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The process of transferring plants, animals, foods, diseases, wealth, and culture between Europe and the Americas, beginning at the time of Christopher Columbus and continuing throughout the era of exploration and expansion.

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a machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion

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An economic system built on the assumption that the world's supply of wealth is fixed and that nations must export more goods than they import to assure a steady supply of gold and silver into national coffers. Mercantile thinkers saw the inflow of such wealth as the key to maintaining and enhancing national power and self-sufficiency. Within this context, the accumulation and development of colonies was of great importance, since colonies could supply scarce raw materials to parent nations and serve as markets for finished goods.

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The process of transferring plants, animals, foods, diseases, wealth, and culture between Europe and the Americas, beginning at the time of Christopher Columbus and continuing throughout the era of exploration and expansion.

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Columbian Exchange, the largest part of a more general process of biological globalization that followed the transoceanic voyaging of the 15th and 16th centuries. Ecological provinces that had been torn apart by continental drift millions of years ago were suddenly reunited by oceanic shipping, particularly in the wake of Christopher Columbus's voyages that began in 1492. The consequences profoundly shaped world history in the ensuing centuries, most obviously in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. The phrase "the Columbian Exchange" is taken from the title of Alfred W. Crosby's 1972 book, which divided the exchange into three categories: diseases, animals, and plants.

Before 1492, Native Americans (Amerindians) hosted none of the acute infectious diseases that had long bedeviled most of Eurasia and Africa: measles, smallpox, influenza, mumps, typhus, and whooping cough, among others. In most places other than isolated villages, these had become endemic childhood diseases that killed one-fourth to one-half of all children before age six. Survivors, however, carried partial, and often total, immunity to most of these infections with the notable exception of influenza. Falciparum malaria, by far the most severe variant of that plasmodial infection, and yellow fever also crossed the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas.

In the centuries after 1492, these infections swirled as epidemics among Native American populations. Physical and psychological stress, including mass violence, compounded their effect. The impact was most severe in the Caribbean, where by 1600 Native American populations on most islands had plummeted by more than 99 percent. Across the Americas, populations fell by 50 percent to 95 percent by 1650.

The disease component of the Columbian Exchange was decidedly one-sided. However, it is likely that syphilis evolved in the Americas and spread elsewhere beginning in the 1490s. More assuredly, Native Americans hosted a form of tuberculosis, perhaps acquired from Pacific seals and sea lions. But they had no counterparts to the suite of lethal diseases they acquired from Eurasians and Africans. The paucity of exportable infections was a result of the settlement and ecological history of the Americas: The first Americans arrived about 25,000 to 15,000 years ago. The domestication of species other than dogs was yet to come. So none of the human diseases derived from, or shared with, domestic herd animals such as cattle, camels, and pigs (e.g. smallpox, influenza) yet existed anywhere in the Americas. Unlike these animals, the ducks, turkeys, alpacas, llamas, and other species domesticated by Native Americans seem to have harboured no infections that became human diseases.

The animal component of the Columbian Exchange was slightly less one-sided. Horses, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, and several other species adapted readily to conditions in the Americas. Broad expanses of grassland in both North and South America suited immigrant herbivores, cattle and horses especially, which ran wild and reproduced prolifically on the Pampas and the Great Plains. Pigs too went feral. Sheep prospered only in managed flocks and became a mainstay of pastoralism in several contexts, such as among the Navajo in New Mexico.

With the new animals, Native Americans acquired new sources of hides, wool, and animal protein. Horses and oxen also offered a new source of traction, making plowing feasible in the Americas for the first time and improving transportation possibilities through wheeled vehicles, hitherto unused in the Americas. Donkeys, mules, and horses provided a wider variety of pack animals. Thus, the introduced animal species had some important economic consequences in the Americas and made the American hemisphere more similar to Eurasia and Africa in its economy.

The new animals made the Americas more like Eurasia and Africa in a second respect. With goats and pigs leading the way, they chewed and trampled crops, provoking between herders and farmers conflict of a sort hitherto unknown in the Americas except perhaps where llamas got loose. This pattern of conflict created new opportunities for political divisions and alignments defined by new common interests.

One introduced animal, the horse, rearranged political life even further. The Native Americans of the North American prairies, often called Plains Indians, acquired horses from Spanish New Mexico late in the 17th century. On horseback they could hunt bison (buffalo) more rewardingly, boosting food supplies until the 1870s, when bison populations dwindled. Additionally, mastery of the techniques of equestrian warfare utilized against their neighbours helped to vault groups such as the Sioux and Comanche to heights of political power previously unattained by any Amerindians in North America.

The Columbian Exchange was more evenhanded when it came to crops. The Americas' farmers' gifts to other continents included staples such as corn (maize), potatoes, cassava, and sweet potatoes, together with secondary food crops such as tomatoes, peanuts, pumpkins, squashes, pineapples, and chili peppers. Tobacco, one of humankind's most important drugs, is another gift of the Americas, one that by now has probably killed far more people in Eurasia and Africa than Eurasian and African diseases killed in the Americas.

Some of these crops had revolutionary consequences in Africa and Eurasia. Corn had the biggest impact, altering agriculture in Asia, Europe, and Africa. It underpinned population growth and famine resistance in parts of China and Europe, mainly after 1700, because it grew in places unsuitable for tubers and grains and sometimes gave two or even three harvests a year. It also served as livestock feed, for pigs in particular.

In Africa about 1550-1850, farmers from Senegal to Southern Africa turned to corn. Today it is the most important food on the continent as a whole. Its drought resistance especially recommended it in the many regions of Africa with unreliable rainfall.

Corn had political consequences in Africa. After harvest, it spoils more slowly than the traditional staples of African farms, such as bananas, sorghums, millets, and yams. Its longer shelf life, especially once it is ground into meal, favoured the centralization of power because it enabled rulers to store more food for longer periods of time, give it to loyal followers, and deny it to all others. Previously, without long-lasting foods, Africans found it harder to build states and harder still to project military power over large spaces. In the moist tropical forests of western and west-central Africa, where humidity worked against food hoarding, new and larger states emerged on the basis of corn agriculture in the 17th century. Some of them, including the Asante kingdom centred in modern-day Ghana, developed supply systems for feeding far-flung armies of conquest, using cornmeal, which canoes, porters, or soldiers could carry over great distances. Such logistical capacity helped Asante become an empire in the 18th century. To the east of Asante, expanding kingdoms such as Dahomey and Oyo also found corn useful in supplying armies on campaign.

The durability of corn also contributed to commercialization in Africa. Merchant parties, traveling by boat or on foot, could expand their scale of operations with food that stored and traveled well. The advantages of corn proved especially significant for the slave trade, which burgeoned dramatically after 1600. Slaves needed food on their long walks across the Sahara to North Africa or to the Atlantic coast en route to the Americas. Corn further eased the slave trade's logistical challenges by making it feasible to keep legions of slaves fed while they clustered in coastal barracoons before slavers shipped them across the Atlantic.

Cassava, or manioc, another American food crop introduced to Africa in the 16th century as part of the Columbian Exchange, had impacts that in some cases reinforced those of corn and in other cases countered them. Cassava, originally from Brazil, has much that recommended it to African farmers. Its soil nutrient requirements are modest, and it withstands drought and insects robustly. Like corn, it yields a flour that stores and travels well. It helped ambitious rulers project force and build states in Angola, Kongo, West Africa, and beyond. Farmers can harvest cassava (unlike corn) at any time after the plant matures. The food lies in the root, which can last for weeks or months in the soil. This characteristic of cassava suited farming populations targeted by slave raiders. It enabled them to vanish into the forest and abandon their crop for a while, returning when danger had passed. So while corn helped slave traders expand their business, cassava allowed peasant farmers to escape and survive slavers' raids.

The potato, domesticated in the Andes, made little difference in African history, although it does feature today in agriculture, especially in the Maghreb and South Africa. Farmers in various parts of East and South Asia adopted it, which improved agricultural returns in cool and mountainous districts. But its strongest impact came in northern Europe, where ecological conditions suited its requirements even at low elevations. From central Russia across to the British Isles, its adoption between 1700 and 1900 improved nutrition, checked famine, and led to a sustained spurt of demographic growth.

Potatoes store well in cold climates and contain excellent nutrition. In the Andes, where potato production and storage began, freeze-dried potatoes helped fuel the expansion of the Inca empire in the 15th century. A few centuries later potatoes fed the labouring legions of northern Europe's manufacturing cities and thereby indirectly contributed to European industrial empires. Both Catherine the Great in Russia and Frederick II (the Great) in Prussia encouraged potato cultivation, hoping it would boost the number of taxpayers and soldiers in their domains. Like cassava, potatoes suited populations that might need to flee marauding armies. Potatoes can be left in the ground for weeks, unlike northern European grains such as rye and barley, which will spoil if not harvested when ripe. Frequent warfare in northern Europe prior to 1815 encouraged the adoption of potatoes.

Over-reliance on potatoes led to some of the worst food crises in the modern history of Europe. In 1845-52 a potato blight caused by an airborne fungus swept across northern Europe with especially costly consequences in Ireland, western Scotland, and the Low Countries. A million starved, and two million emigrated-mostly Irish.

Eurasian and African crops had an equally profound influence on the history of the American hemisphere. Until the mid-19th century, "drug crops" such as sugar and coffee proved the most important plant introductions to the Americas. Together with tobacco and cotton, they formed the heart of a plantation complex that stretched from the Chesapeake to Brazil and accounted for the vast majority of the Atlantic slave trade.

Introduced staple food crops, such as wheat, rice, rye, and barley, also prospered in the Americas. Some of these grains-rye, for example-grew well in climates too cold for corn, so the new crops helped to expand the spatial footprint of farming in both North and South America. Rice, on the other hand, fit into the plantation complex: imported from both Asia and Africa, it was raised mainly by slave labour in places such as Suriname and South Carolina until slavery's abolition. By the late 19th century these food grains covered a wide swathe of the arable land in the Americas. Beyond grains, African crops introduced to the Americas included watermelon, yams, sorghum, millets, coffee, and okra. Eurasian contributions to American diets included bananas; oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruits; and grapes.

The Columbian Exchange, and the larger process of biological globalization of which it is part, has slowed but not ended. Shipping and air travel continue to redistribute species among the continents. Kudzu vine arrived in North America from Asia in the late 19th century and has spread widely in forested regions. The North American gray squirrel has found a new home in the British Isles. Zebra mussels have colonized North American waters since the 1980s. However, the consequences of recent biological exchanges for economic, political, and health history thus far pale next to those of the 16th through 18th century.

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Columbian Exchange | Diseases, Animals, & Plants

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Columbian Exchange, the largest part of a more general process of biological globalization that followed the transoceanic voyaging of the 15th and 16th centuries, particularly in the wake of Christopher Columbus's voyages that began in 1492. It profoundly shaped world history in the ensuing centuries.

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Economic exchange amongst three markets and geographies

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Colonies with a large agricultural base. Because of location they were key distribution centers in the English Mercantile System

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The Middle Colonies were a subset of the Thirteen Colonies in British America, located between the New England Colonies and the Southern Colonies. Along with the Chesapeake Colonies, this area now roughly makes up the Mid-Atlantic states.

Much of the area was part of New Netherland until the British exerted their control over the region. The British captured much of the area in their war with the Dutch around 1664, and the majority of the conquered land became the Province of New York. The Duke of York and the King of England would later grant others ownership of the land which would become the Province of New Jersey and the Province of Pennsylvania. The Delaware Colony later separated from Pennsylvania, which was founded by William Penn.

The Middle Colonies had much fertile soil, which allowed the area to become a major exporter of wheat and other grains. The lumber and shipbuilding industries were also successful in the Middle Colonies because of the abundant forests, and Pennsylvania was moderately successful in the textile and iron industries. The Middle Colonies were the most ethnically and religiously diverse British colonies in North America with settlers from England, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and German states. Farm land was both productive and much less expensive than in Europe. Later settlers included members of various Protestant denominations, which were protected in the Middle Colonies by written freedom of religion laws. This tolerance was very unusual and distinct from the situation in other British colonies.

The Middle Colonies were explored by Henry Hudson for the Dutch East India Company in 1609, sailing up the Hudson River to present-day Albany, New York, and along the Delaware Bay. The Dutch further explored and charted the area in multiple voyages between 1610 and 1616; the first Dutch settlements were built in 1613 and the name New Netherland appeared on maps from 1614 on. With Swedish funding, the third governor of New Netherland later founded the colony of New Sweden in the region around Delaware Bay in 1638. This area was reclaimed by the Dutch in 1655. In October 1664, as a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the English largely conquered this land from the Dutch. Though the war ended in a Dutch victory in 1667, the English retained New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English King's brother, the Duke of York, who had co-instigated the war for personal gain and had commanded the attack on New Netherland. In 1673, the Dutch retook the area but relinquished it under the Treaty of Westminster (1674), ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War the next year.

Province of New Jersey

King Charles II renamed the land west of the Hudson River New Jersey and gave the region between New England and Maryland to his brother, the Duke of York (later King James II of England) as a proprietary colony. James II later granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River to two friends who had been loyal to him through the English Civil War: Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton. This land grant became the Province of New Jersey.

In 1665, the Concession and Agreement was written in an effort to entice settlers to New Jersey. This document provided for religious freedom, no taxes without assembly approval, and a governor appointed by the proprietors. The first governor appointed in this way was Philip Carteret, who founded Elizabethtown. Colonists were required to pay annual quit-rent taxes. On March 18, 1674, after encountering difficulty collecting the taxes, Lord Berkeley sold his share in the colony to Edward Byllynge, a Quaker businessman from London. This sale divided New Jersey into East Jersey and West Jersey; however, the border between the two was not agreed upon until the Quintipartite Deed in 1676. From 1701 to 1765, colonists skirmished in the New York-New Jersey Line War over disputed colonial boundaries.

On April 15, 1702, Queen Anne united West and East Jersey into one Royal Colony, the Province of New Jersey. Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon became the royal colony's first governor. After Hyde was recalled to England in 1708 over charges of graft, bribery, and corruption, the governor of New York was charged to also preside over New Jersey. Finally, in 1738, King George II appointed a separate governor, Lewis Morris, to run New Jersey.

The Provincial Congress of New Jersey, made up of elected delegates, formed in January 1776 to govern the colony. The Congress had Royal Governor William Franklin arrested on June 15, declaring him "an enemy to the liberties of this country". On July 2, 1776, New Jersey enacted the New Jersey State Constitution, soon after having empowered delegates to the Continental Congress, on June 21, to join in a declaration of independence. The United States Declaration of Independence ended their colonial status.

Province of Pennsylvania

King Charles II granted the land for the Pennsylvania Colony to William Penn on March 4, 1681 as payment for a debt the crown owed his family. Penn wrote the Frame of Government of Pennsylvania before departing for the colony, which called for religious tolerance towards many groups, including the Religious Society of Friends and local natives. As a proprietary colony, Penn governed Pennsylvania, yet its citizens were still subject to the English crown and laws. Penn's cousin William Markham served as the first colonial deputy governor.

Demarcated by the 42nd parallel north and 39th parallel north, Pennsylvania was bordered by the Delaware River and the colonies of New York, Maryland, and New Jersey. In 1704, Dutch land given to Penn by the Duke of York was separated and once again became part of the Delaware Colony. From 1692 to 1694, revolution in England deprived Penn of the governance of his colony. The Pennsylvania Assembly took this opportunity to request expanded power for elected officials, led by David Lloyd. Upon visiting the colony in 1669 and 1701, Penn eventually agreed to allow their Charter of Privileges to be added to the constitution. When the British banned western expansion in 1764, fighting among colonists and against the natives swelled. In 1773, Arthur St. Clair ordered the arrest of a Virginian officer who was commanding troops against armed settlers loyal to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanian revolutionary sentiment continued to grow, and Philadelphia, the largest city in America, soon became the meeting place of the Continental Congress. The publication of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 by locally elected revolutionaries concluded the history of the Colony, and began the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Province of New York

The first Dutch settlements in the New York area appeared around 1613. The English captured the New Netherland Colony from the Dutch in 1664, renaming it the Province of New York after the King's brother, the Duke of York (later King James II). The Dutch recaptured the colony in July 1673 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, but gave it back to the English under the Treaty of Westminster in exchange for Suriname. The Duke of York never governed the colony himself: he instead appointed governors, councils, and other officers to run the government. Richard Nicolls served as the first governor of New York.

In 1665, the Province of New Jersey split from New York; however, the New York-New Jersey Line War continued until the final borders were decided in 1769, and approved by the legislatures and the King in 1772 and 1773 respectively. A Colonial Assembly convened in October 1683, making New York the last colony to have an assembly. A constitution was drafted and passed on October 30, 1683, giving the colonists many rights, including the rights to no taxation without representation. However, upon learning of the constitution, James II declared it void.

When the Duke of York became King James II of England, New York became a royal province. In May 1688 the province briefly became part of the Dominion of New England. When James II was overthrown, the citizens of New York rebelled against the Royal Governor in Leisler's Rebellion. When Henry Sloughter became governor in March 1691, the rebellion was crushed and its leader, Jacob Leisler was arrested, tried, and executed for treason. New York's charter and constitution were reinstated soon after. In April 1775, American patriots formed the New York Provincial Congress to replace the assembly. Governor William Tryon and all royal officials were forced from the colony on October 19, 1775. Colonial status ended for the new state with the United States Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

Delaware Colony

Delaware changed hands between the Dutch and Swedes between 1631 and 1655. The Dutch maintained control of Delaware until 1664, when Sir Robert Carr took New Amstel for the Duke of York, renaming it New Castle. A Deputy of the Duke governed Delaware from 1664 to 1682. When William Penn received his land grant of Pennsylvania in 1681, he received the Delaware area from the Duke of York, and dubbed them "The Three Lower Counties on the Delaware River". In 1701, after he had troubles governing the ethnically diverse Delaware territory, Penn agreed to allow them a separate colonial assembly.

The partly unglaciated Middle Colonies enjoyed fertile soil vastly different from the nearby New England Colonies, which contained more rocky soil. Because of the large grain exports resulting from this soil, the colonies came to be known as the Bread Basket Colonies. Pennsylvania became a leading exporter of wheat, corn, rye, hemp, and flax, making it the leading food producer in the colonies, and later states, between the years of 1725 and 1840. Broad navigable rivers of relaxed current like the Susquehanna River, the Delaware River, and the Hudson River attracted diverse business. Fur trappers moved along these rivers, and there was enough flow to enable milling with water wheel power.

Abundant forests attracted both the lumbering and shipbuilding industries to the Middle Colonies. These industries, along with the presence of deep river estuaries, led to the appearance of important ports like New York and Philadelphia. While the Middle Colonies had far more industry than the Southern Colonies, it still did not rival the industry of New England. In Pennsylvania, sawmills and gristmills were abundant, and the textile industry grew quickly. The colony also became a major producer of pig iron and its products, including the Pennsylvania long rifle and the Conestoga wagon. Other important industries included printing, publishing, and the related industry of papermaking.

The Middle Colonies' political groups began as small groups with narrowly focused goals. These coalitions eventually grew into diverse and large political organizations, evolving especially during the French and Indian War.

The Middle Colonies were generally run by Royal or Proprietary Governors and elected Colonial Assemblies. Many Middle Colony constitutions guaranteed freedom of religion and forbade taxation without representation. Royal governors were arrested or overthrown on more than one occasion, most notably when New Jersey arrested its governor and during Leisler's Rebellion in New York. Growing unrest in the Middle Colonies eventually led the region to become the meeting place for the Continental Congress, and a center for revolution. However, there were numerous pockets of neutrals and Loyalists.

Demographics

The Middle Colonies tended to mix aspects of the New England and Southern Colonies. Landholdings were generally farms of 40 to 160 acres (16-65 hectares), owned by the family that worked it. In New York's Hudson Valley, however, the Dutch patroons operated very large landed estates and rented land to tenant farmers.

Ethnically, the Middle Colonies were more diverse than the other British colonial regions in North America and tended to be more socially tolerant. For example, in New York, any foreigner professing Christianity was awarded citizenship, leading to a more diverse populace. As a consequence, early German settlements in the Americas concentrated in the Middle Colonies region. Indentured servitude was especially common in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York in the eighteenth century, though fewer worked in agriculture.

German immigrants favored the Middle Colonies. German immigration greatly increased around 1717, and many immigrants began coming from the Rhineland. They were erroneously labeled the Pennsylvania Dutch (the German word for German is "Deutsch"), and comprised one-third of the population by the time of the American Revolution. The industry and farming skills they brought with them helped solidify the Middle Colonies' prosperity. They were noted for tight-knit religious communities, mostly Lutheran but also including many smaller sects such as the Moravians, Mennonites and Amish

The Scotch-Irish began immigrating to the Middle Colonies in waves after 1717. They primarily pushed farther into the western frontier of the colonies, where they repeatedly confronted the Indians. Other groups included the French Huguenots, Welsh, Dutch, Swedes, Swiss, and Scots Highlanders.

English colonists

When the English took direct control of the Middle Colonies around 1664, many Quakers from Rhode Island had already been pushed into the region by Puritans, while Episcopalian businessmen settled in Philadelphia and New York City.

Welsh Quakers, Baptists and Methodists settled in the Welsh Tract of Pennsylvania. While some Welsh colonists like Roger Williams, left to found Rhode Island, Anne Hutchinson founded a seed settlement in New York. Rhode Island was not initially counted as part of New England, having been excluded from the New England Confederation, but later joined the Dominion of New England. Thus, the definition of the Middle Colonies sometimes changed and overlapped with Rhode Island's colonial boundaries. After joining the Dominion of New England, however, Rhode Island was permanently thought of as a New England colony. New York's initial possession of parts of Maine ensured a close relationship with other New England colonies like Vermont and a continuing New England influence in the colony.

Both William Penn and the Lords Baltimore encouraged Irish Protestant immigration, hoping they could obtain indentured servants to work on their estates and on colonial developments. Often areas of the Middle Colonies displayed prevalent Irish cultural influence.

Labor was always in short supply. The most common solution was indentured servitude of young whites. These were teenagers in Britain or Germany whose parents arranged for them to work for families in the colonies until age 21, in exchange for their ocean passage. The great majority became farmers or farm wives. By the mid-eighteenth century, African American slaves comprised 12% of the population of New York. Most were house servants in Manhattan, or farm workers on Dutch estates.

The Middle Colonies were the religiously diverse part of the British Empire, with a high degree of tolerance. The Penn family were Quakers, and the colony became a favorite destination for that group as well as German Lutherans, German Reformed and numerous small sects such as Mennonites, Amish and Moravian, not to mention Scotch Irish Presbyterians. The Dutch Reformed were strong in upstate New York and New Jersey, and Congregationalists were important in Long Island. The First Great Awakening invigorated religiosity and helped stimulate the growth of Congregational, Methodist and Baptist churches. Non-British colonists included Dutch Calvinist, Swedish Lutherans, Palatine Mennonites, and the Amish. There was a Jewish community already established in New York from 1654 (when it was still New Amsterdam), and Jews settled in what became Pennsylvania from 1655.

References

Bod, Wayne. "The Middle Colonies." in Louise A. Breen, ed., Converging Worlds: Communities and Cultures in Colonial America (2013): 219+.

Bodle, Wayne, "The Mid-Atlantic and the American Revolution," Pennsylvania History 82#2 (Summer 2015), 282-99.

Channing, Edward (1908). A History of the United States: vol. 2, A Century of Colonial History, 1660-1760. MacMillan.

Doyle, John Andrew. English Colonies in America: Volume IV The Middle Colonies (1907) online

Ebeling, Walter (1979). The Fruited Plain: The Story of American Agriculture. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-520-03751-9. breadbasket colonies inpublisher:Press.

Faragher, John Mack, ed. (1990) The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America. New York: Sachem Publishing Associates, Inc.

Greene, Jack P (1997). "Political Partisanship in the Middle American Colonies: 1700-1776". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Cambridge: MIT Press. 27 (4).

Illick, Joseph E. Colonial Pennsylvania: A History (1976)

Landsman, Ned. Crossroads of Empire: The Middle Colonies in British North America (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2010) 248 pages

Munroe, John A. Colonial Delaware: A History (2003)

Penn, William (February 2, 1683). "Frame of Government of Pennsylvania". Avalon Project.

"Pennsylvania State History: The Quaker Province: 1681-1776". Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Archived from the original on August 22, 2008.

Skemp, Sheila (1990). William Franklin: son of a patriot, servant of a king. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505745-7.

Slavery: Growth in Colonial America. Detroit: UXL of the Gale Group. 2003.

State of Delaware (A Brief History). State of Delaware. 2007-01-21.

Streissguth, Thomas (2001). New Jersey. Lucent Books.

Tanner, Edwin Platt (1908). The Province of New Jersey 1664-1738. New York City: Columbia University.

Tiedemann, Joseph S. "A Tumultuous People: The Rage for Liberty and the Ambiance of Violence in the Middle Colonies in the Years Preceding the American Revolution," Pennsylvania History Volume 77, Number 4, Autumn 2010, pp. 387-431 in Project MUSE

Tiedemann, Joseph S. "Interconnected Communities: The Middle Colonies on the Eve of the American Revolution," Pennsylvania History, 76 (Winter 2009), 1-41.

Westerkamp, Marilyn (1998). The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History. Houghton Mifflin.

Primary sources

Historiography

Bodle, Wayne. "Themes and Directions in Middles Colonies Historiography, 1980-1994", William and Mary Quarterly, July 1994, Vol. 51 Issue 3, pp. 355-88. JSTOR 2947435.

Bodle, Wayne. "The "Myth of the Middle Colonies" Reconsidered: The Process of Regionalization in Early America", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 113, No. 4 (Oct. 1989), pp. 527-548. JSTOR 20092405.

Greenberg, Douglas. "The Middle Colonies in Recent American Historiography", William and Mary Quarterly, July 1979, Vol. 36 Issue 3, pp. 396-427. JSTOR 1943383.

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The Middle Colonies were a subset of the Thirteen Colonies in British America, located between the New England Colonies and the Southern Colonies. Along with the Chesapeake Colonies, this area now roughly makes up the Mid-Atlantic states. Much of the area was part of New Netherland until the British exerted their control over the region.

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Religious reform movement in the 16th and 17th centuries that sought to “purify” the church of England.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Puritanism, a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that sought to "purify" the Church of England of remnants of the Roman Catholic "popery" that the Puritans claimed had been retained after the religious settlement reached early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Puritans became noted in the 17th century for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that informed their whole way of life, and they sought through church reform to make their lifestyle the pattern for the whole nation. Their efforts to transform the nation contributed both to civil war in England and to the founding of colonies in America as working models of the Puritan way of life.

Theology

Puritanism may be defined primarily by the intensity of the religious experience that it fostered. Puritans believed that it was necessary to be in a covenant relationship with God in order to be redeemed from one's sinful condition, that God had chosen to reveal salvation through preaching, and that the Holy Spirit was the energizing instrument of salvation. Calvinist theology and polity proved to be major influences in the formation of Puritan teachings. This naturally led to the rejection of much that was characteristic of Anglican ritual at the time, these being viewed as "popish idolatry." In its place the Puritans emphasized preaching that drew on images from scripture and from everyday experience. Still, because of the importance of preaching, the Puritans placed a premium on a learned ministry. The moral and religious earnestness that was characteristic of Puritans was combined with the doctrine of predestination inherited from Calvinism to produce a "covenant theology," a sense of themselves as the elect chosen by God to live godly lives both as individuals and as a community.

History of Puritanism

Origins and development in England

King Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, and the cause of Protestantism advanced rapidly under Edward VI (reigned 1547-53). During the reign of Queen Mary (1553-58), however, England returned to Roman Catholicism, and many Protestants were forced into exile. Many of the exiles found their way to Geneva, where John Calvin's church provided a working model of a disciplined church. Out of this experience also came the two most popular books of Elizabethan England-the Geneva Bible and John Foxe's Book of Martyrs-which provided justification to English Protestants to view England as an elect nation chosen by God to complete the work of the Reformation. Thus, Elizabeth's accession in 1558 was enthusiastically welcomed by these Protestants; but her early actions while reestablishing Protestantism disappointed those who sought extensive reform, and this faction was unable to achieve its objectives in the Convocation, the primary governing body of the church.

Many of these Puritans-as they came to be known during a controversy over vestments in the 1560s-sought parliamentary support for an effort to institute a presbyterian form of polity for the Church of England. Other Puritans, concerned with the long delay in reform, decided upon a "reformation without tarrying for any." These "Separatists" repudiated the state church and formed voluntary congregations based on a covenant with God and among themselves. Both groups, but especially the Separatists, were repressed by the establishment. Denied the opportunity to reform the established church, English Puritanism turned to preaching, pamphlets, and a variety of experiments in religious expression and in social behaviour and organization. Its successful growth also owed much to patrons among the nobility and in Parliament and its control of colleges and professorships at Oxford and Cambridge.

Puritan hopes were again raised when the Calvinist James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth as James I of England in 1603. But at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 he dismissed the Puritans' grievances with the phrase "no bishop, no king." Puritans remained under pressure. Some were deprived of their positions; others got by with minimal conformity; and still others, who could not accept compromise, fled England. The pressure for conformity increased under Charles I (1625-49) and his archbishop, William Laud. Nevertheless, the Puritan spirit continued to spread, and when civil war broke out between Parliament and Charles in the 1640s, Puritans seized the opportunity to urge Parliament and the nation to renew its covenant with God. Parliament called together a body of clergy to advise it on the government of the church, but this body-the Westminster Assembly-was so badly divided that it failed to achieve reform of church government and discipline. Meanwhile, the New Model Army, which had defeated the royalist forces, feared that the Assembly and Parliament would reach a compromise with King Charles that would destroy their gains for Puritanism, so it seized power and turned it over to its hero, Oliver Cromwell. The religious settlement under Cromwell's Commonwealth allowed for a limited pluralism that favoured the Puritans. A number of radical Puritan groups appeared, including the Levelers, the Diggers, the Fifth Monarchy Men, and the Quakers (the only one of lasting significance).

