantees were responsible for the protection and Christian instruction of inhabitants of the lands, and those natives were required to pay tribute - often in the form of crops and labor - to the grantee.

Understandably, the Pueblo deeply resented the entire system - invasion of their lands, suppression of their religion, payment of tribute, and enforced loyalty to a foreign monarch.

The encomienda was used throughout Spanish America. Its application differed sharply from one area to another, being relatively benign in some regions, but virtually enslaving in others. Reform of the system was sought by a Spanish missionary, Bartolomé de Las Casas.

Oñante, fired by a passion for precious metals, launched a series of explorations eastward into present-day Kansas and Oklahoma, and westward to the Gulf of California. In some instances, he retraced Coronado's steps and was equally unsuccessful in discovering gold and silver.

New settlements were erected at Santa Fe in 1609 and nearby Taos in 1615.

Relationships between the colonists and the Pueblo improved as they cooperated in livestock raising (mostly cattle and sheep), but an undercurrent of resentment remained strong. In 1680, a major revolt broke out under native leader Papé. Hundreds were killed on both sides in the fighting and order was not restored until 1692.

As the 17th century drew to a close, Spanish colonial administrators finally realized that, given their minority status in so many parts of New Spain, policy reform was necessary. In the coming years, the Pueblo were allowed to resume the practice of their religion, own land, and be free from forced labor.

From a material standpoint, the Spanish ventures in the northern portions of their realm were far less successful than those to the south.

- - - Books You May Like Include: ----

Commanches by T.R. Fehrenbach.
Authoritative and immediate, this is the classic account of the most powerful of the American Indian tribes. T.R. Fehrenbach traces the Comanches' ris...
The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hamalainen.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, at the high tide of imperial struggles in North America, an indigenous empire rose to dominate the f...
The Birth of America: From Before Columbus to the Revolution by William R. Polk.
In this provocative account of colonial America, William R. Polk explores the key events, individuals, and themes of this critical period. With vivid ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Spanish claim to territories that are today the United States rested upon the 16th century exploits of Ponce de Leon, Hernando De Soto, and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado. St. Augustine in Florida was established as a Spanish fort in 1565, the first permanent settlement in what would become the United States.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. More information

# data[].attributes.headline
Colonists Affected by the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment

# data[].attributes.subject
Colonists Affected by the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Navigation Acts were trade rules that governed commerce between Britain and its colonies. The first of the Navigation Acts existed for almost two centuries and was repealed in 1849. The laws were designed to protect British economic interests in colonial trade and to protect its industry against the rapidly growing Dutch navigation trade.

The purpose of the Molasses Act was to protect British West Indies exports to the American colonies from the more fertile French and Spanish islands of Martinique and Santo Domingo. It was not designed to raise revenue but it was used as a trade barrier. The duty was set at 6p per gallon of imported foreign molasses, corruption became endemic and illegal trade was widespread. In its first year it collected £330 sterling and during the period of 1738-1741 it collected £76 a year. Not until 1763 was the collection of the duty enforced when the duty was lowered to 2d a gallon and in 1764 it was replaced by the Sugar Act.

The Currency Act of 1751 prohibited the issue of new bills of credit by New England colonies: Rhode Island, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire and Connecticut. Parliament decided to enact the Currency Act of 1751 to control currency depreciation against silver and sterling and to ensure its value for payments of debt to British merchants. A subsequent Currency Act enacted in 1764 extended the policy to all British colonies in the Americas increasing more tension between Britain and America.

It amended the existing 1733 Molasses Act. The Act increased the duty of molasses from 2d to 3d of gallon of imported molasses. It enforced the Navigation Acts by prohibiting vessels to directly transport cargo to the colonies. Vessels had to unload its cargo in Britain, pay duties and reload its cargo before sailing to the colonies. The Sugar Act imposed a £7 a ton on wine imported from Madeira, the Azores and Canary Islands. It added hides, skins, potash and other products to the list of commodities that could be legally exported. The act was strictly enforced through the Vice-Admiralty Courts.

The Stamp Act intended to raise revenue by requiring the purchase of stamps to be placed on public documents, there were 55 documents subject to the duty. Violators were to be prosecuted in the vice-admiralty courts. For the first time the British had levied an explicit tax on the colonist for the purpose of raising revenue, previous taxes were seen as trade taxes and tolerated by colonial residents. Opposition to the tax was widespread as it represented an infringement on their rights. Opposition groups such as the Sons of Liberty sprung everywhere. The Act was nullified in March 1766.

The act required colonial assemblies to provide housing, food and drink to British troops stationed in their towns with the purpose of improving living conditions and decreasing the cost to the crown. Soldiers were to be housed in barracks or empty public buildings and not in private residences. It was the duty of local legislatures to fund the expenses. In 1766 the New York assembly refused to raise the money and in 1767 Parliament passed the New York Suspending Act on July 1767 which suspended the assembly until they complied with the new law.

The Declaratory Act was passed on March 18, 1766, at the same time as the repeal of the 1765 Stamp Act. The act was used as a justification for the repeal of the Stamp Act and as a face saving action. The 1766 Declaratory Act stated that the colonies are subordinate and dependent on the Imperial Crown and Parliament of Britain and that Parliament had the authority to pass laws.

The Act imposed import duties on 72 items including paint, tea, glass and paper. The revenue raised from it was to provide for the salaries of colonial officers and its administration. It also authorized the Supreme Court to issue writs of assistance for violators, established the American Customs Board and expanded Admiralty Courts. Protests against the Townshend Acts led to the Boston Massacre.

The Tea Act of 1773 granted the East India Company exclusive license to import and distribute tea to the American colonies. Tea was sold in America at 10s per pound, half its previous price and less than the cost of smuggled tea. Despite the economic benefit to end consumers of tea, the law damaged the position of independent shippers, smugglers and local shopkeepers. On December 1773 Bostonians dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in an event known as the Boston Tea Party.

As retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, Britain imposed the Coercive Acts in 1774. The Coercive Acts were a package of five laws: Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government act, Administration of Justice Act, Quartering Act and Quebec Act.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Navigation Acts were trade rules that governed commerce between Britain and its colonies. The first of the Navigation Acts existed for almost two centuries and was repealed in 1849. The laws were designed to protect British economic interests in colonial trade and to protect its industry against the rapidly growing Dutch navigation trade.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
4. 1767-69: Crisis Deepens

Had Great Britain generously repealed the whole [of the Townshend Acts] and forever relinquished all claim to the right, or even the exercise of the right of taxation, the union of the two countries might have lasted for ages.

David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, 1789

In their jubilance over the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, few Americans heeded an action taken by Parliament on the same day. In the innocuously named Declaratory Act, Parliament firmly asserted its authority to legislate for the colonies and "bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever." A clear statement of who's boss. This "binding" power became clear to Americans with five parliamentary enactments in 1767 and 1768 known as the Townshend Acts. To Britain and many colonists, the acts were a legitimate use of imperial authority to finance and secure the colonies. To many Americans-those who had condemned the Stamp Act as coercive and unconstitutional-the Townshend Acts were sheer despotism. First, an overview:

TOWNSHEND ACTS

1767

Revenue Act

· Set new import taxes (duties) on British goods-paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea.
· Enacted to fund British troops in America and to pay salaries of some royal officials.
· Affirmed use of writs of assistance (search warrants) by customs officials without court sanction (i.e., blank warrants) to search ships, warehouses, and other buildings for smuggled goods.

1767

Indemnity Act

· Removed duties on tea shipped to the colonies by the British East India Co. so that British tea could compete with (smuggled) Dutch-shipped tea.

1767

New York Restraining Act

· Ordered the suspension of the New York assembly if it continued to refuse to comply fully with the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonial legislatures to provide funds for the food, supplies, and housing of British troops stationed in the colonies. The assembly agreed to comply before the Act took effect.

1767

Commissioners of Customs Act

· Implemented firmer customs enforcement and assigned five new customs officials-tax collectors and investigators-headquartered in Boston.

1768

Vice Admiralty Court Act

· Created new courts in which colonial smugglers would be prosecuted without a jury-verdicts being decided solely by the judge, thus removing a long-valued privilege of Englishmen.

The blandness of this list belies the impact of the acts and the implied ultimatum from Parliament-submit or else. Many would accuse Parliament (and the king's cabinet) of a conspiracy to subjugate them. "We are therefore-SLAVES," warned John Dickinson in his widely read newspaper essays, published as Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, that laid out the unique dangers within Parliament's moves. For in passing the Townshend Acts, stresses historian Forrest MacDonald, "Britain was making the most dangerous of all political blunders: it was stating its position clearly and as an absolute. Until that moment, the imperial system had worked, and it had worked precisely because it had never been clearly defined. Now Parliament was declaring, in effect, 'This is what the empire is, and this is what it shall be.'"1 This absolutist position, especially in Britain's anti-smuggling enforcements, made tempers rise to new levels among New Englanders, especially Bostonians, who rioted after tax officials confiscated the merchant ship of John Hancock, a high-visibility leader of resistance. When British troops were sent to Boston to enforce order, all felt that a line had been crossed.

After renewed violence two years later in 1770 (see Section #6), but primarily due to the demands of strapped British merchants, Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts-except for the tax on tea, which generated the most revenue and served as a symbol of parliamentary authority. Might it be, as David Ramsay mused in 1789, that had Parliament repealed the Acts in their entirety, the "union of the two countries might have lasted for ages"?

Colonists respond to the Townshend Acts, 1767-1770. This compilation, one of a series in this Theme CRISIS, includes broadsides, poems, declarations, and debates on the Townshend Acts and on the merchants' nonimportation (boycott) agreements. Among the selections are the first call for united resistance (the Massachusetts Circular Letter), an essay by Benjamin Franklin explaining Americans' "ill humor" to the British, selections from John Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, newspaper accounts of the 1768 " Liberty Riot" and of the resulting dispatch of British troops to Boston, and, as always, the retrospective views of the Patriot historian David Ramsay. As there is ample material for group study and presentation, the selections are designed to be divided among students and not assigned in their entirety. See Discussion Questions below and Suggestions for Classroom Use of the compilations. (16 pp.)

Colonists respond to the Quartering Act, 1766-1767. This second compilation offers documents illustrating Americans' opposition to (1) the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonial assemblies to provide funds for the food, provisions, and housing (in unoccupied buildings) of British troops, and (2) their response to the threatened suspension of the New York assembly for refusing to fully comply with the act. The selections include New York's petition to the royal governor and his reply, two newspaper essays urging opposition to the threatened suspension of the New York assembly, and a letter by Benjamin Franklin on the prospect of renewed conflict between Britain and America. "Every Act of Oppression will sour their Tempers," warned Franklin, " . . . and hasten their final Revolt: For the Seeds of Liberty are universally sown there, and nothing can eradicate them." (5 pp.)

John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letters 1 & 2. In twelve essays published in colonial newspapers in 1767 and 1768, John Dickinson bemoaned the complacency exhibited by Americans after the repeal of the Stamp Act and urged them to wake up and resist the encroaching subjugation of Parliament.

-In Letter One, he calls for more vocal outrage against Parliament's threat to suspend the New York assembly for its failure to comply fully with the Quartering Act. "If they may be legally deprived . . . of the privilege of legislation, why may they not, with equal reason, be deprived of every other privilege? Or why may not every colony be treated in the same manner, when any of them shall dare to deny their assent to any impositions that shall be directed?" Dickinson sees no difference between such legislative compulsion and the use of troops.

-In Letter Two, he begins by acknowledging that the colonies are part of the British Empire and that Great Britain has authority over them. Every law passed by Parliament relating to the colonies, including the imposition of taxes, has been based upon its authority to regulate trade - every law, that is, except the Stamp Act, which was passed simply to raise revenue. For many colonists, this distinction was critical: Parliament can legitimately tax the colonies to regulate trade but not to raise revenue. Since the Townshend duties required colonists to buy the taxed goods from Britain alone, there was no competition, no trade to regulate, and thus the duties were unconstitutional. "HERE then, my dear countrymen," Dickinson pleads. "ROUSE yourselves, and behold the ruin hanging over your heads." (6 pp.)

Artists' depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston, 1768. The arrival of the soldiers on October 1, 1768, dispatched to enforce order after the " Liberty riot" and heated unrest in Boston, marked a turning point in the colonies' dispute with the mother country. It was the first time the British government had resorted to military force to impose its will on America. Illustrations of this event are among the few American-created images of the early revolutionary era, so dramatic was the effect on the colonial psyche. This effect is apparent (if you turn on your eighteenth-century eyes) in the three depictions presented here, one by Paul Revere and two by Christian Remick, a sailor and occasional artist.

Paul Revere, A Prospective View of the Town of Boston . . . and the Landing of-Troops in the year 1768, woodcut, 1770 [Library of Congress: click image for high-resolution tiff)]

Christian Remick, A Perspective View of the Blockade of Boston Harbour, watercolor, ca. 1768 [Massachusetts Historical Society: view high-resolution image]

Christian Remick, A Prospective View of Part of the [Boston] Commons, watercolor, 1768 PDF

How do Revere and Remick reveal the impact on Americans of British troops in their midst, troops sent to police them and enforce British supremacy? How do they convey the impression of "occupation"? (6 pp.)

Discussion Questions

1. From these documents, characterize the range of Americans' responses to the Townshend Acts, the Quartering Act, and the arrival of British troops in Boston.

2. In what ways do the responses reflect a continuity with responses to previous parliamentary actions?

3. In what ways do they reflect a change? What would explain the change?

4. What new modes of resistance did Americans employ against the Townshend Acts (and against opposition to the Acts)?

5. What were Americans' arguments for and against the non-importation agreements? Did the arguments follow strict Loyalist-vs.-Patriot divisions?

6. How did the colonies respond to the call for unity in Samuel Adams's circular letter from Massachusetts?

7. From these documents, what do you learn of the British people's reaction to American resistance?

8. Create a dialogue among two to four persons represented in these readings. Guide your dialogue to a conclusion among the speakers, or an acknowledgment that no conclusion can be reached.

9. What are the characteristics of the persona John Dickinson assumes in his letters "from a Farmer in Pennsylvania"? Why would he depict the author of the letters in such a way? How does Dickinson's farmer seek to establish a rapport with his readers?

10. What goals did Dickinson hope to achieve with his letters?

11. Why did he argue that taxes levied to raise revenues are unjust?

12. Why was he disturbed with the lack of immediate outrage over Britain's threat to suspend the New York assembly?

13. Dickinson refused to sign the Declaration of Independence because he believed that America could not sustain itself as an independent nation. What arguments in his letters might he have used to support this position?

14. What are your first impressions of the three depictions of British troops in America? What might have been the impressions of Americans at the time?

15. How do Revere and Remick differ in depicting the mass arrival of occupying troops in Boston harbor? What similar response did they hope to achieve in the viewer?

16. In the depiction of British troops encamped on Boston Common, how has Remick made the citizens appear marginalized in their own city?

17. How are the depictions acts of protest in themselves?

18. Do you agree with David Ramsay that, had Parliament repealed all of the Townshend Acts including the tea tax, the "union of the two countries might have lasted for ages"?

Framing Questions

Between 1763 and 1775, what changed many Americans from loyal British subjects to rebellious Patriots?

Why did many Americans remain loyal to Great Britain and oppose rebellion?

How did Patriots and Loyalists convey their views through the media outlets of the time?

Was the American Revolution inevitable? If so, was there a "point of no return"?

Printing

COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Townshend Acts
COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Quartering Act
John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letters 1-2
Depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston
TOTAL

Supplemental Sites

1 Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (John Dickinson). Letters from the Federal Farmer (Richard Henry Lee), intro. by Forrest McDonald (Prentice Hall, 1962), xii.