After Cromwell's death in 1658, conservative Puritans supported the restoration of King Charles II and a modified episcopal polity. However, they were outmaneuvered by those who reinstituted Laud's strict episcopal pattern. Thus, English Puritanism entered a period known as the Great Persecution. English Puritans made a final unsuccessful attempt to secure their ideal of a comprehensive church during the Glorious Revolution, but England's religious solution was defined in 1689 by the Toleration Act, which continued the established church as episcopal but also tolerated dissenting groups.

In the American colonies

The Puritan ideal of realizing the Holy Commonwealth by the establishment of a covenanted community was carried to the American colony of Virginia by Thomas Dale, but the greatest opportunity came in New England. The original pattern of church organization in the Massachusetts Bay colony was a "middle way" between presbyterianism and Separatism, yet in 1648 four New England Puritan colonies jointly adopted the Cambridge Platform, establishing a congregational form of church government.

The New England Puritans fashioned the civil commonwealth according to the framework of the church. Only the elect could vote and rule. When this raised problems for second-generation residents, they adopted the Half-Way Covenant, which permitted baptized, moral, and orthodox persons to share the privileges of church membership. Other variations of the Puritan experiment were established in Rhode Island by Roger Williams, who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony, and in Pennsylvania by the Quaker William Penn.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Melissa Petruzzello.

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Puritanism | Definition, History, Beliefs, & Facts

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Puritanism, a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that was known for the intensity of the religious experience that it fostered. Puritans' efforts contributed to both civil war in England and the founding of colonies in America. Learn more about Puritanism, its history, and beliefs.

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The government in Spain gave away large tracts of conquered land in Spanish America, including whole villages of indigenous peoples, to court favorites, including many conquistadores. These new landlords were supposed to educate the natives and teach them the Roman Catholic faith. The system was rife with abuse, however. Landlords rarely offered much education, preferring instead to exploit the labor of the local inhabitants, whom they treated like slaves.

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Life in Encomienda This 1522 illustration of the horrors of the encomienda system highlights the way women and children were particularly vulnerable to abuse by their Spanish overlords. Content Warning: This resource addresses sexual assault and physical violence.

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In an effort to entice English subjects to the colonies, parties would offer legal bonded contracts that would exchange the cost of passage across the Atlantic for up to seven years of labor in America.

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This picture, Industry and Idleness, shows 2 apprentices starting in identical circumstances, one is the industrious Francis Goodchild and the other is the unsuccessful Thomas Idlefrom.

The growth of tobacco, rice, and indigo and the plantation economy created a tremendous need for labor in Southern English America. Without the aid of modern machinery, human sweat and blood was necessary for the planting, cultivation, and harvesting of these cash crops. While slaves existed in the English colonies throughout the 1600s, indentured servitude was the method of choice employed by many planters before the 1680s. This system provided incentives for both the master and servant to increase the working population of the Chesapeake colonies.

Virginia and Maryland operated under what was known as the "headright system." The leaders of each colony knew that labor was essential for economic survival, so they provided incentives for planters to import workers. For each laborer brought across the Atlantic, the master was rewarded with 50 acres of land. This system was used by wealthy plantation aristocrats to increase their land holdings dramatically. In addition, of course, they received the services of the workers for the duration of the indenture.

This system seemed to benefit the servant as well. Each indentured servant would have their fare across the Atlantic paid in full by their master. A contract was written that stipulated the length of service - typically five years. The servant would be supplied room and board while working in the master's fields. Upon completion of the contract, the servant would receive "freedom dues," a pre-arranged termination bonus. This might include land, money, a gun, clothes or food. On the surface it seemed like a terrific way for the luckless English poor to make their way to prosperity in a new land. Beneath the surface, this was not often the case.

Only about 40 percent of indentured servants lived to complete the terms of their contracts. Female servants were often the subject of harassment from their masters. A woman who became pregnant while a servant often had years tacked on to the end of her service time. Early in the century, some servants were able to gain their own land as free men. But by 1660, much of the best land was claimed by the large land owners. The former servants were pushed westward, where the mountainous land was less arable and the threat from Indians constant. A class of angry, impoverished pioneer farmers began to emerge as the 1600s grew old. After Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, planters began to prefer permanent African slavery to the headright system that had previously enabled them to prosper.

The misery reaches the climax when a gale rages for 2 or 3 nights and days, so that every one believes that the ship will go to the bottom with all human beings on board. In such a visitation the people cry and pray most piteously. -Gottlieb Mittelberger, On the Misfortune of Indentured Servants, 1754
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Total ownership of one person over another.

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Colonies founded by the Puritans for religious purposes. Goal was to create a society as God intended.

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Colonies focused on cash crops.

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The Southern Colonies within British America consisted of the Province of Maryland, the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Carolina (in 1712 split into North and South Carolina) and the Province of Georgia. In 1763, the newly created colonies of East Florida and West Florida would be added to the Southern Colonies by Great Britain until 1783 when the Spanish Empire took back Florida. These colonies would become the historical core of what would become the Southern United States, or " Dixie".

The colonies developed prosperous economies based on the cultivation of cash crops, such as tobacco, indigo, and rice. A side effect of the cultivation of these crops was the presence of slavery in significantly higher proportions than in other parts of British America.

The Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1608, was an English and later British colony of North America. Because the original charter was unrealized and was ruled invalid, a new charter was issued to a group of eight English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors, on March 24, 1663. Led informally by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, the Province of Carolina was controlled from 1663 to 1729 by these lords and their heirs.

Shaftesbury and his secretary, the philosopher John Locke, devised an intricate plan to govern the many people arriving in the colony. The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina sought to ensure the colony's stability by allotting political status by a settler's wealth upon arrival - making a semi-manorial system with a Council of Nobles and a plan to have small landholders defer to these nobles. However, the settlers did not find it necessary to take orders from the Council.

By 1680, the colony had a large export industry of tobacco, lumber, and pitch

In 1691, dissent over the governance of the province led to the appointment of a deputy governor to administer the northern half of Carolina. After nearly a decade in which the British government sought to locate and buy out the proprietors, both Carolina's became royal colonies.

The British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12, 1733. The colony was administered by the Georgia Trustees under a charter issued by and named for King George II. The Trustees implemented an elaborate plan for the settlement of the colony, known as the Oglethorpe Plan, which envisioned an agrarian society of Yeoman farmers and prohibited slavery. In 1742 the colony was invaded by the Spanish during the War of Jenkins' Ear. In 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the Crown, and Georgia became a Crown colony, with a governor appointed by the king. The warm climate and swampy lands make it perfect for growing crops such as tobacco, rice, sugarcane, and indigo.

George Calvert received a charter from King Charles I to found the colony of Maryland in 1632. When George Calvert died, Cecilius Calvert, later known as Lord Baltimore, became the proprietor. Calvert came from a wealthy Catholic family and was the first individual (rather than a joint-stock company) to receive a grant from the Crown. He received a grant for a large tract of land north of the Potomac river and on either side of Chesapeake Bay. Calvert planned on creating a haven for English Roman Catholics, most of whom were well-to-do nobles such as himself who could not worship in public. He planned on creating an agrarian manorial society where each noble would have a large manor and tenants would work in the fields and on other tasks. However, with extremely cheap land prices, many Protestants moved to Maryland and bought land for themselves. They soon became a majority of the population, and in 1642 religious tension began to erupt. Calvert was forced to take control and pass the Maryland Toleration Act in 1649, making Maryland the second colony to have freedom of worship, after Rhode Island. However, the Act did little to help religious peace. In 1654, Protestants barred Catholics from voting, ousted a pro-tolerance Governor, and repealed the Toleration Act. Maryland stayed Protestant until Calvert again took control of the colony in 1658.

The Colony of Virginia (also known frequently as the Virginia Colony or the Province of Virginia, and occasionally as the Dominion and Colony of Virginia) was an English colony in North America which existed briefly during the 16th century, and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution (as a British colony after 1707). The name Virginia was first applied by Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I in 1584. was the first town created by the Virginia colony. After the English Civil War in the mid 17th century, the Virginia Colony was nicknamed "The Old Dominion" by King Charles II for its perceived loyalty to the English monarchy during the era of the Commonwealth of England.

While other colonies were being founded, Virginia continued to grow. Tobacco planters held the best land near the coast, so new settlers pushed inland. Sir William Berkeley, the colony's governor, sent explorers over the Blue Ridge Mountains to open up the back country of Virginia to settlement.

After independence from Great Britain in 1776 the Virginia Colony became the Commonwealth of Virginia, one of the original thirteen states of the United States, adopting as its official slogan "The Old Dominion". The states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, and portions of Ohio, were all later created from the territory encompassed earlier by the Colony of Virginia.

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The Southern Colonies within British America consisted of the Province of Maryland, the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Carolina (in 1712 split into North and South Carolina) and the Province of Georgia. In 1763, the newly created colonies of East Florida and West Florida would be added to the Southern Colonies by Great Britain until 1783 when the Spanish Empire took back Florida.

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A colonist who supported British rule

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Whig and Tory, members of two opposing political parties or factions in England, particularly during the 18th century. Originally "Whig" and "Tory" were terms of abuse introduced in 1679 during the heated struggle over the bill to exclude James, duke of York (afterward James II), from the succession. Whig-whatever its origin in Scottish Gaelic-was a term applied to horse thieves and, later, to Scottish Presbyterians; it connoted nonconformity and rebellion and was applied to those who claimed the power of excluding the heir from the throne. Tory was an Irish term suggesting a papist outlaw and was applied to those who supported the hereditary right of James despite his Roman Catholic faith.

The Glorious Revolution (1688-89) greatly modified the division in principle between the two parties, for it had been a joint achievement. Thereafter most Tories accepted something of the Whig doctrines of limited constitutional monarchy rather than divine-right absolutism. Under Queen Anne, the Tories represented the resistance, mainly by the country gentry, to religious toleration and foreign entanglements. Toryism became identified with Anglicanism and the squirearchy and Whiggism with the aristocratic, landowning families and the financial interests of the wealthy middle classes.

The death of Anne in 1714, the manner in which George I came to the throne as a nominee of the Whigs, and the flight (1715) of the Tory leader Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, to France conspired to destroy the political power of the Tories as a party.

For nearly 50 years thereafter, rule was by aristocratic groups and connections, regarding themselves as Whigs by sentiment and tradition. The die-hard Tories were discredited as Jacobites, seeking the restoration of the Stuart heirs to the throne, though about 100 country gentlemen, regarding themselves as Tories, remained members of the House of Commons throughout the years of the Whig hegemony. As individuals and at the level of local politics, administration, and influence, such "Tories" remained of considerable importance.

The reign of George III (1760-1820) brought a shift of meanings to the two words. No Whig Party as such existed at the time, only a series of aristocratic groups and family connections operating in Parliament through patronage and influence. Nor was there a Tory Party, only Tory sentiment, tradition, and temperament surviving among certain families and social groups. The so-called King's Friends, from whom George III preferred to draw his ministers (especially under Lord North [afterward 2nd earl of Guilford], 1770-82), came from both traditions and from neither. Real party alignments began to take shape only after 1784, when profound political issues that deeply stirred public opinion were arising, such as the controversy over the American Revolution.

After 1784 William Pitt the Younger emerged as the leader of a new Tory Party, which broadly represented the interests of the country gentry, the merchant classes, and official administerial groups. In opposition, a revived Whig Party, led by Charles James Fox, came to represent the interests of religious dissenters, industrialists, and others who sought electoral, parliamentary, and philanthropic reforms.

The French Revolution and the wars against France soon further complicated the division between parties. A large section of the more moderate Whigs deserted Fox and supported Pitt. After 1815 and a period of party confusion, there eventually emerged the conservatism of Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield, and the liberalism of Lord John Russell and William Ewart Gladstone, with the party labels of Conservative and Liberal assumed by each faction, respectively. Although the label Tory has continued to be used to designate the Conservative Party, Whig has ceased to have much political meaning.

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Whig and Tory | Definition, Difference, History, & Facts

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Whig and Tory, members of two opposing political parties or factions in England, particularly during the 18th century. Originally 'Whig' and 'Tory' were terms of abuse introduced in 1679 during the heated struggle over the bill to exclude James, duke of York (afterward James II), from the succession.

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A colonist who rebelled against British rule

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The Patriots

Patriots were members of the 13 British colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution.

Learning Objectives

Identify characteristics of patriotism during the American Revolution

Key Takeaways

Key Points

The British policy of salutary neglect, which unofficially condoned self-government of the colonies, fueled the movement for independence. During the Revolutionary War, Patriots sought to gain formal acknowledgment of this policy through independence.

The Patriot rebellion was based on the political philosophy of republicanism, which entailed a rejection of monarchy and aristocracy and an emphasis on civic virtue.

Early Patriots alienated some by resorting to violence against tax collectors and pressuring others to declare a position in the conflict. Though not all colonists supported violent rebellion, historians estimate that as many as 45 percent of colonists supported the Patriots' cause.

The Founding Fathers and architects of the Constitution were early Patriot leaders and included Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and George Washington.

Prior to 1775, many of these Patriots were active in the Sons of Liberty, an organization formed to protect the rights of the colonists from usurpation by the British government. They are best known for initiating the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

Key Terms

Founding Fathers: Political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, and establishing the United States Constitution.

salutary neglect: An undocumented, though long-lasting, British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, meant to keep the American colonies obedient to Great Britain.

Sons of Liberty: A political group made up of American Patriots; it originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies.

"Patriots," as they came to be known, were members of the 13 British colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution, supporting instead the U.S. Continental Congress. These Patriots rejected the lack of representation of colonists in the British Parliament and the imposition of British taxes.

Following the French and Indian War (1753-1763), the colonies gained much greater independence due to salutary neglect, which was the British policy of allowing the colonies to violate strict trade restrictions to encourage economic growth. During the Revolutionary War, Patriots sought to gain formal acknowledgment of this policy through independence. Confident that independence lay ahead, Patriots alienated many fellow colonists by resorting to violence against tax collectors and pressuring others to declare a position in this conflict.

Prominent early Patriots include Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and George Washington. These men were the architects of the early Republic and the Constitution of the United States, and are counted among the Founding Fathers. Prior to 1775, many of these Patriots were active in the Sons of Liberty, an organization formed to protect the rights of the colonists from usurpation by the British government. They are best known for initiating the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

The Patriot rebellion was based on the political philosophy of republicanism as expressed by the leading public figures of the time, including the Founding Fathers and Thomas Paine, author of the popular pro-revolutionary pamphlet "Common Sense." The philosophy of republicanism entailed a rejection of monarchy and aristocracy and emphasized civic virtue. Patriots were also known as American Whigs, Revolutionaries, Congress-Men, and Rebels. Though not all colonists supported violent rebellion, historians estimate that approximately 45 percent of the white population supported the Patriots' cause or identified as Patriots; 15-20 percent favored the British Crown; and the remainder of the population chose not to take a vocal position in the conflict. Ultimately, Americans remained Loyalists or joined the Patriot cause based on which side they thought would best promote their interests. Prominent merchants in port cities and men with business or family ties to the elite class in Great Britain tended to remain loyal to the Crown, whereas Patriots were comprised largely of yeoman farmers. Nonetheless, people of all socioeconomic statuses populated both sides of the conflict.

The Loyalists

During the American Revolutionary War, British Loyalists made up approximately 15-20 percent of the population of the 13 colonies.

Learning Objectives

Describe characteristics of Loyalism during the American Revolution

Key Takeaways

Key Points

There were several Loyalist strongholds in the 13 colonies, but Loyalist sentiment was never as strong as the British believed.

Following the expulsion of royal officials and openly sympathetic Loyalists, British supporters often refrained from voicing their views publicly.

Held by the British for much of the war, New York was a Loyalist stronghold and provided 15,000 troops to the British.

Throughout the war, the British relied on the misguided conviction that a highly activist Loyalist community could be mobilized.

Following the expulsion of royal officials, Loyalists supported the British in covert ways.

When the Loyalist cause was defeated, many Loyalists fled to Britain, Canada, Nova Scotia, and other parts of the British Empire.

The departure of royal officials, rich merchants, and landed gentry-coupled with the spreading values of republicanism-created a somewhat more egalitarian society in the early Republic.

Not all loyalists were part of the elite. Their numbers also included Ohio Valley farmers, recent non-Anglophone immigrants, African American slaves, and much of the Mohawk Nation.

Key Terms

Royalists: Supporters of monarchy or a supporter of a particular royal régime.

Loyalists: American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain (and the British monarchy) during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men.

Tories: Members and supporters of the British Conservative Party. Individuals who hold a conservative ideological perspective.

Loyalists, also known as Tories or Royalists, were American colonists who supported the British monarchy during the American Revolutionary War. During the war, British strategy relied heavily upon the misguided belief that the Loyalist community could be mobilized into Loyalist regiments. Expectations for support were never fully met. In all, about 50,000 Loyalists served as soldiers or militia in the British forces, 19,000 Loyalists were enrolled on a regular army status, and 15,000 Loyalist soldiers and militia came from the Loyalist stronghold of New York.

There was not unanimous support among members of the 13 colonies for the Patriot Siege of Boston (April 19, 1775-March 17, 1776). Widespread corruption among local authorities, many who later became Revolutionary leaders, alienated colonists from the Patriot cause. Colonists in New York, New Jersey, and parts of North and South Carolina were ambivalent about the revolution. Historians estimate that between 15 and 20 percent of European-American colonists supported the Crown; some historians estimate that as much as one third of the population was sympathetic to the British, if not vocally.

Americans either remained Loyalists or joined the Patriot cause based on which side they thought would best promote their interests. Prominent merchants in port cities and men with business or family ties to elites in Great Britain tended to favor the Loyalist cause. Nonetheless, people from all socioeconomic backgrounds could be found on both sides.

Loyalism was particularly strong in the Province of Quebec. Although some Canadians took up arms in support of the Patriots, the majority remained loyal to the King. Slaves also contributed to the Loyalist cause, swayed by the promise of freedom following the war. A total of 12,000 African Americans served with the British from 1775 to 1783. The Patriots mirrored this tactic by offering freedom to slaves serving in the Continental Army. Following the war, both sides often reneged on these promises of freedom.

By July 4, 1776, Patriots controlled most of the territory within the 13 colonies and had expelled all royal officials. Colonists who openly proclaimed their loyalty to the Crown were driven from their communities. Loyalists frequently went underground and covertly offered aid to the British. New York City and Long Island were the British military and political bases of operations in North America from 1776 to 1783 and maintained a large concentration of Loyalists, many of whom were refugees from other states.

In limited areas where the British had a strong military presence, Loyalists remained in power. For example, during early 1775 in the South Carolina backcountry, Loyalist recruitment outpaced that of the Patriots. Also, from 1779 to 1782, a Loyalist civilian government was re established in coastal Georgia.

When the Loyalist cause was defeated, however, many Loyalists fled to Britain, Canada, Nova Scotia, and other parts of the British Empire. The departure of royal officials, rich merchants, and landed gentry destroyed the hierarchical networks that thrived in the colonies. Key members of the elite families that owned and controlled much of the commerce and industry in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston left the United States, undermining the cohesion of the old upper class and transforming the social structure of the colonies. The Loyalist exodus also included Ohio Valley farmers who had relied on British military security against Pontiac 's armies. Recent non-Anglophone immigrants (especially Germans and Dutch), uncertain of their fate under the new regime, also fled. African American slaves and much of the Mohawk Nation joined the Loyalist migration north and northeast.

Slavery During the Revolution

African American slaves and freedmen fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War; many were promised their freedom in exchange for service.

Learning Objectives

Describe the various effects the Revolutionary War had on African American slaves

Key Takeaways

Key Points

African American units fought for the Continental Army after George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment.

African American slaves also fought alongside British troops after escaping their colonial masters.

Many African Americans who escaped or were promised freedom in exchange for service in the armed forces of either side were eventually returned to slavery at the war's end.

Key Terms

George Washington: One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, serving as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and later as the new republic's first president.

African Americans-slave and free-served on both sides during the Revolutionary War. Many African Americans viewed the American Revolution as an opportunity to fight for their own liberty and freedom from slavery. The British recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and promised freedom to those who served.

In fact, Lord Dunmore's Proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in United States history. Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who would fight for the British during the Revolutionary War. Hundreds of slaves escaped to join Dunmore and the British Army. Five hundred such former slaves from Virginia formed Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, which is most likely the first black regiment to ever serve for the British crown. African Americans also served extensively on British vessels and were considered more willing and able than their British counterparts on the deck.

Other revolutionary leaders, however, were hesitant to utilize African Americans in their armed forces due to a fear that armed slaves would rise against them. For instance, in May 1775, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety stopped the enlistment of slaves in colonial armies. The action was then adopted by the Continental Congress when it took over Patriot forces to form the Continental Army. George Washington issued an order to recruiters in July 1775, ordering them not to enroll "any deserter from the Ministerial army, nor any stroller, negro or vagabond." This order, however, was eventually reneged when manpower shortages forced the Continental Army to diversify their ranks.

George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776, in response to a need to fill manpower shortages in America's fledgling army and navy. Many African Americans, believing that the Patriot cause would one day result in an expansion of their own civil rights and even the abolition of slavery, had already joined militia regiments at the beginning of the war. Recruitment to the Continental Army following the lifted ban on black enlistment was equally positive, despite remaining concerns from officers, particularly in the South. Small all-black units were formed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and many slaves were promised freedom for serving. African Americans piloted vessels, handled ammunition, and even served as pilots in various state navies. Some African Americans were captured from the Royal Navy and used by Patriots on their vessels. Another all-black unit came from Haiti with French forces. At least 5,000 black soldiers fought for the Revolutionary cause. Many former slaves who were promised freedom in exchange for their service in the Continental Army, however, were eventually returned to slavery.

Tens of thousands of slaves escaped during the war and joined British lines; others simply escaped on their own to freedom without fighting. Many who escaped were later enslaved again. This greatly disrupted plantation production during and after the war. When they withdrew their forces from Savannah and Charleston, the British also evacuated 10,000 slaves, now freedmen. Altogether, the British were estimated to have evacuated nearly 20,000 freedmen (including families) with other Loyalists and their troops at the end of the war. More than 3,000 freedmen were resettled in Nova Scotia while others were transported to the West Indies of the Caribbean islands. Others traveled to Great Britain. Many African Americans who left with Loyalists for Jamaica or St. Augustine after the war never gained their freedom.

American Indians and the Revolution

American Indian tribes were divided over whether to support Great Britain or the Patriots during the American Revolution.

Learning Objectives

Discuss the role of American Indians in the Revolutionary War

Key Takeaways

Key Points

War damaged food supplies and atrocities were committed by both sides.

The first native community to sign a treaty with the new United States government was the Lenape.

The Iroquois Confederacy split its allegiance between the British and the Patriots.

In the Treaty of Paris (1783), the British ceded vast American Indian territories to the United States without informing or consulting with the American Indians. Tribes who fought with the British had their land confiscated.

The Northwest Indian War was led by American Indian tribes trying to repulse American settlers.

Key Terms

Northwest Indian War: Also known as Little Turtle's War, a war (1785-1795) between the United States and a confederation of numerous American Indian tribes for control of the Northwest Territory.

Iroquois Confederacy: Also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse," a league of several nations and tribes of indigenous people of North America.

Sullivan Expedition: Also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition, an American campaign led by Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton against Loyalists ("Tories") and the four nations of the Iroquois who had sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War.

During the American Revolution, the newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for the allegiance of American Indian nations east of the Mississippi River. Most American Indians who joined the struggle sided with the British, based both on their trading relationships and hopes that colonial defeat would result in a halt to further colonial expansion onto American Indian land. Other native communities were divided over which side to support in the war and others wanted to remain neutral. The first American Indian community to sign a treaty with the new United States government was the Lenape. For the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York, the American Revolution resulted in civil war. The only Iroquois tribes to ally with the colonials were the Oneida and Tuscarora.

Frontier warfare during the American Revolution was particularly brutal and numerous atrocities were committed by settlers and native tribes alike. Noncombatants suffered greatly during the war. Military expeditions on each side destroyed villages and food supplies to reduce the ability of people to fight, as in the frequent raids by both sides in the Mohawk Valley and western New York. The largest of these expeditions was the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, in which American colonial troops destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages to neutralize Iroquois raids in upstate New York. The expedition failed to have the desired effect, as American Indian activity became even more determined.

The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which they ceded vast American Indian territories to the United States without informing or consulting with the American Indians. The Northwest Indian War was led by American Indian tribes trying to repulse American colonists. The United States initially treated the American Indians, who had fought as allies with the British as a conquered people who had lost their lands. Although most members of the Iroquois tribes went to Canada with the Loyalists, others tried to stay in New York and western territories to maintain their lands. The state of New York made a separate treaty with Iroquois nations and put up for sale 5 million acres of land that had previously been their territories. The state established small reservations in western New York for the remnant peoples.

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Patriots were members of the 13 British colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. Identify characteristics of patriotism during the American Revolution Key Points The British policy of salutary neglect, which unofficially condoned self-government of the colonies, fueled the movement for independence.

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A proclamation from the British government which forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains, and which required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east

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The Proclamation of 1763, issued by the British crown at the end of the French and Indian War, set territorial limits on where European colonists could settle in America. Designed to appease Native Americans, who had occupied the land for millennia, it created a boundary-known as the "proclamation line"-beyond which Europeans could not encroach onto Indigenous lands. According to the Proclamation, British colonists could settle anywhere between the Atlantic coast and the Appalachian Mountains, while any land west of that belonged to Indian nations. In the centuries since the proclamation, it has become one of the cornerstones of Native American law in the United States and Canada.

What Did the Proclamation of 1763 Do?

After the conclusion of the French and Indian War in America, the British Empire began to tighten control over its rather autonomous colonies. In response to Pontiac's Rebellion, a revolt of Native Americans led by Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, King George III declared all lands west of the Appalachian Divide off-limits to colonial settlers.

This royal proclamation, issued on October 7, 1763, closed down colonial expansion westward beyond Appalachia. It was the first measure to affect all thirteen colonies. The edict forbade private citizens and colonial governments alike from buying land or making any agreements with natives; the empire would conduct all official relations. Furthermore, only licensed traders would be allowed to travel west or deal with Indians. Theoretically protecting colonists from Indian rampages, the measure was also intended to shield Native Americans from increasingly frequent attacks by white settlers. The proclamation also established three new mainland colonies: Quebec, West Florida and East Florida, while extending Georgia's southern border and granting land to soldiers who had fought in the Seven Year's War.

Did you know? In the United States, the Proclamation's legality ended with the American Revolution, but it remains part of aboriginal land claims made by Canada's First Nation, Metis and Inuit peoples.

How Did Colonists React to the Proclamation of 1763?

Although the proclamation was introduced as a temporary measure, its economic benefits for Britain prompted ministers to keep it until the eve of the Revolutionary War. A desire for good farmland caused many colonists to defy the proclamation; others merely resented the royal restrictions on trade and migration. Ultimately, the Proclamation of 1763 failed to stem the tide of westward expansion.

HISTORY Vault: The American Revolution

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Proclamation of 1763 - Definition, Facts & Significance

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The Proclamation of 1763, issued by the British crown, set territorial limits on where European colonists could settle in America. Its purpose: to appease Indigenous people, who had occupied the land for millennia.

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Plan proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 that aimed to unite the 13 colonies for trade, military, and other purposes; the plan was turned down by the colonies and the (British) Crown

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Supporters of the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution. They fear a tyrannical national government with too much power and strongly advocate for the Bill of Rights.

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Not all Americans liked the new U.S. Constitution offered to them in 1787. Some, particularly the Anti-Federalists, downright hated it.

The Anti-Federalists were a group of Americans who objected to the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and opposed final ratification of the U.S. Constitution as approved by the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Anti-Federalists generally preferred a government as formed in 1781 by the Articles of Confederation, which had granted the predominance of power to the state governments.

Led by Patrick Henry of Virginia - an influential colonial advocate for American independence from England - the Anti-Federalists feared, among other things, that the powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution could enable the President of the United States to function as a king, turning the government into a monarchy. This fear can to some degree be explained by the fact that in 1789, most of the world's governments were still monarchies and the function of a "president" was largely an unknown quantity.

Quick History of the Term 'Anti-Federalists'

Arising during the American Revolution, the term "federal" referred simply to any citizen who favored of the formation of a union of the 13 British-ruled American colonies and the government as formed under the Articles of Confederation.

After the Revolution, a group of citizens who specifically felt that the federal government under the Articles of Confederation should be made stronger labeled themselves the "Federalists."

The Articles of Confederation had created a confederation of states under which each state retained its "sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly delegated to the United States..."

Operating under the Articles of Confederation the new United States had prevailed in the American Revolution, securing its independence from Britain. However, several weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation that could threaten the continued independence of the new nation soon became apparent. Some of the most glaring of these weaknesses included:

Congress had no power to levy taxes.

Congress had no power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce.

There was no executive branch to enforce laws passed by Congress.

There was no national court system or judicial branch.

Under the Articles of Confederation, each state considered its own sovereignty and inherent powers to be essential to the overall common good of the nation. This belief resulted in frequent arguments between the states. In addition, the states were reluctant and often refused to contribute funds to the financial support of the national government.

When the Federalists attempted to amend the Articles of Confederation to give the central government greater power, they began to refer to those who opposed them as "Anti-Federalists."

What Drove the Anti-Federalists?

Closely akin to people who advocate the more modern political concept of " states' rights," many of the Anti-Federalists feared that the strong central government created by the Constitution would threaten the popular sovereignty and independence of the individual states, localities, or individual citizens.

Other Anti-Federalists saw the proposed new strong central government as another British Monarchy in disguise, which would soon come to threaten their individual rights and civil liberties. Yet others believed that while the national government under the Articles of Confederation was too weak, the national government under the Constitution would be too strong. They felt that the new Constitution created a centralized rather than federal government in which two levels of government exercise a range of control over the same geographic area. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison had admitted that the confederation of independent states as created by the Articles of Confederation represented a truly federal form of government.