Images:
- Alexander Robertson, "To the Publick . . . ," broadside, New York City, 1769 (detail). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Printed Ephemera Division, Portfolio 103, Folder 23.
- Christian Remick, A Perspective View of the Blockade of Boston Harbour, watercolor, ca. 1768 (detail). Reproduced by permission of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
- Paul Revere, A Prospective View of the Town of Boston . . . and the Landing of-Troops in the year 1768, woodcut, 1770 (detail). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, LC-USZ62-45559.

Banner image: Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea Ships into the River, at Boston, engraving (detail), in W. D. Rev. Mr. Cooper, The History of North America (London: E. Newbery, 1789). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-538 (also Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Digital ID us0012_01). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

*PDF file - You will need software on your computer that allows you to read and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this software, you may download it FREE from Adobe's Web site.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Colonial Response to the Townshend Acts & Quartering Act, British Troops in Boston, John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, American Revolution, Primary Sources for Teachers, America in Class, National Humanities Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Had Great Britain generously repealed the whole [of the Townshend Acts] and forever relinquished all claim to the right, or even the exercise of the right of taxation, the union of the two countries might have lasted for ages.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Declaration of Independence (video) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Battles of Saratoga, in the American Revolution, closely related engagements in the autumn of 1777. The Battles of Saratoga are often considered together as a turning point of the war in favour of the Americans.

The British campaign of 1777

The failure of the American invasion of Canada in 1775-76 had left a large surplus of British troops along the St. Lawrence River. In 1777 these troops were to move south for an attack on Albany, New York. Gen. John Burgoyne, coming down from Canada via Lake Champlain and Lake George, was to meet at Albany a much smaller British force under Col. Barry St. Leger, who was to advance from Oswego along the Mohawk Valley. Coming up the Hudson from the south, Gen. Sir William Howe's army was to serve as the third prong of this complex offensive campaign. With Albany and the Hudson Valley in British hands, the patriot hotbed of New England would be effectively severed from the mid-Atlantic colonies.

American Revolution Events

Burgoyne, with some 9,000 men, including seven regiments of British regulars and 3,000 Germans, reached Fort Ticonderoga (July 1), which was evacuated by its weak garrison (July 5). He then marched his army through the woods and swamps to Fort Edward on the upper Hudson. The fort was evacuated by the American commander, Gen. Philip Schuyler, on July 31. Schuyler retreated across the Hudson to Stillwater, 20 miles (32 km) north of Albany; on August 19, Schuyler was relieved of command and replaced by Gen. Horatio Gates.

Burgoyne's laborious march involved the construction of 40 bridges and required a long halt at Fort Edward. A German detachment was sent to Bennington, Vermont, to seize horses and supplies, but on August 16 it was surrounded and almost completely annihilated by a force under Gen. John Stark and Col. Seth Warner. Burgoyne now became uneasy. He had left nearly 1,000 men to garrison Ticonderoga, and St. Leger was held up before Fort Schuyler (unbeknownst to Burgoyne, St. Leger had retreated on August 22). Most troubling of all, Howe had notified Burgoyne of his intention to abandon the New York campaign entirely and invade Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, Burgoyne considered himself bound by his orders to press on to Albany. Having collected 30 days' rations, he crossed the Hudson on September 13 and camped near Saratoga, New York. Gates, one of the more experienced and trusted officers in the colonial ranks, was encamped 4 miles (about 6 km) away, on Bemis Heights, with 12,000 men. Gates, unlike Burgoyne, was receiving daily reinforcements.

Battle of Freeman's Farm

On September 19 Burgoyne moved south and engaged the Continental forces at the Battle of Freeman's Farm, also called the First Battle of Saratoga. Early in the battle, many British officers were killed in the open fields by Col. Daniel Morgan 's sharpshooters, who were concealed in the thick woods. As the disheartened British advance guard began to break, the main British force arrived, followed soon after by German reinforcements that struck the American troops forcefully. The Continentals stood fast, however, and heavy fighting lasted for several hours, but at dusk they withdrew. Despite losing the field, the Americans had suffered just 90 killed and 240 wounded, compared with 440 killed and nearly 700 wounded for the British.

On September 21 Burgoyne received notice from Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, who had been left in command of British forces at New York, that Clinton was about to launch an attack up the Hudson Valley. Burgoyne sent a dispatch to Clinton, asking for orders, on September 27. The answer was never received. In the meantime, Howe had captured the colonial capital of Philadelphia, but this victory proved almost meaningless in the larger context of the war. On October 3 Clinton headed north with a force of some 4,000 men and quickly captured two forts on the west bank of the Hudson, but he never had any intention of pressing on to Albany. Burgoyne was now awaiting reinforcements from Clinton that would never come. Gates took this time to strengthen his positions as more American units arrived.

Second Battle of Saratoga

Burgoyne's army had dwindled to perhaps 5,000 combat-ready troops, and he estimated that he had two weeks of supplies left. On October 7 he decided that he could wait no longer and launched an attack without the reinforcements. This engagement was called the Battle of Bemis Heights, also known as the Second Battle of Freeman's Farm or the Second Battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne first sent in a reconnaissance force, using 1,500 troops in three columns, while leaving the main body of his troops closer to the heights. Brig. Gen. Simon Fraser, tasked with probing the American left, was met by a body of Continental infantry, including Morgan 's riflemen. They opened fire on the exposed British, fatally wounding Fraser as he attempted to cover a British withdrawal.

Just as the American attack began to falter, Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold appeared on horseback with a fresh brigade behind him. This drove the British troops back to their redoubts at Freeman's Farm. The Germans in their redoubt stubbornly resisted American assaults, but they were finally overwhelmed. On October 8 Burgoyne began to retreat, but Gates, who now had 20,000 men, surrounded him at Saratoga. On October 17 Burgoyne surrendered his troops under the Convention of Saratoga, which provided for the return of his men to Great Britain on condition that they would not serve again in North America during the war.

Aftermath

The American victory in the Battles of Saratoga helped persuade the French to recognize American independence and to openly provide military assistance. It also increased Gates's popularity-so much so that he was being considered to replace George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. That notion was squelched, however, and Washington retained his position until he received the British surrender in 1781.
Kate Lohnes The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battles of Saratoga | Facts, Casualties, & Significance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Battles of Saratoga, in the American Revolution, closely related engagements in autumn 1777. The American victories led the French to recognize the colonies' independence and to provide them with military assistance. This marked the turning point of the war, virtually ensuring ultimate victory for the colonies.

# data[].attributes.body
Here is a website with information about the Articles of Confederation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
View the original text of history's most important documents, including the Articles of Confederation

# data[].attributes.body
This is a diagram/picture of what led to the Great Compromise

# data[].attributes.body
This is a video about Federalism

# data[].attributes.body
(3 Branches of Government)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Learn about the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. government.

The Constitution of the United States divides the federal government into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. This ensures that no individual or group will have too much power.

How each branch of government provides checks and balances

The ability of each branch to respond to the actions of the other branches is the system of checks and balances.

Each branch of government can change acts of the other branches:

The president can veto legislation created by Congress. He or she also nominates heads of federal agencies and high court appointees.

Congress confirms or rejects the president's nominees. It can also remove the president from office in exceptional circumstances.

The Justices of the Supreme Court, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, can overturn unconstitutional laws.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Branches of the U.S. government | USAGov

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about the 3 branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Understand how each branch of U.S. government provides checks and balances.

# data[].attributes.body
This mainly focuses on the Preamble and the 7 Articles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Bill of Rights is one of the three founding documents. It was strongly influenced by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason as well as English documents such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the English Bill of Rights, and the Massachusetts Body of Liberties.
PDF: Bill of Rights
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Who Wrote the Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. James Madison wrote the amendments as a solution to limit government power and protect individual liberties through the Constitution. For example, the Founders saw the ability to speak and worship freely as a natural right protected by the First Amendment. Congress is prohibited from making laws establishing religion or abridging freedom of speech. The Fourth Amendment safeguards citizens' right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion in their homes through the requirement of a warrant.

Why was the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution?

The Constitution lacked limits on government power. Federalists advocated for a strong national government. They believed the people and states automatically kept any powers not given to the federal government. Anti-Federalists wanted power to remain with state and local governments and favored a bill of rights to safeguard individual liberty.

Madison, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, altered the Constitution's text where he thought appropriate. However, several representatives, led by Roger Sherman, objected, saying that Congress had no authority to change the wording of the Constitution. Therefore, Madison's changes were presented as a list of amendments that would follow Article VII.

The House approved 17 amendments. Of these, the Senate approved 12, which were sent to the states for approval in August 1789. Ten amendments were approved (or ratified). Virginia's legislature was the final state legislature to ratify the amendments, approving them on December 15, 1791.

Primary Source by James Madison, George Mason (1791)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bill of Rights: The 1st Ten Amendments - Bill of Rights Institute

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Bill of Rights is a founding documents written by James Madison. It makes up the first ten amendments to the Constitution including freedom of speech and due process.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The State House in Boston was designed by Charles Bullfinch, who also designed the Capitol in Washington D.C.

The election of 1796 was the first election in American history where political candidates at the local, state, and national level began to run for office as members of organized political parties that held strongly opposed political principles.

This was a stunning new phenomenon that shocked most of the older leaders of the Revolutionary Era. Even Madison, who was one of the earliest to see the value of political parties, believed that they would only serve as temporary coalitions for specific controversial elections. The older leaders failed to understand the dynamic new conditions that had been created by the importance of popular sovereignty - democracy - to the American Revolution. The people now understood themselves as a fundamental force in legitimating government authority. In the modern American political system, voters mainly express themselves through allegiances within a competitive party system. 1796 was the first election where this defining element of modern political life began to appear.

The two parties adopted names that reflected their most cherished values. The Federalists of 1796 attached themselves to the successful campaign in favor of the Constitution and were solid supporters of the federal administration. Although Washington denounced parties as a horrid threat to the republic, his vice president John Adams became the de facto presidential candidate of the Federalists. The party had its strongest support among those who favored Hamilton's policies. Merchants, creditors and urban artisans who built the growing commercial economy of the northeast provided its most dedicated supporters and strongest regional support.

This mural, located at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., represents Thomas Jefferson's views on the necessity of education.

The opposition party adopted the name Democratic-Republicans, which suggested that they were more fully committed to extending the Revolution to ordinary people. The supporters of the Democratic-Republicans (often referred to as the Republicans) were drawn from many segments of American society and included farmers throughout the country with high popularity among German and Scots-Irish ethnic groups. Although it effectively reached ordinary citizens, its key leaders were wealthy southern tobacco elites like Jefferson and Madison. While the Democratic-Republicans were more diverse, the Federalists were wealthier and carried more prestige, especially by association with the retired Washington.

The 1796 election was waged with uncommon intensity. Federalists thought of themselves as the "friends of order" and good government. They viewed their opponents as dangerous radicals who would bring the anarchy of the French Revolution to America.

The Democratic-Republicans despised Federalist policies. According to one Republican-minded New York newspaper, the Federalists were "aristocrats, endeavoring to lay the foundations of monarchical government, and Republicans [were] the real supporters of independence, friends to equal rights, and warm advocates of free elective government."

This chart depicts the electoral vote distribution for the election of 1796. John Adams (green) edged out Thomas Jefferson (yellow) for the Presidency, with Thomas Pinckney (purple) and Aaron Burr (blue) leading the runners-up. Jefferson's second-place earned him the Vice Presidency.

Clearly there was little room for compromise in this hostile environment.

The outcome of the presidential election indicated the close balance between the two sides. New England strongly favored Adams, while Jefferson overwhelmingly carried the southern states. The key to the election lay in the mid-Atlantic colonies where party organizations were the most fully developed. Adams ended up narrowly winning in the electoral college 71 to 68. A sure sign of the great novelty of political parties was that the Constitution had established that the runner-up in the presidential election would become the vice president.

John Adams took office after a harsh campaign and narrow victory. His political opponent Jefferson served as second in command.

A History of American Agriculture: 1776-1990
A collection of timelines from the United States Department of Agriculture show the amazing rate of change in the demographics and technology of the American farm. Thomas Jefferson's hopes for an agrarian economy were ignored by the pace of change demonstrated in graphic detail by these 11 timelines. While Jefferson ran for office in 1796, 90 percent of the population were farmers. Today, farmers make up less than 3 percent of the population.

Report broken link

The Campaign and Election of 1796
The American President series presents a summary of the first American election where political parties played a part. See a chart of the candidates and the results; find out the political rationale for why the parties chose their candidates; learn strange facts that made this election unique.

Report broken link

George Washington's Farewell Address
George Washington's departure from the political scene created a political vacuum which laid the groundwork for the formation of political parties - something Washington despised. Early America offers this dusty original of Washington's farewell address, but provides a readable abstract as well. "[Political parties] ... distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration ... agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one ... against another ... it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption ..." -George Washington

Report broken link

If you like our content, please share it on social media!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The State House in Boston was designed by Charles Bullfinch, who also designed the Capitol in Washington D.C. The election of 1796 was the first election in American history where political candidates at the local, state, and national level began to run for office as members of organized political parties that held strongly opposed political principles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery started on the long journey back the way they had come. They had some conflicts with some of the Indians on the lower Columbia, whom they accused of charging high prices for food, trying to steal from the travelers, and interfering with their progress. But when they reached the friendly Nez Percés, they found their horses alive and cared-for, though scattered on open range.

The group was back across the mountains by June and decided to split up into smaller parties for a while so as to explore some of the territory more thoroughly. Lewis took a more northerly route, and it was during this trip that the explorers had their first and only violent conflict with Indians. A group of Blackfeet apparently tried to captured horses and guns, and Lewis's party killed two of them.

At about that same time, Clark, on a southerly route, discovered an unusual, large stone formation on the Yellowstone River. He named it "Pompy's Tower," after the nickname of Sacagawea's son, now in his second year (certainly one of the most remarkable childhoods in American history). There on that formation, Clark left an inscription, "Wm. Clark July 25th 1806," which can still be seen today.

The separate parties rejoined in August back on the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Yellowstone. They continued on down the river, dropping off Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and little Jean-Baptiste at the Mandan villages. Traveling quickly, they reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806.

The men of the expedition were welcomed as heroes. They had been gone so long that the nation feared they were dead. Remarkably, only one member of the group died. This was Sergeant Charles Floyd, who probably died of a ruptured appendix as the Corps of Discovery traveled up the Missouri River on its way to the Mandan villages.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lewis and Clark : The Expedition of the Corps of Discovery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery started on the long journey back the way they had come. They had some conflicts with some of the Indians on the lower Columbia, whom they accused of charging high prices for food, trying to steal from the travelers, and interfering with their progress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PBS America | Sky 534 | Virgin Media 243 | pbsamerica.co.uk This two-part documentary tells the story of a conflict that is rarely remembered but of major historical significance. Dramatic reconstructions, evocative animation and expert commentary combine to reveal a brutal and spiteful conflict dominated by fiascos and military blunders.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why was the Monroe Doctrine important?

What were the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine?

What motives were behind the Monroe Doctrine?

Who worked on the Monroe Doctrine?

How did the Monroe Doctrine change over time?

Monroe Doctrine, (December 2, 1823), cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy enunciated by Pres. James Monroe in his annual message to Congress. Declaring that the Old World and New World had different systems and must remain distinct spheres, Monroe made four basic points: (1) the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States:

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense....

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, on great consideration and on just principles, 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 an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

The origin and framing of the Monroe Doctrine

The doctrine was an outgrowth of concern in both Britain and the United States that the Continental powers would attempt to restore Spain's former colonies, in Latin America, many of which had become newly independent nations. The United States was also concerned about Russia's territorial ambitions in the northwest coast of North America. As a consequence, George Canning, the British foreign minister, suggested a joint U.S.-British declaration forbidding future colonization in Latin America. Monroe was initially favourable to the idea, and former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison concurred. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued that the United States should issue a statement of American policy exclusively, and his view ultimately prevailed.

American History and Politics Quiz

The first draft of the message included a reproof of the French for their invasion of Spain, an acknowledgment of Greek independence in the revolt against Turkey, and some further indications of American concern in European affairs. Adams argued for the better part of two days against such expressions, which were finally eliminated from the message.

Adams noted in his diary,

The ground that I wish to take is that of earnest remonstrance against the interference of the European powers by force in South America, but to disclaim all interference on our part with Europe; to make an American cause, and adhere inflexibly to that.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Monroe Doctrine | History, Summary, & Significance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Monroe Doctrine, U.S. foreign policy enunciated by President James Monroe in 1823 that the U.S. would not interfere in European affairs and wars or with existing colonies in the Western Hemisphere. European intervention in the hemisphere (closed to future colonization) would be seen as a hostile act against the U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jacksonian Democracy - the "corrupt bargain" and the election of 1824

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the contested presidential election of 1824, John Quincy Adams faced off against Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved).

Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this "Indian problem" was to simply "civilize" the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, enslaved persons).

In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs and became known as the "Five Civilized Tribes."

Did you know? Indian removal took place in the Northern states as well. In Illinois and Wisconsin, for example, the bloody Black Hawk War in 1832 opened to white settlement millions of acres of land that had belonged to the Sauk, Fox and other native nations.

But the Native Americans' land, located in parts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white settlers flooded the region. Many of these whites yearned to make their fortunes by growing cotton, and often resorted to violent means to take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns; committed mass murder; and squatted on land that did not belong to them.

Worcester v. Georgia

State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and rights and encroaching on their territory.

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations "in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have no force."

Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court's rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would "[fall]...still born." Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands and would go to great lengths to secure this territory.

Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called "Indian removal." As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida-campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers.

As president, he continued this crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the "Indian colonization zone" that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. This "Indian territory" was located in present-day Oklahoma.

The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their ancestral lands. However, President Jackson and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations.

Trail of Tears

In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot (some "bound in chains and marched double file," one historian writes), and without any food, supplies or other help from the government.

Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a "trail of tears and death."

The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

Treaty of New Echota

The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the government's determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions.

In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi - roughly 7 million acres - for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property.

To the federal government, the treaty (signed in New Echota, Georgia) was a done deal, but a majority of the Cherokee felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. Most Cherokee people considered the Treaty of New Echota fraudulent, and the Cherokee National Council voted in 1836 to reject it.

John Ross

"The instrument in question is not the act of our nation," wrote the nation's principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the Treaty of New Echota. "We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people." Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross's petition, but Congress approved the treaty anyway.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian Territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while his men looted their homes and belongings.

Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were epidemic along the way. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.

Legacy of the Trail of Tears

By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, "Indian Country" shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was considered lost.

A 2020 decision by the Supreme Court, however, highlighted ongoing interest in Native American territorial rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that a huge area of Oklahoma is still considered an American Indian reservation.

This decision left the state of Oklahoma unable to prosecute Native Americans accused of crimes on those tribal lands - only federal and tribal law enforcement can prosecute such crimes. (A later 2022 Supreme Court decision rolled back some provisions of the 2020 court finding.)

The Trail of Tears - actually a network of different routes - is over 5,000 miles long and covers nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Today, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is run by the National Park Service and portions of it are accessible on foot, by horse, by bicycle or by car.

Sources

Trail of Tears. NPS.gov.
Trail of Tears. Museum of the Cherokee Indian.
The Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The Treaty That Forced the Cherokee People from Their Homelands Goes on View. Smithsonian Magazine.
Justices rule swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation. Associated Press.
Justices limit 2020 ruling on tribal lands in Oklahoma. Associated Press.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Trail of Tears: Definition, Date & Cherokee Nation - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Trail of Tears was the deadly route Native Americans were forced to follow when they were pushed off their ancestral lands and into Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail was a 2,000 mile wheeled wagon route and trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The beginnings of the Oregon Trail were laid by fur trappers and traders and were only passable on foot or horseback. When the first migrant wagon train was organized, a wagon trail was cleared. This made the trips faster and safer almost every year.

Mormon Trail

The Mormon Trail is the 1,300 mile route that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints traveled from in the years of 1846 to 1868. Today the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States national trails systems, as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. The Mormon Trail extends form Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Santa Fe Trail

The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route that connected Franklin, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. At first, it was an international trade route between the United States and Mexico. It also served as the 1846 U.S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican-American war. After the U.S. acquisition of the Southwest, the trail helped open the region to U.S. economic development and settlement, playing a big role in the expansion of the U.S. into the lands it had acquired.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Oregon Trail was a 2,000 mile wheeled wagon route and trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The beginnings of the Oregon Trail were laid by fur trappers and traders and were only passable on foot or horseback. When the first migrant wagon train was organized, a wagon trail was cleared.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Quickly following Texan independence, the United States admitted Texas into the republic as a slave state.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Industrial Revolution: Definition and Inventions | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Industrial Revolution occurred when agrarian societies became more industrialized and urban. Learn where and when the Industrial Revolution started, and the inventions that made it possible.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Eli Whitney: Father of American Technology - Fast Facts | History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The typical factory worker in the late nineteenth century worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Unskilled workers were paid between $1.00 and $1.50 a day; skilled workers might make twice as much, while women (who became a significant percentage of the labor force after the Civil War), children, and African‐Americans were paid considerably less. Workplace accidents were common, and the idea of compensating workers injured on the job was unheard of at the time. To help each other through illness, injury, and deaths, workers formed mutual benefit societies (often organized along ethnic lines), but the assistance these groups provided was minimal. The most serious problem for factory workers was unemployment. It was common for a worker, particularly an unskilled one, to be out of a job at least part of the year.

Early labor unions. Skilled workers, such as cigarmakers, iron molders, and hat finishers formed the first labor unions before the Civil War. Several of these craft unions (so named because they organized workers within specific craft industries) joined together to form the National Labor Union (NLU) in 1866. Although the organization advocated an eight‐hour workday, it did not support strikes to achieve that goal. The NLU was also concerned with social reform, including equal rights for women, establishing worker cooperatives, and temperance. The union, along with organized labor in general, declined sharply in the wake of the depression of 1873 but not before influencing Congress to enact the eight‐hour day for federal employees (1868).

The Knights of Labor, organized in 1869, is considered to be the first industrial union, open to skilled and unskilled workers, women, and African‐Americans. This inclusive policy contributed to its growth, and the union boasted more than 700,000 members by the mid‐1880s. The program of the Knights of Labor was a combination of reform ideas and specific worker demands. Along with setting up cooperative workshops and calling for the regulation of the railroads, the union wanted an eight‐hour workday, legislation protecting the health and safety of workers, and an end to child labor (for children under the age of 14). To achieve these goals, political action and arbitration between employers and labor representatives were preferred over strikes. The decline of the Knights of Labor after 1886 was due to several factors: the failure of several unauthorized strikes, the growing dissatisfaction of craftsmen who felt the union favored the interests of unskilled workers, and the public perception in the wake of the Haymarket Square Riot (1886) that the Knights supported violence.

On May 4, 1886, a mass meeting of workers was called in Chicago's Haymarket Square to protest the death of a striker at the McCormick Harvester plant. When the police tried to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured several more. The riot that followed resulted in additional deaths on both sides. Although it was one of the three unions on strike at McCormick, the Knights of Labor had nothing to do with the events in Haymarket Square. This fact did not prevent the union from becoming a victim of the antilabor sentiment that swept the country, and its membership declined rapidly over the next four years.

The American Federation of Labor. Founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a federation of skilled workers in national craft unions that maintained their autonomy while working together to promote labor legislation and support strikes. In contrast to its predecessors, the new union focused exclusively on basic labor issues - the eight‐hour workday, higher wages, better working conditions (particularly plant safety), and the right of workers to organize. To Gompers, who began his career in the cigarmakers union, only craftsmen that could not be easily replaced had the leverage necessary to either bargain effectively with employers or go on strike. The AFL had little more than disdain for unskilled workers or blacks, skilled or not, and did not seriously try to organize women. Although he was an immigrant himself, as were many local union men, Gompers nevertheless strongly supported restrictions on immigration to prevent new arrivals from competing with American workers for jobs. Even though it excluded most of the working class, the AFL became the largest single labor organization in the country by 1900 with over one million members.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The typical factory worker in the late nineteenth century worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Unskilled workers were paid between $1.00 and $1.50 a day; skilled workers might make twice as much, while women (who became a significant percentage of the labor force after the Civil War), children, and African‐Americans were paid considerably less.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Interpretation of Slave Quarter, Carter's Grove Plantation, Williamsburg

Slave life varied greatly depending on many factors.

Life on the fields meant working sunup to sundown six days a week and having food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat. Plantation slaves lived in small shacks with a dirt floor and little or no furniture. Life on large plantations with a cruel overseer was oftentimes the worst. However, work for a small farm owner who was not doing well could mean not being fed.

The stories about cruel overseers were certainly true in some cases. The overseer was paid to get the most work out of the slaves; therefore, overseers often resorted to whatever means was necessary. Sometimes the slaves would drive the overseer off the plantation in desperation. When slaves complained that they were being unfairly treated, slaveholders would most often be very protective of their "property" and would release the overseer.

Slaves who worked inside the plantation homes often had better living and working conditions than slaves who worked in the fields.

In some cases, a driver was used rather than an overseer. The difference between the overseer and the driver was simple: drivers were slaves themselves. A driver might be convinced by a master to manage the slaves for better privileges. Drivers were usually hated by the rest of the slaves. These feelings often led to violence.

Large plantations often required some slaves to work in the plantation home. These slaves enjoyed far better circumstances. Domestic slaves lived in better quarters and received better food. They sometimes were able to travel with the owner's family. In many cases, a class system developed within the slave community. Domestic slaves did not often associate themselves with plantation slaves. They often aspired to arrange courtships for their children with other domestic slaves.

This Slave Code booklet for Washington D.C., was published in 1862, only one month before Lincoln abolished slavery in the nation's capitol. More lenient than most states' slave codes, the District's code allowed slaves to hire themselves out and live apart from their masters.

As the Peculiar Institution spread across the South, many states passed "slave codes," which outlined the rights of slaves and the acceptable treatment and rules regarding slaves. Slave codes varied from state to state, but there were many common threads. One could not do business with a slave without the prior consent of the owner. Slaves could be awarded as prizes in raffles, wagered in gambling, offered as security for loans, and transferred as gifts from one person to another.

A slave was not permitted to keep a gun. If caught carrying a gun, the slave received 39 lashes and forfeited the gun. Blacks were held incompetent as witnesses in legal cases involving whites. The education of slaves was prohibited. Anyone operating a school or teaching reading and writing to any African-American in Missouri could be punished by a fine of not less than $500 and up to six months in jail. Slaves could not assemble without a white person present. Marriages between slaves were not considered legally binding. Therefore, owners were free to split up families through sale.

Any slave found guilty of arson, rape of a white woman, or conspiracy to rebel was put to death. However, since the slave woman was chattel, a white man who raped her was guilty only of a trespass on the master's property. Rape was common on the plantation, and very few cases were ever reported.

Virginia's Slave Code of 1705
Virginia's slave code of 1705 was designed to settle the questions about the status of non-Christian servants... they were all made slaves. The law served as a model for codes in other colonies. This webpage from PBS provides a brief overview and links to related topics.

Report broken link

Antebellum Slavery
What happens when an ardent abolitionist marries a member of one of the largest slaveholders in the South? A disastrous marriage - and a moving epic of slavery in the South. Read excerpts from the account, which includes physical and mental abuse as well as the story of the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States. Links to other moving stories surrounding antebellum (before the war) slavery abound as well.

Report broken link

Virginia's slave codes
If any slave resist his master ... correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction ... the master shall be free of all punishment ... as if such accident never happened. Read more about the 1705 slave code which served as a model for future laws.

Report broken link

Few slaves wrote letters or diaries because they weren't allowed to read or write, but some broke the rules and wrote down their stories.
Learn More...

Report broken link

If you like our content, please share it on social media!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Slave Life and Slave Codes [ushistory.org]

# data[].attributes.headline
Immigration to the United States in the 1800s

# data[].attributes.subject
Immigration to the United States in the 1800s

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
U.S. Immigration Timeline: Definition & Reform - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A timeline of U.S. immigration shows how, from the 1600s to today, the United States became a nation of people from hundreds of cultures, languages and beliefs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Charles Finney and the Burned-Over District

The "Burned-Over District" in central and western New York was so named due to the rampant religious revivals of the nineteenth century.

Learning Objectives

Identify the key religious movements that emerged out of the western New York frontier

Key Takeaways

Key Points

The "Burned-Over District" of upstate New York was a region that proved especially susceptible to the religious revivals of the early and mid-nineteenth century.

The term was coined in 1876 by Charles Grandison Finney, who argued that the area had been so heavily evangelized as to have no "fuel" (unconverted population) left over to "burn" (convert). This region provided not only thousands of mainline Protestant converts, but also a number of new religions, utopian experiments, and social radicals.

American religious leaders such as Joseph Smith, Jr., William Miller, and the Fox sisters all came from the district; the Shakers were established in the area as well.

Key Terms

spiritualism: A philosophic doctrine opposing materialism that claims transcendency of the divine being, the altogether spiritual character of reality, and the value of inwardness of consciousness.

shaker: One of a Christian Protestant religious sect who do not marry, popularly so called because of the movements of the members in dancing, which forms a part of their worship.

The "Burned-Over District" refers to the religious scene in early nineteenth-century western and central New York, where religious revivals and Pentecostal movements of the Second Great Awakening took place. The term was coined in 1876 by Charles Grandison Finney, who argued that the area had been so heavily evangelized as to have no "fuel" (unconverted population) left over to "burn" (convert).

Charles Finney

Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792-August 16, 1875) was a leader in the Second Great Awakening and has been called "The Father of Modern Revivalism." Finney was an innovative revivalist, an opponent of Old School Presbyterian theology, an advocate of Christian Perfectionism, a pioneer in social reforms in favor of women and African Americans, a religious writer, and president at Oberlin College.

Born in 1792 in western New York, Finney studied to be a lawyer until 1821, when he experienced a religious conversion and thereafter devoted himself to revivals. He led revival meetings in New York and Pennsylvania, but his greatest success occurred after he accepted a ministry in Rochester, New York, in 1830. At the time, Rochester was a boomtown because the Erie Canal had brought a lively shipping business.

The new middle class-an outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution-embraced Finney's message. It fit perfectly with their understanding of themselves as people shaping their own destiny. Workers also latched onto the message that they, too, could control their salvation, spiritually and perhaps financially. Intense flames of religious fervor swept the area of western New York during this time, in large part due to Finney's work.

Religious Movements in Western New York

Western New York still had a frontier quality at the time, making professional and established clergy scarce. This contributed to the piety of the area and many of the self-taught qualities found in folk religion. Besides producing many mainline Protestant converts, especially in nonconformist sects, the area spawned a number of innovative religious movements, all founded by laypeople during the early nineteenth century.

Joseph Smith, Jr., founded the Latter Day Saint movement, which later gave rise to Mormonism. The Fox sisters conducted some of the first table-rapping seances and helped inspire Spiritualism. The first communal Shaker farm was established in this area of New York during this period. William Miller and his followers, called Millerites, believed that the Second Coming would occur on October 22, 1844. Miller is credited with beginning the religious movement now known as "Adventism," and several major religious denominations are his direct spiritual heirs, such as Seventh-day Adventists and Advent Christians.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The "Burned-Over District" in central and western New York was so named due to the rampant religious revivals of the nineteenth century. Identify the key religious movements that emerged out of the western New York frontier Key Points The "Burned-Over District" of upstate New York was a region that proved especially susceptible to the religious revivals of the early and mid-nineteenth century.

# data[].attributes.headline
Abolitionist Movement Prior to the Civil War

# data[].attributes.subject
Abolitionist Movement Prior to the Civil War

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Facts, information and articles about Abolitionist Movement, one of the causes of the civil war

Abolitionist Movement summary: The Abolitionist movement in the United States of America was an effort to end slavery in a nation that valued personal freedom and believed "all men are created equal." Over time, abolitionists grew more strident in their demands, and slave owners entrenched in response, fueling regional divisiveness that ultimately led to the American Civil War.