The Impacts of the Anti-Federalists

As the individual states debated ratification of the Constitution, a wider national debate between the Federalists -who favored the Constitution-and the Anti-Federalists-who opposed it-raged in speeches and extensive collections of published articles.

Best known of these articles were the Federalist Papers, written variously by John Jay, James Madison and/or Alexander Hamilton, both explained and supported the new Constitution; and the Anti-Federalist Papers, published under several pseudonyms such as "Brutus" (Robert Yates), and "Federal Farmer" (Richard Henry Lee), opposed the Constitution.

At the height of the debate, famed revolutionary patriot Patrick Henry declared his opposition to the Constitution, thus becoming the figurehead of the Anti-Federalist faction.

The arguments of the Anti-Federalists had more impact in some states than in others. While the states of Delaware, Georgia, and New Jersey voted to ratify the Constitution almost immediately, North Carolina and Rhode Island refused to go along until it became obvious that final ratification was inevitable. In Rhode Island, opposition to the Constitution almost reached the point of violence when more than 1,000 armed Anti-Federalists marched on Providence.

Concerned that a strong federal government might reduce the peoples' individual freedoms, several states demanded the inclusion of a specific bill of rights in the Constitution. Massachusetts, for example, agreed to ratify the Constitution only on the condition that it would be amended with a bill of rights.

The states of New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York also made their ratification conditional pending the inclusion of a bill of rights in the Constitution.

As soon as the Constitution had been ratified in 1789, Congress submitted a list of 12 bill of rights amendments to the states for their ratification. The states quickly ratified 10 of the amendments; the ten known today as the Bill of Rights. One of the 2 amendments not ratified in 1789 eventually became the 27th Amendment ratified in 1992.

After final adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, Some former Anti-Federalists went on to join the Anti-Administration Party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in opposition to the banking and financial programs of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The Anti-Administration Party would soon become the Democratic-Republican Party, with Jefferson and Madison going on to be elected the third and fourth Presidents of the United States.

Thus, while the Anti-Federalists failed in their attempt to block the adoption of the Constitution, their efforts had not been totally in vain. By securing the integration of the Bill of Rights into the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists became recognized as an influential group among the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Summary of Differences Between Federalists and Anti-Federalists

In general, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagreed on the scope of the powers granted to the central U.S. government by the proposed Constitution.

Federalists tended to be businessmen, merchants, or wealthy plantation owners. They favored a strong central government that would have more control over the people than the individual state governments.

Anti-Federalists worked mainly as farmers. They wanted a weaker central government that would mainly assist the state governments by providing basic functions like defense, international diplomacy, and setting foreign policy.

There were other specific differences.

Federal Court System

Federalists wanted a strong federal court system with the U.S. Supreme Court having original jurisdiction over lawsuits between the states and suits between a state and a citizen of another state.

Anti-Federalists favored a more limited federal court system and believed that lawsuits involving state laws should be heard by the courts of the states involved, rather than the U.S. Supreme Court.

Federalists wanted the central government to have the power to levy and collect taxes directly from the people. They believed the power to tax was necessary to provide national defense and to repay debts to other nations.

Anti-Federalists opposed the power, fearing it could allow the central government to rule the people and the states by imposing unfair and repressive taxes, rather than through representative government.

Regulation of Commerce

Federalists wanted the central government to have sole power to create and implement U.S. commercial policy.

Anti-Federalists favored commercial policies and regulations designed based on the needs of the individual states. They worried that a strong central government might use unlimited power over commerce to unfairly benefit or punish individual states or to make one region of the nation subservient to another. Anti-Federalist George Mason argued that any commercial regulation laws passed by the U.S. Congress should require a three-fourth, supermajority vote in both the House and Senate. He subsequently refused to sign the Constitution, because it did not include the provision.

State Militias

Federalists wanted the central government to have the power to federalize the militias of the individual states when needed to protect the nation.

Anti-Federalists opposed the power, saying the states should have total control over their militias.

Legacy of the Anti-Federalists

Despite their best efforts, the Anti-Federalists failed to prevent the U.S. Constitution from being ratified in 1789. Unlike, for example, Federalist James Madison's Federalist No. 10, defending the Constitution's republican form of government, few of the essays of the Anti-Federalists papers are taught today in college curricula or cited in court rulings. However, the influence of the Anti-Federalists remains in the form of the United States Bill of Rights. Though influential Federalists, including Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 84, argued vigorously argued against its passage, the Anti-Federalists prevailed in the end. Today, the underlying beliefs of the Anti-Federalists can be seen in the strong mistrust of a strong centralized government expressed by many Americans.

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Who were the American Anti-Federalists of 1789 and why did they so vehemently oppose adoption of the new United States Constitution?

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The decision to have a bicameral legislature, one house based on population, and one house with an equal number of representatives for every state.

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Supporters of the new Constitution and a strong federal government. They fear a weak government. Generally very wealthy.

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Contents

1. History of The Federalist Party

2. Who Supported The Federalist Party?

3. Alexander Hamilton And The Bank of the United States

4. Decline of the Federalist Party

The Federalist Party originated in opposition to the Democratic-Republican Party in America during President George Washington's first administration. Known for their support of a strong national government, the Federalists emphasized commercial and diplomatic harmony with Britain following the signing of the 1794 Jay Treaty. The party split over negotiations with France during President John Adams's administration, though it remained a political force until its members passed into the Democratic and the Whig parties in the 1820s. Despite its dissolution, the party made a lasting impact by laying the foundations of a national economy, creating a national judicial system and formulating principles of foreign policy.

History of The Federalist Party

The Federalist Party was one of the first two political parties in the United States. It originated, as did its opposition, the Democratic-Republican Party, within the executive and congressional branches of government during George Washington's first administration (1789-1793), and it dominated the government until the defeat of President John Adams for reelection in 1800. Thereafter, the party unsuccessfully contested the presidency through 1816 and remained a political force in some states until the 1820s. Its members then passed into both the Democratic and the Whig parties.
READ MORE: 8 Founding Fathers and How They Helped Shape the Nation
Who Supported The Federalist Party?

Although Washington disdained factions and disclaimed party adherence, he is generally taken to have been, by policy and inclination, a Federalist, and thus its greatest figure. Influential public leaders who accepted the Federalist label included John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Rufus King, John Marshall, Timothy Pickering and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. All had agitated for a new and more effective constitution in 1787. Yet, because many members of the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had also championed the Constitution, the Federalist Party cannot be considered the lineal descendant of the pro-Constitution, or 'federalist,' grouping of the 1780s. Instead, like its opposition, the party emerged in the 1790s under new conditions and around new issues.

The party drew its early support from those who-for ideological and other reasons-wished to strengthen national instead of state power. Until its defeat in the presidential election of 1800, its style was elitist, and its leaders scorned democracy, widespread suffrage, and open elections. Its backing centered in the commercial Northeast, whose economy and public order had been threatened by the failings of the Confederation government before 1788. Although the party enjoyed considerable influence in Virginia, North Carolina and the area around Charleston, South Carolina, it failed to attract plantation owners and yeoman farmers in the South and West. Its inability to broaden its geographic and social appeal eventually did it in.

Alexander Hamilton And The Bank of the United States

Originally a coalition of like-minded men, the party became publicly well defined only in 1795. After Washington's inauguration in 1789, Congress and members of the president's cabinet debated proposals of Alexander Hamilton, first secretary of the treasury, that the national government assume the debts of the states, repay the national debt at par rather than at its depressed market value, and charter a national bank, the Bank of the United States. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Congressman James Madison rallied opposition to Hamilton's plan. Yet not until Congress debated the ratification and implementation of the Jay Treaty with Great Britain did two political parties clearly emerge, with the Federalists under Hamilton's leadership.

Federalist policies thenceforth emphasized commercial and diplomatic harmony with Britain, domestic order and stability and a strong national government under powerful executive and judicial branches. Washington's Farewell Address of 1796, prepared with Hamilton's assistance, can be read as a classic text of partisan Federalism as well as a great state paper.
READ MORE: Alexander Hamilton: Early America's Right-Hand Man
John Adams

John Adams, Washington's vice president, succeeded the first president as an avowed Federalist, thus becoming the first person to attain the chief magistracy under partisan colors. Inaugurated in 1797, Adams tried to maintain his predecessor's cabinet and policies. He engaged the nation in an undeclared naval war with France and after the Federalists gained control of both houses of Congress in the 1798 election, backed the infamous and Federalist-inspired Alien and Sedition Acts.

In addition to a widespread public outcry against those laws, which restricted freedom of speech, Adams met with mounting attacks, especially from the Hamiltonian faction of his own party, against his military priorities. When Adams, as much to deflect mounting Democratic-Republican opposition as to end a war, opened diplomatic negotiations with France in 1799 and reorganized the cabinet under his own control, the Hamiltonians broke with him. Although his actions strengthened the Federalist position in the presidential election of 1800, they were not enough to gain his reelection. His party irreparably split. Adams, on his way to retirement, was nevertheless able to conclude peace with France and to secure the appointment of moderate Federalist John Marshall as chief justice. Long after the Federalist Party was dead, Marshall enshrined its principles in constitutional law.

Decline of the Federalist Party

In the minority, Federalists at last accepted the necessity of creating a system of organized, disciplined state party organizations and adopting democratic electoral tactics. Because their greatest strength lay in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware, the Federalists also assumed the aspects of a sectional minority. Ignoring ideological consistency and a traditional commitment to strong national power, they opposed Jefferson's popular Louisiana Purchase of 1803 as too costly and threatening to northern influence in government. Largely as a result, the party continued to lose power at the national level. It carried only Connecticut, Delaware and part of Maryland against Jefferson in 1804.

That defeat, the party's increasing regional isolation and Hamilton's untimely death at the hands of Aaron Burr that same year threatened the party's very existence. Yet strong, widespread opposition to Jefferson's ill-conceived Embargo of 1807 revived it. In the 1808 presidential election against Madison, the Federalist candidate, Charles C. Pinckney, carried Delaware, parts of Maryland and North Carolina, and all of New England except Vermont. The declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812 brought New York, New Jersey, and more of Maryland into the Federalist fold, although these states were not enough to gain the party the presidency.

But Federalist obstruction of the war effort seriously undercut its newfound popularity, and the Hartford Convention of 1814 won for it, however unjustly, the stigma of secession and treason. The party under Rufus King carried only Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Delaware in the election of 1816.

Although it lingered on in these states, the party never regained its national following, and by the end of the War of 1812, it was dead. Its inability to accommodate early enough a rising, popular democratic spirit, often strongest in towns and cities, was its undoing. Its emphasis upon banking, commerce and national institutions, although fitting for the young nation, nevertheless made it unpopular among the majority of Americans who, as people of the soil, remained wary of state influence. Yet its contributions to the nation were extensive. Its principles gave form to the new government. Its leaders laid the foundations of a national economy, created and staffed a national judicial system and enunciated enduring principles of American foreign policy.

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History of The Federalist Party Who Supported The Federalist Party? Alexander Hamilton And The Bank of the United States Decline of the Federalist Party The Federalist Party originated in opposition to the Democratic-Republican Party in America during President George Washington's first administration.

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An eighteenth-century philosophical movement that began in Western Europe with roots in the Scientific Revolution

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Table of Contents

1. The Early Enlightenment: 1685-1730

2. The High Enlightenment: 1730-1780

3. The Late Enlightenment and Beyond: 1780-1815

European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the "long 18th century" (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change.

The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline. The Enlightenment ultimately gave way to 19th-century Romanticism.

The Early Enlightenment: 1685-1730

The Enlightenment's important 17th-century precursors included the Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, the Frenchman René Descartes and the key natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Its roots are usually traced to 1680s England, where in the span of three years Isaac Newton published his "Principia Mathematica" (1686) and John Locke his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1689)-two works that provided the scientific, mathematical and philosophical toolkit for the Enlightenment's major advances.

Did you know? In his essay 'What Is Enlightenment?' (1784), the German philosopher Immanuel Kant summed up the era's motto in the following terms: 'Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!'

Locke argued that human nature was mutable and that knowledge was gained through accumulated experience rather than by accessing some sort of outside truth. Newton's calculus and optical theories provided the powerful Enlightenment metaphors for precisely measured change and illumination.

There was no single, unified Enlightenment. Instead, it is possible to speak of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment and the English, German, Swiss or American Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers often had very different approaches. Locke differed from David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau from Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson from Frederick the Great. Their differences and disagreements, though, emerged out of the common Enlightenment themes of rational questioning and belief in progress through dialogue.

The High Enlightenment: 1730-1780

Centered on the dialogues and publications of the French "philosophes" (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Buffon and Denis Diderot), the High Enlightenment might best be summed up by one historian's summary of Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary": "a chaos of clear ideas." Foremost among these was the notion that everything in the universe could be rationally demystified and cataloged. The signature publication of the period was Diderot's "Encyclopédie" (1751-77), which brought together leading authors to produce an ambitious compilation of human knowledge.

It was an age of enlightened despots like Frederick the Great, who unified, rationalized and modernized Prussia in between brutal multi-year wars with Austria, and of enlightened would-be revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, whose "Declaration of Independence" (1776) framed the American Revolution in terms taken from of Locke's essays.

It was also a time of religious (and anti-religious) innovation, as Christians sought to reposition their faith along rational lines and deists and materialists argued that the universe seemed to determine its own course without God's intervention. Locke, along with French philosopher Pierre Bayle, began to champion the idea of the separation of Church and State. Secret societies-like the Freemasons, the Bavarian Illuminati and the Rosicrucians-flourished, offering European men (and a few women) new modes of fellowship, esoteric ritual and mutual assistance. Coffeehouses, newspapers and literary salons emerged as new venues for ideas to circulate.

The Late Enlightenment and Beyond: 1780-1815

The French Revolution of 1789 was the culmination of the High Enlightenment vision of throwing out the old authorities to remake society along rational lines, but it devolved into bloody terror that showed the limits of its own ideas and led, a decade later, to the rise of Napoleon. Still, its goal of egalitarianism attracted the admiration of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley) and inspired both the Haitian war of independence and the radical racial inclusivism of Paraguay's first post-independence government.

Enlightened rationality gave way to the wildness of Romanticism, but 19th-century Liberalism and Classicism-not to mention 20th-century Modernism -all owe a heavy debt to the thinkers of the Enlightenment.

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Enlightenment Period: Thinkers & Ideas | HISTORY

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Enlightenment was a movement of politics, philosophy, science and communications in Europe during the 19th century.

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Determined that each slave would be counted as three fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation.

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The Constitution's Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted three-fifths of a state's slave population for purposes of taxation and the apportionment of representatives and presidential electors, was repealed by the Reconstruction Amendments over 160 years ago. Yet it still stirs strong political passions that are unfortunately not matched by knowledge of its genesis, content, or effects.

A few weeks ago, Justin Lafferty, a member of the Tennessee House of Representative, stated that the three-fifths compromise was part of an abolitionist movement to end slavery. Other commentators have denounced the compromise, arguing instead that it was wrong because it denigrated slaves as three-fifths of a person. Both perspectives illustrate the distortions that inevitably occur when history becomes a casualty of our culture wars.

The three-fifths compromise reveals the intricacies of history and the care necessary when critiquing the actions of our forebears. Correctly understood, it reveals that historical events are themselves dependent on their own past and have unforeseen future consequences. And it also shows the importance of considering history counterfactually: there is indeed an argument that the three-fifths compromise ultimately helped end slavery, even if had nothing to do with the abolition movement, because the compromise was necessary to the creation of the union. History can ask normative questions, but only if it is not turned into a simple-minded morality play, where it is assumed that even the best of actors of the past acted only under our current constraints.
The Three-Fifths Clause and the Constitutional Baseline
The Clause provided:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole 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

Note that the text of the Clause is itself complex. On the one hand, it gave the southern states more representatives than if only free persons were counted, but it also made them liable for more direct taxes which are proportioned according to representation. These states must take the bitter as well as the sweet. Moreover, the Clause consciously avoids mentioning slavery. This omission increasingly annoyed southern states, which dared to celebrate the institution when they wrote the Confederate Constitution.

But most importantly, understanding its text on representation dispels a misconception. It would have been worse for the opponents of slavery if slaves had been counted fully in the enumeration. A full count would have yielded slave-holding states more members in Congress and more presidential electoral votes. The great evil at the time of the Constitution was slavery itself and the inextricably linked fact that slaves did not have the franchise. The three-fifths clause added to this wrong by giving the southern states more power than if slaves had not been counted at all, but the discounting the enslaved population reduced the power of these states compared to full counting.

The harder question is whether this perspective furnishes the right baseline. Did the three-fifths compromise replace a result that would have been worse for ending slavery? This question forces us to consider how such an unusual fraction of three-fifths came to be included in the Constitution.

The first time that three-fifths appears was in an attempt to amend the Articles of Confederation, which regulated the relations among the states before the Constitution. The states had trouble raising money and some representatives, including James Madison, tried to create more authority in the continental Congress to impose taxes. The three-fifths provision in that amendment formulated an apportionment among the states for taxes. Slaves were an important source of wealth and thus the view was that some portion of that productive power should be included in the proportion of taxable economic activity. The reason that slaves were not fully counted for the purpose of taxation provides a window into one of the many evils of slavery: Self-ownership is far more conductive to productivity than slavery. The amendment was defeated for other reasons, but the principle of including a discounted proportion remained available for future use.

The consequences of the compromise underscore a historical reality that should be emphasized in every history course: decisions have profound results that no one intended at the time.

At the Philadelphia Convention, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, one of the most important architects of the Constitution, proposed that the proportion be used as a basis of apportionment. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina seconded the motion. Thus, its genesis shows it was a compromise with an opponent of slavery joining a defender to propose it. Abolition was not a possible proposal if the Constitution were to be ratified. As William Ewald, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and biographer of Wilson puts it, "the Convention would have come to a rapid end if [Wilson] had pushed for abolition."

The Convention then defeated a proposal put forward by southern delegates to count the slaves fully for the purpose of apportionment. This motion reveals a kernel of truth in the Tennessee Representative's position: The three-fifths proposal prevailed over one that would have given more power to the southern states.
The Compromise and Its Consequences
Wilson knew better than we do what deals had to be done for the union to be founded. To think otherwise is to engage in a kind of condescension toward the past. The greatest statesmen of any era understand the constraints under which they operate. Sadly, there was no way the Constitution could both have abolished slavery and created a union of the thirteen states.

We can consider whether it would have been better, in principle, not to have created the union at all-not to have made these compromises-by looking at future history counterfactually in a way that the Founders could not do.

If the northern and southern states had not been able to forge a union because of a failure to compromise, the most likely alternative would have been two regional compacts that resembled the Constitution in giving stronger powers than those of the Articles of Confederation to a central government. As Akhil Amar has explained, there was a geopolitical necessity to such a strengthening of government. The states needed a more effective constitutive mechanism to defend themselves against foreign powers.

But sectional compacts would have entrenched slavery for much longer. The South would not have faced the abolitionist pressures from the North. And of course, they would not have seceded from the larger union, triggering the civil war that ended slavery. More subtly, the Constitution's creation of a commercial republic engendered a political climate that valorized free labor-an ideal that was in fundamental tension with slavery.

Another irony of the three-fifths clause is that it made possible Jefferson's election-the so-called Revolution of 1800. That consequence was widely understood at the time when the extra electoral votes that he gained as a result of the three-fifths clause were termed the "slave power," by those most opposed to slavery in the North. John Adams would have triumphed if the Southern states had not been able to count their enslaved populations, even at discounted rates.

While I am not by any means a partisan of Jefferson, the general view is that his victory in 1800 was one for democracy over elitism, for freedom (for those who were not slaves-and it should be noted that abolition was not yet part of the national political debate) over the tyrannical Alien and Sedition Acts. It probably also was essential to the Louisiana purchase that was the first step to the United States becoming a continental power, both because Jefferson was a more flexible negotiator than Adams and because as President, he was willing to put aside constitutional scruples over the federal authority to do so that his party would have strongly pressed had it been in opposition.

Thus, the unintended consequences of the three-fifths compromise democratized the nation's political culture and expanded its boundaries. This sequence of events underscores a historical reality that should be emphasized in every history course: decisions have profound results that no one intended at the time. Like the effect of the three-fifths compromise on slavery, it is more proof of Kant's dictum that "out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made."
The Danger of Critical Race Theory
Rep. Lafferty's remarks came in an attack on critical race theory. Supporters of that theory seized on his error to suggest that they showed why critical race theory is needed. But the incident shows nothing of the kind. First, his critics often got their understanding of the three-fifths compromise wrong, not recognizing that fully counting the slaves would have been worse for the cause of ending slavery. Second, while Lafferty was not correct in connecting the clause with abolitionism, the three-fifths compromise was likely one of the compromises needed to create the union, which likely ended slavery faster than the plausible alternatives. Critical race theory, which sees American history as a simple tale of racial subordination, would suppress such analysis. Third, even the three-fifths compromise is far more complex in its effects than can be captured through the prism of race. Critical race theory, like Marxist theories of history, is terribly reductionist. Party lines in history always lead to a flattening of a past's many dimensions.

Rejecting history as a species of agitprop does not mean we must suspend all moral judgments. Evaluating the historic events of our nation is necessary for the continuity of a community like ours, which depends upon a relation to a shared past. But these judgments also depend on an imaginative sympathy with our forebears and an ability to project ourselves into a world shaped by concepts and confusions not our own. If the history of America becomes a way to project our current polarities on the past, it will become a mirror of our present discontents and a source of disunion.

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What Did the Three-Fifths Clause Really Mean? - John O. McGinnis

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The three-fifths compromise reveals the intricacies of history and the care necessary when critiquing the actions of our forebears.

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Before the American constitution, this established the United States as a loose confederation of states under a weak national Congress, which was not granted the power to regulate commerce or collect taxes

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The Articles of Confederation served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established a weak central government that mostly, but not entirely, prevented the individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy.

The Articles of Confederation

The Albany Plan an earlier, pre-independence attempt at joining the colonies into a larger union, had failed in part because the individual colonies were concerned about losing power to another central insitution. As the American Revolution gained momentum, however, many political leaders saw the advantages of a centralized government that could coordinate the Revolutionary War. In June of 1775, the New York provincial Congress sent a plan of union to the Continental Congress, which, like the Albany Plan, continued to recognize the authority of the British Crown.

Some Continental Congress delegates had also informally discussed plans for a more permanent union than the Continental Congress, whose status was temporary. Benjamin Franklin had drawn up a plan for "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union." While some delegates, such as Thomas Jefferson, supported Franklin's proposal, many others were strongly opposed. Franklin introduced his plan before Congress on July 21, but stated that it should be viewed as a draft for when Congress was interested in reaching a more formal proposal. Congress tabled the plan.

Following the Declaration of Independence, the members of the Continental Congress realized it would be necessary to set up a national government. Congress began to discuss the form this government would take on July 22, disagreeing on a number of issues, including whether representation and voting would be proportional or state-by-state. The disagreements delayed final discussions of confederation until October of 1777. By then, the British capture of Philadelphia had made the issue more urgent. Delegates finally formulated the Articles of Confederation, in which they agreed to state-by-state voting and proportional state tax burdens based on land values, though they left the issue of state claims to western lands unresolved. Congress sent the Articles to the states for ratification at the end of November. Most delegates realized that the Articles were a flawed compromise, but believed that it was better than an absence of formal national government.

On December 16, 1777, Virginia was the first state to ratify. Other states ratified during the early months of 1778. When Congress reconvened in June of 1778, the delegates learned that Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey refused to ratify the Articles. The Articles required unanimous approval from the states. These smaller states wanted other states to relinquish their western land claims before they would ratify the Articles. New Jersey and Delaware eventually agreed to the conditions of the Articles, with New Jersey ratifying on Nov 20, 1778, and Delaware on Feb 1, 1779. This left Maryland as the last remaining holdout.

Irked by Maryland's recalcitrance, several other state governments passed resolutions endorsing the formation of a national government without the state of Maryland, but other politicians such as Congressman Thomas Burke of North Carolina persuaded their governments to refrain from doing so, arguing that without unanimous approval of the new Confederation, the new country would remain weak, divided, and open to future foreign intervention and manipulation.

Meanwhile, in 1780, British forces began to conduct raids on Maryland communities in the Chesapeake Bay. Alarmed, the state government wrote to the French minister Anne-César De la Luzerne asking for French naval assistance. Luzerne wrote back, urging the government of Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation. Marylanders were given further incentive to ratify when Virginia agreed to relinquish its western land claims, and so the Maryland legislature ratified the Articles of Confederation on March 1, 1781.

The Continental Congress voted on Jan 10, 1781, to establish a Department of Foreign Affairs; on Aug 10 of that year, it elected Robert R. Livingston as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The Secretary's duties involved corresponding with U.S. representatives abroad and with ministers of foreign powers. The Secretary was also charged with transmitting Congress' instructions to U.S. agents abroad and was authorized to attend sessions of Congress. A further Act of Feb 22, 1782, allowed the Secretary to ask and respond to questions during sessions of the Continental Congress.

The Articles created a sovereign, national government, and, as such, limited the rights of the states to conduct their own diplomacy and foreign policy. However, this proved difficult to enforce, as the national government could not prevent the state of Georgia from pursuing its own independent policy regarding Spanish Florida, attempting to occupy disputed territories and threatening war if Spanish officials did not work to curb Indian attacks or refrain from harboring escaped slaves. Nor could the Confederation government prevent the landing of convicts that the British Government continued to export to its former colonies. In addition, the Articles did not allow Congress sufficient authority to enforce provisions of the 1783 Treaty of Paris that allowed British creditors to sue debtors for pre-Revolutionary debts, an unpopular clause that many state governments chose to ignore. Consequently, British forces continued to occupy forts in the Great Lakes region. These problems, combined with the Confederation government's ineffectual response to Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts, convinced national leaders that a more powerful central government was necessary. This led to the Constitutional Convention that formulated the current Constitution of the United States.

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Milestones: 1776-1783 - Office of the Historian

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The Articles of Confederation served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established a weak central government that mostly, but not entirely, prevented the individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy.

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A period from the early 1600s to the mid 1700s where British Parliamentary Laws were not enforced on the colonists

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Salutary Neglect was a British policy in the 17th and 18th centuries that allowed its American colonies to flourish by loosely enforcing trade laws. This hands-off approach fostered an independent spirit and economic growth. But what happened when Britain changed its stance? Discover how this period set the stage for revolution and shaped a nation's destiny. What might we learn from this historical approach?

From 1607 to 1763, the unwritten British policy for governing the American colonies was referred to as salutary neglect. Under this policy, enforcement of parliamentary law was deliberately lax, with the stated objective of encouraging colonial prosperity. Colonists were, for the most part, left to look after their own affairs. The fact that the practice lasted for generations, along with the attempt to end this policy and reassert British authority in the 18th century, are identified as important factors leading to the American Revolution.

According to the laws of the day, trade between the American colonists and other nations was heavily restricted, and colonists were to trade exclusively with England, Scotland and Ireland. Salutary neglect allowed Great Britain to turn a blind eye to illegal trade activities with other countries, which were difficult and expensive to enforce. As stated by Sir Robert Walpole, viewed by most as Britain's first prime minister, "If no restrictions were placed on the colonies, they would flourish." Walpole also is credited with advising authorities to "let sleeping dogs lie."

Americans enjoyed personal and religious freedoms not shared by other British subjects. Maryland passed the Act Concerning Religion, or the Maryland Toleration Act, in 1649 to protect religious freedoms and promote tolerance. Similar legislation in Pennsylvania attracted settlers from the Quaker community.

Quaker colonists moved to Pennsylvania in order to practice religious freedom.

Under salutary neglect, colonists did not feel the influence of the British government and culture. These developments led to a growing sense of American identity, distinct from Britain. People in the colonies had become used to the idea of self-governance and began to think of themselves as British subjects in name only.

After these freedoms were granted, they proved difficult to take back. When the expenses of the Seven Years' War, also known as the French and Indian War, began to take their toll, Britain reasserted its control over the colonies. Supplies were seized, and men were drafted into the war effort. These policies eased in response to colonial resistance, but the Americans continued to resent the attempt.

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anon993247

To a small extent, however, American do have to take some responsibility for Britain's "greediness". Britain during the Seven Years War muscled in a lot of soldiers to help the colonists. It was the colonists who started the Seven Years War by moving onto French and Indian land. Britain saw the opportunity to clear France off the map. Along with providing a huge backing in the war, Britain accumulated some much debt that it had to find a way to pay the money back to its debtors. They looked to the colonies because they were prosperous and they were not as eager to help contribute to the war cause. In all truth, the taxes were not even that much. After The Proclamation of 1763, colonists were upset that the King would not let them move past the Appalachian Mountains, even though the king was trying to say "I can't let you go out there, I can't protect you". When the colonists were trying to move out, against their kings orders, he needed to send his troops over to stop them. They had no place to go and they needed shelter, becoming the Quartering Act.

Obviously this is not an in depth analysis, and doesn't talk about the abuse in the colonies. But this gives a second opinion to most.

TimeTheorist

@Perforations - I don't think a modern British super-empire could have happened, even if the British Empire didn't reinstate strict control of the colonies. The Revolutionary War as we know it probably wouldn't have happened. Eventually though, the ambitions of the United States (trading with more than three countries, for example) would have caused it to desire it's own government. If the lax policies of the 17th British Empire had remained in place, it would have only delayed an inevitable revolution.

Perforations

Although it is only possible to speculate on the subject, it's interesting to think that the United States could still be a colony if the British hadn't gotten greedy after the Seven Years War. Had Walpole's attitude persisted on through the generations of British government, the global superpower could have been Britain, with the United States under its control. Only by instating oppressive policies long after the founding of the colonies did the English transplants start to become dissatisfied with their government.

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Salutary neglect was an unwritten political policy for governing the American colonies from 1607 to 1763. The salutary neglect...