Slavery Comes To The New World

African slavery began in North America in 1619 at Jamestown, Virginia. The first American-built slave ship, Desire, launched from Massachusetts in 1636, beginning the slave trade between Britain's American colonies and Africa. From the beginning, some white colonists were uncomfortable with the notion of slavery. At the time of the American Revolution against the English Crown, Delaware (1776) and Virginia (1778) prohibited importation of African slaves; Vermont became the first of the 13 colonies to abolish slavery (1777); Rhode Island prohibited taking slaves from the colony (1778); and Pennsylvania began gradual emancipation in 1780.

The Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully Held in Bondage was founded in 1789, the same year the former colonies replaced their Articles of Confederation with the new Constitution, "in order to form a more perfect union."

When the U.S. Constitution was written, it made no specific mention of slavery, but it provided for the return of fugitives (which encompassed criminals, indentured servants and slaves). It allowed each slave within a state to be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining population and representation in the House of Representatives (Article I, Section 3, says representation and direct taxation will be determined based on the number of "free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.")

The Constitution prohibited importation of slaves, to begin in 1808, but again managed to do so without using the words "slave" or "slavery." Slave trading became a capital offense in 1819. There existed a general feeling that slavery would gradually pass away. Improvements in technology-the cotton gin and sewing machine-increased the demand for slave labor, however, in order to produce more cotton in Southern states. By the 1830s, many Southerners had shifted from, "Slavery is a necessary evil," to "Slavery is a positive good." The institution existed because it was "God's will," a Christian duty to lift the African out of barbarism while still exerting control over his "animal passions."

Learn More About Slavery In America

The Missouri Compromise And Dred Scott

Missouri's appeal for statehood brought a confrontation between free and slave states in Congress in 1820; each feared the other would gain the upper hand. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 set a policy of admitting states in pairs, one slave, one free. (Maine came in at the same time as Missouri.) The compromise prohibited slavery above parallel 36 degrees, 30 minutes in the lands of the Louisiana Purchase, and it included a national Fugitive Slave Law requiring all Americans to return runaway slaves to their owners. The Fugitive Slave Law was upheld in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 1842, but the Missouri Compromise's prohibitions on the spread of slavery would be found unconstitutional in the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

Learn more about Dred Scott

The Abolitionism Movement Spreads

Although many New Englanders had grown wealthy in the slave trade before the importation of slaves was outlawed, that area of the country became the hotbed of abolitionist sentiment. Abolitionist newspapers and pamphlets sprang into existence. These were numerous enough by 1820 that South Carolina instituted penalties for anyone bringing written anti-slavery material into the state.

These publications argued against slavery as a social and moral evil and often used examples of African American writings and other achievements to demonstrate that Africans and their descendents were as capable of learning as were Europeans and their descendents in America, given the freedom to do so. To prove their case that one person owning another one was morally wrong, they first had to convince many, in all sections of the country, that Negroes, the term used for the race at the time, were human. Yet, even many people among the abolitionists did not believe the two races were equal.

In 1829, David Walker, a freeman of color originally from the South, published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a new benchmark, pushing abolitionists toward extreme militancy. He called for slaves to rise up against their masters and to defend themselves: "It is no more harm for you to kill a man who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty." As early as 1800, a Virginia slave known as Gabriel Prosser had attempted an uprising there, but it failed when two slaves betrayed the plan to their masters.

Walker's publication was too extreme even for most abolition leaders, including one of the most renowned, William Lloyd Garrison. In 1831, Garrison founded The Liberator, which would become the most famous and influential of abolitionist newspapers. That same year, Virginia debated emancipation, marking the last movement for abolition in the South prior to the Civil War. Instead, that year the Southampton Slave Riot, also called Nat Turner's Rebellion, resulted in Virginia passing new regulations against slaves. Fears of slave revolts like the bloody Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803 were never far from Southerners' minds. Publications like An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World led white Southerners to conclude Northern abolitionists intended to commit genocide against them.

In 1833 in Philadelphia, the first American Anti-Slavery Society Convention convened. In a backlash, anti-abolition riots broke out in many northeastern cities, including New York and Philadelphia, during 1834-35. Several Southern states, beginning with the Carolinas, made formal requests to other states to suppress abolition groups and their literature. In Illinois, the legislature voted to condemn abolition societies and their agitation; Delegate Abraham Lincoln voted with the majority, then immediately co-sponsored a bill to mitigate some of the language of the earlier one. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a gag rule, automatically tabling abolitionist proposals.

The first national Anti-Slavery Convention was held in New York City in 1837, and the following year the second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women met in Philadelphia; the latter resulted in pro-slavery riots. The Liberty Party, a political action group, held its first national convention, at Albany, N.Y., in 1839. That same year, Africans mutinied aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad and asked New York courts to grant them freedom. Their plea was answered affirmatively by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.

Frederick Douglass: A Black Abolitionist

Frederick Douglass-a former slave who had been known as Frederick Bailey while in slavery and who was the most famous black man among the abolitionists-broke with William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator, after returning from a visit to Great Britain, and founded a black abolitionist paper, The North Star. The title was a reference to the directions given to runaway slaves trying to reach the Northern states and Canada: Follow the North Star. Garrison had earlier convinced the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to hire Douglass as an agent, touring with Garrison and telling audiences about his experiences in slavery. In England, however, Douglass had experienced a level of independence he'd never known in America and likely wanted greater independece for his actions here.

Working with Douglass on The North Star was another black man, Martin R. Delaney, who gave up publishing his own paper, The Mystery, to join with Douglass. Born to a free mother in Virginia (in what is now the eastern panhandle of West Virginia), Delaney had never been a slave, but he had traveled extensively in the South. After Uncle Tom's Cabin became a bestseller, he attempted to achieve similar success for himself by penning a semi-fictional account of his travels, Blake: The Huts of America. In 1850, he was one of three black men accepted into Harvard Medical School, but white students successfully petitioned to have them removed. No longer believing that merit and reason could allow members of his race to have an equal opportunity in white society, he became an ardent black nationalist. In 1859, he traveled to Africa and negotiated with eight tribal chiefs in Abbeokuta for land, on which he planned to establish a colony for skilled and educated African Americans. The agreement fell apart, and he returned to America where, near the end of the Civil War, he became the first black officer on a general's staff in the history of the U.S. Army.

The Seneca Falls Convention

In 1848, the first Women's Rights convention was held, in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Outside of the Society of Friends ("Quakers"), women were often denied the opportunity to speak at abolitionist meetings. The women's rights movement produced many outspoken opponents of slavery, including Elizabeth Cody Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In fact, women's equality and abolition became inextricably linked in the minds of many Southerners. In the 20th century, that lingering animosity nearly defeated the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

Although Delaney's planned African colony failed, in 1849 Great Britain recognized the African colony of Liberia as a sovereign state. It had been founded in 1822 as a colony for free-born blacks, freed slaves and mulattoes (mixed race) from the United States. A number of Americans who opposed slavery (including Abraham Lincoln for a time and the aforementioned Delany) felt that the two races could never live successfully together, and the best hope for Negroes was to return them to freedom in Africa. However, the slave trade between Africa and the Western Hemisphere (the Caribbean and South America) had never ended, and many American ship owners and captains were enjoying something of a golden era of slave-trading while the U.S. and Europe looked the other way. Even if freed slaves had been sent to Africa, many would have wound up back in slavery south of the United States. Only in the late 1850s did Britain step up its anti-slavery enforcement on the high seas, leading America to increase its efforts somewhat.

When the federal government passed a second, even more stringent fugitive slave act in 1850, several states responded by passing personal liberty laws. The following year, Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree) gave a now-famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman," at the Women's Rights convention in Akron, Ohio. Born a slave in New York, she walked away from her owner after she felt she had contributed enough to him. In the late 1840s, she dictated a memoir, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, published by Garrison in 1850. She began to tour, speaking against slavery and in favor of women's rights.

Learn more about the Seneca Falls Convention

Harriet Tubman and The Underground Railroad

While Sojourner Truth, Douglass, Delaney and others wrote and spoke to end slavery, a former slave named Harriet Tubman, nee Harriet Ross, was actively leading slaves to freedom. After escaping from bondage herself, she made repeated trips into Dixie to help others. Believed to have helped some 300 slaves to escape, she was noted for warning those she was assisting that she would shoot any of them who turned back, because they would endanger herself and others she was assisting.

Tubman was an agent of the Underground Railroad, a system of "safe houses" and way stations that secretly helped runaways. The trip might begin by hiding in the home, barn or other location owned by a Southerner opposed to slavery, and continuing from place to place until reaching safe haven in a free state or Canada. Those who reached Canada did not have to fear being returned under the Fugitive Slave Act. Several communities and individuals claim to have created the term "Underground Railroad." In the southern section of states on the north bank of the Ohio River, a "reverse underground railroad" operated; blacks in those states were kidnapped, whether they had ever been slaves or not, and taken South to sell through a series of clandestine locations.

Learn more about Harriet Tubman
Learn more about the Underground Railroad

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Abolitionist and Author

In 1852, what may have been the seminal event of the abolition movement occurred. Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist who had come to know a number of escaped slaves while she was living in Cincinnati, authored the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. It presented a scathing view of Southern slavery, filled with melodramatic scenes such as that of the slave Eliza escaping with her baby across the icy Ohio River:

The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it but she stayed there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;-stumbling,-leaping,-slipping-springing upwards again! Her shoes are-gone her stockings cut from her feet-while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side and a man helping her up the bank.

Critics pointed out that Stowe had never been to the South, but her novel became a bestseller in the North (banned in the South) and the most effective bit of propaganda to come out of the abolitionist movement. It galvanized many who had been sitting on the sidelines. Reportedly, when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe during the Civil War he said to her, "So you're the little woman who started this big war."
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Abolitionists Invoke A Higher Law

Abolitionists became increasingly strident in their condemnations of slave owners and "the peculiar institution of slavery." Often, at Fourth of July gatherings of abolition societies, they reportedly used the occasion to denounce the U.S. Constitution as a "covenant with death, and an agreement with hell." Many of them came to believe in "higher law," that a moral commitment to ending slavery took precedent over observing those parts of the Constitution that protected slavery and, in particular, they refused to obey the Fugitive Slave Act. Slave owners or their representatives traveling north to reclaim captured runaways were sometimes set upon on abolitionists mobs; even local lawmen were sometimes attacked. In the South, this fueled the belief that the North expected the South to obey all federal laws but the North could pick and choose, further driving the two regions apart.

Abolitionism, Politics and the Election Of Abraham Lincoln

The abolition movement became an important element of political parties. Although the Native American Party (derisively called the Know-Nothing Party because when member were asked about the secretive group they claimed to "know nothing") opposed immigrants, they also opposed slavery. So did many Whigs and the Free Soil Party. In 1856, these coalesced into the Republican Party. Four years later, its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, captured the presidency of the United States.

John Brown: Abolitionism's Fiery Crusader

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed the citizens of those territories to determine for themselves whether the state would be slave or free. Proponents of both factions poured into the Kansas Territory, with each side trying to gain supremacy, often through violence. After pro-slavery groups attacked the town of Lawrence in 1856, a radical abolitionist named John Brown led his followers in retaliation, killing five pro-slavery settlers. The territory became known as "Bleeding Kansas."

Learn more about John Brown

Dred Scott V. Sanford

The 1857 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sanford denied citizenship to anyone of African blood and held the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to be unconstitutional. While Southern states had been passing laws prohibiting "Negro citizenship" and further restricting the rights even of freemen of color (Virginia in 1857 prohibited slaves from smoking and from standing on sidewalks, among other restrictions), one Northern state after another had been passing laws granting citizenship to their black residents. The Court's findings upended that, and the ruling outraged many Northerners. Abraham Lincoln revived his personal political career, coming out of a self-imposed semi-retirement to speak out against the Dred Scott decision.

The year 1859 saw two events that were milestones in the history of slavery and abolition in America. The ship Clotilde landed in Mobile, Alabama. Though the importation of slaves had been illegal in America since 1808, Clotilde carried 110 to 160 African slaves. The last slave ship ever to land in the United States, it clearly demonstrated how lax the enforcement of the anti-importation laws was.

Learn more about the Dred Scott Decision

John Brown's Raid On Harpers Ferry

Nearly 1,000 miles northeast of Mobile, on the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown-the radical abolitionist who had killed proslavery settlers in Kansas-led 21 men in a raid to capture the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Though Brown denied it, his plan was to use the arsenal's weapons to arm a slave uprising. He and his followers, 16 white men and five black ones, holed up in the arsenal after they were discovered, and were captured there by a group of U.S. Marines commanded by an Army lieutenant colonel, Robert E. Lee. Convicted of treason against Virginia, Brown was hanged December 2.

Initial reaction in the South was that this was the work of a small group of fanatics, but when Northern newspapers, authors and legislators began praising him as a martyr-a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier eulogizing Brown was published in the New York Herald Tribune less than a month after the execution-their actions were taken as further proof that Northern abolitionists wished to carry out genocide of white Southerners. The flames were fanned higher as information came out that Brown had talked other abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, about his plans and received financial assistance from some of them.
Learn more about John Brown's Raid On Harpers Ferry

Abraham Lincoln: Abolitionist President

Following Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860, Southern states began seceding from the Union. Though personally opposed to slavery and convinced the United States was going to have to be all free or all slave states-"a house divided against itself cannot stand"-he repeatedly said he would not interfere with slavery where it existed. But he adamantly opposed its expansion into territories where it did not exist, and slave owners were determined that they had to be free to take their human property with them if they chose to move into those territories.

Less than two years into the civil war that began over Southern secession, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It freed all slaves residing in areas of the nation currently in rebellion. Often ridiculed, both then and now, because it only freed slaves in areas that did not recognize Lincoln's authority, it meant that Union Army officers no longer had to return runaway slaves to their owners because, as the armies advanced, slaves in the newly captured areas were considered free. It also effectively prohibited European nations that had long since renounced slavery from entering the war on the side of the South.

Learn more about Abraham Lincoln
Learn more about the Emancipation Proclamation

The 13th Amendment: The Abolitionism Movement Triumphs

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, declared ratified on December 18, 1865, ended slavery in the United States-at least in name. During the Reconstruction Era, Southern states found ways to "hire" black workers under terms that were slavery in all but name, even pursuing any who ran off, just as they had in the days of the Underground Railroad.

Abolition had been achieved, but the lessons learned by those in the abolition movement would be applied to other social concerns in the decades to come, notably the temperance and woman's suffrage movements.

Articles Featuring The Abolitionist Movement From History Net Magazines

Featured Article

More Abolitionism Articles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abolitionist Movement summary: The Abolitionist movement in the United States of America was an effort to end slavery in a nation that valued personal freedom and believed "all men are created equal." Over time, abolitionists grew more strident in their demands, and slave owners entrenched in response, fueling regional divisiveness that ultimately led to the American Civil War.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Stephen Douglas and Popular Sovereignty: From the Mexican War to "Bleeding Kansas"

Though Douglas believed the settlers of a territory should decide the slavery question without input from the rest of the nation, his Illinois rival Abraham Lincoln begged to differ. He thought it only logical that the federal territories be regulated by the federal government, meaning Congress. A third view, proposed by Southern senators, argued that precisely because federal territory was owned by the nation as a whole, American citizens possessed the right to take their property-including slaves-into the territory. Lincoln disagreed. If the American people thought "the extension of slavery endangers them," he concluded that they would be irresponsible to "submit the question, and with it, the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men, bent only on temporary self-interest."

Stephen Douglas argued that popular sovereignty was neither a new nor controversial approach to organizing federal territories, but one rooted in American self-government and recently endorsed by northerners and southerners alike in the Compromise Measures of 1850. These measures began as a way to organize the vast western territory-more than half a million square miles comprising present-day Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah-acquired by the United States at the close of the Mexican War in early 1848.