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Near the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army had not received pay for many years and threatened to abandon the fight, if they were not compensated

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After gaining independence from Great Britain, one of the many contentious issues facing the United States were competing claims to western lands. These lands were generally referred to as the Northwest Territory and included the current states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

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One of the biggest accomplishments of the Articles of Confederation. This established a system for setting up governments in the western territories so they could eventually join the Union

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The Northwest Ordinance (1787) | Constitution Center

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National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for The Northwest Ordinance (1787)

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Group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power

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Political parties in the United States - Wikipedia

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The United States Constitution is silent on the subject of political parties. The Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions.

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Manufacturing businesses first created in the late eighteenth century that concentrated all aspects of production under one roof, reorganized production and divided work. The key aspect was that it was under one roof and had specialized tasks. Made the production faster and more efficient.

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The British forcibly enlisted thousands of American men into the Royal Navy from passing ships, and refused to recognize that Americans had renounced their British citizenship

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British officers inspect a group of American sailors for impressment into the British navy, ca. 1810, in a drawing by Howard Pyle. The practice angered Americans and was one cause of the War of 1812. But American naval officers engaged in the same practice against British sailors.
Library of Congress

A primary cause of the 1812 war between Britain and the U.S. was the British practice of boarding American merchant ships in search of deserters from the Royal Navy. Americans claimed that the British were none too careful about who they removed from the boarded vessels, and that free sailors were impressed into British service along with deserters.

Britain's insistence on pressing sailors into naval service sprang in part from its wars against Napoleon. The number of seaman needed to crew British ships nearly tripled between 1793 and 1812, from 36,000 to 114,000. At the same time, the life of a Royal Navy sailor became steadily more brutal. Facing harsher discipline and more dangerous conditions, as many as 100,000 Royal Navy service members died during that twenty-year period.

Because voluntary enlistments could never satisfy the demand for sailors, the British resorted to the use of press gangs to forcibly place men into service. As many as half of all seamen manning the Royal Navy were impressed. About 10,000 Americans found themselves impressed into service during the Napoleonic Wars. The British argued that the sailors it impressed had escaped from their navy. When Americans protested against the seizures, British authorities justified their practice by arguing that being a British subject took precedence over claims of American citizenship.

In the months before the war, Americans interpreted the ongoing British practice of stopping American merchant vessels as implying that the United States was not an equal in international relations. Such an insinuation was vexing for Americans, as it seemed to discount their victory over Britain in the Revolution. The series of hostile exchanges on the high seas between Great Britain and its former recalcitrant colony led some to view the War of 1812 as a "second American Revolution."

In the end, three years of warfare did nothing to settle one of the main causes of the war. Britain refused to yield on impressment. In fact, the U.S. peace commissioners at Ghent never even raised the issue of impressment, nor was it mentioned in the final treaty itself.

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Impressment and the War of 1812 (U.S. National Park Service)

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A primary cause of the 1812 war between Britain and the U.S. was the British practice of boarding American merchant ships in search of deserters from the Royal Navy. Americans claimed that the British were none too careful about who they removed from the boarded vessels, and that free sailors were impressed into British service along with deserters.

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Landmark 1803 Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of Judicial Review, which grants the Supreme Court the power to declare laws unconstitutional

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Marbury v. Madison (1803) was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that established for the first time that federal courts had the power to overturn an act of Congress on the ground that it violated the U.S. Constitution.

John Adams Rushes to Fill Seat on Supreme Court

The odd chain of events that led to Marbury v. Madison began in January 1801, when President John Adams, who had been defeated in his reelection bid, had to fill the Chief Justice seat on the U.S. Supreme Court that was being vacated by the ailing Oliver Ellsworth. Adams initially asked New York Governor John Jay, who had served as the nation's first Chief Justice, to take the job again, but Jay turned him down. Adams then nominated his Secretary of State and close advisor, John Marshall, to fill the spot. Though the 45-year-old Marshall, a Revolutionary War veteran, had been a lawyer and a member of Congress before serving in Adams' administration, he had no experience as a judge. Nevertheless, just a week after his nomination, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed him for the top spot on the court.

Adams still had two months left in his term and needed help, so he asked Marshall to do both the Secretary of State and Chief Justice jobs at once. As Cliff Sloan and David McKean write in their book The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall and the Battle for the Supreme Court, that arrangement would present an impossible conflict of interest today. But in 1801, it might not have seemed such a big deal. Though the Constitution's framers had intended the Supreme Court to head a judicial branch that shared power equally with the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government, it wasn't clear now much power the top court actually had. In those days, the court didn't even have its own building; instead, it heard cases in a basement room in the U.S. Capitol.

Adams, meanwhile, rushed to fill as many other judicial positions as possible before his political enemy, Thomas Jefferson, took office. On the day before Adams' term ended, he nominated 42 men to serve as justices of the peace, a lowly position that resolved minor legal cases. After the Senate approved his choices the next day, Marshall was assigned to finalize the paperwork and deliver the commissions. It was a lot of work and he didn't get to four of them, including one belonging to a Virginia politician named William Marbury.

Jefferson Withholds Commissions, Marbury Petitions Court

When Jefferson took over the White House, he was irked by Adams' last-second attempt to pack the federal courts with political allies. He told his own Secretary of State, James Madison, to withhold the four undelivered commissions. Marbury sued to get his job. As Georgetown University legal scholar Susan Low Bloch writes, Marbury could have gone to the U.S. Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, where he might have had a better chance of winning, based on that court's previous rulings. But instead he went directly to the Supreme Court and petitioned for a writ of mandamus, ordering Madison to give them their commissions.

On February 10, 1803, the Supreme Court convened to hear the case. The Jefferson Administration was represented by Attorney General Levi Lincoln Sr., while Marbury's side was argued by his predecessor Charles Lee. The case hinged on three issues. First, did Marbury and the other appointees have a right to their commissions? Second, if they did have a right that had been violated, did federal law provide a remedy? Finally, was an order from the U.S. Supreme Court the right remedy to solve the problem?

Marshall, who presided over the case despite having played a role in the events, found himself in a difficult position. Marbury had a good case, but if the court found in his favor, it wasn't clear whether Jefferson would obey its decision or simply ignore it, which would have left the Supreme Court seriously weakened at a time when it was still carving out its authority. But if the court ruled in favor of the Jefferson Administration, it would look as if it had given in to political pressure.

The Marbury v. Madison Decision

The solution to the problem was an ingenious one. The court's decision, written by Marshall, found that Marbury's and the other appointees' rights had been violated by Jefferson when he blocked their commissions, which already had been confirmed and affixed with seals. Additionally, Marbury was entitled to sue and seek a legal remedy, and a federal judge could issue a writ ordering Jefferson to comply.

But on the third question, things got even more complicated. The Supreme Court's ability to hear Marbury's case directly was based upon a portion of the Judicial Act of 1789, which gave the court the power to issue writs directly to federal office holders, without a plaintiff having to go through a lower court. But as Marshall wrote, Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution already specified that the court had original jurisdiction in limited types of cases involving "ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party," and could only act as an appeals court in all others. Congress's enlargement of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, therefore, was unconstitutional.

"The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written," Marshall wrote.

As a result, Marshall concluded, "the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument."

Supreme Court's Authority Is Established

The decision in Marbury v. Madison immediately was recognized across the nation as momentous, to the point that many newspapers reprinted it in full, according to Sloan and McKean. Though the idea that the Supreme Court could overrule an act of Congress actually predated Marbury v. Madison- Alexander Hamilton argued that point in The Federalist Papers in 1788-the principle now was firmly established in law.

Just as important, the ruling established the power of the federal courts over other branches of government to interpret the nation's laws. "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is," Marshall wrote. "Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each." Today, thanks to Marbury v. Madison, the federal courts' authority is undisputed.

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Marbury v. Madison (1803) was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that established for the first time that federal courts had the power to overturn an act of Congress on the ground that it violated the U.S. Constitution. The odd chain of events that led to Marbury v.

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Human-made waterways connecting natural bodies of water, very important for early travel

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The Gowanus Canal was built in the mid-1800s and once served as a major commercial route to New York Harbor. A variety of industries that operated along its banks released contaminants into the canal. Sewer overflows also contribute to the pollution, which negatively impacts fishing and recreation for nearby residents. NOAA is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the City of New York to assess the damage and propose ways to mitigate it.

A canal is a manmade waterway that allows boats and ships to pass from one body of water to another. Canals are also used to transport water for irrigation and other human uses. While the advent of more efficient forms of transportation has reduced the need for canals, they still play a vital role as conduits for transportation and fostering global commerce.

There are two types of canals: waterways and aqueducts. Waterways are the navigable parts of a body of water, and can be located within a bay or open sea, can connect two or more waterbodies, or may even form networks within a city. Aqueducts are used exclusively to transport water for drinking, agriculture, and hydroelectric power.

The word "canal" derives from the Old French word chanel, which means "channel." The oldest known canals are aqueducts built in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. Since then, canals have played an important role in connecting cultures and facilitating commerce.

The Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was expanded in 2016 to accommodate modern large-scale cargo ships. NOAA played a role in ensuring that the shipment of goods through the larger canal would remain safe and efficient. NOAA's Navigation Response Teams assisted the Panama Canal Authority by participating in exercises to ensure that evacuation plans and safety precautions were operational in the event of an emergency. NOAA also installed its Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS®) system at PortMiami, allowing super-sized ships that pass through the Panama Canal to safely and efficiently enter the busy U.S. seaport.

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Venice and Amsterdam are Europe's most famous canal cities, but did you know that the U.S. has a few of its own? More than just a popular spring break destination, Fort Lauderdale, Florida is also called the "Venice of America." And the aptly named Venice Beach, California, boasts its own historic canal district.

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national oceanic and atmospheric administration

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A canal is a manmade waterway that allows boats and ships to pass from one body of water to another. Canals are also used to transport water for irrigation and other human uses. While the advent of more efficient forms of transportation has reduced the need for canals, they still play a vital role as conduits for transportation and fostering global commerce.

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Uniform pieces that can be made in large quantities to replace other identical pieces

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Movement dedicated to promoting moderation and, more often, complete abstinence in the use of alcohol

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Temperance movement | Definition, Leaders, Facts, & Significance

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Temperance movement, movement dedicated to promoting moderation and, more often, complete abstinence in the use of intoxicating liquor. The earliest temperance organizations seem to have been those founded at Saratoga, New York, in 1808 and in Massachusetts in 1813.

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Warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere

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Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian

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Campaign to end slavery

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Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons

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Edited by activist and former San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Abolition for the People is a manifesto calling for a world beyond prisons and policing. Abolition for the People brings together thirty essays representing a diversity of voices-political prisoners, grassroots organizers, scholars, and relatives of those killed by the anti-Black terrorism of policing and prisons.

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Machine invented by Samuel Morse that used a system of dots and dashes to send messages across long distances electronically through a wire. It connected the different hemispheres of the world, allowing for more communication between people.

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telegraph, any device or system that allows the transmission of information by coded signal over distance. Many telegraphic systems have been used over the centuries, but the term is most often understood to refer to the electric telegraph, which was developed in the mid-19th century and for more than 100 years was the principal means of transmitting printed information by wire or radio wave.

Preelectric telegraph systems

The word telegraph is derived from the Greek words tele, meaning "distant," and graphein, meaning "to write." It came into use toward the end of the 18th century to describe an optical semaphore system developed in France. However, many types of telegraphic communication have been employed since before recorded history. The earliest methods of communication at a distance made use of such media as smoke, fire, drums, and reflected rays of the Sun. Visual signals given by flags and torches were used for short-range communication and continued to be utilized well into the 20th century, when the two-flag semaphore system was widely used, particularly by the world's navies.

Before the development of the electric telegraph, visual systems were used to convey messages over distances by means of variable displays. One of the most successful of the visual telegraphs was the semaphore developed in France by the Chappe brothers, Claude and Ignace, in 1791. This system consisted of pairs of movable arms mounted at the ends of a crossbeam on hilltop towers. Each arm of the semaphore could assume seven angular positions 45° apart, and the horizontal beam could tilt 45° clockwise or counterclockwise. In this manner it was possible to represent numbers and the letters of the alphabet. Chains of these towers were built to permit transmission over long distances. The towers were spaced at intervals of 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles), and a signaling rate of three symbols per minute could be achieved.

Another widely used visual telegraph was developed in 1795 by George Murray in England. In Murray's device, characters were sent by opening and closing various combinations of six shutters. This system rapidly caught on in England and in the United States, where a number of sites bearing the name Telegraph Hill or Signal Hill can still be found, particularly in coastal regions. Visual telegraphs were completely replaced by the electric telegraph by the middle of the 19th century.

The beginning of electric telegraphy

The electric telegraph did not burst suddenly upon the scene but rather resulted from a scientific evolution that had been taking place since the 18th century in the field of electricity. One of the key developments was the invention of the voltaic cell in 1800 by Alessandro Volta of Italy. This made it possible to power electric devices in a more effective manner using relatively low voltages and high currents. Previous methods of producing electricity employed frictional generation of static electricity, which led to high voltages and low currents. Many devices incorporating high-voltage static electricity and various detectors such as pith balls and sparks were proposed for use in telegraphic systems. All were unsuccessful, however, because the severe losses in the transmission wires, particularly in bad weather, limited reliable operation to relatively short distances. Application of the battery to telegraphy was made possible by several further developments in the new science of electromagnetism. In 1820 Hans Christian Ørsted of Denmark discovered that a magnetic needle could be deflected by a wire carrying an electric current. In 1825 in Britain William Sturgeon discovered the multiturn electromagnet, and in 1831 Michael Faraday of Britain and Joseph Henry of the United States refined the science of electromagnetism sufficiently to make it possible to design practical electromagnetic devices.

The first two practical electric telegraphs appeared at almost the same time. In 1837 the British inventors Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone obtained a patent on a telegraph system that employed six wires and actuated five needle pointers attached to five galvanoscopes at the receiver. If currents were sent through the proper wires, the needles could be made to point to specific letters and numbers on their mounting plate.

In 1832 Samuel F.B. Morse, a professor of painting and sculpture at the University of the City of New York (later New York University), became interested in the possibility of electric telegraphy and made sketches of ideas for such a system. In 1835 he devised a system of dots and dashes to represent letters and numbers. In 1837 he was granted a patent on an electromagnetic telegraph. Morse's original transmitter incorporated a device called a portarule, which employed molded type with built-in dots and dashes. The type could be moved through a mechanism in such a manner that the dots and dashes would make and break the contact between the battery and the wire to the receiver. The receiver, or register, embossed the dots and dashes on an unwinding strip of paper that passed under a stylus. The stylus was actuated by an electromagnet turned on and off by the signals from the transmitter.

Morse had formed a partnership with Alfred Vail, who was a clever mechanic and is credited with many contributions to the Morse system. Among them are the replacement of the portarule transmitter by a simple make-and-break key, the refinement of the Morse Code so that the shortest code sequences were assigned to the most frequently occurring letters, and the improvement of the mechanical design of all the system components. The first demonstration of the system by Morse was conducted for his friends at his workplace in 1837. In 1843 Morse obtained financial support from the U.S. government to build a demonstration telegraph system 60 km (35 miles) long between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md. Wires were attached by glass insulators to poles alongside a railroad. The system was completed and public use initiated on May 24, 1844, with transmission of the message, "What hath God wrought!" This inaugurated the telegraph era in the United States, which was to last more than 100 years.

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Telegraph, any device or system that allows the transmission of information by coded signal over distance. The term most often refers to the electric telegraph, which was developed in the mid-19th century and for more than 100 years was the principal means of transmitting printed information.

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The fight for the suffrage (voting) for half of the population

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Opposed Jackson's strong-armed leadership style and policies, but promoted protective tariffs, federal funding for internal improvements, and other measures that strengthened the central government.

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The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories.

The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute monarchy, supporting a parliamentary system. The Whigs played a central role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and were the standing enemies of the Stuart kings and pretenders, who were Roman Catholic. The Whigs took full control of the government in 1715 and remained totally dominant until King George III, coming to the throne in 1760, allowed Tories back in. The Whig supremacy (1715-1760) was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 and the failed Jacobite rising of 1715 by Tory rebels. The Whigs thoroughly purged the Tories from all major positions in government, the army, the Church, the legal profession and local offices. The party's hold on power was so strong and durable that historians call the period from roughly 1714 to 1783 the age of the Whig oligarchy. The first great leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government (1721-1742) and whose protégé Henry Pelham led (1743-1754).

While the Whigs and Tories parties began as loose groupings or tendencies, both became quite formal by 1784 with the ascension of Charles James Fox as the leader of a reconstituted Whig party, arrayed against the governing party of the new Tories under William Pitt the Younger. Both parties were founded on rich politicians more than on popular votes. Although there were elections to the House of Commons, only a few men controlled most of the voters. The Whig party slowly evolved during the 18th century. Its tendency supported the aristocratic families, generally the continued disenfranchisement of Catholics and toleration of nonconformist Protestants (the dissenters such as the Presbyterians) while the Tories favoured the relative smallholders (whether narrowly) or minor gentry with High Tories preferring high church elements or even the exiled Stuarts' claim to the throne ( Jacobitism) and virtually all maintained the legitimacy of a strongly established Church of England. Later, the Whigs drew support from the emerging industrial reformists and mercantile class while the Tories drew support from farmers, landowners, imperial military spending and relatedly royalists.

The term Whig was originally short for , a term meaning "cattle driver" used to describe western Scots who came to Leith for corn. In the reign of Charles I the term was used during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms to refer derisively to a radical faction of the Scottish Covenanters who called themselves the Kirk Party (see the Whiggamore Raid). It was then applied to Scottish Presbyterian rebels who were against the King's Episcopalian order in Scotland.

The term Whig entered English political discourse during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678-1681 when there was controversy about whether or not King Charles II's brother, James, should be allowed to succeed to the throne on Charles's death. Whig was a term of abuse applied to those who wanted to exclude James on the grounds that he was a Roman Catholic. The fervent Tory Samuel Johnson often joked that "the first Whig was the Devil".

In his six-volume history of England, David Hume wrote:

The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of Whigs: The country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the appellation of Tory was affixed. And after this manner, these foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use; and even at present seem not nearer their end than when they were first invented.

Under Lord Shaftesbury's leadership, the Whigs in the Parliament of England wished to exclude the Duke of York (who later became King James II) from the throne due to his Roman Catholicism, his favouring of monarchical absolutism, and his connections to France. They believed the heir presumptive, if allowed to inherit the throne, would endanger the Protestant religion, liberty and property.

The first Exclusion Bill was supported by a substantial majority on its second reading in May 1679. In response, King Charles prorogued Parliament and then dissolved it, but the subsequent elections in August and September saw the Whigs' strength increase. This new parliament did not meet for thirteen months, because Charles wanted to give passions a chance to die down. When it met in October 1680, an Exclusion Bill was introduced and passed in the Commons without major resistance, but was rejected in the Lords. Charles dissolved Parliament in January 1681, but the Whigs did not suffer serious losses in the ensuing election. The next Parliament first met in March at Oxford, but Charles dissolved it after only a few days, when he made an appeal to the country against the Whigs and determined to rule without Parliament. In February, Charles had made a deal with the French King Louis XIV, who promised to support him against the Whigs. Without Parliament, the Whigs gradually crumbled, mainly due to government repression following the discovery of the Rye House Plot. The Whig peers, the Earl of Melville, the Earl of Leven, and Lord Shaftesbury, and Charles II's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, being implicated, fled to and regrouped in the United Provinces. Algernon Sidney, Sir Thomas Armstrong and William Russell, Lord Russell, were executed for treason. The Earl of Essex committed suicide in the Tower of London over his arrest for treason, whilst Lord Grey of Werke escaped from the Tower.

After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Queen Mary II and King William III governed with both Whigs and Tories, despite the fact that many of the Tories still supported the deposed Roman Catholic James II.[citation needed ] William saw that the Tories were generally friendlier to royal authority than the Whigs and he employed both groups in his government. His early ministry was largely Tory, but gradually the government came to be dominated by the so-called Junto Whigs, a group of younger Whig politicians who led a tightly organised political grouping. The increasing dominance of the Junto led to a split among the Whigs, with the so-called Country Whigs seeing the Junto as betraying their principles for office. The Country Whigs, led by Robert Harley, gradually merged with the Tory opposition in the later 1690s.

Although William's successor Anne had considerable Tory sympathies and excluded the Junto Whigs from power, after a brief and unsuccessful experiment with an exclusively Tory government she generally continued William's policy of balancing the parties, supported by her moderate Tory ministers, the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin. However, as the War of the Spanish Succession went on and became less and less popular with the Tories, Marlborough and Godolphin were forced to rely more and more on the Junto Whigs, so that by 1708 they headed an administration of the Parliament of Great Britain dominated by the Junto. Anne herself grew increasingly uncomfortable with this dependence on the Whigs, especially as her personal relationship with the Duchess of Marlborough deteriorated. This situation also became increasingly uncomfortable to many of the non-Junto Whigs, led by the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Shrewsbury, who began to intrigue with Robert Harley's Tories. In the spring of 1710, Anne dismissed Godolphin and the Junto ministers, replacing them with Tories.

The Whigs primarily advocated the supremacy of Parliament, while calling for the toleration for Protestant dissenters. They adamantly opposed a Catholic as king. They opposed the Catholic Church because they saw it as a threat to liberty, or as the elder Pitt stated: "The errors of Rome are rank idolatry, a subversion of all civil as well as religious liberty, and the utter disgrace of reason and of human nature".

Ashcraft and Goldsmith (1983) have traced in detail in the period 1689 to 1710 the major influence of the liberal political ideas of John Locke on Whig political values, as expressed in widely cited manifestos such as "Political Aphorisms: or, the True Maxims of Government Displayed", an anonymous pamphlet that appeared in 1690 and was widely cited by Whigs. The 18th-century Whigs borrowed the concepts and language of universal rights employed by political theorists Locke and Algernon Sidney (1622-1682). By the 1770s the ideas of Adam Smith, a founder of classical liberalism became important. As Wilson and Reill (2004) note: "Adam Smith's theory melded nicely with the liberal political stance of the Whig Party and its middle-class constituents".

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a leading London intellectual, repeatedly denigrated the "vile" Whigs and praised the Tories, even during the times of Whig political supremacy. In his great Dictionary (1755), Johnson defined a Tory as "one who adheres to the ancient Constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England, opposed to a Whig". He linked 18th-century Whiggism with 17th-century revolutionary Puritanism, arguing that the Whigs of his day were similarly inimical to the established order of church and state. Johnson recommended that strict uniformity in religious externals was the best antidote to the objectionable religious traits that he linked to Whiggism.

At their inception, the Whigs were protectionist in economic policy, with free trade policies being advocated by Tories. The Whigs were opposed to the pro-French policies of the Stuart kings Charles II and James II as they believed that such an alliance with the Catholic absolute monarchy of France endangered liberty and Protestantism. The Whigs claimed that trade with France was bad for England and developed an economic theory of overbalance, that is a deficit of trade with France was bad because it would enrich France at England's expense.

In 1678, the Whigs passed the Prohibition of 1678 that banned certain French goods from being imported into England. The economic historian William Ashley claimed that this Act witnessed the "real starting-point in the history of Whig policy in the matter of trade". It was repealed upon the accession of James II by a Tory-dominated House of Commons but upon the accession of William III in 1688 a new Act was passed that prohibited the importation of French goods. In 1704, the Whigs passed the Trade with France Act that renewed protectionism against France. In 1710, Queen Anne appointed the predominantly Tory Harley Ministry, which favoured free trade. When the Tory minister Lord Bolingbroke proposed a commercial treaty with France in 1713 that would have led to freer trade, the Whigs were vehemently against it and it had to be abandoned.

In 1786, Pitt's government negotiated the Eden Agreement, a commercial treaty with France which led to freer trade between the two countries. All of the Whig leaders attacked this on traditional Whig anti-French and protectionist grounds. Fox claimed that France was England's natural enemy and that it was only at Britain's expense that she could grow. Edmund Burke, Richard Sheridan, William Windham and Charles Grey all spoke out against the trade agreement on the same grounds.

Ashley claimed that "[t]he traditional policy of the Whig party from before the Revolution [of 1688] down to the time of Fox was an extreme form of Protectionism". The Whigs' protectionism of this period is today increasingly cited with approval by heterodox economists such as Ha-Joon Chang, who wish to challenge contemporary prevailing free trade orthodoxies via precedents from the past.

Later on, they came to oppose the protectionism of the Corn Laws.

With the succession of Elector George Louis of Hanover as king in 1714, the Whigs returned to government with the support of some Hanoverian Tories. The Jacobite rising of 1715 discredited much of the Tory party as treasonous Jacobites, and the Septennial Act ensured that the Whigs became the dominant party. Between 1714 and 1760, the Tories died out as an active political force, but always retained a considerable presence in the House of Commons. The governments of Robert Walpole, Henry Pelham and his older brother the Duke of Newcastle dominated between 1721 and 1757 (with a brief break during the also-Whig Carteret ministry). The leading entities in these governments consistently referred to themselves as "Whigs".

George III's accession

This arrangement changed during the reign of George III, who hoped to restore his own power by freeing himself from the great Whig magnates. Thus George promoted his old tutor Lord Bute to power and broke with the old Whig leadership surrounding the Duke of Newcastle. After a decade of factional chaos, with distinct Bedfordite, Chathamite, Grenvillite and Rockinghamite and factions successively in power and all referring to themselves as "Whigs", a new system emerged with two separate opposition groups. The Rockingham Whigs claimed the mantle of Old Whigs as the purported successors of the party of the Pelhams and the great Whig families. With such noted intellectuals as Edmund Burke behind them, the Rockingham Whigs laid out a philosophy which for the first time extolled the virtues of faction, or at least their faction. The other group were the followers of Lord Chatham, who as the great political hero of the Seven Years' War generally took a stance of opposition to party and faction.

The association of Toryism with Lord North's government was also influential in the American colonies and writings of British political commentators known as the Radical Whigs did much to stimulate colonial republican sentiment. Early activists in the colonies called themselves Whigs,[example needed ] seeing themselves as in alliance with the political opposition in Britain, until they turned to independence and started emphasising the label Patriots. In contrast, the American Loyalists, who supported the monarchy, were consistently also referred to as Tories. Later, the United States Whig Party was founded in 1833 and focused on opposition to a strong presidency just as the British Whigs had opposed a strong monarchy. The True Whig Party, which for a century dominated Liberia, was named for the American party rather than directly for the British one.

Dickinson reports the following:

All historians are agreed that the Tory party declined sharply in the late 1740s and 1750s and that it ceased to be an organized party by 1760. The research of Sir Lewis Namier and his disciples [...] has convinced all historians that there were no organized political parties in Parliament between the late 1750s and the early 1780s. Even the Whigs ceased to be an identifiable party, and Parliament was dominated by competing political connections, which all proclaimed Whiggish political views, or by independent backbenchers unattached to any particular group.

The North administration left power in March 1782 following the American Revolution and a coalition of the Rockingham Whigs and the former Chathamites, now led by the Earl of Shelburne, took its place. After Rockingham's unexpected death in July 1782, this uneasy coalition fell apart, with Charles James Fox, Rockingham's successor as faction leader, quarrelling with Shelburne and withdrawing his supporters from the government. The following Shelburne administration was short-lived and Fox returned to power in April 1783, this time in an unexpected coalition with his old enemy Lord North. Although this pairing seemed unnatural to many at the time, it was to last beyond the demise of the coalition in December 1783. The coalition's untimely fall was brought about by George III in league with the House of Lords and the King now brought in Chatham's son William Pitt the Younger as his prime minister.

It was only now that a genuine two-party system can be seen to emerge, with Pitt and the government on the one side, and the ousted Fox-North coalition on the other. On 17 December 1783, Fox stated in the House of Commons that "[i]f [...] a change must take place, and a new ministry is to be formed and supported, not by the confidence of this House or the public, but the sole authority of the Crown, I, for one, shall not envy that hon. gentleman his situation. From that moment I put in my claim for a monopoly of Whig principles". Although Pitt is often referred to as a Tory and Fox as a Whig, Pitt always considered himself to be an independent Whig and generally opposed the development of a strict partisan political system. Fox's supporters saw themselves as legitimate heirs of the Whig tradition and they strongly opposed Pitt in his early years in office, notably during the regency crisis revolving around the King's temporary insanity in 1788-1789, when Fox and his allies supported full powers as regent for their ally, the Prince of Wales.

The opposition Whigs were split by the onset of the French Revolution. While Fox and some younger members of the party such as Charles Grey and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were sympathetic to the French revolutionaries, others led by Edmund Burke were strongly opposed. Although Burke himself was largely alone in defecting to Pitt in 1791, much of the rest of the party, including the influential House of Lords leader the Duke of Portland, Rockingham's nephew Lord Fitzwilliam and William Windham, were increasingly uncomfortable with the flirtations of Fox and his allies with radicalism and the French Revolution. They split in early 1793 with Fox over the question of support for the war with France and by the end of the year they had openly broken with Fox. By the summer of the next year, large portions of the opposition had defected and joined Pitt's government.

By 1815, the Whigs were still far from being a "party" in the modern sense. They had no definite programme or policy and were by no means even united. Generally, they stood for reducing crown patronage, sympathy towards nonconformists, support for the interests of merchants and bankers and a leaning towards the idea of a limited reform of the voting system.[citation needed ] Most Whig leaders, such as Lord Grey, Lord Grenville, Lord Althorp, William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) and Lord John Russell, were still rich landowners. The most prominent exception was Henry Brougham, the talented lawyer, who had a relatively modest background.

Hay argues that Whig leaders welcomed the increasing political participation of the English middle classes in the two decades after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. The fresh support strengthened their position in Parliament. Whigs rejected the Tory appeals to governmental authority and social discipline and extended political discussion beyond Parliament. Whigs used a national network of newspapers and magazines as well as local clubs to deliver their message. The press organised petitions and debates and reported to the public on government policy, while leaders such as Henry Brougham (1778-1868) built alliances with men who lacked direct representation. This new approach to the grass roots helped to define Whiggism and opened the way for later success. Whigs thereby forced the government to recognise the role of public opinion in parliamentary debate and influenced views of representation and reform throughout the 19th century.

Whigs restored their unity by supporting moral reforms, especially the abolition of slavery. They triumphed in 1830 as champions of Parliamentary reform. They made Lord Grey prime minister 1830-1834 and the Reform Act 1832 championed by Grey became their signature measure. It broadened the franchise and ended the system of " rotten boroughs" and "pocket boroughs" (where elections were controlled by powerful families) and instead redistributed power on the basis of population. It added 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000 in England and Wales. Only the upper and middle classes voted, so this shifted power away from the landed aristocracy to the urban middle classes. In 1832, the party abolished enslavement in the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. It purchased and freed the slaves, especially those in the Caribbean sugar islands. After parliamentary investigations demonstrated the horrors of child labour, limited reforms were passed in 1833. The Whigs also passed the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 that reformed the administration of relief to the poor.

It was around this time that the great Whig historian Thomas Babington Macaulay began to promulgate what would later be coined the Whig view of history, in which all of English history was seen as leading up to the culminating moment of the passage of Lord Grey's reform bill. This view led to serious distortions in later portrayals of 17th-century and 18th-century history, as Macaulay and his followers attempted to fit the complex and changing factional politics of the Restoration into the neat categories of 19th-century political divisions.

In 1836, a private gentleman's Club was constructed in Pall Mall, Piccadilly as a consequence of the successful Reform Act 1832. The Reform Club was founded by Edward Ellice Sr., MP for Coventry and Whig Whip, whose riches came from the Hudson's Bay Company but whose zeal was chiefly devoted to securing the passage of the Reform Act 1832. This new club, for members of both Houses of Parliament, was intended to be a forum for the radical ideas which the First Reform Bill represented: a bastion of liberal and progressive thought that became closely associated with the Liberal Party, who largely succeeded the Whigs in the second half of the 19th century.

Until the decline of the Liberal Party in the early 20th century, it was de rigueur for Liberal MPs and peers to be members of the Reform Club, being regarded as an unofficial party headquarters. However, in 1882 the National Liberal Club was established under William Ewart Gladstone's chairmanship, designed to be more "inclusive" towards Liberal grandees and activists throughout the United Kingdom.

The Liberal Party (the term was first used officially in 1868, but had been used colloquially for decades beforehand) arose from a coalition of Whigs, free trade Tory followers of Robert Peel and free trade Radicals, first created, tenuously under the Peelite Earl of Aberdeen in 1852 and put together more permanently under the former Canningite Tory Lord Palmerston in 1859. Although the Whigs at first formed the most important part of the coalition, the Whiggish elements of the new party progressively lost influence during the long leadership of the former Peelite William Ewart Gladstone and many of the old Whig aristocrats broke from the party over the issue of Irish home rule in 1886 to help form the Liberal Unionist Party, which in turn would merge with the Conservative Party by 1912. However, the Unionist support for trade protection in the early twentieth century under Joseph Chamberlain (probably the least Whiggish character in the Liberal Unionist party) further alienated the more orthodox Whigs. By the early twentieth century "Whiggery" was largely irrelevant and without a natural political home. One of the last active politicians to celebrate his Whiggish roots was the Liberal Unionist statesman Henry James.

"The British Whig March" for piano was written by Oscar Telgmann in Kingston, Ontario, c. 1900.

The colours of the Whig party ( blue and buff, a yellow-brown colour named after buff leather) were particularly associated with Charles James Fox.

Poet Robert Burns in "Here's a health to them that's awa" wrote:

It's guid to support Caledonia's cause
And bide by the Buff and the Blue.

Steampunk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing have a song named "Doing It for the Whigs".

Brewer, John (1976). Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cannon, John Ashton, ed. (1981). The Whig Ascendancy: Colloquies on Hanoverian England. Edward Arnold. ISBN 0713162775.

Carswell, John (1954). The Old Cause: Three Biographical Studies in Whiggism. London: Cresset Press.

Elofson, Warren M. The Rockingham Connection and the Second Founding of the Whig Party 1768-1773 1996.

Feiling, Keith; A History of the Tory Party, 1640-1714, 1924 online edition.

Feiling, Keith; The Second Tory Party, 1714-1832, 1938 online edition.

Harris, William (1885). The History of the Radical Party in Parliament. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

Hay, William Anthony (2005). The Whig Revival: 1808-1830. Studies in Modern History. Palgreave Macmillan. ISBN 140391771X.

Holmes, Geoffrey. "British Politics in the Age of Anne" (2nd ed. 1987).

Jones; J. R. The First Whigs: The Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678-1683, 1961 online edition.

McCallum; Ronald Buchanan. The Liberal Party from Earl Grey to Asquith (1963).

Marshall, Dorothy. Eighteenth Century England (1962) online. A standard scholarly history.

Mitchell, L. G. (1971). Charles James Fox and the Disintegration of the Whig Party, 1782-1794. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198218389.

Mitchell, Austin (1967). The Whigs in Opposition, 1815-1830. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

O'Gorman, Frank. Voters, patrons, and parties: the unreformed electoral system of Hanoverian England 1734-1832 (Clarendon Press, 1989).

Plumb, J.H. Growth of Political Stability in England 1675-1725 (2001).

Reid; Loren Dudley. Charles James Fox: A Man for the People, 1969 online edition.

Speck, W. A. Stability and Strife: England, 1714-1760 (1977), A standard scholarly history.

Trevelyan, George Otto. The Early History of Charles James Fox (1880) online edition.

Williams, Basil, and C. H. Stuart; The Whig Supremacy, 1714-1760 (1962) online edition. A standard scholarly stream.

Woodward; E. L. The Age of Reform, 1815-1870, 1938 online edition. A standard scholarly stream.

Hill, Brain W. "II. Executive Monarchy and the Challenge of Parties, 1689-1832: Two Concepts of Government and Two Historiographical Interpretations." The Historical Journal (1970) 13#3 pp: 379-401. abstract.

Loades, David ed. Readers Guide to British History (2003) 2:1353-56.

Thomas, Peter D. G. "Party Politics in Eighteenth‐Century Britain: Some Myths and a Touch of Reality." Journal for Eighteenth‐Century Studies (1987) 10#2 pp. 201-210.

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The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute monarchy, supporting a parliamentary system.

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Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention that dramatically improved the speed for processing cotton, changing the trajectory of cotton production in the United States

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

cotton gin, machine for cleaning cotton of its seeds, invented in the United States by Eli Whitney in 1793. The cotton gin is an example of an invention directly called forth by an immediate demand; the mechanization of spinning in England had created a greatly expanded market for American cotton, whose production was inhibited by the slowness of manual removal of the seeds from the raw fibre. Whitney, a Massachusetts Yankee visiting a friend in the South, learned of the problem and quickly solved it. Inspired by manual brushes invented by enslaved workers, Whitney crafted a device that pulled the cotton through a set of wire teeth mounted on a revolving cylinder, the fibre passing through narrow slots in an iron breastwork too small to permit passage of the seed. The simplicity of the invention-which could be powered by people, animals, or water-caused it to be widely copied despite Whitney's patent; it is credited with fixing cotton cultivation, virtually to the exclusion of other crops, in the U.S. South and so institutionalizing slavery.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Melissa Petruzzello.

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Cotton gin | Definition, Inventor, Impact, & Facts

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Cotton gin, machine for cleaning cotton of its seeds, invented in the United States by Eli Whitney in 1793. It is credited with fixing cotton cultivation, virtually to the exclusion of other crops, in the U.S. South and so institutionalizing slavery.

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Pro Slavery, favored secession from Union, States' rights, agrarian-oriented, opposed gold standard, supported lowering tariff, and opposed imperialism in 1890s

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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its main rival, the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

Before 1860, the party supported limited government and state sovereignty while opposing a national bank and high tariffs. In the late 19th century, it continued to oppose high tariffs and had bitter internal debates on the gold standard. In the early 20th century, it supported progressive reforms and opposed imperialism. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business and Southern conservative-populist wings; following the New Deal, however, the conservative wing of the party largely withered outside the South. The New Deal coalition of 1932-1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction-many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the core bases of the two parties shifted, with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican in presidential politics and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller after the 1970s, although the working class remains an important component of the Democratic base. People living in urban areas, women, college graduates, and millennials, as well as sexual, religious, and racial minorities, also tend to support the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism blends notions of civil liberty and social equality with support for a mixed economy. In Congress, the party has influential centrist, progressive, and conservative wings. Corporate governance reform, environmental protection, support for organized labor, maintenance and expansion of social programs, affordable college tuition, universal health care, equal opportunity, and consumer protection form the core of the party's economic agenda. On social issues, it advocates campaign finance reform, LGBT rights, criminal justice and immigration reform, stricter gun laws, abortion rights, and the legalization of marijuana.

15 Democrats have served as President of the United States. The first was Andrew Jackson, who was the seventh president and served from 1829 to 1837. The most recent was Barack Obama, who was the 44th and held office from 2009 to 2017. As of 2020, the party holds a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, the mayoralty of most major cities, 24 state governorships, 19 state legislatures, and 15 state government trifectas (governorship and both legislative chambers). Three of the eight sitting justices on the U.S. Supreme Court were appointed by Democratic presidents.

Democratic Party officials often trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. Democrats have been more liberal on civil rights since 1948, although conservative factions which opposed them persisted in the South until the 1960s. On foreign policy, both parties have changed position several times.

Background

The Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party. The Democratic-Republican Party favored republicanism; a weak federal government; states' rights; agrarian interests (especially Southern planters); and strict adherence to the Constitution. The party opposed a national bank and Great Britain. After the War of 1812, the Federalists virtually disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans, which was prone to splinter along regional lines. The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until 1828 when Andrew Jackson became president. Jackson and Martin Van Buren worked with allies in each state to form a new Democratic Party on a national basis. In the 1830s the rivals coalesced into the main rival to the Democrats.

19th century

Jacksonians believed the people's will had finally prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president. The Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party [...] and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics.

Behind the platforms issued by state and national parties stood a widely shared political outlook that characterized the Democrats:

The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society. They viewed the central government as the enemy of individual liberty. The 1824 "corrupt bargain" had strengthened their suspicion of Washington politics. [...] Jacksonians feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that government intervention in the economy benefited special-interest groups and created corporate monopolies that favored the rich. They sought to restore the independence of the individual-the artisan and the ordinary farmer-by ending federal support of banks and corporations and restricting the use of paper currency, which they distrusted. Their definition of the proper role of government tended to be negative, and Jackson's political power was largely expressed in negative acts. He exercised the veto more than all previous presidents combined. Jackson and his supporters also opposed reform as a movement. Reformers eager to turn their programs into legislation called for a more active government. But Democrats tended to oppose programs like educational reform mid the establishment of a public education system. They believed, for instance, that public schools restricted individual liberty by interfering with parental responsibility and undermined freedom of religion by replacing church schools. Nor did Jackson share reformers' humanitarian concerns. He had no sympathy for American Indians, initiating the removal of the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears.

Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party. The Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery. In 1854, angry with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party.

The Democrats split over the choice of a successor to President James Buchanan along Northern and Southern lines as factions of the party provided two separate candidacies for president in the election of 1860, in which the Republican Party gained ascendancy. The radical pro-slavery Fire-Eaters led a walkout both at the April Democratic convention in Charleston's Institute Hall and at the June convention in Baltimore when the national party would not adopt a resolution supporting the extension of slavery into territories even if the voters of those territories did not want it. These Southern Democrats nominated the pro-slavery incumbent Vice President, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for President and General Joseph Lane, former Governor of Oregon, for vice president. The Northern Democrats nominated Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for president and former Governor of Georgia Herschel V. Johnson for vice president while some Southern Democrats joined the Constitutional Union Party, backing its nominees (who had both been prominent Whig leaders), John Bell of Tennessee for president and the politician, statesman and educator Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President. This fracturing of the Democrats led to a Republican victory and Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United States.

As the American Civil War broke out, Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats. The Confederate States of America, whose political leadership, mindful of the welter prevalent in antebellum American politics and with a pressing need for unity, largely viewed political parties as inimical to good governance and consequently the Confederacy had none or at least none with the wide organization inherent to other American parties. Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party in the election of 1864, which featured Andrew Johnson on the Republican ticket even though he was a Democrat from the South. Johnson replaced Lincoln in 1865, but he stayed independent of both parties.

20th century

The Democrats took control of the House in 1910, and Woodrow Wilson won election as president in 1912 (when the Republicans split) and 1916. Wilson effectively led Congress to put to rest the issues of tariffs, money and antitrust, which had dominated politics for 40 years, with new progressive laws. He failed to secure Senate passage of the Versailles Treaty (ending the war with Germany and joining the League of Nations). The weak party was deeply divided by issues such as the KKK and prohibition in the 1920s. However, it did organize new ethnic voters in Northern cities.

The Great Depression in 1929 that began under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1930 until 1994, the Senate for 44 of 48 years from 1930, and won most presidential elections until 1968. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to the presidency in 1932, came forth with federal government programs called the New Deal. New Deal liberalism meant the regulation of business (especially finance and banking) and the promotion of labor unions as well as federal spending to aid the unemployed, help distressed farmers and undertake large-scale public works projects. It marked the start of the American welfare state. The opponents, who stressed opposition to unions, support for business and low taxes, started calling themselves "conservatives".

Until the 1980s, the Democratic Party was a coalition of two parties divided by the Mason-Dixon line: liberal Democrats in the North and culturally conservative voters in the South, who though benefitting from many of the New Deal public works projects opposed increasing civil rights initiatives advocated by Northeastern liberals. The polarization grew stronger after Roosevelt died. Southern Democrats formed a key part of the bipartisan conservative coalition in an alliance with most of the Midwestern Republicans. The economically activist philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has strongly influenced American liberalism, shaped much of the party's economic agenda after 1932. From the 1930s to the mid-1960s, the liberal New Deal coalition usually controlled the presidency while the conservative coalition usually controlled Congress.

Issues facing parties and the United States after World War II included the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. Republicans attracted conservatives and, after the 1960s, white Southerners from the Democratic coalition with their use of the Southern strategy and resistance to New Deal and Great Society liberalism. Until the 1950s, African Americans had traditionally supported the Republican Party because of its anti-slavery civil rights policies. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Southern states became more reliably Republican in presidential politics, while Northeastern states became more reliably Democratic. Studies show that Southern whites, which were a core constituency in the Democratic Party, shifted to the Republican Party due to racial conservatism.

The election of President John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts in 1960 was a partial reflection of this shift. In the campaign, Kennedy attracted a new generation of younger voters. In his agenda dubbed the New Frontier, Kennedy introduced a host of social programs and public works projects, along with enhanced support of the space program, proposing a manned spacecraft trip to the moon by the end of the decade. He pushed for civil rights initiatives and proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but with his assassination in November 1963, he was not able to see its passage.

Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson was able to persuade the largely conservative Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and with a more progressive Congress in 1965 passed much of the Great Society, which consisted of an array of social programs designed to help the poor. Kennedy and Johnson's advocacy of civil rights further solidified black support for the Democrats but had the effect of alienating Southern whites who would eventually gravitate towards the Republican Party, particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. The United States' involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s was another divisive issue that further fractured the fault lines of the Democrats' coalition. After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, President Johnson committed a large contingency of combat troops to Vietnam, but the escalation failed to drive the Viet Cong from South Vietnam, resulting in an increasing quagmire, which by 1968 had become the subject of widespread anti-war protests in the United States and elsewhere. With increasing casualties and nightly news reports bringing home troubling images from Vietnam, the costly military engagement became increasingly unpopular, alienating many of the kinds of young voters that the Democrats had attracted the early 1960s. The protests that year along with assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy (younger brother of John F. Kennedy) climaxed in turbulence at the hotly-contested Democratic National Convention that summer in Chicago (which amongst the ensuing turmoil inside and outside of the convention hall nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey) in a series of events that proved to mark a significant turning point in the decline of the Democratic Party's broad coalition.

Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon was able to capitalize on the confusion of the Democrats that year, and won the 1968 election to become the 37th president. He won re-election in a landslide in 1972 against Democratic nominee George McGovern, who like Robert F. Kennedy, reached out to the younger anti-war and counterculture voters, but unlike Kennedy, was not able to appeal to the party's more traditional white working-class constituencies. During Nixon's second term, his presidency was rocked by the Watergate scandal, which forced him to resign in 1974. He was succeeded by vice president Gerald Ford, who served a brief tenure. Watergate offered the Democrats an opportunity to recoup, and their nominee Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election. With the initial support of evangelical Christian voters in the South, Carter was temporarily able to reunite the disparate factions within the party, but inflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-1980 took their toll, resulting in a landslide victory for Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan in 1980, which shifted the political landscape in favor of the Republicans for years to come.

With the ascendancy of the Republicans under Ronald Reagan, the Democrats searched for ways to respond yet were unable to succeed by running traditional candidates, such as former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, who lost to Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. Many Democrats attached their hopes to the future star of Gary Hart, who had challenged Mondale in the 1984 primaries running on a theme of "New Ideas"; and in the subsequent 1988 primaries became the de facto front-runner and virtual "shoo-in" for the Democratic presidential nomination before his campaign was ended by a sex scandal. The party nevertheless began to seek out a younger generation of leaders, who like Hart had been inspired by the pragmatic idealism of John F. Kennedy.

21st century

According to the Pew Research Center, Democrats became more secular and socially liberal between 1987 and 2012. Based on a poll conducted in 2014, Gallup found that 30% of Americans identified as Democrats, 23% as Republicans and 45% as independents. In the same poll, a survey of registered voters stated that 47% identified as Democrats or leaned towards the party-the same poll found that 40% of registered voters identified as Republicans or leaned towards the Republican Party.

In 2018, Democratic congressional candidate Tom Malinowski, who was later elected, described the party:

We're now the party of fiscal responsibility in America. We didn't just add $2 trillion to the national debt for that tax cut that Warren Buffett didn't want... We're the party of law enforcement in America; we don't vilify the Federal Bureau of Investigation every single day. We're the party of family values. We don't... take kids from their parents at the border. We're the party of patriotism in America that wants to defend this country against our foreign adversaries.

Name and symbols

The Democratic-Republican Party splintered in 1824 into the short-lived National Republican Party and the Jacksonian movement which in 1828 became the Democratic Party. Under the Jacksonian era, the term "The Democracy" was in use by the party, but the name "Democratic Party" was eventually settled upon and became the official name in 1844. Members of the party are called "Democrats" or "Dems".

The term "Democrat Party" has also been in local use, but has usually been used by opponents since 1952 as a disparaging term.

The most common mascot symbol for the party has been the donkey, or jackass. Andrew Jackson's enemies twisted his name to "jackass" as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal. However, the Democrats liked the common-man implications and picked it up too, therefore the image persisted and evolved. Its most lasting impression came from the cartoons of Thomas Nast from 1870 in Harper's Weekly. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats and the elephant to represent the Republicans.

In the early 20th century, the traditional symbol of the Democratic Party in Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ohio was the rooster, as opposed to the Republican eagle. This symbol still appears on Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia ballots. The rooster was adopted as the official symbol of the national Democratic Party. In New York, the Democratic ballot symbol is a five-pointed star.

Although both major political parties (and many minor ones) use the traditional American colors of red, white and blue in their marketing and representations, since election night 2000 blue has become the identifying color for the Democratic Party while red has become the identifying color for the Republican Party. That night, for the first time all major broadcast television networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: blue states for Al Gore (Democratic nominee) and red states for George W. Bush (Republican nominee). Since then, the color blue has been widely used by the media to represent the party. This is contrary to common practice outside of the United States where blue is the traditional color of the right and red the color of the left. For example, in Canada red represents the Liberals while blue represents the Conservatives. In the United Kingdom, red denotes the Labour Party and blue symbolizes the Conservative Party. Any use of the color blue to denote the Democratic Party prior to 2000 would be historically inaccurate and misleading. Since 2000, blue has also been used both by party supporters for promotional efforts- ActBlue, BuyBlue and BlueFund as examples-and by the party itself in 2006 both for its "Red to Blue Program", created to support Democratic candidates running against Republican incumbents in the midterm elections that year and on its official website.

In September 2010, the Democratic Party unveiled its new logo, which featured a blue D inside a blue circle. It was the party's first official logo; the donkey logo had only been semi-official.

Jefferson-Jackson Day is the annual fundraising event (dinner) held by Democratic Party organizations across the United States. It is named after Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, whom the party regards as its distinguished early leaders.

The song " Happy Days Are Here Again" is the unofficial song of the Democratic Party. It was used prominently when Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention and remains a sentimental favorite for Democrats today. For example, Paul Shaffer played the theme on the Late Show with David Letterman after the Democrats won Congress in 2006. " Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac was adopted by Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and has endured as a popular Democratic song. The emotionally similar song " Beautiful Day" by the band U2 has also become a favorite theme song for Democratic candidates. John Kerry used the song during his 2004 presidential campaign and several Democratic Congressional candidates used it as a celebratory tune in 2006.

The 2016 campaign of Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders used the hopeful Simon & Garfunkel song " America" for one of its campaign advertisements, with the complete permission of the still-active duo of popular American musicians. As a traditional anthem for its presidential nominating convention, Aaron Copland's " Fanfare for the Common Man" is traditionally performed at the beginning of the Democratic National Convention.

Current structure and composition

National committee

State parties

Each state also has a state committee, made up of elected committee members as well as ex officio committee members (usually elected officials and representatives of major constituencies), which in turn elects a chair. County, town, city and ward committees generally are composed of individuals elected at the local level. State and local committees often coordinate campaign activities within their jurisdiction, oversee local conventions and in some cases primaries or caucuses and may have a role in nominating candidates for elected office under state law. Rarely do they have much funding, but in 2005 DNC Chairman Dean began a program (called the "50 State Strategy") of using DNC national funds to assist all state parties and pay for full-time professional staffers.

Major party groups

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) assists party candidates in House races and its current chairman (selected by the party caucus) is Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois. Similarly, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), headed by Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, raises funds for Senate races. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), chaired by Oregon legislator Tina Kotek, is a smaller organization with much less funding that focuses on state legislative races. The DNC sponsors the College Democrats of America (CDA), a student-outreach organization with the goal of training and engaging a new generation of Democratic activists. Democrats Abroad is the organization for Americans living outside the United States and they work to advance the goals of the party and encourage Americans living abroad to support the Democrats. The Young Democrats of America (YDA) is a youth-led organization that attempts to draw in and mobilize young people for Democratic candidates but operates outside of the DNC. The Democratic Governors Association (DGA), chaired by Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, is an organization supporting the candidacies of Democratic gubernatorial nominees and incumbents. Likewise, the mayors of the largest cities and urban centers convene as the National Conference of Democratic Mayors.

Upon foundation, the Democratic Party supported agrarianism and the Jacksonian democracy movement of President Andrew Jackson, representing farmers and rural interests and traditional Jeffersonian democrats. Since the 1890s, especially in northern states, the party began to favor more liberal positions (the term "liberal" in this sense describes modern liberalism, rather than classical liberalism or economic liberalism). In recent exit polls, the Democratic Party has had broad appeal across all socio-ethno-economic demographics.

The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southeastern United States, is now strongest in the Northeast ( Mid-Atlantic and New England), the Great Lakes region, and the West Coast (including Hawaii). The party is also very strong in major cities (regardless of region).

Centrist Democrats, or New Democrats, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are an economically liberal and " Third Way" faction which dominated the party for around 20 years starting in the late 1980s after the United States populace turned much further to the political right. They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition. The New Democrat Coalition is a pro-growth and fiscally moderate congressional coalition.

While not representing a majority of the Democratic Party electorate, some Democratic elected officials have self-declared as being centrists. These Democrats include former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator Mark Warner, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, former Senator Jim Webb, former Vice President Joe Biden, congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick, and former congressman Dave McCurdy.

The New Democrat Network supports socially liberal and fiscally moderate Democratic politicians and is associated with the congressional New Democrat Coalition in the House. Congressman Derek Kilmer is the chair of the coalition, and former senator and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was a member while in Congress. In 2009, President Barack Obama was self-described as a New Democrat.

Conservatives

A conservative Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party with conservative political views, or with views relatively conservative with respect to those of the national party. While such members of the Democratic Party can be found throughout the nation, actual elected officials are disproportionately found within the Southern states and to a lesser extent within rural regions of the United States generally, more commonly in the West. Historically, Southern Democrats were generally much more ideologically conservative than conservative Democrats are now.

Many conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party, beginning with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the general leftward shift of the party. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, Kent Hance and Ralph Hall of Texas and Richard Shelby of Alabama are examples of this. The influx of conservative Democrats into the Republican Party is often cited as a reason for the Republican Party's shift further to the right during the late 20th century as well as the shift of its base from the Northeast and Midwest to the South.

Into the 1980s, the Democratic Party had a conservative element, mostly from the South and Border regions. Their numbers declined sharply as the Republican Party built up its Southern base. They were sometimes humorously called " Yellow dog Democrats", or " boll weevils" and " Dixiecrats". In the House, they form the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of conservatives and centrists willing to broker compromises with the Republican leadership. They have acted as a unified voting bloc in the past, giving its members some ability to change legislation, depending on their numbers in Congress.

Social liberals (modern liberals) are a large portion of the Democratic base. According to 2018 exit polls, liberals constituted 27% of the electorate, and 91% of American liberals favored the candidate of the Democratic Party. White-collar college-educated professionals were mostly Republican until the 1950s, but they now compose a vital component of the Democratic Party.

This ideological group differs from the traditional organized labor base. According to the Pew Research Center, a plurality of 41% resided in mass affluent households and 49% were college graduates, the highest figure of any typographical group. It was also the fastest growing typological group between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Liberals include most of academia and large portions of the professional class.

Progressives

Progressives are the most left-leaning faction in the party and support strong business regulations, social programs, and workers' rights. Many progressive Democrats are descendants of the New Left of Democratic presidential candidate Senator George McGovern of South Dakota whereas others were involved in the 2016 presidential candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Progressives are often considered to be synonymous with liberals, though progressives are sometimes considered to show stronger support for universal health care, solutions for economic inequality, and environmental regulations.

In 2014, progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren set out "Eleven Commandments of Progressivism": tougher regulation on corporations, affordable education, scientific investment and environmentalism, net neutrality, increased wages, equal pay for women, collective bargaining rights, defending social programs, marriage equality, immigration reform, and unabridged access to reproductive healthcare. In addition, progressives strongly oppose political corruption and seek to advance electoral reforms such as campaign finance rules and voting rights protections. Today, many progressives have made combating economic inequality their top priority.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a caucus of progressive Democrats chaired by Representatives Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Pramila Jayapal of Washington. Its members have included Representatives Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, John Conyers of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington, John Lewis of Georgia, Barbara Lee of California, and Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Ed Markey of Massachusetts were members of the caucus when in the House of Representatives. While no Democratic Senators currently belong to the CPC, independent Senator Bernie Sanders is a member.

Political positions

Economic issues

Equal economic opportunity, a base social safety net provided by the welfare state and strong labor unions have historically been at the heart of Democratic economic policy. The welfare state supports a progressive tax system, higher minimum wages, Social Security, universal health care, public education and public housing. They also support infrastructure development and government-sponsored employment programs in an effort to achieve economic development and job creation while stimulating private sector job creation. Additionally, since the 1990s the party has at times supported centrist economic reforms, which cut the size of government and reduced market regulations. The party has generally rejected laissez-faire economics as well as market socialism, instead favoring Keynesian economics within a capitalist market-based system.

Fiscal policy

Democrats support a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce economic inequality by making sure that the wealthiest Americans pay the highest amount in taxes. Democrats support more government spending on social services while spending less on the military. They oppose the cutting of social services, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and various other welfare programs, believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice. Democrats believe the benefits of social services in monetary and non-monetary terms are a more productive labor force and cultured population and believe that the benefits of this are greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower taxes, especially on top earners, or cuts to social services. Furthermore, Democrats see social services as essential towards providing positive freedom, freedom derived from economic opportunity. The Democratic-led House of Representatives reinstated the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budget rule at the start of the 110th Congress.

Minimum wage

The Democratic Party favors raising the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was an early component of the Democrats' agenda during the 110th Congress. In 2006, the Democrats supported six state ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and all six initiatives passed. In May 2017, Senate Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 and marks a leftward turn in Democratic economic policies.

Health care

Democrats call for "affordable and quality health care" and favor moving toward universal health care in a variety of forms to address rising healthcare costs. Some Democratic politicians favor a single-payer program or Medicare for All, while others prefer creating a public health insurance option.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, has been one of the most significant pushes for universal health care. As of December 2019, more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats favor improving public education by raising school standards and reforming the Head Start program. They also support universal preschool and expanding access to primary education, including through charter schools. They call for addressing student loan debt and reforms to reduce college tuition. Other proposals have included tuition-free public universities and reform of standardized testing. Democrats have the long-term aim of having publicly funded college education with low tuition fees (like in much of Europe and Canada), which would be available to every eligible American student. Alternatively, they encourage expanding access to post-secondary education by increasing state funding for student financial aid such as Pell Grants and college tuition tax deductions.

Environment

The Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation lands and encourages open space and rail travel to relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air quality and economy as it "believe[s] that communities, environmental interests, and the government should work together to protect resources while ensuring the vitality of local economies. Once Americans were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment. They now know this is a false choice".

Renewable energy and fossil fuels

Democrats have supported increased domestic renewable energy development, including wind and solar power farms, in an effort to reduce carbon pollution. The party's platform calls for an "all of the above" energy policy including clean energy, natural gas and domestic oil, with the desire of becoming energy independent. The party has supported higher taxes on oil companies and increased regulations on coal power plants, favoring a policy of reducing long-term reliance on fossil fuels. Additionally, the party supports stricter fuel emissions standards to prevent air pollution.

Trade agreements

Many Democrats support fair trade policies when it comes to the issue of international trade agreements and some in the party have started supporting free trade in recent decades. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration and a number of prominent Democrats pushed through a number of agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since then, the party's shift away from free trade became evident in the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) vote, with 15 House Democrats voting for the agreement and 187 voting against.

Social issues

Ideological social elements in the party include cultural liberalism, civil libertarianism and feminism. Other Democratic social policies are internationalism, openness to immigration, electoral reform and women's reproductive rights.