The Mexican War began as a border dispute between Texas, recently annexed by the United States, and Mexico, who ended up ceding land that stretched west to the Pacific Ocean and north as far as Wyoming. The war's results not only pleased northern Democrats, bent on fulfilling America's "manifest destiny" to span the North American continent, but also southern Whigs and Democrats, who saw Texas and the western territories as ripe for the rule of "King Cotton" and the spread of slavery. The acquisition of this new land only intensified the national debate over slavery, a debate that would require a complex compromise to avoid a secession of the southern slaveholding states. (For additional information on the Mexican War, see Section VIII, "Extending the Lesson," below.)

The 1850 Compromise Measures were first introduced by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, who became famous through his work on the 1820 Missouri Compromise. But when he was unable to get the measures passed as a single law, Stephen Douglas worked to pass them as separate statutes. The 1850 Compromise:

1. admitted California as a free state,

2. organized the Utah and New Mexico territories "with or without slavery" when eventually admitted as states,

3. drew in the western boundary of Texas in exchange for $10 million (to pay Texas' debt to Mexico),

4. abolished the slave trade, but not slavery itself, in Washington, D.C., and

5. strengthened the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act through several notorious provisions (e.g., alleged fugitive slaves were not permitted to testify in their own defense and the trial commissioner was paid $10 for a conviction and only $5 for an acquittal).

By providing territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico without banning or legalizing slavery, the seeds of popular sovereignty had been planted by a Congress seeking to lessen the sectional agitation over the future of slavery in an expanding America.

The organization of the Kansas and Nebraska territories would eventually lead to congressional support of a transcontinental railroad that would unite the frontier West with the established East. But in the short run, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 provoked a race between freeholders and slaveholders to settle the territory. The southernmost territory, which bordered the slave state of Missouri, became known as "Bleeding Kansas" for the violence that ensued in the battle to control the territory's political and economic future.

Abraham Lincoln: From the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise to the Birth of the Republican Party

A congressman during the Mexican War, Abraham Lincoln joined his Whig Party in calling the war "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced" by Democratic President James Polk. When Lincoln completed his term in March 1849, he devoted himself to his neglected Illinois law practice. Not even the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which compelled northern citizens to help capture fugitive slaves and stirred Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom's Cabin, pulled him back into the political limelight. But when the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed four years later, Lincoln commented that its repeal of the Missouri Compromise "aroused him as he had never been before." From that point on, Lincoln directed his public life towards reversing the growing acceptance of black slavery as a morally indifferent matter at best, and a "positive good" at worst.

"On the question of liberty, as a principle," Lincoln wrote in August 1855, "we are not what we have been." The Whig Party, to which Lincoln devoted himself as a longtime follower of Henry Clay, ceased to be a national power after losing the 1852 presidential election. The nail in its coffin was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, but this reinvigorated "free soil/free labor" movements in the North. They were anti-slavery in sentiment but not necessarily abolitionist, because the latter disdained the federal Constitution for protecting slavery in states where it already existed. A nascent Republican Party took shape in a few states, but Lincoln would wait until 1856 to join what became a national party committed to the restriction of slavery from federal territory.

In Lincoln's mind, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 marked a crossroads in American politics: the nation must decide if the federal constitution committed them to the spread of freedom or slavery. A year later, reflecting on the nation's growing sectionalism over slavery and the inability of slave states to wean themselves off of their "peculiar institution," Lincoln would write, "I think that there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us." Douglas's prediction that popular sovereignty would "impart peace to the country & stability to the Union" would prove tragically off the mark.

To teach this lesson about the impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act on national politics, four activities are provided below: (1) a web-based interactive map of America in 1854 that will be compared with an 1820 map, (2) analysis of selections from the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, (3) excerpts from an 1854 speech by Stephen A. Douglas, who endorsed popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and (4) excerpts from an 1854 speech by Abraham Lincoln, who opposed popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Review the activities, then locate and bookmark the following websites and primary documents:

Students will also read brief selections from the following political documents as background for examining and discussing the Kansas-Nebraska Act:

Activity 1. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: Mapping the Slavery Controversy in 1854

By 1854 the United States had fulfilled its "manifest destiny" of occupying all of the geographical expanse from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. The rapid settlement of the West raised to a new level of intensity the persistent question of whether or not to permit slavery to extend into the new territories.

This activity requires students to contrast the maps of 1820 and 1854 so that they can see how much the nation had grown in the thirty-four year period, and to analyze new developments in the map of 1854 in order for students to appreciate the urgency of the arguments advanced in the national debate over slavery.

Students will work with an interactive map of the United States in 1854, observing how the country had changed from 1820 to 1854.

As with the map of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (see Lesson One of this unit, An Early Threat of Secession), two sets of questions have been provided for this map: one to be used for a comparative study of states and territories, and the other for an analytical study of changes brought about (a) since the 1820 Compromise and (b) as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Two map analysis worksheets that have direct links to the map, provided on page 2-3 of the PDF, can be downloaded, printed, and distributed to students for recording their answers to the questions.

Activity 2. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Debate between Two Illinoisans

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 shattered whatever peace was gained by the Compromise of 1850. In addition to organizing the U.S. Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, the act attempted to deal with the extension of slavery into this region by allowing the settlers in each territory to decide the question for themselves. U. S. Senator Stephen Douglas, who championed this policy of popular sovereignty and included it in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, unwittingly set off a firestorm of protest among those committed to stopping the spread of slavery. One such person was former Congressman Abraham Lincoln, who strongly opposed any policy that could extend slavery into the territories.

After viewing the short video above produced by the History Channel on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, begin this four part activity by having students:

1. read excerpts of two speeches, one by Douglas and the other by Lincoln;

2. answer questions about the speeches, provided in chart form available in the PDF;

3. debate the issues raised in the speeches;

4. participate in a follow-up discussion.

Part 1: Read the Lincoln and Douglas speeches

This activity will engage students with arguments used by Douglas to promote popular sovereignty and those used by Lincoln to counter it.

The speeches are also located in the PDF, along with the question and answer worksheets, and can be downloaded and printed for student use.

Part 2: Note salient points in both speeches

Depending on the amount of class time available for this lesson, Parts 1 and 2 can be accomplished in one of three ways:

(a) On-line assignment-Instruct students to go on-line to the websites for the speeches by Douglas and Lincoln. In the worksheets they will answer the questions for each speech.

(b) In-class assignment-Make copies of the two excerpted speeches and the worksheets, and hand them out to students to work on in class. They may work on them individually or in groups.

(c) Homework assignment-To save time, make copies of the speeches and the worksheet one class period ahead of time, and hand them out to the students for homework. Instruct the students to have the speeches read and the charts completed by the next class period.

Part 3: Debate

Begin after students have answered the questions. Divide the class into three groups:

Both groups will meet together to compare their answers and craft the best possible argument for their side of the mini-debate. Each group appoints one or two students to advance the argument.

Group C will evaluate the two arguments.

While Groups A and B are working on their arguments, Group C will collaborate and make a list of the main points of each side of the argument that they will listen for during the debate. A graphic organizer for listing the main points of the speeches by Douglas and Lincoln is provided on page 10 of the PDF, and can be printed and distributed to students in Group C.

After a sufficient amount of time has been given to prepare for the debate, allow the two groups an allotted amount of time to present their arguments. After the debate is over, Group C gives the class the strong points made by each side and, if desired, declares the winner of the debate as determined by a vote taken within the group.

Part 4: Follow-up Discussion

After the student debate is concluded, ask the students for their thoughts on the issue of this activity: namely, the dispute between Douglas and Lincoln over Congress' authority to restrict the extension of slavery. Invite the class to consider the larger issue of the inevitable struggle in a democratic republic between competing viewpoints, and about how the issues become more complex when human rights are involved. Ask them to give examples of issues today that illustrate the ongoing clash of differing opinions and values.

Growth and Change in the United States' Political Landscape

Have students answer the map-based questions below:

How had the U.S. map changed from 1820 to 1854 in terms of (a) number of additional free states and territories, (b) number of additional slave states, and (c) number of territories to be decided by popular sovereignty?

How did the entry of territories to be decided by popular sovereignty complicate the prior attempt to balance free and slaveholding states?

Lincoln Takes Issue with Douglas's Policy of Popular Sovereignty

To assess student understanding of the two opposing arguments offered in this lesson, have them write a short essay that answers the following questions:

Summarize Douglas's historical and political argument for popular sovereignty and Lincoln's moral and political argument against it.

Whose argument is more persuasive and why?

Thinking over the Consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Contrary to Douglas's prediction, the Kansas-Nebraska Act did not "impart peace to the country & stability to the Union." Ask students to respond to the following questions with short paragraph answers.

Suppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act did reduce national agitation over slavery. Would that be reason enough for Congress to be neutral towards slavery in the territories?

Popular sovereignty, what Stephen Douglas called "the great principle of self-government," was the main idea behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Whose voice was conspicuously absent in the decision over whether or not to permit slavery in the territories and why was this voice ignored?

The Mexican War, 1846-1848

For more information about what Henry Clay called "this most unnecessary and horrible war with Mexico," see the following EDSITEment-reviewed weblinks:

The Compromise Measures of 1850

For the text of the Compromise of 1850, see the EDSITEment-reviewed weblink "National Archives and Records Administration: Our Documents-The Compromise of 1850." For more details, see the EDSITEment-reviewed weblink "Africans in America: The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act."

"Bleeding Kansas": The Fight to Settle a Territory and the Future of Slavery

For more details about the struggle to settle Kansas, see the EDSITEment-reviewed weblink "Africans in America: Bleeding Kansas."

Stephen Douglas's Rejection of the Lecompton Constitution of 1857

After Kansas and Nebraska were organized by Congress in 1854, the struggle to form a constitution for Kansas took center stage. Proponents of a free Kansas set up a territorial legislature in Topeka, while pro-slavery settlers established a government in Lecompton. Stephen Douglas reflected on the progress of popular sovereignty in the Kansas territory in 1858, the year Congress debated whether or not to accept the pro-slavery constitution devised at Lecompton. Have students read the text from the July 9, 1858 Speech of Senator Douglas at Chicago, Illinois, at the EDSITEment-reviewed weblink Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project and answer the following questions:

Does Douglas favor the extension of slavery into the federal territory of Kansas?

Why does Douglas disagree with the attempt of President Buchanan and Congress to recognize the pro-slavery constitution produced by the Lecompton convention in Kansas? Does it have anything to do with its protection of slavery? (Note: For brief historical background on the Lecompton Constitution, which Douglas saw as a violation of popular sovereignty, have a student look up the year "1857" at the EDSITEment-reviewed HarpWeek timeline and report what it says about the Lecompton Constitution.)

Does Douglas believe people in the federal territories have the right to establish slavery if they want it? Why or why not?

Recommended Websites

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lesson 3: The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: Popular Sovereignty and the Political Polarization over Slavery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Popular sovereignty allowed the settlers of a federal territory to decide the slavery question without interference from Congress. This lesson plan will examine how the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 affected the political balance between free and slave states and explore how its author, Stephen Douglas, promoted its policy of popular sovereignty in an effort to avoid a national crisis over slavery in the federal territories.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sound Smart: The Lincoln-Douglass Debates | History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Battle of Fort Sumter, (April 12-14, 1861), the opening engagement of the American Civil War, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. Although Fort Sumter held no strategic value to the North-it was unfinished and its guns faced the sea rather than Confederate shore batteries-it held enormous value as a symbol of the Union.

The United States Army began building Fort Sumter on an artificial island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor in 1829. The fort was named for Thomas Sumter, a general who had won key victories against the British in the Carolinas during the American Revolution. The fort was still under construction during the last months of Pres. James Buchanan's term, when a succession of events occurred that brought the contending regions of the United States to the verge of armed conflict. Soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, the state of South Carolina called a convention that passed an ordinance of secession (December 20, 1860), and Gov. Francis Pickens sent commissioners to Washington, D.C., to claim possession of the forts in Charleston Harbor and all other U.S. property in his state.

On December 26, 1860, Maj. Robert Anderson, commanding officer of the Federal garrison at Charleston, secretly transferred his two weak companies from Fort Moultrie-which was located on a peninsula on the east side of the harbour and was untenable against a land attack-to Fort Sumter in the mouth of the harbour. Pickens seized the arsenal and other forts around the harbour and began throwing up batteries against Sumter. Meanwhile, his commissioners in Washington requested the recall of the Federal troops from Charleston. Buchanan refused this request. In a message to Congress on December 3, Buchanan had already denied the right of secession, but he asserted that the Constitution gave him no right to attempt coercion. He hoped for compromise, and a committee of Congress considered various proposals for adjustment. A peace conference, called by Virginia, also met in Washington and suggested amendments to the Constitution that would satisfy Southern grievances. Lincoln and the leaders of the Republican Party refused to accept the adjustments that the Southerners demanded. In the meantime, Buchanan sent an unarmed commercial steamer, Star of the West, with supplies and reinforcements to Sumter, but it turned back when it was fired upon in the harbour on January 9, 1861.

Between January 9 and February 1 six other states ( Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) followed South Carolina's example. Without attempting negotiation, their governors seized all the forts and arsenals in their respective states except Fort Pickens in the harbour of Pensacola, Florida. Delegates from the seceding states met at Montgomery, Alabama, organized the Confederate States of America, and set up a provisional government with Jefferson Davis as president. Davis's inauguration took place on February 18. The Confederate government then assumed control of the negotiations about Sumter. Neither Buchanan nor Davis was eager to precipitate a crisis. Buchanan's fervent desire apparently was to leave the solution of the whole problem to his successor; Davis was chiefly concerned with getting his own administration in working order. He sent Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, an engineer officer of distinction, to Charleston to complete the defenses of the harbour. The day after Beauregard reached Charleston, Lincoln was inaugurated in Washington, D.C. (March 4).

A difficult problem confronted the new president. Seven slave states had seceded, but eight still remained in the Union. Any attempt at coercion would throw all these states, except Delaware (which practically counted as a Northern state), into the arms of the Confederacy. At this stage neither side wanted war. This was certainly true of the North, where a strong feeling was growing in favour of "letting the erring sisters depart in peace." The South had assumed a defensive role, that of a newborn country asking only to be left alone. Lincoln's inaugural speech was really addressed to the slave states still in the Union. To the Confederate states it sounded like a declaration of war, but they sought to avoid the responsibility of striking the first blow.

The South hoped to force Lincoln's hand over Sumter. Anderson's position there was daily growing more difficult. He would have gladly evacuated the fort to avert a civil war, but his duty as a soldier compelled him to sit with folded hands while the enemy was completing its preparations. His provisions would be exhausted by mid-April. The Confederate batteries had made such progress that he doubted whether it was still possible to relieve the fort unless possession of the whole harbour were secured, and for that purpose he estimated that 20,000 men would be required. The whole U.S. Army numbered only about 17,000 men, most of whom were scattered in small posts on the Western frontier, whence they could not be hastily withdrawn.

Only on March 5 did Lincoln learn that Anderson might be starved into surrender. Gen. Winfield Scott, the president's chief military adviser, urged evacuation on military grounds. However, Lincoln had pledged himself "to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the Government." It would be fatal to the prestige of his administration to start by going back on his word, and evacuation might seem a virtual recognition of the Confederacy. Against the advice of a majority of his cabinet, he determined to send a relief expedition, carrying only food supplies, to Sumter. If the Federal flag should be fired upon, that would constitute a casus belli, and the responsibility for beginning the war would rest on the Confederates.