Equal opportunity

The Democratic Party supports equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, or national origin. Many Democrats support affirmative action programs to further this goal. Democrats also strongly support the Americans with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against people based on physical or mental disability. As such, the Democrats pushed as well the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, a disability rights expansion that became law.

Voting rights

The party is very supportive of improving voting rights as well as election accuracy and accessibility. They support ending voter ID laws and increasing voting time, including making election day a holiday. They support reforming the electoral system to eliminate gerrymandering as well as passing comprehensive campaign finance reform. They supported the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as a party have often been pioneers for democracy in the United States.

Abortion and reproductive rights

The Democratic Party opposes attempts to reverse the 1973 Supreme Court decision , which declared abortion covered by the constitutionally protected individual right to privacy under the Ninth Amendment; and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which lays out the legal framework in which government action alleged to violate that right is assessed by courts. As a matter of the right to privacy and of gender equality, many Democrats believe all women should have the ability to choose to abort without governmental interference. They believe that each woman, conferring with her conscience, has the right to choose for herself whether abortion is morally correct.

Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was anti-abortion and former President Jimmy Carter has expressed his wish to see the Democratic Party becoming more pro-life, while former President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi favor abortion rights. Groups such as Democrats for Life of America represent the anti-abortion faction of the party while groups such as EMILY's List represent the abortion rights faction. A poll from October 2006 found that 25% of Democrats were anti-abortion while a 69% majority was in favor of abortion rights.

The 2016 Democratic Party platform expresses support for "'a woman's right to safe and legal abortion' and enumerates no limits on that right." It further calls for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal tax dollars for elective abortions.

Immigration

LGBT rights

The Democratic Party is supportive of LGBT rights. Most support for same-sex marriage in the United States has come from Democrats. Support for same-sex marriage has increased in the past decade according to ABC News. An April 2009 ABC News/ Washington Post public opinion poll put support among Democrats at 62% whereas a June 2008 poll found that 42% of Democrats support same-sex marriage while 23% support civil unions or domestic partnership laws and 28% oppose any legal recognition at all. A broad majority of Democrats have supported other LGBT-related laws such as extending hate crime statutes, legally preventing discrimination against LGBT people in the workforce and repealing Don't ask, don't tell. A 2006 Pew Research Center poll of Democrats found that 55% supported gays adopting children with 40% opposed while 70% support gays in the military, with only 23% opposed. Gallup polling from May 2009 stated that 82% of Democrats support open enlistment.

The 2004 Democratic National Platform stated that marriage should be defined at the state level and it repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment. While not stating support of same-sex marriage, the 2008 platform called for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage and removed the need for interstate recognition, supported antidiscrimination laws and the extension of hate crime laws to LGBT people and opposed the Don't ask, don't tell military policy. The 2012 platform included support for same-sex marriage and for the repeal of DOMA.

On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting president to say he supports same-sex marriage. Previously, he had opposed restrictions on same-sex marriage such as the Defense of Marriage Act, which he promised to repeal, California's Prop 8, and a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (which he opposed saying that "decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been"), but also stated that he personally believed marriage to be between a man and a woman and that he favored civil unions that would "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples". Earlier, when running for the Illinois Senate in 1996 he said, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages". John Kerry, Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, did not support same-sex marriage. Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and former Vice Presidents Joe Biden, Al Gore and Walter Mondale also support gay marriage.

Puerto Rico

The 2016 Democratic Party platform declares: "We are committed to addressing the extraordinary challenges faced by our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. Many stem from the fundamental question of Puerto Rico's political status. Democrats believe that the people of Puerto Rico should determine their ultimate political status from permanent options that do not conflict with the Constitution, laws, and policies of the United States. Democrats are committed to promoting economic opportunity and good-paying jobs for the hardworking people of Puerto Rico. We also believe that Puerto Ricans must be treated equally by Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs that benefit families. Puerto Ricans should be able to vote for the people who make their laws, just as they should be treated equally. All American citizens, no matter where they reside, should have the right to vote for the President of the United States. Finally, we believe that federal officials must respect Puerto Rico's local self-government as laws are implemented and Puerto Rico's budget and debt are restructured so that it can get on a path towards stability and prosperity".

Legal issues

Gun control

With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide, the Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures, most notably the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Bill of 1993 and Crime Control Act of 1994. However, some Democrats, especially rural, Southern, and Western Democrats, favor fewer restrictions on firearm possession and warned the party was defeated in the 2000 presidential election in rural areas because of the issue. In the national platform for 2008, the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plan calling for renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

Death penalty

The Democratic Party supports the death penalty far less than the Republican Party. Although most Democrats in Congress have never seriously moved to overturn the rarely used federal death penalty, both Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich have introduced such bills with little success. Democrats have led efforts to overturn state death penalty laws, particularly in New Jersey and in New Mexico. They have also sought to prevent the reinstatement of the death penalty in those states which prohibit it, including Massachusetts and New York. During the Clinton administration, Democrats led the expansion of the federal death penalty. These efforts resulted in the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton, which heavily limited appeals in death penalty cases.

In 1992, 1993 and 1995, Democratic Texas Congressman Henry González unsuccessfully introduced the Death Penalty Abolition Amendment which prohibited the use of capital punishment in the United States. Democratic Missouri Congressman William Lacy Clay, Sr. cosponsored the amendment in 1993.

During his Illinois Senate career, former President Barack Obama successfully introduced legislation intended to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions in capital cases, requiring videotaping of confessions. When campaigning for the presidency, Obama stated that he supports the limited use of the death penalty, including for people who have been convicted of raping a minor under the age of 12, having opposed the Supreme Court's ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty was unconstitutional in child rape cases. Obama has stated that he thinks the "death penalty does little to deter crime" and that it is used too frequently and too inconsistently.

In June 2016, the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee unanimously adopted an amendment to abolish the death penalty, marking the first time the party had done so in its history.

Torture became a divisive issue in the party after Barack Obama was elected president.

Patriot Act

Many Democrats are opposed to the Patriot Act, but when the law was passed most Democrats were supportive of it and all but two Democrats in the Senate voted for the original Patriot Act legislation in 2001. The lone nay vote was from Russ Feingold of Wisconsin as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana did not vote. In the House, the Democrats voted for the Act by 145 yea and 62 nay. Democrats were split on the renewal in 2006. In the Senate, Democrats voted 34 for the 2006 renewal and nine against. In the House, Democrats voted 66 voted for the renewal and 124 against.

The Democratic Party believes that individuals should have a right to privacy. For example, many Democrats have opposed the NSA warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

Some Democratic officeholders have championed consumer protection laws that limit the sharing of consumer data between corporations. Most Democrats oppose sodomy laws and believe that government should not regulate consensual noncommercial sexual conduct among adults as a matter of personal privacy.

Foreign policy issues

The foreign policy of the voters of the two major parties has largely overlapped since the 1990s. A Gallup poll in early 2013 showed broad agreement on the top issues, albeit with some divergence regarding human rights and international cooperation through agencies such as the United Nations.

In June 2014, the Quinnipiac Poll asked Americans which foreign policy they preferred:

A) The United States is doing too much in other countries around the world, and it is time to do less around the world and focus more on our own problems here at home. B) The United States must continue to push forward to promote democracy and freedom in other countries around the world because these efforts make our own country more secure.

Democrats chose A over B by 65% to 32%; Republicans chose A over B by 56% to 39%; and independents chose A over B by 67% to 29%.

In 2002, Congressional Democrats were divided on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq: 147 voted against it (21 in the Senate and 126 in the House) and 110 voted for it (29 in the Senate and 81 in the House). Since then, many prominent Democrats, such as former senator John Edwards, have expressed regret about this decision and have called it a mistake while others, such as Senator Hillary Clinton, have criticized the conduct of the war yet not repudiated their initial vote for it (though Clinton later went on to repudiate her stance during the 2008 primaries). Referring to Iraq, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared in April 2007 the war to be "lost" while other Democrats (especially during the 2004 presidential election cycle) accused the President of lying to the public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Among lawmakers, Democrats are the most vocal opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom and campaigned on a platform of withdrawal ahead of the 2006 midterm elections.

A March 2003 CBS News poll taken a few days before the invasion of Iraq found that 34% of Democrats nationwide would support it without United Nations backing, 51% would support it only with its backing and 14% would not support it at all. The Los Angeles Times stated in early April 2003 that 70% of Democrats supported the decision to invade while 27% opposed it. The Pew Research Center stated in August 2007 that opposition increased from 37% during the initial invasion to 74%. In April 2008, a CBS News poll found that about 90% of Democrats disapprove of the Bush administration's conduct and want to end the war within the next year.

Democrats in the House of Representatives near-unanimously supported a non-binding resolution disapproving of President Bush's decision to send additional troops into Iraq in 2007. Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly supported military funding legislation that included a provision that set "a timeline for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq" by March 31, 2008, but also would leave combat forces in Iraq for purposes such as targeted counter-terrorism operations. After a veto from the President and a failed attempt in Congress to override the veto, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 was passed by Congress and signed by the President after the timetable was dropped. Criticism of the Iraq War subsided after the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 led to a dramatic decrease in Iraqi violence. The Democratic-controlled 110th Congress continued to fund efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Presidential candidate Barack Obama advocated a withdrawal of combat troops within Iraq by late 2010 with a residual force of peacekeeping troops left in place. He stated that both the speed of withdrawal and the number of troops left over would be "entirely conditions-based".

On February 27, 2009, President Obama announced: "As a candidate for president, I made clear my support for a timeline of 16 months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we've made and protect our troops [...] Those consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months". Around 50,000 non-combat-related forces would remain. Obama's plan drew wide bipartisan support, including that of defeated Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain.[needs update ]

Iran sanctions

The Democratic Party has been critical of the Iran's nuclear weapon program and supported economic sanctions against the Iranian government. In 2013, the Democratic-led administration worked to reach a diplomatic agreement with the government of Iran to halt the Iranian nuclear weapon program in exchange for international economic sanction relief. As of 2014, negotiations had been successful and the party called for more cooperation with Iran in the future. In 2015, the Obama administration agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which provides sanction relief in exchange for international oversight of the Iranian nuclear program. In February 2019, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution calling on the United States to re-enter the JCPOA, which President Trump withdrew from in 2018.

Invasion of Afghanistan

Democrats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate near-unanimously voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists against "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States" in Afghanistan in 2001, supporting the NATO coalition invasion of the nation. Most elected Democrats continue to support the Afghanistan conflict and some, such as a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, have voiced concerns that the Iraq War shifted too many resources away from the presence in Afghanistan. Since 2006, Democratic candidate Barack Obama has called for a "surge" of troops into Afghanistan. As president, Obama sent a "surge" force of additional troops to Afghanistan. Troop levels were 94,000 in December 2011 and kept falling, with a target of 68,000 by fall 2012. Obama planned to bring all the troops home by 2014.

Support for the war among the American people has diminished over time and many Democrats have changed their opinion and now oppose a continuation of the conflict. In July 2008, Gallup found that 41% of Democrats called the invasion a "mistake" while a 55% majority disagreed. In contrast, Republicans were more supportive of the war. The survey described Democrats as evenly divided about whether or not more troops should be sent-56% support it if it would mean removing troops from Iraq and only 47% support it otherwise. A CNN survey in August 2009 stated that a majority of Democrats now oppose the war. CNN polling director Keating Holland said: "Nearly two thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan. Three quarters of Democrats oppose the war". An August 2009 Washington Post poll found similar results and the paper stated that Obama's policies would anger his closest supporters.

The Democratic Party has both recently and historically supported Israel. A 2008 Gallup poll found that 64% of Americans have a favorable image of Israel while only 16% say that they have a favorable image of the Palestinian Authority. A pro-Israel view is held by the party leadership although some Democrats, including former President Jimmy Carter, have criticized Israel.

The 2008 Democratic Party platform acknowledges a " special relationship with Israel, grounded in shared interests and shared values, and a clear, strong, fundamental commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy". It also included:

It is in the best interests of all parties, including the United States, that we take an active role to help secure a lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a democratic, viable Palestinian state dedicated to living in peace and security side by side with the Jewish State of Israel. To do so, we must help Israel identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace while isolating those who seek conflict and instability, and stand with Israel against those who seek its destruction. The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist, and abides by past agreements. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient efforts and the personal commitment of the President of the United States. The creation of a Palestinian state through final status negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel. All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949. Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.

A January 2009 Pew Research Center study found that when asked "which side do you sympathize with more", 42% of Democrats and 33% of liberals (a plurality in both groups) sympathize most with the Israelis. Around half of all political moderates or independents sided with Israel. The years leading up to the 2016 election have brought more discussion of the party's stance on Israel as polls reported declining support for Israel among the party faithful. Gallup suggested that the decline in support might be due to tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.

The rise of the progressive Bernie Sanders-aligned faction of the party, which tends to trend more pro-Palestine, is also likely responsible for the decline in support for Israel. A 2016 Pew Research poll found that while Clinton supporters sympathized more with Israel than Palestinians by a 20-point margin, Sanders supporters sympathized more with Palestinians than with Israel by a 6-point margin. In June 2016, DNC members voted against an amendment to the party platform proposed by Sanders supporter James Zogby calling for an "end to occupation and illegal settlements". In August 2018, Rashida Tlaib, who supports a one-state solution, and Ilhan Omar, who has referred to Israel as an "apartheid regime" won Democratic primaries in Michigan and Minnesota. In November 2018, shortly after being elected to Congress, Omar came out in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Professionals

Professionals, who are, roughly speaking, college-educated producers of services and ideas, used to be the most staunchly Republican of all occupational groups [...] now chiefly working for large corporations and bureaucracies rather than on their own, and heavily influenced by the environmental, civil-rights, and feminist movements-began to vote Democratic. In the four elections from 1988 to 2000, they backed Democrats by an average of 52 percent to 40 percent.

-  John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The American Prospect, June 19, 2007

Academics and the highly educated constitute an important part of the Democratic voter base. In a 2005 survey, 72% of full-time faculty members identified as liberal and 15% identified as conservative. Percentages of professors who identified as liberal ranged from 49% in business to over 80% in political science and the humanities. The party also has strong support among scientists, with 55% identifying as Democrats, 32% as independents, and 6% as Republicans in a 2009 study. Intellectualism, the tendency to constantly reexamine issues, has been named as an explanation why academia is strongly liberal.

Those with graduate education have become increasingly Democratic in the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections. In exit polls for the 2018 elections, 65% of those with a graduate degree said they voted Democratic.

Studies have shown that younger voters tend to vote mostly for Democratic candidates in recent years. Despite supporting Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, the young have voted in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since Bill Clinton in 1992 and are more likely to identify as liberals than the general population. In the 2004 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received 54% of the vote from voters of the age group 18-29 while Republican George W. Bush received 45% of the vote from the same age group. In the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats received 60% of the vote from the same age group. Polls suggest that younger voters have more liberal views than the public on same-sex marriage and universal health care, helping Barack Obama carry 66% of their votes in 2008. In the 2018 midterm elections, 67% of those in the 18-29 age range voted for the Democratic candidate.

Although the gender gap has varied over many years, women of all ages are more likely than men to identify as Democrats. Since the 1990s, women have supported Democratic Party candidates to various offices at higher rates than men. Polls in 2009 indicated that 41% of women identify as Democrats while only 25% of women identify as Republicans and 26% as independents whereas 32% of men identify as Democrats, 28% as Republicans and 34% as independents. Among ethnic minorities, women also are more likely than men to identify as Democrats. Also, American women that identified as single, living with a domestic partner, divorced, separated, or widowed are more likely than men in these categories to vote Democratic. The National Federation of Democratic Women is an affiliated organization meant to advocate for women's issues. National women's organizations that support Democratic candidates include Emily's List, which aims to help elect pro-choice female Democratic candidates to office.

Relation to marital status and parenthood

Americans that identify as single, living with a domestic partner, divorced, separated, or widowed are more likely to vote Democratic in contrast to married Americans which split about equally between Democrat and Republican.

General Social Surveys of more than 11,000 Democrats and Republicans conducted between 1996 and 2006 came to the result that the differences in fertility rates are not statistically significant between these parties, with the average Democrat having 1.94 children and the average Republican having 1.91 children. However, there is a significant difference in fertility rates between the two related groups liberals and conservatives, with liberals reproducing at a much lower rate than conservatives.

LGBT Americans

According to exit polling, LGBT Americans typically vote Democratic in national elections within the 70-80% range. In heavily gay precincts in large cities across the nation, the average was higher, ranging from 85 to 94%. This trend has continued since 1996 when Bill Clinton won 71% of the LGBT vote compared to Bob Dole's 16%. In 2000 Al Gore won 70% to George W. Bush's 25%, in 2004 John Kerry won 77% to George W. Bush's 23%, in 2008 Barack Obama won 70% to John McCain's 27%, and in 2012 Barack Obama won 76% to Mitt Romney's 22%. Patrick Egan, a professor of politics at New York University specializing in LGBT voting patterns, calls this a "remarkable continuity", saying that "about three-fourths vote Democratic and one-fourth Republican from year to year". Notable LGBT Democrats include Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Governor Kate Brown of Oregon and Governor Jared Polis of Colorado. The late activist and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was a Democrat as is former Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

Since the 1930s, a critical component of the Democratic Party coalition has been organized labor. Labor unions supply a great deal of the money, grass roots political organization and voting base of support for the party. Democrats are far more likely to be represented by unions, although union membership has declined, in general, during the last few decades. This trend is depicted in the following graph from the book Democrats and Republicans-Rhetoric and Reality. It is based on surveys conducted by the National Election Studies (NES).

The historic decline in union membership over the past half-century has been accompanied by a growing disparity between public sector and private sector union membership percentages. The three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition today are the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations as well as the National Education Association, a large, unaffiliated teachers' union. Both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win have identified their top legislative priority for 2007 as passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Other important issues for labor unions include supporting industrial policy (including protectionism) that sustains unionized manufacturing jobs, raising the minimum wage and promoting broad social programs such as Social Security and universal health care.

Working class

The American working class is a stronghold of the Democratic Party and continues to be an essential part of the Democratic base. Economic insecurity makes the majority of working-class people left-of-center on economic issues. However, many working class Democrats differ from liberals in their more socially conservative views. Working class Democrats tend to be more religious and more likely to belong to an ethnic minority. The continued importance of the working class manifests itself in exit polls, which show that the majority of those with working class incomes and education vote for the Democratic Party.

Since 1980, there has been a decline in support for the Democratic Party among white working class voters. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama carried 40% of white voters without college degrees to John McCain carrying 58%. In the 2012 presidential election, Obama carried 36% of white working class voters to Mitt Romney carrying 61%.

African Americans

From the end of the Civil War, African Americans primarily favored the Republican Party due to its overwhelming political and more tangible efforts in achieving the abolition of slavery, particularly through President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The South had long been a Democratic stronghold, favoring a state's right to legal slavery. In addition, the ranks of the fledgling Ku Klux Klan were composed almost entirely of white Democrats who were angry over the poor treatment they had received at the hands of northerners and who were also bent on reversing the policies of Reconstruction. However, African Americans began drifting to the Democratic Party when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. Support for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson helped give the Democrats even greater support among the African-American community, which consistently votes between 85 and 95% Democratic.

Prominent modern-day African-American Democratic politicians include Jim Clyburn, Elijah Cummings, Maxine Waters, John Lewis, Barbara Lee, Charles Rangel, John Conyers, Senator Cory Booker and former President Barack Obama, who managed to net over 95% of the African-American vote in the 2008 election. Despite not having a partisan affiliation, the NAACP often participates in organizing and voter turnout drives and advocates for progressive causes, especially those that affect people of color. Within the House of Representatives, the Congressional Black Caucus, consisting of 54 black Democrats, serves to represent the interests of African Americans and advocate on issues that affect them.

Hispanic and Latino Americans

The Hispanic population, particularly the large Mexican-American population in the Southwest and the large Puerto Rican and Dominican populations in the Northeast, have been strong supporters of the Democratic Party. In the 1996 presidential election, Democratic President Bill Clinton received 72% of the Hispanic vote. In following years, the Republican Party gained increasing support from the Hispanic community, especially among Hispanic Protestants and Pentecostals. With his much more liberal views on immigration, President Bush was the first Republican president to gain 40% of the Hispanic vote in the 2004 presidential election. But the Republican Party's support among Hispanics eroded in the 2006 midterm elections, dropping from 44% to 30%, with the Democrats gaining in the Hispanic vote from 55% in 2004 to 69% in 2006. Democrats increased their share of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 presidential election, with Barack Obama receiving 67%. According to exit polls by Edison Research, Obama increased his support again in 2012, winning 71% of Hispanic voters.

Cuban Americans still tend to vote Republican, though there has been a noticeable change starting with the 2008 elections. During the 2008 elections, Barack Obama received 47% of the Cuban-American vote in Florida. According to Bendixen's exit polls, 84% of Miami-Dade Cuban-American voters 65 or older backed McCain, while 55% of those 29 or younger backed Obama, showing that the younger Cuban-American generation has become more liberal.

Unaffiliated Hispanic advocacy groups that often support progressive candidates and causes include the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens. In the House of Representatives, the Democratic caucus of Hispanic Americans is the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Asian Americans

The Democratic Party has considerable support in the small yet growing Asian-American population. Asian Americans had been a stronghold of the Republican Party up to and including the 1992 presidential election, in which George H. W. Bush won 55% of the Asian-American vote. Originally, the vast majority of Asian Americans were strongly anti-communist Vietnamese refugees, Chinese Americans, Taiwanese Americans, Korean Americans, and Filipino Americans, and the Republican Party's positions resonated with this demographic. The Democratic Party made gains among Asian Americans starting in 1996 and in 2006 won 62% of the Asian-American vote. Exit polls after the 2008 presidential election indicated that Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, won 62% of the Asian-American vote. In the 2012 presidential election, 73% of the Asian-American electorate voted for Obama's re-election.

Barack Obama had the support of 85% of Indian Americans, 68% of Chinese Americans, and 57% of Filipino Americans. The Asian-American community's increasing number of young voters has also helped to erode traditionally reliably Republican voting blocs such as Vietnamese and Filipino Americans, leading to an increase in support for Democrats. Prominent Asian-American Democrats include Senators Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Daniel Inouye, Daniel Akaka, and Mazie Hirono, former Governor and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, and Representatives Mike Honda, Judy Chu, Doris Matsui, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Norman Mineta and Dalip Singh Saund, the first Asian-American representative.

Native Americans

Modern-day Democratic Native American politicians include former Congressman Brad Carson of Oklahoma as well as Principal Chief Bill John Baker of the Cherokee Nation, Governor Bill Anoatubby of the Chickasaw Nation, and Chief Gary Batton of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

In 2018, Democrats Deb Haaland of New Mexico and Sharice Davids of Kansas became the first Native American women ever elected to Congress. Democrat Peggy Flanagan was also elected in 2018 and currently serves as Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. Flanagan is the second Native American woman to be elected to statewide executive office in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Native woman to be elected to executive office.

Jewish Americans

Jewish American communities tend to be a stronghold for the Democratic Party, with more than 70% of Jewish voters having cast their ballots for the Democrats in the 2004 and 2006 elections. Al Gore received 79% of the Jewish votes in 2000, and Barack Obama won about 77% of the Jewish vote in 2008. Support tends to vary among specific sectarian groups. For example, only 13% of Orthodox Jews supported Barack Obama in 2008 while around 60% of Conservative Jews and Reform Jews did so. In the 2018 House of Representatives elections, 79% of Jewish Americans voted for the Democratic candidate.

Arab and Muslim Americans

Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have leaned Democratic since the Iraq War. Zogby found in June 2007 that 39% of Arab Americans identify as Democrats, 26% as Republicans and 28% as independents.

Arab Americans, who are in general socially conservative yet with more diverse economic views, historically voted Republican until recent years, having supported George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000.

A 2012 poll found that 68% of Muslim Americans surveyed support Barack Obama.

Secular Americans

The Democratic Party receives support from secular organizations such as the Secular Coalition for America and many agnostic and atheist Americans. Exit polls from the 2008 election showed that voters with a religious affiliation of " none" accounted for the 12% of the electorate and voted for Obama by a 75-25% margin. In his first inaugural address, Obama acknowledged atheists by saying that the United States is not just "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus but non-believers as well". In the 2012 election cycle, Obama had moderate to high ratings with the Secular Coalition for America while the majority of the Republican candidates had ratings in the low-to-failing range.

Democratic presidents

As of 2019, there have been a total of 15 Democratic Party presidents.

Supreme Court justices appointed by Democratic presidents

Recent electoral history

In congressional elections: 1950-present

In presidential elections: 1828-present

References

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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its main rival, the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

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People of a territory should themselves decide the issue of slavery

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Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South, this included that the Fugitive Slave Act was amended, the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was abolished, California entered the Union as a free state, a territorial government was created in Utah, and an act was passed settling a boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico that also established a territorial government in New Mexico

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Passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´

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Kansas-Nebraska Act - Definition, Date & Significance | HISTORY

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an 1854 bill that allowed settlers of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether slavery would be allowed within their state’s borders. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of the act’s passage led to the period of violence known as Bleeding Kansas, and contributed to unrest that led to the American Civil War (1861-65).

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When a state attempts to secede from, or leave, the nation it was once a part of

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Secession, as it applies to the outbreak of the American Civil War, comprises the series of events that began on December 20, 1860, and extended through June 8 of the next year when eleven states in the Lower and Upper South severed their ties with the Union. The first seven seceding states of the Lower South set up a provisional government at Montgomery, Alabama. After hostilities began at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the border states of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the new government, which then moved its capital to Richmond, Virginia. The Union was thus divided approximately on geographic lines. Twenty-one northern and border states retained the style and title of the United States, while the eleven slave states adopted the nomenclature of the Confederate States of America.

The border slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri remained with the Union, although they all contributed volunteers to the Confederacy. Fifty counties of western Virginia were loyal to the Union government, and in 1863 this area was constituted the separate state of West Virginia. Secession in practical terms meant that about a third of the population with substantial material resources had withdrawn from what had constituted a single nation and established a separate government.

The term secession had been used as early as 1776. South Carolina threatened separation when the Continental Congress sought to tax all the colonies on the basis of a total population count that would include slaves. Secession in this instance and throughout the antebellum period came to mean the assertion of minority sectional interests against what was perceived to be a hostile or indifferent majority. Secession had been a matter of concern to some members of the Constitutional Convention that met at Philadelphia in 1787. Theoretically, secession was bound up closely with Whig thought, which claimed the right of revolution against a despotic government. Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and the British Commonwealth Men argued this theme, and it played a prominent role in the American Revolution.

Any federal republic by its very nature invited challenge to central control, a danger that James Madison recognized. He sought at the convention a clause that would prohibit secession from the proposed union once the states had ratified the Constitution. In debate over other points, Madison repeatedly warned that secession or "disunion" was a major concern. The Constitution as framed and finally accepted by the states divided the exercise of sovereign power between the states and the national government. By virtue of the fact that it was a legal document and in most respects enumerated the powers of the central government, the division was weighted toward the states. Yet much of the charter was drawn up in general terms and was susceptible to interpretation that might vary with time and circumstance.

The very thing that Madison feared took on a concrete form during the party battles of the Washington and Adams administrations. And paradoxically, Madison found himself involved with those who seemed to threaten separation. In their reaction to the arbitrary assumption of power in the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson and Madison argued for state annulment of this legislation. Jefferson's response in the Kentucky Resolution advanced the compact interpretation of the federal Constitution. Madison's Virginia Resolution was far more moderate, but both resolutions looked to state action against what were deemed unconstitutional laws. The national judiciary, they felt, was packed with their opponents. Neither resolution claimed original sovereignty for the states, but both argued for a strict reading of enumerated powers. During the War of 1812, a disaffected Federalist majority in New England advanced the compact theory and considered secession from the Union.

As modernization began to take hold in the United States, differences between the two major sections grew more pronounced: a plantation cotton culture worked by slave labor became concentrated in the South and industrial development featuring free labor in the North. A wave of reform activity in Europe and the United States made the abolition or at least the restriction of slavery a significant goal in the free states. Since abolition struck at the labor system as well as the social structure of the slave states, threats of secession punctuated the political dialogue from 1819 through 1860.

John C. Calhoun, the leading spokesman of the slave states, charged frequently and eloquently that the South and its way of life were under assault from an industrializing North. Like other proponents of endangered minorities, he looked to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and their assertion of the federal compact for the basis of his defense. He argued that a state or a group of states could nullify a federal law that was felt to be against a particular interest. But Calhoun made a fundamental extension of the Jeffersonian concept of states' rights and claimed original undivided sovereignty for the people acting through the states. Although always seeking an accommodation for the South and its slave plantation system within the Union, Calhoun had hoped that nullification was a proper, constitutional alternative to disunion. But he eventually invoked secession with particular vehemence after the territorial acquisitions of the Mexican War and the formation of the Free-Soil party in 1848. Nationalists like John Marshall, Joseph Story, and Daniel Webster countered the Calhoun argument. They declared that the Constitution operated directly through the states on the people, not upon the states as corporate bodies, and their view gained wide acceptance in the free states.

Calhoun was instrumental in fostering southern unity on a sectional basis and in formulating the call for a convention of delegates from the slave states to be held at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1850. There is little doubt that had he lived, Calhoun would have been a formidable force for secession as the ultimate weapon. His death and the working out of a compromise that strengthened moderate opinion in both sections kept the secessionist element at bay temporarily.

But the territorial issue flared up again, this time with renewed fury over the question of whether Kansas should enter the Union as a free or slave state. By now antislavery sentiment had grown significantly in the free states. And opinion leaders in the slave states drew closer together in defense against what they saw as an impending attack on their institutions. The Kansas question created the Republican party, a frankly sectional political organization, and it nominated John C. Frémont for president on a Free-Soil platform in 1856. Although the Democrats, still functioning along national lines, managed to elect James Buchanan president by a slim margin, the slave states threatened secession if the Republicans should win the election in 1860.

The South was committed to an agrarian way of life. It was a land where profitable and efficient plantations worked by slave labor produced cotton for the world market. It was also a land where a majority of its white population was made up of subsistence farmers who lived isolated lives on the edge of poverty and whose literacy rates were low compared with those in the more densely populated North.

The South nevertheless was beginning to industrialize, a factor that added to the social tensions surfacing during the 1850s between the haves-plantation owners and professional groups in the few urban centers-and the have-nots-an increasingly restive yeoman or small-farmer group. But the issue of black servitude provided cohesion for the white bloc and contributed greatly to a patriarchal system wherein the masses of the whites still looked to a planter-professional elite for political and social guidance. Although the northern masses might also defer to the opinions of the powerful and living conditions among the urban poor were precarious, educational levels were far higher than in the South. The ethic of free capital and free labor was deeply ingrained in the cities and in farm communities as well. It was this ethic that formed the ideological basis for a broad antislavery movement.

Southern leaders were concerned over internal stresses in their society and were increasingly aware of the moral and social repugnance the slave system engendered not only in the North but also in Western Europe. Southern leadership, though surely not unified in its response to a political victory of antislavery forces in 1860, began as early as 1858 to prepare its section for separation from the Union.

Even though the Republican platform of 1860 disavowed any move that would interfere with slavery where the custom and the law of a given state upheld it, many of the more extreme opinion makers in the South promoted the idea that a Republican victory meant eventual emancipation and social and political equality for their black population. So inflamed were the voters in South Carolina that before the election of Lincoln, they had chosen a convention that was committed to secession on news of a Republican victory. The situation of other states in the Deep South was more complicated. Elections were held promptly, but the results showed considerable division on secession. Three factions emerged: those for immediate secession, those who sought delay until the policy of the new administration toward the slave states became clear, and those who believed they could bargain with the new administration. All these groups, however, were united in support of the doctrine of secession. With this idea as a basic commitment, the better organized immediate secessionists were able to prevail.

The close connection between the right to revolution and separation from the governing power in the spirit of 1776 was an early theme in the provisional Confederacy. To be sure, the revolution was posited as a peaceful one. Separation from a Union perceived to be under the control of a tyrannical power that would destroy southern institutions was the objective.

Confederate leaders at this early date thought that the North would not fight to preserve the Union. But the provisional government nevertheless began purchasing arms and munitions, and seceded states started to equip and train their militias.

State and Confederate government authorities seized federal forts, arsenals, and other national property within their jurisdiction. When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, federal troops held only Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, Fort Pickens off the Florida coast, and one or two other outposts in the South.

Concerned about the loyalty of the border states of Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, the new administration went so far as to offer the slave states an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee slavery where it legally existed. Lincoln himself in his inaugural address pledged only to hold federal property that was in the possession of the Union on March 4, 1861.

The provisional Confederacy likewise sought vigorously to stimulate secession sentiment in the border states. Had all the border slave states thrown in their lot with one or the other government, there might not have been a war, or conversely, separation might well have become an accomplished fact. As it was, however, the prompt action of the Lincoln administration after the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter secured Maryland and Delaware for the Union. Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality but eventually remained loyal to the Union. Missouri, too, though a major battleground for the contending forces, contributed most of its resources in men and matériel to the Union.

Once the war was joined, waves of patriotic sentiment swept over North and South. Vocal political opposition would exist on both sides, but it was never strong enough to overthrow either government. Secession as revolution, an early theme in southern rhetoric, was not emphasized after the formation of the Confederacy. Rather, Jefferson's compact theory was enshrined in its Constitution. A nation could not have been formed, nor a war fought, if the states were wholly independent of any central authority.

Behind it all, of course, was the unity of a minority geographical section defending a distinct set of institutions that were thought to be under attack. The original federal Union that shared the exercise of power with the states strengthened the concept of secession. It also supplied a pretext for southern leaders to seize the initiative and form a separate nation.

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Secession - Definition, Civil War & Southern States

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Secession, as it applies to the outbreak of the American Civil War, comprises the series of events that began on December 20, 1860, and extended through June 8 of the next year when eleven states in the lower and upper South severed their ties with the Union.

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Freed all slaves and abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States

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The Thirteenth Amendment ( Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, effective on January 1, 1863, declared that the enslaved in Confederate-controlled areas were free. When they escaped to Union lines or federal forces (including now-former slaves) advanced south, emancipation occurred without any compensation to the former owners. Texas was the last Confederate territory reached by the Union army. On June 19, 1865- Juneteenth-U.S. Army general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to proclaim the war had ended and so had slavery (in the Confederate states). In the slave-owning areas controlled by Union forces on January 1, 1863, state action was used to abolish slavery. The exceptions were New Jersey, Kentucky and Delaware, where all forms of forced labor were finally ended by the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.

In contrast to the other Reconstruction Amendments, the Thirteenth Amendment has rarely been cited in case law, but it has been used to strike down peonage and some race-based discrimination as "badges and incidents of slavery". The Thirteenth Amendment has also been invoked to empower Congress to make laws against modern forms of slavery, such as sex trafficking.

Since 1776, the Union had divided into states that allowed slavery and states that prohibited it. Slavery was implicitly recognized in the original Constitution in provisions such as Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, commonly known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, which provided that three-fifths of each state's enslaved population ("other persons") was to be added to its free population for the purposes of apportioning seats in the United States House of Representatives, its number of Electoral votes, and direct taxes among the states. Article IV, Section 2, provided that slaves held under the laws of one state, who escaped to another state, did not become free, but remained slaves.

Though three million Confederate slaves were in fact eventually freed as a result of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, their post-war status was uncertain. To ensure the abolition was beyond legal challenge, an amendment to the Constitution to that effect was initiated. On April 8, 1864, the Senate passed an amendment to abolish slavery. After one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on January 31, 1865. The measure was swiftly ratified by nearly all Northern states, along with a sufficient number of border states (slave states not part of the Confederacy) up to the assassination of President Lincoln. However, the approval came via his successor, President Andrew Johnson, who encouraged the "reconstructed" Southern states of Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia to agree, which brought the count to 27 states, leading to its adoption before the end of 1865.

Though the Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, some black Americans, particularly in the South, were subjected to other forms of involuntary labor, such as under the Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes, besides other disabilities.

Section 1. 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.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Slavery in the United States

Slavery existed and was legal in the United States of America upon its founding in 1776. It was established by European colonization in all of the original thirteen American colonies of British America. Prior to the Thirteenth Amendment, the United States Constitution did not expressly use the words slave or slavery but included several provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise, Article I, Section 2, Clause3 of the Constitution, allocated Congressional representation based "on the whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons". This clause was a compromise between Southern politicians who wished for enslaved African-Americans to be counted as 'persons' for congressional representation and Northern politicians rejecting these out of concern of too much power for the South, because representation in the new Congress would be based on population in contrast to the one-vote-for-one-state principle in the earlier Continental Congress. Under the Fugitive Slave Clause, Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, "No person held to Service or Labour in one State" would be freed by escaping to another. Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 allowed Congress to pass legislation outlawing the " Importation of Persons", which would not be passed until 1808. However, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment-which states that "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"-slaves were understood as property. Although abolitionists used the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it became part of the legal basis in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) for treating slaves as property.

Stimulated by the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, between 1777 and 1804 every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. Most of the slaves who were emancipated by such legislation were household servants. No Southern state did so, and the enslaved population of the South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million in 1861. An abolitionist movement headed by such figures as William Lloyd Garrison grew in strength in the North, calling for the end of slavery nationwide and exacerbating tensions between North and South. The American Colonization Society, an alliance between abolitionists who felt the races should be kept separated and slaveholders who feared the presence of freed blacks would encourage slave rebellions, called for the emigration of both free blacks and slaves to Africa, where they would establish independent colonies. Its views were endorsed by politicians such as Henry Clay, who feared that the American abolitionist movement would provoke a civil war. Proposals to eliminate slavery by constitutional amendment were introduced by Representative Arthur Livermore in 1818 and by John Quincy Adams in 1839, but failed to gain significant traction.

As the country continued to expand, the issue of slavery in its new territories became the dominant national issue. The Southern position was that slaves were property and therefore could be moved to the territories like all other forms of property. The 1820 Missouri Compromise provided for the admission of Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, preserving the Senate's equality between the regions. In 1846, the Wilmot Proviso was introduced to a war appropriations bill to ban slavery in all territories acquired in the Mexican-American War; the Proviso repeatedly passed the House, but not the Senate. The Compromise of 1850 temporarily defused the issue by admitting California as a free state, instituting a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, banning the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and allowing New Mexico and Utah self-determination on the slavery issue.

Despite the compromise, tensions between North and South continued to rise over the subsequent decade, inflamed by, amongst other things, the publication of the 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin; fighting between pro-slavery and abolitionist forces in Kansas, beginning in 1854; the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which struck down provisions of the Compromise of 1850; abolitionist John Brown's 1859 attempt to start a slave revolt at Harpers Ferry and the 1860 election of slavery critic Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. The Southern states seceded from the Union in the months following Lincoln's election, forming the Confederate States of America, and beginning the American Civil War.

Proposal and ratification

Crafting the amendment

Acting under presidential war powers, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with effect on January 1, 1863, which proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion. In his State of the Union message to Congress on December 1, 1862, Lincoln also presented a plan for "gradual emancipation and deportation" of slaves. This plan envisioned three amendments to the Constitution. The first would have required the states to abolish slavery by January 1, 1900. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation then proceeded immediately freeing slaves in January 1863 but did not affect the status of slaves in the border states that had remained loyal to the Union. By December 1863, Lincoln again used his war powers and issued a " Proclamation for Amnesty and Reconstruction", which offered Southern states a chance to peacefully rejoin the Union if they immediately abolished slavery and collected loyalty oaths from 10% of their voting population. Southern states did not readily accept the deal, and the status of slavery remained uncertain.

In the final years of the Civil War, Union lawmakers debated various proposals for Reconstruction. Some of these called for a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery nationally and permanently. On December 14, 1863, a bill proposing such an amendment was introduced by Representative James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio. Representative James F. Wilson of Iowa soon followed with a similar proposal. On January 11, 1864, Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri submitted a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, became involved in merging different proposals for an amendment.

Radical Republicans led by Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Pennsylvania Representative Thaddeus Stevens sought a more expansive version of the amendment. On February 8, 1864, Sumner submitted a constitutional amendment stating:

All persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave; and the Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to carry this declaration into effect everywhere in the United States.

Sumner tried to have his amendment sent to his committee, rather than the Trumbull-controlled Judiciary Committee, but the Senate refused. On February 10, the Senate Judiciary Committee presented the Senate with an amendment proposal based on drafts of Ashley, Wilson and Henderson.

The Committee's version used text from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which stipulates, "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Though using Henderson's proposed amendment as the basis for its new draft, the Judiciary Committee removed language that would have allowed a constitutional amendment to be adopted with only a majority vote in each House of Congress and ratification by two-thirds of the states (instead of two-thirds and three-fourths, respectively).

Passage by Congress

The Senate passed the amendment on April 8, 1864, by a vote of 38 to 6; two Democrats, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland and James Nesmith of Oregon voted for the amendment. However, just over two months later on June 15, the House failed to do so, with 93 in favor and 65 against, thirteen votes short of the two-thirds vote needed for passage; the vote split largely along party lines, with Republicans supporting and Democrats opposing. In the 1864 presidential race, former Free Soil Party candidate John C. Frémont threatened a third-party run opposing Lincoln, this time on a platform endorsing an anti-slavery amendment. The Republican Party platform had, as yet, failed to include a similar plank, though Lincoln endorsed the amendment in a letter accepting his nomination. Frémont withdrew from the race on September 22, 1864, and endorsed Lincoln.

With no Southern states represented, few members of Congress pushed moral and religious arguments in favor of slavery. Democrats who opposed the amendment generally made arguments based on federalism and states' rights. Some argued that the proposed change so violated the spirit of the Constitution it would not be a valid "amendment" but would instead constitute "revolution". Representative White, among other opponents, warned that the amendment would lead to full citizenship for blacks.

Republicans portrayed slavery as uncivilized and argued for abolition as a necessary step in national progress. Amendment supporters also argued that the slave system had negative effects on white people. These included the lower wages resulting from competition with forced labor, as well as repression of abolitionist whites in the South. Advocates said ending slavery would restore the First Amendment and other constitutional rights violated by censorship and intimidation in slave states.

White, Northern Republicans and some Democrats became excited about an abolition amendment, holding meetings and issuing resolutions. Many blacks though, particularly in the South, focused more on land ownership and education as the key to liberation. As slavery began to seem politically untenable, an array of Northern Democrats successively announced their support for the amendment, including Representative James Brooks, Senator Reverdy Johnson, and the powerful New York political machine known as Tammany Hall.

President Lincoln had had concerns that the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 might be reversed or found invalid by the judiciary after the war. He saw constitutional amendment as a more permanent solution. He had remained outwardly neutral on the amendment because he considered it politically too dangerous. Nonetheless, Lincoln's 1864 election platform resolved to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. After winning reelection in the election of 1864, Lincoln made the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment his top legislative priority. He began with his efforts in Congress during its " lame duck" session, in which many members of Congress had already seen their successors elected; most would be concerned about unemployment and lack of income, and none needed to fear the electoral consequences of cooperation. Popular support for the amendment mounted and Lincoln urged Congress on in his December 6, 1864 State of the Union Address: "there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment will go to the States for their action. And as it is to so go, at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the better?"

Lincoln instructed Secretary of State William H. Seward, Representative John B. Alley and others to procure votes by any means necessary, and they promised government posts and campaign contributions to outgoing Democrats willing to switch sides. Seward had a large fund for direct bribes. Ashley, who reintroduced the measure into the House, also lobbied several Democrats to vote in favor of the measure. Representative Thaddeus Stevens later commented that "the greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption aided and abetted by the purest man in America"; however, Lincoln's precise role in making deals for votes remains unknown.

Republicans in Congress claimed a mandate for abolition, having gained in the elections for Senate and House. The 1864 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Representative George H. Pendleton, led opposition to the measure. Republicans toned down their language of radical equality in order to broaden the amendment's coalition of supporters. In order to reassure critics worried that the amendment would tear apart the social fabric, some Republicans explicitly promised the amendment would leave patriarchy intact.

In mid-January 1865, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax estimated the amendment to be five votes short of passage. Ashley postponed the vote. At this point, Lincoln intensified his push for the amendment, making direct emotional appeals to particular members of Congress. On January 31, 1865, the House called another vote on the amendment, with neither side being certain of the outcome. With a total of 183 House members ( one seat was vacant after Reuben Fenton was elected governor), 122 would have to vote "aye" to secure passage of the resolution; however, eight Democrats abstained, reducing the number to 117. Every Republican (84), Independent Republican (2), and Unconditional Unionist (16) supported the measure, as well as fourteen Democrats, almost all of them lame ducks, and three Unionists. The amendment finally passed by a vote of 119 to 56, narrowly reaching the required two-thirds majority. The House exploded into celebration, with some members openly weeping. Black onlookers, who had only been allowed to attend Congressional sessions since the previous year, cheered from the galleries.

While the Constitution does not provide the President any formal role in the amendment process, the joint resolution was sent to Lincoln for his signature. Under the usual signatures of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, President Lincoln wrote the word "Approved" and added his signature to the joint resolution on February 1, 1865. On February 7, Congress passed a resolution affirming that the Presidential signature was unnecessary. The Thirteenth Amendment is the only ratified amendment signed by a President, although James Buchanan had signed the Corwin Amendment that the 36th Congress had adopted and sent to the states in March 1861.

Ratification by the states

On February 1, 1865, when the proposed amendment was submitted to the states for ratification, there were 36 states in the U.S., including those that had been in rebellion; at least 27 states had to ratify the amendment for it to come into force. By the end of February, 18 states had ratified the amendment. Among them were the ex-Confederate states of Virginia and Louisiana, where ratifications were submitted by Reconstruction governments. These, along with subsequent ratifications from Arkansas and Tennessee raised the issues of how many seceded states had legally valid legislatures; and if there were fewer legislatures than states, if Article V required ratification by three-fourths of the states or three-fourths of the legally valid state legislatures. President Lincoln in his last speech, on April 11, 1865, called the question about whether the Southern states were in or out of the Union a "pernicious abstraction". He declared they were not "in their proper practical relation with the Union"; whence everyone's object should be to restore that relation. Lincoln was assassinated three days later.

With Congress out of session, the new President, Andrew Johnson, began a period known as "Presidential Reconstruction", in which he personally oversaw the creation of new state governments throughout the South. He oversaw the convening of state political conventions populated by delegates whom he deemed to be loyal. Three leading issues came before the conventions: secession itself, the abolition of slavery, and the Confederate war debt. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina held conventions in 1865, while Texas' convention did not organize until March 1866. Johnson hoped to prevent deliberation over whether to re-admit the Southern states by accomplishing full ratification before Congress reconvened in December. He believed he could silence those who wished to deny the Southern states their place in the Union by pointing to how essential their assent had been to the successful ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Direct negotiations between state governments and the Johnson administration ensued. As the summer wore on, administration officials began giving assurances of the measure's limited scope with their demands for ratification. Johnson himself suggested directly to the governors of Mississippi and North Carolina that they could proactively control the allocation of rights to freedmen. Though Johnson obviously expected the freed people to enjoy at least some civil rights, including, as he specified, the right to testify in court, he wanted state lawmakers to know that the power to confer such rights would remain with the states. When South Carolina provisional governor Benjamin Franklin Perry objected to the scope of the amendment's enforcement clause, Secretary of State Seward responded by telegraph that in fact the second clause "is really restraining in its effect, instead of enlarging the powers of Congress". Politicians throughout the South were concerned that Congress might cite the amendment's enforcement powers as a way to authorize black suffrage.

When South Carolina ratified the Amendment in November 1865, it issued its own interpretive declaration that "any attempt by Congress toward legislating upon the political status of former slaves, or their civil relations, would be contrary to the Constitution of the United States." Alabama and Louisiana also declared that their ratification did not imply federal power to legislate on the status of former slaves. During the first week of December, North Carolina and Georgia gave the amendment the final votes needed for it to become part of the Constitution.

The first 27 states to ratify the Amendment were:

1. Illinois: February 1, 1865

2. Rhode Island: February 2, 1865

3. Michigan: February 3, 1865

4. Maryland: February 3, 1865

5. New York: February 3, 1865

6. Pennsylvania: February 3, 1865

7. West Virginia: February 3, 1865

8. Missouri: February 6, 1865

9. Maine: February 7, 1865

10. Kansas: February 7, 1865

11. Massachusetts: February 7, 1865

12. Virginia: February 9, 1865

13. Ohio: February 10, 1865

14. Indiana: February 13, 1865

15. Nevada: February 16, 1865

16. Louisiana: February 17, 1865

17. Minnesota: February 23, 1865

18. Wisconsin: February 24, 1865

19. Vermont: March 9, 1865

20. Tennessee: April 7, 1865

21. Arkansas: April 14, 1865

22. Connecticut: May 4, 1865

23. New Hampshire: July 1, 1865

24. South Carolina: November 13, 1865

25. Alabama: December 2, 1865

26. North Carolina: December 4, 1865

27. Georgia: December 6, 1865

Having been ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states (27 of the 36 states, including those that had been in rebellion), Secretary of State Seward, on December 18, 1865, certified that the Thirteenth Amendment had become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution. Included on the enrolled list of ratifying states were the three ex-Confederate states that had given their assent, but with strings attached. Seward accepted their affirmative votes and brushed aside their interpretive declarations without comment, challenge or acknowledgment.

The Thirteenth Amendment was subsequently ratified by the other states, as follows:

1. Oregon: December 8, 1865

2. California: December 19, 1865

3. Florida: December 28, 1865 (reaffirmed June 9, 1868)

4. Iowa: January 15, 1866

5. New Jersey: January 23, 1866 (after rejection March 16, 1865)

6. Texas: February 18, 1870

7. Delaware: February 12, 1901 (after rejection February 8, 1865)

8. Kentucky: March 18, 1976 (after rejection February 24, 1865)

9. Mississippi: March 16, 1995; certified February 7, 2013 (after rejection December 5, 1865)

Freeing slaves

The immediate impact of the amendment was to make the entire pre-war system of chattel slavery in the U.S. illegal. The impact of the abolition of slavery was felt quickly. When the Thirteenth Amendment became operational, the scope of Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was widened to include the entire nation. Although the majority of Kentucky's slaves had been emancipated, 65,000-100,000 people remained to be legally freed when the amendment went into effect on December 18. In Delaware, where a large number of slaves had escaped during the war, nine hundred people became legally free. With slavery abolished, the Fugitive Slave Clause remained in place but became largely moot.

Native American territory

Despite being rendered unconstitutional, slavery continued in areas under the jurisdiction of Native American tribes beyond ratification. The federal government negotiated new treaties with the " Five Civilized Tribes" in 1866, in which they agreed to end slavery.

Electoral changes

The Three-Fifths Compromise in the original Constitution counted, for purposes of allocating taxes and seats in the House of Representatives, all "free persons", three-fifths of "other persons" (i.e., slaves) and excluded untaxed Native Americans. The freeing of all slaves made the three-fifths clause moot. Compared to the pre-war system, it also had the effect of increasing the political power of former slave-holding states by increasing their share of seats in the House of Representatives, and consequently their share in the Electoral College (where a state's influence over the election of the President is tied to the size of its congressional delegation).

Even as the Thirteenth Amendment was working its way through the ratification process, Republicans in Congress grew increasingly concerned about the potential for there to be a large increase in the congressional representation of the Democratic-dominated Southern states. Because the full population of freed slaves would be counted rather than three-fifths, the Southern states would dramatically increase their power in the population-based House of Representatives. Republicans hoped to offset this advantage by attracting and protecting votes of the newly enfranchised black population. They would eventually attempt to address this issue in section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Political and economic change in the South

Southern culture remained deeply racist, and those blacks who remained faced a dangerous situation. J. J. Gries reported to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction: "There is a kind of innate feeling, a lingering hope among many in the South that slavery will be regalvanized in some shape or other. They tried by their laws to make a worse slavery than there was before, for the freedman has not the protection which the master from interest gave him before." W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in 1935:

Slavery was not abolished even after the Thirteenth Amendment. There were four million freedmen and most of them on the same plantation, doing the same work they did before emancipation, except as their work had been interrupted and changed by the upheaval of war. Moreover, they were getting about the same wages and apparently were going to be subject to slave codes modified only in name. There were among them thousands of fugitives in the camps of the soldiers or on the streets of the cities, homeless, sick, and impoverished. They had been freed practically with no land nor money, and, save in exceptional cases, without legal status, and without protection.

Official emancipation did not substantially alter the economic situation of most blacks who remained in the south.

As the amendment still permitted labor as punishment for convicted criminals, Southern states responded with what historian Douglas A. Blackmon called "an array of interlocking laws essentially intended to criminalize black life". These laws, passed or updated after emancipation, were known as Black Codes. Mississippi was the first state to pass such codes, with an 1865 law titled "An Act to confer Civil Rights on Freedmen". The Mississippi law required black workers to contract with white farmers by January1 of each year or face punishment for vagrancy. Blacks could be sentenced to forced labor for crimes including petty theft, using obscene language, or selling cotton after sunset. States passed new, strict vagrancy laws that were selectively enforced against blacks without white protectors. The labor of these convicts was then sold to farms, factories, lumber camps, quarries, and mines.

After its ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in November 1865, the South Carolina legislature immediately began to legislate Black Codes. The Black Codes created a separate set of laws, punishments, and acceptable behaviors for anyone with more than one black great-grandparent. Under these Codes, Blacks could only work as farmers or servants and had few Constitutional rights. Restrictions on black land ownership threatened to make economic subservience permanent.

Some states mandated indefinitely long periods of child "apprenticeship". Some laws did not target blacks specifically, but instead affected farm workers, most of whom were black. At the same time, many states passed laws to actively prevent blacks from acquiring property.

Congressional and executive enforcement

As its first enforcement legislation, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, guaranteeing black Americans citizenship and equal protection of the law, though not the right to vote. The amendment was also used as authorizing several Freedmen's Bureau bills. President Andrew Johnson vetoed these bills, but Congress overrode his vetoes to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Second Freedmen's Bureau Bill.

Proponents of the Act, including Trumbull and Wilson, argued that Section2 of the Thirteenth Amendment authorized the federal government to legislate civil rights for the States. Others disagreed, maintaining that inequality conditions were distinct from slavery. Seeking more substantial justification, and fearing that future opponents would again seek to overturn the legislation, Congress and the states added additional protections to the Constitution: the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) defining citizenship and mandating equal protection under the law, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) banning racial voting restrictions.

The Freedmen's Bureau enforced the amendment locally, providing a degree of support for people subject to the Black Codes. Reciprocally, the Thirteenth Amendment established the Bureau's legal basis to operate in Kentucky. The Civil Rights Act circumvented racism in local jurisdictions by allowing blacks access to the federal courts. The Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871 and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, in combating the violence and intimidation of white supremacy, were also part of the effort to end slave conditions for Southern blacks. However, the effect of these laws waned as political will diminished and the federal government lost authority in the South, particularly after the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in exchange for a Republican presidency.

Peonage law

Southern business owners sought to reproduce the profitable arrangement of slavery with a system called peonage, in which disproportionately black workers were entrapped by loans and compelled to work indefinitely due to the resulting debt. Peonage continued well through Reconstruction and ensnared a large proportion of black workers in the South. These workers remained destitute and persecuted, forced to work dangerous jobs and further confined legally by the racist Jim Crow laws that governed the South. Peonage differed from chattel slavery because it was not strictly hereditary and did not allow the sale of people in exactly the same fashion. However, a person's debt-and by extension a person-could still be sold, and the system resembled antebellum slavery in many ways.

Slavery in New Mexico also continued de facto in the form of peonage, which became a Spanish colonial tradition to work around the prohibition of hereditary slavery by the New Laws of 1542. Though this practice was rendered unconstitutional by the Thirteenth Amendment, enforcement was lax. The Peonage Act of 1867 specifically mentioned New Mexico and increased enforcement by banning nationwide "the holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as peonage", specifically banning "the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise."

In 1939, the Department of Justice created the Civil Rights Section, which focused primarily on First Amendment and labor rights. The increasing scrutiny of totalitarianism in the lead-up to World War II brought increased attention to issues of slavery and involuntary servitude, abroad and at home. The U.S. sought to counter foreign propaganda and increase its credibility on the race issue by combatting the Southern peonage system. Under the leadership of Attorney General Francis Biddle, the Civil Rights Section invoked the constitutional amendments and legislation of the Reconstruction Era as the basis for its actions.

In 1947, the DOJ successfully prosecuted Elizabeth Ingalls for keeping domestic servant Dora L. Jones in conditions of slavery. The court found that Jones "was a person wholly subject to the will of defendant; that she was one who had no freedom of action and whose person and services were wholly under the control of defendant and who was in a state of enforced compulsory service to the defendant." The Thirteenth Amendment enjoyed a swell of attention during this period, but from Brown v. Board of Education (1954) until Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968) it was again eclipsed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Penal labor exemption

The Thirteenth Amendment exempts penal labor from its prohibition of forced labor. This allows prisoners who have been convicted of crimes (not those merely awaiting trial) to be required to perform labor or else face punishment while in custody.

Few records of the committee's deliberations during the drafting of the Thirteenth Amendment survive, and the debate that followed both in Congress and in the state legislatures featured almost no discussion of this provision. It was apparently considered noncontroversial at the time, or at least legislators gave it little thought. The drafters based the amendment's phrasing on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which features an identical exception. Thomas Jefferson authored an early version of that ordinance's anti-slavery clause, including the exception of punishment for a crime, and also sought to prohibit slavery in general after 1800. Jefferson was an admirer of the works of Italian criminologist Cesare Beccaria. Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments suggested that the death penalty should be abolished and replaced with a lifetime of enslavement for the worst criminals; Jefferson likely included the clause due to his agreement with Beccaria. Beccaria, while attempting to reduce "legal barbarism" of the 1700s, considered forced labor one of the few harsh punishments acceptable; for example, he advocated slave labor as a just punishment for robbery, so that the thief's labor could be used to pay recompense to their victims and to society. Penal "hard labor" has ancient origins, and was adopted early in American history (as in Europe) often as a substitute for capital or corporal punishment.

Various commentators have accused states of abusing this provision to re-establish systems similar to slavery, or of otherwise exploiting such labor in a manner unfair to local labor. The Black Codes in the South criminalized " vagrancy", which was largely enforced against freed slaves. Later, convict lease programs in the South allowed local plantations to rent inexpensive prisoner labor. While many of these programs have been phased out (leasing of convicts was forbidden by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941), prison labor continues in the U.S. under a variety of justifications. Prison labor programs vary widely; some are uncompensated prison maintenance tasks, some are for local government maintenance tasks, some are for local businesses, and others are closer to internships. Modern rationales for prison labor programs often include reduction of recidivism and re-acclimation to society; the idea is that such labor programs will make it easier for the prisoner upon release to find gainful employment rather than relapse to criminality. However, this topic is not well-studied, and much of the work offered is so menial as to be unlikely to improve employment prospects. As of 2017, most prison labor programs do compensate prisoners, but generally with very low wages. What wages they do earn are often heavily garnished, with as much as 80% of a prisoner's paycheck withheld in the harshest cases.

In 2018, artist and entertainer Kanye West advocated for repealing the Thirteenth Amendment's exception for penal labor in a meeting with President Donald Trump, calling the exception a "trap door". In late 2020, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative William Lacy Clay (D-MO) introduced a resolution to create a new amendment to close this loophole.

Judicial interpretation

In contrast to the other "Reconstruction Amendments", the Thirteenth Amendment was rarely cited in later case law. As historian Amy Dru Stanley summarizes, "beyond a handful of landmark rulings striking down debt peonage, flagrant involuntary servitude, and some instances of race-based violence and discrimination, the Thirteenth Amendment has never been a potent source of rights claims."