Although he did not inform Anderson, Lincoln gave Pickens precise information regarding his intention. He must have foreseen the actual event. Through war, the Union could be restored, and the North, which was not agreed on policy, could be united. Pickens promptly informed the Montgomery government, and Davis ordered Beauregard to reduce Sumter. Upon Anderson's refusal to evacuate, the batteries opened fire at 4:30 am on April 12. The next afternoon Anderson agreed to surrender and evacuated the fort at noon on April 14. When the U.S. troops marched out of the fort, they waved the U.S. flag and carried out a gun salute. On the 50th round of the 100-gun salute, an explosion occurred, causing the only death of the engagement. Pvt. Daniel Hough of the 1st U.S. Artillery regiment was the first of as many as 850,000 Americans who would perish before the cessation of hostilities.

The Confederate leaders' ready acceptance of Lincoln's challenge may have been due to a fear that without a collision the ardour of the Southern people, many of whom had opposed secession, might abate. Neither Lincoln nor Davis could have foreseen the dimensions the war would assume.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battle of Fort Sumter | Location, Significance, & Map

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Here's Why the Battle of Vicksburg Was So Important

# data[].attributes.headline
Southern Surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse

# data[].attributes.subject
Southern Surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

1. Battle of Appomattox Court House

2. Lee Surrenders to Grant

3. The Final Battle of the Civil War?

The Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. But the resulting Battle of Appomattox Court House, which lasted only a few hours, effectively brought the four-year Civil War to an end.

Battle of Appomattox Court House
WATCH: Appomattox Court House
In retreat from the Union army's Appomattox campaign, which began in March 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia stumbled westward through the Virginia countryside stripped of food and supplies. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had outrun General Lee's troops, blocking their retreat and taking approximately 6,000 prisoners at Sayler's Creek.

Confederate desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Rebels were almost completely surrounded. Nonetheless, early on the morning of April 9, Confederate troops led by Major General John B. Gordon mounted a last-ditch offensive that was initially successful. Soon, however, the Confederates saw that they were hopelessly outnumbered by two corps of Union soldiers who had marched all night to cut off the Confederate advance.

Later that morning, Lee-cut off from all provisions and all support-famously declared that "there is nothing left me to do but to go and see Gen. Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths." But Lee also knew his remaining troops, numbering about 28,000, would quickly turn to pillaging the countryside in order to survive.

With no remaining options, Lee sent a message to General Ulysses Grant announcing his willingness to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia. The two war-weary generals met in the front parlor of the Wilmer McLean home at one o'clock that afternoon.

Lee Surrenders to Grant

Lee and Grant, both of whom held the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and began their dialogue by exchanging awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant had arrived in his mud-splattered field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword.

Did you know? In 1869, the house where Lee surrendered to Grant was sold at public auction after owner Wilmer McLean defaulted on his loan repayments. In the ensuing years, the house had a series of owners before it was reconstructed and opened to the public by the National Park Service in 1949.

Lee asked for the terms of surrender, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. Generously, all officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property-most important to the men were the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee's starving men would be given Union rations.

Quieting a band that had begun to play in celebration, Grant told his officers, "The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again." Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-the final skirmish of the Civil War occurred on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end.

The Final Battle of the Civil War?

News of the surrender traveled slowly. Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-there were six battles that took place after Appomattox, with the final skirmish of the Civil War occurring on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes, the Civil War had come to an end.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Appomattox Court House - Definition, Date & Location

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Appomattox Court House, located in Virginia, is where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, bringing an end to the Civil War.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Research Guides: 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History: Introduction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Digital materials at the Library of Congress related to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as links to external websites, and a selected print bibliography. Digital materials at the Library of Congress related to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SECTION. 1. 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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amendment XVSection 1.The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.Section 2.The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plessy v. Ferguson Summary | quimbee.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Transcontinental Railroad ‑ Construction, Competition & Impact

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1862, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies began building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies raced toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side to Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dawes General Allotment Act | History, Significance, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dawes General Allotment Act, U.S. law providing for the distribution of Indian reservation land among individual Native Americans, with the aim of creating farmers in the white man's image. It was sponsored several times by Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts and finally was enacted in February 1887.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Westward Expansion: The Homestead Act of 1862 & The Frontier Thesis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the Civil War, the United States rapidly transformed into an industrial, urbanized nation. Technological innovation, economic growth, development of large-scale agriculture, and the expansion of the federal government characterized the era, as did the social tensions brought about by immigration, financial turmoil, federal Indian policy, and increasing demands for rights by workers, women, and minorities.

This group of objects highlights innovation and industrialization in the late 1800s, and the benefits as well as detriments of becoming an economic and industrial power.

Century Vase, 1876

Made by Union Porcelain Works, Greenpoint, New York

The American Industrial Revolution transformed the nation from a scattering of isolated communities into an economic and industrial giant, in part due to the country’s wealth of natural resources. Forests, minerals, waterways, and huge tracts of arable land for farming and ranching provided the raw materials that fueled growth and development, often at the expense of the environment.

This vase celebrates 100 years of American progress and depicts now-vanished icons of the American landscape such as bison, a wooden reaper, and a steamship.

Railroad Spike, 1869

Commemorative of the final spike that completed the transcontinental railroad

Railroads were the basis of the nation’s industrial economy in the late 1800s, creating new markets, carrying billions of tons of freight to every corner of the country, and opening up the West for development. Thanks in part to the railroad providing access to new land for farming, agricultural production doubled in the 1870s, which in turn increased railroad traffic.

Gift of Union Pacific Railroad, Mr. A. E. Stoddard, President

Stock Ticker, about 1900

Made by the Western Union Telegraph Company

The U.S. economy grew rapidly after the Civil War, fueled by an astounding rise in wealth, wages, production, and corporate mergers, along with limited government regulation. The volume of stocks traded rose sharply with corporations’ need for investment capital and the development of new technologies. The 1867 invention of the stock ticker, transmitting up-to-the-minute share prices over telegraph lines, modernized the stock exchange.

Gift of Western Union Corporation

Incandescent Lamp, about 1891

Made by Edison General Electric Company

Many inventions in the late 1880s helped speed urban growth, allowing for taller buildings, more efficient factories, and better transportation. One of the most dramatic improvements occurred in artificial lighting. Thomas Edison’s development of an electric lamp that did not rely on open flames made lighting more practical for factories, offices, and homes, and transformed city life.

Gift of General Electric Lighting Company, through Terry K. McGowan

Tinfoil Phonograph, 1878

Invented by Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Edison helped usher in an age of organized research in support of commerce and industry that reshaped American life. Vowing to turn out inventions on a regular basis, Edison and his team of scientists, engineers, draftsmen, and laborers developed or improved over 1,000 patents, from huge electric generators to this early phonograph.

Gift of American Telephone and Telegraph Company

Alexander Graham Bell's Big Box Telephone, 1876

One of the first commercially available telephones

Telegraph lines could carry only one coded message per wire at a time, which became a hindrance as the volume of communication increased. To overcome this problem, Alexander Bell used his knowledge of acoustics to devise a method of sending multiple tonal messages over a wire. This led to the telephone, and a communication revolution that transformed business and daily life.

Gift of American Telephone and Telegraph Company

Cross, 1875–99

Made by a Hispanic Catholic in New Mexico

New Mexico has experienced many cultural encounters since the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1500s. Following the United States’ 1848 annexation of the area at the end of war with Mexico, the population of the territory boomed, bringing together Catholics of Spanish descent, indigenous tribes, Protestant missionaries, and Anglo American settlers. Though often in conflict, these communities forged a distinctive regional identity that survives to the present.

Silver Presentation Cup, about 1900

Presented to Susan B. Anthony on her eightieth birthday

Although American women fought for black suffrage, they were unable to vote in federal elections themselves until 1920. As suffragists moved out of the parlor and into the streets, they challenged the notion that a woman’s place was solely in the home. Susan B. Anthony shocked the nation when she was jailed in 1872 for illegally trying to vote.

Gift of National American Woman Suffrage Association

Print, 1870s

Black politicians during Reconstruction

With the end of the Civil War, hard-won constitutional amendments abolished slavery and established citizenship and voting rights for black Americans. But during and after Reconstruction, blacks were often treated as second-class citizens. Southern states continued to restrict black voting, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan led to decades of violence.

From the Ralph E. Becker Collection of Political Americana

Statue, late 1800s

Made by the Union Porcelain Works, Greenpoint, New York

In the late 1800s, black Americans gained citizenship and the vote, while immigrants from Europe and Asia came to the country in record numbers. As these minorities strove for economic prosperity and social justice, some white Americans reacted to the rapidly changing social order with apprehension and hostility. The relationship of the three figures in this statue captures this tension.

Gift of Mrs. Franklin Chace

Singer Sewing Machine Patent Model, 1889

Factory machine for making buttonholes

American goods were increasingly made in factories as companies adopted large-scale, standardized production methods in the late 1800s. Specialized machines took the place of manual tasks—such as sewing buttonholes for ready-made clothing—speeding up the work to meet the growing demands of a nation of consumers. The advent of more simply constructed women’s apparel in the 1890s gave a further boost to the clothing industry.

Sholes & Glidden Typewriter, 1873

Made by E. Remington & Sons

The development of corporations after the Civil War led to the creation of multiple layers of office management. The vast demand for professional managers and clerical staff encouraged education and the growth of the middle class. The introduction of the typewriter gave women the opportunity to enter the corporate workplace.

Gift of Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict

John Brown Lennon's Delegate Badge, 1893

From the Journeymen Tailors’ Union convention

Rapid industrial development in the late 1800s changed where and how Americans worked. By 1900, U.S. factories employed 4.5 million people, most working long hours for low wages in often unhealthful conditions. Workers organized local and national unions in response, leading to an intense period of political activity, strikes, and sometimes violent clashes in the fight for labor rights.

Gift of D. E. Lennon

Jeans, 1873-96

Made by Levi Strauss & Co., San Franscisco

Between 1870 and 1900 over 430 million acres were settled in the United States, most of them in the West. Mining, ranching, and farming drew waves of settlers, and cities and commerce followed. In 1873 San Francisco merchant LeviStrauss and tailor Jacob Davis patented a designfor rugged workers’ pants for western wear—the first jeans, advertised at right in 1875.

Gift of Walter Haas Jr.

Winchester Rifle, 1881

Captured from Sioux when Chief Low Dog surrendered in Montana Territory

Through most of the 1800s, Americans viewed the nation’s westward expansion as a symbol of its providence as a land of wealth and progress. But Indian tribes resisted the encroachment of settlers in their territories, setting off decades of violence. The federal government gradually pushed the tribes to more isolated areas, offering U.S. citizenship, but few opportunities, to those who agreed to accept allotments of land on reservations.

Man's Gown, about 1896

Ordered from China by Lee B. Lok in 1896

With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, thousands of Chinese laborers were left jobless in the western United States. Unwelcome in California, where it was feared they competed for low-paying jobs, many moved to the East Coast. Lee Lok emigrated from China to San Francisco in 1881 and then moved to New York City’s Chinatown where he worked in a general store. Although he could not become a U.S. citizen, his children could, and did.

Gift of James Edgar Mead and Virginia Lee Mead

The objects below are no longer on view

Harvester and Self-Raking Reaper Patent Model, 1877

Patented by William Whiteley

Increasingly mechanized farming meant fewer laborers were needed on farms, releasing them to work in urban industrial jobs. As the cities grew, demand increased for agricultural goods in turn. Inventors looked for new ways for farming to be more efficient and profitable, including making improvements to existing technology such as the mechanical reaper first developed by Cyrus McCormick in 1834.

Creeping Baby Doll, 1870s

Patented by Robert J. Clay

In the 1870s, changing notions of childhood meant that Anglo American parents had only recently accepted crawling, or creeping, as a natural stage in a baby’s development rather than a bad habit.  Prior to this, generations of American children had been prevented from crawling on all fours, an activity then associated with animals and the insane.

Child's Dress, 1876

Made from fabric purchased at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition

Celebrating innovations in industry and the arts, the international Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the American Revolution, embodied Americans’ confidence in the future, and revealed the country’s potential to the rest of the world. Among the crowds attending the centennial was Henry Fletcher, who purchased the patriotic fabric his wife used to make this dress for their first child, born in 1876.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the Civil War, the United States rapidly transformed into an industrial, urbanized nation. Technological innovation, economic growth, development of large-scale agriculture, and the expansion of the federal government characterized the era, as did the social tensions brought about by immigrati…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The late nineteenth century saw the rise of "big business" in important areas of economic activity. ("Big" is never defined precisely, but the quantitative term is popularly used to connote something important.) Big business firms were institutions that used management to control economic activity. Big business firms broke themselves into different functions, or "departments," and used managers to coordinate the work of departments, and "middle managers" to coordinate work among departments.

Railroads were the first "big businesses" in the United States. After railroad companies began to operate on tracks that stretched for fifty and more miles, their owners soon realized that they had to divide responsibilities among different managers, with coordination of the various functions of the company--from soliciting business, to operating trains, to maintaining facilities, to financing everything. By the 1850s railroad executives were perfecting systems of managerial control over their ever more complex firms.

After the railroads pioneered the formation of "big business," big businesses appeared in manufacturing and distribution.

Big city department stores were a form of "big business." They combined many different retail operations in one organization, and placed them together in one building. By 1912 department stores were principal features of the downtown districts of every city.

Still other big businesses, mail order firms such as Sears, Roebuck, were by 1912 serving rural areas and small towns.

Thus when Americans shopped in 1912, they were likely to encounter a "big business." In their stores, moreover, they were likely to find products manufactured by "big businesses."

The "big business" form of organization spread rapidly in manufacturing industries after about 1870.

In some lines of manufacturing, there were advantages to have a single organization control raw materials, transportation, fabrication, and distribution. When he sold his steel company in 1901, for example, Andrew Carnegie was the most efficient--and the wealthiest--steel maker in the world. Carnegie steel had control over sources of coal, coke, and iron ore. Carnegie steel exercised control over ships and railroads that brought raw materials to its mills in the Pittsburgh district. Carnegie insisted on his mill remaining the most advanced of their day. Not only did Carnegie Steel manufacture steel, the company also produced finished products like railroad rails and bridge girders. All of these operations were in a single managerial organization. Managers controlled the flow of materials. Carnegie Steel was so efficient that it could undercut all of its competitors and still make large profits.

Meatpacking was another industry that witnessed the rise and perfection of "big business" forms. After 1870, several Chicago meatpackers built huge, complex organizations for purchasing animals, butchering them, and distributing meat to markets all across the nation. Their companies used all of the byproducts of the animals they slaughtered. Skins went into leather goods, hoofs into glue, bones into fertilizer, and fat into soap. One wag commented that the only part of the hog the Chicago packers did not use and sell was the squeal!

By the end of the nineteenth century, Standard Oil, led by John D. Rockefeller, dominated the refining and distribution of petroleum products in the United States, and extended its reach well beyond the nation's borders.

When an entrepreneur like Carnegie was successful in building an efficient organization to control manufacturing processes, he drove competitors out of business. A steel maker either had to compete by mimicking Carnegie's managerial techniques, or go into a niche, or specialized, market that the big steel companies did not enter. In the case of meatpacking, by 1900 thousands of local butchers found themselves squeezed, because they were less efficient than the Chicago packers. Small shopkeepers sometimes faced ruin from large department store competitors. These businesses following older, more traditional practices sometimes fueled popular sentiment to "bust" the trusts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The late nineteenth century saw the rise of "big business" in important areas of economic activity. ("Big" is never defined precisely, but the quantitative term is popularly used to connote something important.) Big business firms were institutions that used management to control economic activity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What Is Antitrust?

Antitrust laws are regulations that encourage competition by limiting the market power of any particular firm. This often involves ensuring that mergers and acquisitions don't overly concentrate market power or form monopolies, as well as breaking up firms that have become monopolies.

Antitrust laws also prevent multiple firms from colluding or forming a cartel to limit competition through practices such as price fixing. Due to the complexity of deciding what practices will limit competition, antitrust law has become a distinct legal specialization.

Key Takeaways

Understanding Antitrust

Antitrust laws are the broad group of state and federal laws that are designed to make sure businesses are competing fairly. The "trust" in antitrust refers to a group of businesses that team up or form a monopoly to dictate pricing in a particular market.

Supporters say antitrust laws are necessary and that competition among sellers gives consumers lower prices, higher-quality products and services, more choices, and greater innovation. Most people agree with this concept and the benefits of an open marketplace, although there are some who claim that allowing businesses to compete as they see fit would ultimately give consumers the best prices.

The Antitrust Laws

The Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Act are the key laws that set the groundwork for antitrust regulation. Predating the Sherman Act, the Interstate Commerce Act was also beneficial in establishing antitrust regulations, although it was less influential than some of the others.

Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 in response to growing public demand that railroads be regulated. Among other requirements, the law ordered railroads to charge a fair fee to travelers and post those fees publicly. It was the first example of antitrust law but was less influential than the Sherman Act, passed in 1890.

The Sherman Act outlawed contracts and conspiracies restraining trade and/or monopolizing industries in an attempt to stopcompeting individuals or businesses fixing prices, dividing markets, or attempting to rig bids. The Sherman Act laid out specific penalties and fines for violating the terms.

In 1914, Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Act, banning unfair competition methods and deceptive acts or practices. The Clayton Act was also passed in 1914, addressing specific practices that the Sherman Act does not ban. For example, the Clayton Act prohibits appointing the same person to make business decisions for competing corporations.

Special Considerations

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are tasked with enforcing federal antitrust laws. In some cases, these two authorities may also work with other regulatory agencies to ensure that certain mergers fit the public interest.

The FTC mainly focuses on segments of the economy where consumer spending is high, including healthcare, drugs, food, energy, technology, and anything related to digital communications. Factors that could spark an FTC investigation include premerger notification filings, certain consumer or business correspondence, congressional inquiries, or articles on consumer or economic subjects.

If the FTC thinks that a law has been violated, the agency will try to stop the questionable practices or find a resolution to the anticompetitive portion of, say, a proposed merger between two competitors. If no resolution is found, the FTC may put out an administrative complaint and/or pursue injunctive relief in federal court.

The FTC might also refer evidence of criminal antitrust violations to the DOJ. The DOJ has the power to impose criminal sanctions and holds sole antitrust jurisdiction in certain sectors, such as telecommunications, banks, railroads, and airlines.

Major Example of Antitrust Law

In January 2023, the DOJ and eight states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet's Google, alleging that the search giant has illegal monopolization of the digital advertising business. "Today's complaint alleges that Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the government agency said.

The filing, which seeks to make Google divest parts of its advertising business, alleges that the company has used acquisitions as a strategy for "neutralizing or eliminating" rivals and forces advertisers to use its products by making competitors' products difficult to use. The complaint claims that the company's monopolistic practices curtail innovation, raise advertising fees, and prevent small businesses and publishers from growing.

Google's advertising business has come under fire from critics who argue that the search giant controls both the supply and demand sides of the digital advertising market. The company provides tools that help websites offer ad space and that assist advertisers in placing online ads. The suit alleges that Google's dominance in the market allows it to pocket 30 cents of each dollar that advertisers spend using its suite of advertising tools.

The lawsuit marks the second federal antitrust complaint against Google in three years. Under the former Trump administration, the DOJ filed a lawsuit in October 2020, accusing the tech giant of using its monopoly to reduce competition through exclusionary agreements. That case is expected to go to trial this fall.

Google responded to the suit, saying the DOJ was attempting to intervene in the free market. "Today's lawsuit from the Department of Justice attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector," Google Global Ads Vice President Dan Taylor said in a statement.

What are antitrust laws, and are they necessary?

Antitrust laws were implemented to prevent companies from getting greedy and abusing their power. Without these regulations in place, many politicians fear that big businesses would gobble up the smaller ones. This would result in less competition and fewer choices for consumers, potentially leading to higher prices, lower quality, and less innovation, among other things.

How many antitrust laws are there?

There are three federal antitrust laws in effect today: the Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Act.

Who enforces antitrust laws?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are responsible for making sure that antitrust laws are abided by. The FTC mainly focuses on segments of the economy where consumer spending is high, while the DOJ holds sole antitrust jurisdiction in sectors such as telecommunications, banks, railroads, and airlines and has the power to impose criminal sanctions.

The Bottom Line

Antitrust laws regulate the concentration of economic power to prevent companies from price colluding or creating monopolies. Proponents of antitrust laws argue that they keep consumer prices lower and foster innovation through increased competition. Critics say antitrust regulations intervene in the free market and reduce efficiency.

Antitrust laws are enforced by the FTC and DOJ, with the agencies focusing on areas of the economy that receive significant consumer spending, such as technology, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and communications. Typically, antitrust investigations arise from premerger notification filings, congressional inquiries, or consumer and business correspondence.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Antitrust Laws: What They Are, How They Work, Major Examples

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Antitrust laws are regulations that encourage competition by limiting the market power of any particular firm. This often involves ensuring that mergers and acquisitions don't overly concentrate market power or form monopolies, as well as breaking up firms that have become monopolies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Labor Movement in the United States | History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
International Stock Food Factory, between 1900 and 1910
Detroit Publishing Company

In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy.

Industrial growth transformed American society. It produced a new class of wealthy industrialists and a prosperous middle class. It also produced a vastly expanded blue collar working class. The labor force that made industrialization possible was made up of millions of newly arrived immigrants and even larger numbers of migrants from rural areas. American society became more diverse than ever before.

Not everyone shared in the economic prosperity of this period. Many workers were typically unemployed at least part of the year, and their wages were relatively low when they did work. This situation led many workers to support and join labor unions. Meanwhile, farmers also faced hard times as technology and increasing production led to more competition and falling prices for farm products. Hard times on farms led many young people to move to the city in search of better job opportunities.

Americans who were born in the 1840s and 1850s would experience enormous changes in their lifetimes. Some of these changes resulted from a sweeping technological revolution. Their major source of light, for example, would change from candles, to kerosene lamps, and then to electric light bulbs. They would see their transportation evolve from walking and horse power to steam-powered locomotives, to electric trolley cars, to gasoline-powered automobiles. Born into a society in which the vast majority of people were involved in agriculture, they experienced an industrial revolution that radically changed the ways millions of people worked and where they lived. They would experience the migration of millions of people from rural America to the nation's rapidly growing cities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Overview | Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy. Industrial growth transformed American society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Looking at the population and job growth of large cities proper, rather than their metro areas, uncovers some surprises.

This is the first post in a four-part series on the economic performance of America's cities. Today, we cover population and job growth.
When it comes to the economic status of cities, there is no shortage of conflicting messages-and conflicting facts. On the one hand, we hear about the dominance of superstar cities and tech hubs in the competition for talented workers, high-end knowledge jobs, and high-tech startups. On the other hand, Sunbelt cities continue to lead in the growth of population and jobs in general.

The reality is that most studies that purport to talk about cities are really talking about the performance of broader metropolitan areas, which are made of up core or principal cities and their surrounding suburbs and exurbs. Looking at cities by themselves is important and useful for several reasons.

For one, there is lots of talk these days about urban revitalization, the comeback of cities, and urban gentrification. But all of this is likely very uneven across U.S. cities, shaped by the same winner-take-all pattern that we see for metro areas. Some cities have bounced back and are experiencing growth in population and jobs, and in key dimensions of talent like college graduates and the creative class.But others continue to struggle and lose ground, whether to other cities or their own suburbs.

While cities are parts-large parts-of metro regions, it is not necessarily the case that they closely follow the performance of their metros. Some cities may perform much better, others worse. This series dives into an aspect of contemporary urbanism that has been under-examined, the economic performance of America's largest cities.

To get at this, I worked with a team of researchers to analyze the economic performance of American's 50 largest core or principal cities over the five-year period of 2012 to 2017. Economist Todd Gabe crunched the numbers, using the U.S. Census's American Community Survey to chart cities' performance on factors including population growth, employment growth, growth in college grads, and the creative class, as well as how they stack up on economic inequality, housing affordability, and other indicators of what I call the " new urban crisis."

To provide context, we do a rough comparison of these 50 cities to America's 53 large metros (with more than 1 million people). We exclude two metros, Charlotte and Grand Rapids, Michigan, because they experienced significant boundary changes that would have affected their results; that leaves a comparison group of 51. It is important to note that eight of the 50 largest cities do not belong to any of the 53 large metros, and also that not all of these metros have cities that number among the 50 largest. Our city-to-metro comparisons are for illustrative purposes only.

Karen King, my colleague at the University of Toronto School of Cities, helped analyze the data and make the comparisons, and my CityLab colleague David Montgomery mapped it.

Population growth

Today, we start with the basics of population and job growth. The second post in the series will look at college graduates; the third will examine the growth of the creative class in cities; and the fourth will cover inequality and the new urban crisis.

Data show a sharp divergence between America's fast- and slow-growing cities. The chart above shows the 10 fastest- and slowest-growing on the metric of population.

Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter.
The best way to follow issues you care about.

The overall, broad trend conforms to the popular image of a growing Sunbelt and declining "Frost Belt" of cold-weather cities. However, the most rapidly growing large cities are not sprawling, unregulated Sunbelt ones (such as Houston), but two relatively expensive tech hubs, anchored by leading research universities-Seattle and Austin. Denver, Washington, D.C., and Raleigh also make the top 10. Miami comes fourth, and Fort Worth, Charlotte, Mesa, Arizona, and Omaha round out the list.

Nashville, which ranks first among metros with 15.7 percent growth, scrapes only 24th on the cities list, with 6.9 percent growth. Dallas comes seventh for metros (11.3 percent growth), but 15thfor cities (8.1 percent growth). Houston ranks eighth for metros but 23rd for cities; Las Vegas, tenth for metros and 16th for cities. Two Midwest metros, Columbus and Indianapolis, but not those cities proper rank among the top 10 for population growth.

Leading tech hubs and superstar cities actually appear far down the growing-cities list. Boston is 21st and and San Francisco 22nd, both with around 7 percent growth. L.A. is 34th, with 3.7 percent growth; New York, 35th, with 3.4 percent growth.

When it comes to slow-growing cities (the right side of the chart), Detroit, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Memphis have lost population; Chicago has barely held constant. Southern and Western cities round out this group: Long Beach, California, Albuquerque, Virginia Beach, Wichita, and El Paso.

There is more overlap between declining cities and declining metros. Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Memphis show up on both lists. The slow-growing cities of St. Louis, Buffalo, and Cleveland also show up on the list of the 10 slowest-growing metros.

Job and employment growth

The picture changes somewhat for employment growth-and conforms even better to the narrative of an ascendant Sunbelt. The chart below shows the change in cities' employed population from 2012 to 2017. The fastest-growing cities are growing 10 times faster than the slowest-growing ones.

Miami tops the left-hand list, followed by Atlanta, Fort Worth, Denver, and Mesa. The tech hubs of Austin and Raleigh make the top 10. Charlotte is eighth, and the rapidly growing music and tech hot spot of Nashville is ninth. Oakland comes tenth-a product of is accelerated gentrification as a relatively affordable node in the San Francisco Bay Area. Seven of the top ten cities on employment growth overlap with the top 10 for population growth: The new additions are Atlanta, Nashville, and Oakland.

There is significant overlap between this fastest-growing list and metros with the fastest job growth. Five places rank in the top 10 on both: Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, Raleigh, and Denver. (Charlotte would, too, if we did not exclude it because of changes to its metro boundaries.) A number of Sunbelt cities appear further down the fastest-growing cities list: Las Vegas at 12th; Dallas at 20th; Houston at 40th.

Again, superstar cities and leading tech hubs appear very low here. New York is 36th, with 9.1 percent growth. (Detroit actually does better, ranking 28th with 13.7 percent growth.) L.A. is 26th with 14 percent growth; Boston is 23rd (15 percent), and San Francisco is 15th (17 percent).

The slowest-growing cities for jobs (above right) are a mixed bag, with some interesting contrasts. Milwaukee is the only canonical Rust Belt city to make the list, in ninth place. Memphis is second and Baltimore, which is often lumped in with the Rust Belt but is on the East Coast's Acela Corridor, is tenth.

Tulsa tops the slow list-what's interesting about that is that nearby Oklahoma City is one of the nation's fastest-growing cities in terms of population. Likewise, Arlington, Texas, has the fourth-slowest job growth; compare this to nearby Fort Worth, with the third-best job growth. Indianapolis, typically thought of alongside Columbus as a success story, actually numbers among the 10 slowest cities on job growth, as do Tucson and Virginia Beach in the Sunbelt.

Recommended

There is little overlap between slow-growing cities and slow-growing metros, with only Milwaukee showing up in both. The metros include Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Buffalo, Cleveland, Louisville, St. Louis, and Rochester.

Seven cities rank among the top 10 on both population and job growth: Austin, Miami, Denver, Raleigh, Charlotte, Fort Worth, and Mesa. Of these, perhaps the biggest surprise is Miami, which comes first in employment and fourth in population growth. Austin is second in population, sixth in employment. Fort Worth is third in both categories. Conversely, six cities rank in the bottom groups for both: Milwaukee, Baltimore, Memphis, Albuquerque, Virginia Beach, and Wichita.

Our next post will look at a key dimension of talent in cities: college graduates.

About the Author

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Fastest-Growing U.S. Cities Aren't What You Think

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is the first post in a four-part series on the economic performance of America's cities. Today, we cover population and job growth. When it comes to the economic status of cities, there is no shortage of conflicting messages-and conflicting facts.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Growth of Mass Communication - late 1800s

# data[].attributes.subject
The Growth of Mass Communication - late 1800s

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Industrial Economy: Crash Course US History #23

# data[].attributes.body
Chapter 1
Earliest North American Societies:
https://www.khanacademy.org/hubmanities/us-history/precontact-and-early-colonial-era/before-contact/v/native-american-societies-before-contact
Native American Culture Areas:
http://www.native-languages.org/culture-areas3.gif
The First Migration:
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/
The European Renaissance:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/london-culture/renaissance-changed-the-world/
Chapter 2:
The Vikings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G_Z7p6hyxc
1492: Voyages of Christopher Columbus: https://u.osu.edu/christophercolumbusproject/files/2017/10/89956-004-9851B885-1yqnf8r.gif
Spanish Empire in North America:
https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h438.html
Race for Empires in North America: https://www.peaster.net/cms/lib/TX01000798/Centricity/Domain/359/Ch.2Sec.4.pdf
Chapter 3
English Settlement in North America:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/colonial-america/early-chesapeake-and-southern-colonies/v/early-english-settlements-jamestown
Colonists Affected by the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/images/00005491.jpg
Acts Passed by the Colonists:
http://www.stamp-act-history.com/british-taxation-colonial-america/list-of-british-acts/
Colonists Response: http://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/crisis/text4/text4.htm
Chapter 4:
The Declaration of Independence: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/road-to-revolution/the-american-revolution/v/the-declaration-of-independence.
Battle of Yorktown/Treaty of Paris: https://www.american-revolutionary-war-facts.com/images/Battle-of-Yorktown.jpg.
Battle of Saratoga: https://www.britannica.com/event/Battles-of-Saratoga
Article: https://www.biography.com/news/paul-reveres-ride-facts
Chapter 5:
Artilces of Confederation:
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/confederation.htm
The Great Compromise:
https://www.certell.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/The-Great-Compromise.gif.png
Federalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie6mvIDU2y4
Chapter 6:
Separation of Powers: https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government
The Constitution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiahGIKTl00
The Bill of Rights:
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/
Chapters 7 - 9
The Rise of Political Parties: http://www.ushistory.org/us/19c.asp
The Louisiana Purchase:
https://bearlakerendezvous.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/louisianapurchase.png?w=440
The Corps of Discovery: http://www.edgate.com/lewisandclark/expedition.html
The War of 1812: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibvUUnFzAFg
The Monroe Doctrine: https://www.britannica.com/event/Monroe-Doctrine
Nationalism vs. Sectionalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgJbXXj3zN4
Chapters 10 & 11
Jacksonian Democracy: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic/age-of-jackson/v/jacksonian-democracy-part-2
Native American Removal: https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
Trails West: https://unitedstateswestwardexpansion.weebly.com/trails-west.html
Texas Becomes a Nation: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic/age-of-jackson/a/annexing-texas
Manifest Destiny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5SWDeIgNpE
Mexican-American War: https://s3.amazonaws.com/user-media.venngage.com/153587-f4a5fe11762d32b3503ef2198506dbf3.jpg
Chapters 12/13
The Life of a Slave: http://www.ushistory.org/us/27b.asp
The Industrial Revolution: https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution
The Rise of Organized Labor: https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/history/us-history-ii/industrial-america/the-rise-of-organized-labor
Interchangeable Parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyvxFCMShNQ
The Transportation Revolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvd5_LB30b8
Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin: https://www.sussexvt.k12.de.us/science/The%20History%20of%20the%20World%201500-1899/Eli%20Whitney%20Invents%20the%20Cotton%20Gin_files/image005.gif
Chapter 14/15
Immigration to the United States in the 1800s: https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/immigration-united-states-timeline
Second Great Awakening: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/the-second-great-awakening/
Abolitionist Movement Prior to the Civil War: https://www.historynet.com/abolitionist-movement
Kansas-Nebraska Act: https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plans/lesson-3-kansas-nebraska-act-1854-popular-sovereignty-and-political-polarization-over
Women's Rights Movement in the 1800s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y44cmkavwm4
Lincoln/Douglas Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LljCzkPasuk
Compromise of 1850: http://www.ushistory.org/us/images/00080486.gif
Election of 1860: http://lincolncottage.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/1860electionmap.jpg
Chapter 16
The Fall of Ft. Sumter:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Fort-Sumter
The Emancipation Proclamation:
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation
Clara Barton and the American Red Cross:
https://go.fold3.com/i/emails/TMIH_May2016.jpg
The Battle of Gettysburg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrk9e85LP8s
The Battle of Vicksburg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE1bYVwH1jM
Southern Surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse:
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/appomattox-court-house
Chapter 17
The 13th Amendment:
https://guides.loc.gov/13th-amendment
The 14th Amendment
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiv
The 15th Amendment:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv
The Election of 1876:
https://www.270towin.com/historical_maps/1876_large.png
Plessy vs. Fergussen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsDTqtyiNZk

Chapter 18
The Transcontinental Railroad: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-railroad
Dawes General Allotment Act: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dawes-General-Allotment-Act
The Homestead & Morrill Act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbwVl-0AP6s
Massacre at Wounded Knee: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Opening-of-the-fight-at-Wounded-Knee-Frederic-Remington-1891-280.jpg
Chapter 19
The Bessemer Process:
https://cdn.britannica.com/71/126271-004-345EC9C5/furnace-Bessemer-Kelham-Island-Museum-England-Sheffield.jpg
The Growth of Inventions - late 1800s:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/american-stories/1870-1900-industrial-development
The Rise of Big Business: https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/1912/trusts/RiseBigBusiness
The Antitrust Movement: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp
The Labor Movement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewu-v36szlE
Chapter 20
The Rise of Immigration - late 1800s: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/immgnts/
The Growth of Cities: https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/08/job-ranking-top-cities-population-growth-census-data-us/596485/
Tenement Life - Causes and Effects: https://media.wnyc.org/i/800/0/l/85/1/AP_3903080285.jpg
The Growth of Mass Communication - late 1800s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tRp-zRUJs
Chaptes 21/22:
Rise of political Machines: https://www.britannica.com/topic/political-machine
Progressive Reform: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanyawp.com%2Ftext%2F20-the-progressive-era%2F&psig=AOvVaw2KJAwiooSCzk6di5deqWnz&ust=1580832281285000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCOC2h6nhtecCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Rise of Labor Organizations: https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/history/us-history-ii/industrial-america/the-rise-of-organized-labor
Women's Suffrage & The Temperance Movement: https://amazingwomeninhistory.com/womens-suffrage-and-temperance-movement/
Election of 1912: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdl8RzFcArU
Isolationism vs. Imperialism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfsfoFqsFk4
Chapter 23:
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand:  https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-ferdinand-assassinated
New Technology of World War One: https://cdn.britannica.com/28/60728-050-CA6992FF/infantrymen-German-Maxim-World-War-I-machine.jpg
President Wilson's 14 Points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbdhxLVlrhI
Treaty of Versailles: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
political machine, in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state.

The rapid growth of American cities in the 19th century, a result of both immigration and migration from rural areas, created huge problems for city governments, which were often poorly structured and unable to provide services. In those conditions, political machines-such as Tammany Hall, run by boss William Magear Tweed (1823-73) in New York City -were able to build a loyal voter following, especially among immigrant groups, by performing such favours as providing jobs or housing.

Political machines are characterized by a disciplined and hierarchical organization, reaching down to neighbourhood and block organizers, that enables the machine to respond to the problems of individual neighbourhoods, or even families, in exchange for loyalty at the polls. The term refers to their ability to elect candidates or enact measures with mechanical efficiency and predictability.

Although the primary goal of a political machine is keeping itself in power rather than providing good government, machines have been responsible for restructuring city governments to centralize authority, improving facilities and services, helping to assimilate immigrant groups, and encouraging the growth of business and industry. Supporters of political machines say that they "work" and that consolidating power in the hands of a boss, like Mayor Richard J. Daley (1902-76) of Chicago, guarantees city governments the power and authority that they need to cope with urban problems effectively. However, because political machines in such cities as Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Kansas City have also been responsible for many abuses of power, the term carries a pejorative sense.

Organizers who "deliver" the votes are often rewarded with patronage jobs. However, patronage can result in poorer service to the citizens because appointees may be neither qualified for their jobs nor interested in performing them. Control of both elective and appointed posts also gives a machine control of government salaries and revenues, which can be used to enrich the party at the public's expense. For example, the machine may accept donations or kickbacks from businesses in return for such favours as tax or zoning concessions or the award of lucrative public-works contracts. In some cities, machine business dealings have included accepting money from organized-crime syndicates in exchange for protection from legal interference.

In cities whose neighbourhoods are divided along ethnic or racial lines, machine patronage may aggravate hostilities by awarding most jobs and services to those people of the same background as the city's power elite. In practice, this made machine politics the last defense of white neighbourhoods against growing black populations, while black politicians who anticipated power viewed their constituents as merely the latest in a series of ethnic or racial groups that had benefited from the machine.

Since the 19th-century heyday of machine politics, civil service reforms limiting the number of patronage jobs, the institution of direct primaries rather than party nomination of candidates, the municipal operation of public utilities, and judicial review by state and federal courts have all reduced the power of political machines. The steady exodus of city residents to the suburbs since World War II and a more mobile population with fewer ties to particular neighbourhoods have also weakened the social base that once made political machines synonymous with city government.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Political machine | Definition, History, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
political machine, in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The typical factory worker in the late nineteenth century worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Unskilled workers were paid between $1.00 and $1.50 a day; skilled workers might make twice as much, while women (who became a significant percentage of the labor force after the Civil War), children, and African‐Americans were paid considerably less. Workplace accidents were common, and the idea of compensating workers injured on the job was unheard of at the time. To help each other through illness, injury, and deaths, workers formed mutual benefit societies (often organized along ethnic lines), but the assistance these groups provided was minimal. The most serious problem for factory workers was unemployment. It was common for a worker, particularly an unskilled one, to be out of a job at least part of the year.

Early labor unions. Skilled workers, such as cigarmakers, iron molders, and hat finishers formed the first labor unions before the Civil War. Several of these craft unions (so named because they organized workers within specific craft industries) joined together to form the National Labor Union (NLU) in 1866. Although the organization advocated an eight‐hour workday, it did not support strikes to achieve that goal. The NLU was also concerned with social reform, including equal rights for women, establishing worker cooperatives, and temperance. The union, along with organized labor in general, declined sharply in the wake of the depression of 1873 but not before influencing Congress to enact the eight‐hour day for federal employees (1868).

The Knights of Labor, organized in 1869, is considered to be the first industrial union, open to skilled and unskilled workers, women, and African‐Americans. This inclusive policy contributed to its growth, and the union boasted more than 700,000 members by the mid‐1880s. The program of the Knights of Labor was a combination of reform ideas and specific worker demands. Along with setting up cooperative workshops and calling for the regulation of the railroads, the union wanted an eight‐hour workday, legislation protecting the health and safety of workers, and an end to child labor (for children under the age of 14). To achieve these goals, political action and arbitration between employers and labor representatives were preferred over strikes. The decline of the Knights of Labor after 1886 was due to several factors: the failure of several unauthorized strikes, the growing dissatisfaction of craftsmen who felt the union favored the interests of unskilled workers, and the public perception in the wake of the Haymarket Square Riot (1886) that the Knights supported violence.

On May 4, 1886, a mass meeting of workers was called in Chicago's Haymarket Square to protest the death of a striker at the McCormick Harvester plant. When the police tried to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured several more. The riot that followed resulted in additional deaths on both sides. Although it was one of the three unions on strike at McCormick, the Knights of Labor had nothing to do with the events in Haymarket Square. This fact did not prevent the union from becoming a victim of the antilabor sentiment that swept the country, and its membership declined rapidly over the next four years.

The American Federation of Labor. Founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a federation of skilled workers in national craft unions that maintained their autonomy while working together to promote labor legislation and support strikes. In contrast to its predecessors, the new union focused exclusively on basic labor issues - the eight‐hour workday, higher wages, better working conditions (particularly plant safety), and the right of workers to organize. To Gompers, who began his career in the cigarmakers union, only craftsmen that could not be easily replaced had the leverage necessary to either bargain effectively with employers or go on strike. The AFL had little more than disdain for unskilled workers or blacks, skilled or not, and did not seriously try to organize women. Although he was an immigrant himself, as were many local union men, Gompers nevertheless strongly supported restrictions on immigration to prevent new arrivals from competing with American workers for jobs. Even though it excluded most of the working class, the AFL became the largest single labor organization in the country by 1900 with over one million members.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The typical factory worker in the late nineteenth century worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Unskilled workers were paid between $1.00 and $1.50 a day; skilled workers might make twice as much, while women (who became a significant percentage of the labor force after the Civil War), children, and African‐Americans were paid considerably less.

# data[].attributes.headline
Women's Suffrage & The Temperance Movement

# data[].attributes.subject
Women's Suffrage & The Temperance Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Keri Engel

It might seem like women's rights and alcohol prohibition would be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. But did you know that throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, women's suffrage and the temperance movement were both considered radical causes? Many suffragists, in addition to their work for women's rights, were also a part of the temperance movement, which advocated for reduced or no alcohol consumption.

Both movements culminated in the same year: 1920, when the 18th Amendment prohibiting alcohol came into effect and the 19th Amendment enfranchising women was ratified.

How was the women's suffrage movement connected to the temperance movement?

Let's take a look at how it started...

Why Did the Temperance Movement Want Prohibition?

As the United States developed, its people started turning from light alcoholic beverages, such as beer and hard cider, to stronger beverages like rum and whiskey as they became cheaper.

The production of rum especially was part of the whole slave trade. Slaves from Africa were brought to the West Indies to grow sugar, which was used to make rum. That's why it started to become available so cheaply.

What many citizens saw as an epidemic of alcoholism followed.

Remember that at this time, women had no rights. A woman was legally not a person, and was considered to be the property of her father or husband.

So what happened if a woman got married to a man who turned out to be an alcoholic? If he spent all their money on booze, or even became violent?

Legally, there was no escape.

What could women do?

All they could do was ask men to stop drinking so much.

"THE BOTTLE: He is discharged from his employment for drunkenness: They pawn their clothes to supply the bottle."

That's how the rise of cheap alcohol and growing alcoholism led to the growth of the women's temperance movement in the early 19th century.

Advocates for temperance linked the consumption of alcohol with greater issues like violent crime, poverty, unemployment, and domestic violence.

Though at first campaigning for moderation, the movement became more radical after the Civil War and began calling for complete prohibition of all alcohol. National organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union grew quickly, and by the late 19th century became very powerful in lobbying for prohibition legislation.

"Fearful quarrels and brutal violence are the natural consequences of the frequent use of the bottle."

Women's Suffrage and Prohibition

Around the turn of the 20th century, Western society still overwhelmingly believed in biological determinism: that men and women had different inherent natures determined by their respective biology.

Women were thought to be morally superior to men by nature, and many advocates for women's suffrage argued that women should have the vote because of this.

Advocates for temperance wanted women to have the vote because it was believed they would vote for prohibition due to their moral superiority. Many breweries, on the other hand, lobbied against the suffrage movement out of fear of losing their businesses to prohibition.

A Respectable Suffrage Movement

Groups such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded in 1873, linked together the causes of Christianity, temperance, and social reform.

As a religious organization, the WCTU was seen as a more ladylike and respectable way for women to become involved in the struggle for suffrage. Since each local chapter of the WCTU was autonomous, local leaders had the freedom to act on issues such as women's suffrage under the banner of a respectable religious organization.

Francis Willard (1839-1898) was a suffragist and a temperance movement leader

Suffrage and Temperance Movement Leaders

Many of the most famous early feminists and women's suffrage advocates were also supporters of prohibition. The WCTU's second president, Francis Willard, broadened the organization's activism with her slogan "Do everything." A feminist and suffragist, Francis Willard fought not only for temperance and women's suffrage, but for other radical causes such as workers' unions, federal aid for education, and an eight-hour workday.

Perhaps the most famous pair of United States suffragists, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were temperance activists before they became involved in the women's suffrage movement. Susan B. Anthony, before becoming a famous speaker on women's rights, gave her first speech at a Daughters of Temperance dinner. Together Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton co-founded the Woman's State Temperance Society in 1852, the first women's state temperance society in America.

Though the temperance movement mostly died out after the repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933, adherents to the movement continue to exist to this day.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union still fights for social reform, though they are now considered extremely conservative in their current stance against abortion rights and same-sex marriage. The feminist movement, on the other hand, is now mainly considered a liberal cause. This strange alliance, though it lasted almost a century, died out soon after the death of prohibition as each movement went its separate way.

Radfem Graphic Tee - "Prude Is a Slur Against Any Woman With Boundaries"

This radfem t-shir...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women's Suffrage and the Temperance Movement: Strange Allies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Keri Engel It might seem like women's rights and alcohol prohibition would be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. But did you know that throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, women's suffrage and the temperance movement were both considered radical causes?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The American Presidential Election of 1912

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Imperialism: Crash Course US History #28

# data[].attributes.headline
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

# data[].attributes.subject
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. On June 28, 1919, five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand's death, Germany and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Versailles, officially marking the end of World War I.

The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The annexation had angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the territories should be part of Serbia. A group of young nationalists hatched a plot to kill the archduke during his visit to Sarajevo, and after some missteps, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip was able to shoot the royal couple at point-blank range, while they traveled in their official procession, killing both almost instantly.

The assassination set off a rapid chain of events, as Austria-Hungary immediately blamed the Serbian government for the attack. As large and powerful Russia supported Serbia, Austria asked for assurances that Germany would step in on its side against Russia and its allies, including France and possibly Great Britain. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the fragile peace between Europe's great powers collapsed, beginning the devastating conflict now known as the First World War.

After more than four years of bloodshed, the Great War ended on November 11, 1918, after Germany, the last of the Central Powers, surrendered to the Allies. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that was safe from future wars of such enormous scale. The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, tragically failed to achieve this objective. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's grand dreams of an international peace-keeping organization faltered when put into practice as the League of Nations. Even worse, the harsh terms imposed on Germany, the war's biggest loser, led to widespread resentment of the treaty and its authors in that country-a resentment that would culminate in the outbreak of the Second World War two decades later.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Austria's Archduke Ferdinand assassinated | June 28, 1914 | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points | History