Black slaves and their descendants

United States v. Rhodes (1866), one of the first Thirteenth Amendment cases, tested the constitutionality of provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that granted blacks redress in the federal courts. Kentucky law prohibited blacks from testifying against whites-an arrangement which compromised the ability of Nancy Talbot ("a citizen of the United States of the African race") to reach justice against a white person accused of robbing her. After Talbot attempted to try the case in federal court, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled this federal option unconstitutional. Noah Swayne (a Supreme Court justice sitting on the Kentucky Circuit Court) overturned the Kentucky decision, holding that without the material enforcement provided by the Civil Rights Act, slavery would not truly be abolished. With In Re Turner (1867), Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase ordered freedom for Elizabeth Turner, a former slave in Maryland who became indentured to her former master.

In Blyew v. United States, (1872) the Supreme Court heard another Civil Rights Act case relating to federal courts in Kentucky. John Blyew and George Kennard were white men visiting the cabin of a black family, the Fosters. Blyew apparently became angry with sixteen-year-old Richard Foster and hit him twice in the head with an ax. Blyew and Kennard killed Richard's parents, Sallie and Jack Foster, and his blind grandmother, Lucy Armstrong. They severely wounded the Fosters' two young daughters. Kentucky courts would not allow the Foster children to testify against Blyew and Kennard. Federal courts, authorized by the Civil Rights Act, found Blyew and Kennard guilty of murder. The Supreme Court ruled that the Foster children did not have standing in federal courts because only living people could take advantage of the Act. In doing so, the Courts effectively ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment did not permit a federal remedy in murder cases. Swayne and Joseph P. Bradley dissented, maintaining that in order to have meaningful effects, the Thirteenth Amendment would have to address systemic racial oppression.

The Blyew case set a precedent in state and federal courts that led to the erosion of Congress's Thirteenth Amendment powers. The Supreme Court continued along this path in the Slaughter-House Cases (1873), which upheld a state-sanctioned monopoly of white butchers. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court ignored Thirteenth Amendment dicta from a circuit court decision to exonerate perpetrators of the Colfax massacre and invalidate the Enforcement Act of 1870.

The Thirteenth Amendment is not solely a ban on chattel slavery; it also covers a much broader array of labor arrangements and social deprivations. As the U.S. Supreme Court explicated in the Slaughter-House Cases with respect to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment, and the Thirteenth Amendment in particular:

Undoubtedly while negro slavery alone was in the mind of the Congress which proposed the thirteenth article, it forbids any other kind of slavery, now or hereafter. If Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie labor system shall develop slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may safely be trusted to make it void. And so if other rights are assailed by the States which properly and necessarily fall within the protection of these articles, that protection will apply, though the party interested may not be of African descent. But what we do say, and what we wish to be understood is, that in any fair and just construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is necessary to look to the purpose which we have said was the pervading spirit of them all, the evil which they were designed to remedy, and the process of continued addition to the Constitution, until that purpose was supposed to be accomplished, as far as constitutional law can accomplish it.

In the Civil Rights Cases (1883), the Supreme Court reviewed five consolidated cases dealing with the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which outlawed racial discrimination at "inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement". The Court ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment did not ban most forms of racial discrimination by non-government actors. In the majority decision, Bradley wrote (again in non-binding dicta) that the Thirteenth Amendment empowered Congress to attack "badges and incidents of slavery". However, he distinguished between "fundamental rights" of citizenship, protected by the Thirteenth Amendment, and the "social rights of men and races in the community". The majority opinion held that "it would be running the slavery argument into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make as to guests he will entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach or cab or car; or admit to his concert or theatre, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business." In his solitary dissent, John Marshall Harlan (a Kentucky lawyer who changed his mind about civil rights law after witnessing organized racist violence) argued that "such discrimination practiced by corporations and individuals in the exercise of their public or quasi-public functions is a badge of servitude, the imposition of which congress may prevent under its power."

The Court in the Civil Rights Cases also held that appropriate legislation under the amendment could go beyond nullifying state laws establishing or upholding slavery, because the amendment "has a reflex character also, establishing and decreeing universal civil and political freedom throughout the United States" and thus Congress was empowered "to pass all laws necessary and proper for abolishing all badges and incidents of slavery in the United States." The Court stated about the amendment's scope:

This amendment, as well as the Fourteenth, is undoubtedly self-executing, without any ancillary legislation, so far as its terms are applicable to any existing state of circumstances. By its own unaided force and effect, it abolished slavery and established universal freedom. Still, legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases and circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its violation in letter or spirit. And such legislation may be primary and direct in its character, for the amendment is not a mere prohibition of State laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States.

Attorneys in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) argued that racial segregation involved "observances of a servile character coincident with the incidents of slavery", in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. In their brief to the Supreme Court, Plessy's lawyers wrote that "distinction of race and caste" was inherently unconstitutional. The Supreme Court rejected this reasoning and upheld state laws enforcing segregation under the " separate but equal" doctrine. In the (7-1) majority decision, the Court found that "a statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races-a distinction which is founded on the color of the two races and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color-has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude." Harlan dissented, writing: "The thin disguise of 'equal' accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor, atone for the wrong this day done."

In Hodges v. United States (1906), the Court struck down a federal statute providing for the punishment of two or more people who "conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States". A group of white men in Arkansas conspired to violently prevent eight black workers from performing their jobs at a lumber mill; the group was convicted by a federal grand jury. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal statute, which outlawed conspiracies to deprive citizens of their liberty, was not authorized by the Thirteenth Amendment. It held that "no mere personal assault or trespass or appropriation operates to reduce the individual to a condition of slavery." Harlan dissented, maintaining his opinion that the Thirteenth Amendment should protect freedom beyond "physical restraint". Corrigan v. Buckley (1922) reaffirmed the interpretation from Hodges, finding that the amendment does not apply to restrictive covenants.

Enforcement of federal civil rights law in the South created numerous peonage cases, which slowly traveled up through the judiciary. The Supreme Court ruled in Clyatt v. United States (1905) that peonage was involuntary servitude. It held that although employers sometimes described their workers' entry into contract as voluntary, the servitude of peonage was always (by definition) involuntary.

In Bailey v. Alabama the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed its holding that the Thirteenth Amendment is not solely a ban on chattel slavery, it also covers a much broader array of labor arrangements and social deprivations. In addition to the aforesaid the Court also ruled on Congress enforcement power under the Thirteenth Amendment. The Court said:

The plain intention [of the amendment] was to abolish slavery of whatever name and form and all its badges and incidents; to render impossible any state of bondage; to make labor free, by prohibiting that control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit, which is the essence of involuntary servitude. While the Amendment was self-executing, so far as its terms were applicable to any existing condition, Congress was authorized to secure its complete enforcement by appropriate legislation.

Legal histories cite Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968) as a turning point of Thirteen Amendment jurisprudence. The Supreme Court confirmed in Jones that Congress may act "rationally" to prevent private actors from imposing "badges and incidents of servitude". The Joneses were a black couple in St. Louis County, Missouri, who sued a real estate company for refusing to sell them a house. The Court held:

Congress has the power under the Thirteenth Amendment rationally to determine what are the badges and the incidents of slavery, and the authority to translate that determination into effective legislation. ... this Court recognized long ago that, whatever else they may have encompassed, the badges and incidents of slavery-its "burdens and disabilities"-included restraints upon "those fundamental rights which are the essence of civil freedom, namely, the same right ... to inherit, purchase, lease, sell and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens." Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 109 U. S. 22.

Just as the Black Codes, enacted after the Civil War to restrict the free exercise of those rights, were substitutes for the slave system, so the exclusion of Negroes from white communities became a substitute for the Black Codes. And when racial discrimination herds men into ghettos and makes their ability to buy property turn on the color of their skin, then it too is a relic of slavery.

Negro citizens, North and South, who saw in the Thirteenth Amendment a promise of freedom-freedom to "go and come at pleasure" and to "buy and sell when they please"-would be left with "a mere paper guarantee" if Congress were powerless to assure that a dollar in the hands of a Negro will purchase the same thing as a dollar in the hands of a white man. At the very least, the freedom that Congress is empowered to secure under the Thirteenth Amendment includes the freedom to buy whatever a white man can buy, the right to live wherever a white man can live. If Congress cannot say that being a free man means at least this much, then the Thirteenth Amendment made a promise the Nation cannot keep.

The Court in Jones reopened the issue of linking racism in contemporary society to the history of slavery in the United States.

The Jones precedent has been used to justify Congressional action to protect migrant workers and target sex trafficking. The direct enforcement power found in the Thirteenth Amendment contrasts with that of the Fourteenth, which allows only responses to institutional discrimination of state actors.

Other cases of involuntary servitude

The Supreme Court has taken an especially narrow view of involuntary servitude claims made by people not descended from black (African) slaves. In Robertson v. Baldwin (1897), a group of merchant seamen challenged federal statutes which criminalized a seaman's failure to complete their contractual term of service. The Court ruled that seamen's contracts had been considered unique from time immemorial, and that "the amendment was not intended to introduce any novel doctrine with respect to certain descriptions of service which have always been treated as exceptional." In this case, as in numerous "badges and incidents" cases, Justice Harlan authored a dissent favoring broader Thirteenth Amendment protections.

In Selective Draft Law Cases, the Supreme Court ruled that the military draft was not "involuntary servitude". In United States v. Kozminski, the Supreme Court ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment did not prohibit compulsion of servitude through psychological coercion. Kozminski defined involuntary servitude for purposes of criminal prosecution as "a condition of servitude in which the victim is forced to work for the defendant by the use or threat of physical restraint or physical injury or by the use or threat of coercion through law or the legal process. This definition encompasses cases in which the defendant holds the victim in servitude by placing him or her in fear of such physical restraint or injury or legal coercion."

The U.S. Courts of Appeals, in Immediato v. Rye Neck School District, Herndon v. Chapel Hill, and Steirer v. Bethlehem School District, have ruled that the use of community service as a high school graduation requirement did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment.

Prior proposed Thirteenth Amendments

During the six decades following the 1804 ratification of the Twelfth Amendment two proposals to amend the Constitution were adopted by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Neither has been ratified by the number of states necessary to become part of the Constitution. Each is referred to as Article Thirteen, as was the successful Thirteenth Amendment, in the joint resolution passed by Congress.

References

1. ^ Vile, John R., ed. (2003). "Thirteenth Amendment". Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues: 1789-2002. ABC-CLIO. pp. 449-52.

2. ^ "The Emancipation Proclamation". National Archives and Records Administration.

3. Lind, Michael, ^ What Lincoln believed. The Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President (2004). Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 1-4000-3073-0, 978-1-4000-3073-6. Chapter Six Race and Restoration, pp. 205-212.

4. Leonard L. Richards, ^ Who Freed the Slaves?: The Fight over the Thirteenth Amendment (2015) excerpt

5. ^ "Congressional Proposals and Senate Passage" Archived November 7, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Harpers Weekly, The Creation of the 13th Amendment, Retrieved Feb 15, 2007

6. ^ McAward, Jennifer Mason (November 2012). "McCulloch and the Thirteenth Amendment". Columbia Law Review. Columbia Law School. 112 (7): 1769-1809. JSTOR 41708164. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Pdf.

7. Benedict, "Constitutional Politics, Constitutional Law, and the Thirteenth Amendment" (2012), p. 179-180. Benedict quotes Senator ^ Garrett Davis: "there is a boundary between the power of revolution and the power of amendment, which the latter, as established in our Constitution, cannot pass; and that if the proposed change is revolutionary it would be null and void, notwithstanding it might be formally adopted." The full text of Davis's speech, with comments from others, appears in Great Debates in American History (1918), ed. Marion Mills Miller.

8. Colbert, "Liberating the Thirteenth Amendment" (1995), pp. 10-11.

9. ^ tenBroek, Jacobus (June 1951). "Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: Consummation to Abolition and Key to the Fourteenth Amendment". California Law Review. 39 (2): 180. doi:10.2307/3478033. JSTOR 3478033. It would make it possible for white citizens to exercise their constitutional right under the comity clause to reside in Southern states regardless of their opinions. It would carry out the constitutional declaration "that each citizen of the United States shall have equal privileges in every other state". It would protect citizens in their rights under the First Amendment and comity clause to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly Preview.

10. Trelease, White Terror (1971), p. xvii. "Negroes wanted the same freedom that white men enjoyed, with equal prerogatives and opportunities. The educated black minority emphasized civil and political rights more than the masses, who called most of all for land and schools. In an agrarian society, the only kind most of them knew, landownership was associated with freedom, respectability, and the good life. It was almost universally desired by Southern blacks, as it was by landless peasants the world over. Give us our land and we can take care of ourselves, said a group of South Carolina Negroes to a Northern journalist in 1865; without land the old masters can hire us or starve us as they please."

11. ^ Willis, John C. "Republican Party Platform, 1864". University of the South. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Resolved, That as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be, always and everywhere, hostile to the principles of Republican Government, justice and the National safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic; and that, while we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government, in its own defense, has aimed a deathblow at this gigantic evil, we are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of Slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.

12. ^ "1864: The Civil War Election". Get Out the Vote. Cornell University. 2004. Despite internal Party conflicts, Republicans rallied around a platform that supported restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery.

13. Vorenberg, ^ Final Freedom (2001), p. 187. "But the clearest sign of the people's voice against slavery, argued amendment supporters, was the recent election. Following Lincoln's lead, Republican representatives like Godlove S. Orth of Indiana claimed that the vote represented a 'popular verdict... in unmistakable language' in favor of the amendment."

14. Vorenberg, ^ Final Freedom (2001), pp. 191-192. "One of the most effective methods used by amendment supporters to convey the measure's conservative character was to proclaim the permanence of patriarchal power within the American family in the face of this or any textual change to the Constitution. In response to Democrats who charged that the antislavery was but the first step in a Republican design to dissolve all of society's foundations, including the hierarchical structure of the family, the Iowa Republican John A. Kasson denied any desire to interfere with 'the rights of a husband to a wife' or 'the right of [a] father to his child'."

15. Lincoln's struggle to get the amendment through Congress, while bringing the war to an end, is portrayed in ^ Lincoln.

16. Vorenberg (2001), Final Freedom, p. 229.

17. U.S. Government Printing Office, 112th Congress, 2nd Session, SENATE DOCUMENT No. 112-9 (2013). "The Constitution of the United States Of America Analysis And Interpretation Centennial Edition Interim Edition: Analysis Of Cases Decided By The Supreme Court Of The United States To June 26, 2013s" (PDF). p. 30.

18. ^ Kocher, Greg (February 23, 2013). "Kentucky supported Lincoln's efforts to abolish slavery-111 years late". Lexington Herald-Leader. Archived from the original on February 20, 2014.

19. ^ Ben Waldron (February 18, 2013). "Mississippi Officially Abolishes Slavery, Ratifies 13th Amendment". ABC News. Archived from the original on June 27, 2013.

20. ^ Greene, Jamal; Mason McAward, Jennifer. "Constitutional Law. Thirteenth Amendment". National Constitution Center. 55. doi:10.2307/1071811. JSTOR 1071811.

21. Lowell Harrison & James C. Klotter, ^ A New History of Kentucky, University Press of Kentucky, 1997; p. 180; ISBN 9780813126210

22. Forehand, "Striking Resemblance" (1996), p. 82.

23. ^ Neil P. Chatelain (July 10, 2018). "Beyond the 13th Amendment: Ending Slavery in the Indian Territory".

24. ^ "The Thirteenth Amendment", Primary Documents in American History, Library of Congress. Retrieved Feb 15, 2007

25. ^ Nelson, William E. (1988). The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine. Harvard University Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780674041424.

26. J. J. Gries to the ^ Joint Committee on Reconstruction, quoted in Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), p. 140.

27. Benjamin Ginsberg, ^ Moses of South Carolina: A Jewish Scalawag during Radical Reconstruction; Johns Hopkins Press, 2010; pp. 44-46.

28. Tsesis, The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), p. 66-67.

29. Tsesis, ^ The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), pp. 56-57, 60-61. "If the Republicans had hoped to gradually use Section2 of the Thirteenth Amendment to pass Reconstruction legislation, they would soon learn that President Johnson, using his veto power, would make increasingly more difficult the passage of any measure augmenting the power of the national government. Further, with time, even leading antislavery Republicans would become less adamant and more willing to reconcile with the South than protect the rights of the newly freed. This was clear by the time Horace Greely accepted the Democratic nomination for president in 1872 and even more when President Rutherford B. Hayes entered the Compromise of 1877, agreeing to withdraw federal troops from the South."

30. ^ Tobias Barrington Wolff (May 2002). "Thirteenth Amendment and Slavery in the Global Economy". Columbia Law Review. 102 (4). p. 981 in 973-1050. doi:10.2307/1123649. JSTOR 1123649. S2CID 155279033. Peonage was a system of forced labor that depended upon the indebtedness of a worker, rather than an actual property right in a slave, as the means of compelling work. A prospective employer would offer a laborer a "loan" or "advance" on his wages, typically as a condition of employment, and then use the newly created debt to compel the worker to remain on the job for as long as the employer wished.

31. Wolff (2002). "The Thirteenth Amendment and Slavery in the Global Economy". Columbia Law Review. 102 (4). p. 982(?). doi:10.2307/1123649. JSTOR 1123649. S2CID 155279033. Not surprisingly, employers used peonage arrangements primarily in industries that involved hazardous working conditions and very low pay. While black workers were not the exclusive victims of peonage arrangements in America, they suffered under its yoke in vastly disproportionate numbers. Along with Jim Crow laws that segregated transportation and public facilities, these laws helped to restrict the movement of freed black workers and thereby keep them in a state of poverty and vulnerability.

32. ^ Wolff (May 2002). "The Thirteenth Amendment and Slavery in the Global Economy". Columbia Law Review. 102 (4). p. 982. doi:10.2307/1123649. JSTOR 1123649. S2CID 155279033. Legally sanctioned peonage arrangements blossomed in the South following the Civil War and continued into the twentieth century. According to the Professor Jacqueline Jones, 'perhaps as many as one-third of all [sharecropping farmers] in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia were being held against their will in 1900.

33. ^ Howe, Scott (2009). "Slavery as Punishment: Original Public Meaning, Cruel and Unusual Punishment, and the Neglected Clause in the Thirteenth Amendment". Arizona Law Review. 51 (4): 983.

34. ^ Ajunwa, Ifeoma; Onwuachi-Willig, Angela (2018). "Combating Discrimination Against the Formerly Incarcerated in the Labor Market". Northwestern University Law Review. 112 (6): 1407.

35. ^ Nilsen, Ella (October 11, 2018). "Kanye West's meeting with President Trump turned into an extended rant on mental health and the 13th Amendment". .

36. ^ Amy Dru Stanley (June 2010). "Instead of Waiting for the Thirteenth Amendment: The War Power, Slave Marriage, and Inviolate Human Rights". American Historical Review. 115 (3): 735.

37. ^ Kenneth L. Karst (January 1, 2000). "Thirteenth Amendment (Judicial Interpretation)". Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015.

38. ^ "United States v Rhodes, 27 f Cas 785 (1866)". August 19, 2011. Archived from the original on August 19, 2011.

39. ^ Seth P. Waxman (2000). "Twins at Birth: Civil Rights and the Role of the Solictor General". Indiana Law Journal. 75: 1302-1303.

40. ^ Waskey, Andrew J. (December 6, 2011). "John Marshall Harlan". In Wilson, Steven Harmon (ed.). The U.S. Justice System: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 547. ISBN 978-1-59884-305-7.

41. Maria L. Ontiveros, Professor of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, and Joshua R. Drexler, J.D. Candidate, May 2008, University of San Francisco School of Law (July 21, 2008), The Thirteenth Amendment and Access to Education for Children of Undocumented Workers: A New Look at Plyler v. Doe'; Publisher: University of San Francisco Law Review, Volume 42, Spring 2008, Pages 1045-1076; here page 1058-1059. The article was developed from a working paper prepared for the roundtable, "The Education of All Our Children: The 25th Anniversary of Plyler v. Doe", sponsored by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity (University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law), held on May 7, 2007. Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine

42. Jamal Greene (Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School); ennifer Mason McAward (Associate Professor of Law and Director of Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame Law School). "Common Interpretation: The Thirteenth Amendment". The National Constitution Center. Archived from the original on July 15, 2020.

43. ^ Text of Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883) is available from:Findlaw Justia LII

44. Tsesis, The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), p. 3. "After Reconstruction, however, a series of Supreme Court decisions substantially diminished the amendment's significance in achieving genuine liberation. The Court did not revisit the amendment's meaning until 1968, during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement. In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer, the Court found that the Thirteenth Amendment not only ended unrecompensed, forced labor but that its second section also empowered Congress to develop legislation that is 'rationally' related to ending any remaining 'badges and incidents of servitude'."

45. ^ "Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. 392 U.S. 409 (1968)". Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School. Syllabus: "[T]he badges and incidents of slavery that the Thirteenth Amendment empowered Congress to eliminate included restraints upon those fundamental rights which are the essence of civil freedom, namely, the same right ... to inherit, purchase, lease, sell and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens. Civil Rights Cases, 09 U.S. 3, 22. Insofar as Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1, suggests a contrary holding, it is overruled." Footnote 78: "[W]e note that the entire Court [in the Civil Rights Cases; content added] agreed upon at least one proposition: the Thirteenth Amendment authorizes Congress not only to outlaw all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude, but also to eradicate the last vestiges and incidents of a society half slave and half free by securing to all citizens, of every race and color, the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to inherit, purchase, lease, sell and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens. ... The conclusion of the majority in Hodges rested upon a concept of congressional power under the Thirteenth Amendment irreconcilable with the position taken by every member of this Court in the Civil Rights Cases and incompatible with the history and purpose of the Amendment itself. Insofar as Hodges is inconsistent with our holding today, it is hereby overruled."

46. Tsesis, ^ The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), p. 3. "The Court's holding in Jones enables Congress to pass statutes against present-day human rights violations, such as the trafficking of foreign workers as sex slaves and the exploitation of migrant agricultural workers as peons."

47. Tsesis, ^ The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), pp. 112-113. "...the Thirteenth Amendment remains the principal constitutional source requiring the federal government to protect individual liberties against arbitrary private and public infringements that resemble the incidents of involuntary servitude. Moreover, the Thirteenth Amendment is a positive injunction requiring Congress to pass laws to that end, while the Fourteenth Amendment is 'responsive' to 'unconstitutional behavior'."

48. ^ "Thirteenth Amendment-Slavery and Involuntary Servitude" Archived February 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, GPO Access, U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 1557

49. ^ "Constitutional Amendments Not Ratified". United States House of Representatives. Archived from the original on July 2, 2012.

Bibliography

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Benedict, Michael L. (2011). "Constitutional Politics, Constitutional Law, and the Thirteenth Amendment". Maryland Law Review. University of Maryland School of Law. 71 (1): 163-188. Pdf.

Donald, David Herbert (1996). Lincoln. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780684825359. Preview.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1935). Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880'. New York: Russell & Russell. OCLC 317424.

Forehand, Beverly (1996). Striking Resemblance: Kentucky, Tennessee, Black Codes and Readjustment, 1865-1866 (Masters thesis). Western Kentucky University.

Goluboff, Risa L. (April 2001). "The Thirteenth Amendment and the lost origins of civil rights". Duke Law Journal. Duke University School of Law. 50 (6): 1609-1685. doi:10.2307/1373044. JSTOR 1373044. Pdf.

Goldstone, Lawrence (2011). Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903. Walker & Company. ISBN 9780802717924. Preview.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005). Team of rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780743270755. Preview.

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Trelease, Allen W. (1971). White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction. New York: Harper & Row.

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Barrington Wolff, Tobias (May 2002). "The Thirteenth Amendment and Slavery in the Global Economy". Columbia Law Review. Columbia Law School. 102 (4): 973-1050. doi:10.2307/1123649. JSTOR 1123649. S2CID 155279033.

Maryland Law Review, special issue: Symposium-the Maryland Constitutional Law Schmooze

Columbia Law Review, special issue: Symposium: The Thirteenth Amendment: Meaning, Enforcement, and Contemporary Implications

PANEL I: THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT IN CONTEXT

PANEL II: RECONSTRUCTION REVISITED

PANEL III: THE LIMITS OF AUTHORITY

PANEL IV: CONTEMPORARY IMPLICATIONS

Further reading

Ripley, C. Peter et al. eds. Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation (1993) online

External links

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Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia

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The Thirteenth Amendment ( Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18.

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19th century belief that Americans had the God given right to spread across the whole continent

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Louisiana Purchase

Thanks to a high birth rate and brisk immigration, the U.S. population exploded in the first half of the 19th century, from around 5 million people in 1800 to more than 23 million by 1850.

Such rapid growth-as well as two economic depressions in 1819 and 1839-would drive millions of Americans westward in search of new land and new opportunities.

President Thomas Jefferson kicked off the country's westward expansion in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, which at some 828,000 square miles nearly doubled the size of the United States and stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. In addition to sponsoring the western expedition of Lewis and Clark of 1805-07, Jefferson also set his sights on Spanish Florida, a process that was finally concluded in 1819 under President James Monroe.

But critics of that treaty faulted Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, for yielding to Spain what they considered legitimate claims on Texas, where many Americans continued to settle.

In 1823, Monroe invoked Manifest Destiny when he spoke before Congress to warn European nations not to interfere with America's Westward expansion, threatening that any attempt by Europeans to colonize the "American continents" would be seen as an act of war. This policy of an American sphere of influence and of non-intervention in European affairs became known as the " Monroe Doctrine." After 1870, it would be used as a rationale for U.S. intervention in Latin America.

Texas Independence

Cries for the "re-annexation" of Texas increased after Mexico, having won its independence from Spain, passed a law suspending U.S. immigration into Texas in 1830.

Nonetheless, there were still more Anglo settlers in Texas than Hispanic ones, and in 1836, after Texas won its own independence, its new leaders sought to join the United States. The administrations of both Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren resisted such calls, fearing both war with Mexico and opposition from Americans who believed calls for annexation were linked with the desire to expand slavery in the Southwest.

But John Tyler, who won the presidency in 1840, was determined to proceed with the annexation. An agreement concluded in April 1844 made Texas eligible for admission as a U.S. territory, and possibly later as one or more states.

Despite opposition to this agreement in Congress, the pro-annexation candidate James K. Polk won the 1844 election, and Tyler was able to push the bill through and sign it before he left office.

The Coining of 'Manifest Destiny'

By the time Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in December 1845, the idea that the United States must inevitably expand westward all the way to the Pacific Ocean had taken firm hold among people from different regions, classes and political persuasions.

The phrase "Manifest Destiny," which emerged as the best-known expression of this mindset, first appeared in an editorial published in the July-August 1845 issue of The Democratic Review.

In it, the writer criticized the opposition that still lingered against the annexation of Texas, urging national unity on behalf of "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."

As the phrase also appeared in a nearly identical context in a July 1845 article in the New York Morning News, its originator is believed to be John O'Sullivan, the editor of both the Democratic Review and the Morning News at the time. That December, another Morning News article mentioned "manifest destiny" in reference to the Oregon Territory, another new frontier over which the United States was eager to assert its dominion.

Oregon Territory

An 1842 treaty between Great Britain and the United States partially resolved the question of where to draw the Canadian border, but left open the question of the Oregon Territory, which stretched from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains over an area including what is now Oregon, Idaho, Washington State and most of British Columbia.

Polk, an ardent proponent of Manifest Destiny, had won election with the slogan "54˚ 40' or fight!" (a reference to the potential northern boundary of Oregon as latitude 54˚ 40') and called U.S. claims to Oregon "clear and unquestionable" in his inaugural address.

But as president, Polk wanted to get the issue resolved so the United States could move on to acquiring California from Mexico. In mid-1846, his administration agreed to a compromise whereby Oregon would be split along the 49th parallel, narrowly avoiding a crisis with Britain.

Impact of Manifest Destiny: The Civil War, Native American Wars

By the time the Oregon question was settled, the United States had entered into all-out war with Mexico, driven by the spirit of Manifest Destiny and territorial expansion.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848, added an additional 525,000 square miles of U.S. territory, including all or parts of what is now California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

Despite the lofty idealism of Manifest Destiny, the rapid territorial expansion over the first half of the 19th century resulted not only in war with Mexico, but in the dislocation and brutal mistreatment of Native American, Hispanic and other non-European occupants of the territories now being occupied by the United States.

U.S. expansion also fueled the growing debate over slavery, by raising the pressing question of whether new states being admitted to the Union would allow slavery or not-a conflict that would eventually lead to the Civil War.

Sources

Julius W. Pratt, "The Origin of 'Manifest Destiny'," The American Historical Review (July 1927).
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005).
Michael Golay, The Tide of Empire: America's March to the Pacific
Era of U.S. Continental Expansion, History, Art & Archives: U.S House of Representatives.

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Manifest Destiny - Definition, Facts & Significance | HISTORY

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Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, expressed the philosophy that drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion. It contended that the United States was destined by God to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.

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Granted African American men voting rights

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Fifteenth Amendment, amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States that guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The amendment complemented and followed in the wake of the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments, which abolished slavery and guaranteed citizenship, respectively, to African Americans. The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and its subsequent ratification (February 3, 1870) effectively enfranchised African American men while denying the right to vote to women of all colours. Women would not receive that right until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

The full text of the Fifteenth Amendment is:

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-

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

After the Civil War, during the period known as Reconstruction (1865-77), the amendment was successful in encouraging African Americans to vote. Many African Americans were even elected to public office during the 1880s in the states that formerly had constituted the Confederate States of America. By the 1890s, however, efforts by several states to enact such measures as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses-in addition to widespread threats and violence-had completely reversed those trends. By the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all African Americans in the states of the former Confederacy were again disenfranchised.

Poll taxes in federal elections were abolished by the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), and in 1966 the Supreme Court extended that ban to state and local elections. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 abolished prerequisites to registration and voting and also allowed for federal "preclearance" of changes in election laws in certain ("covered") jurisdictions, including nine mostly Southern states. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), however, the Supreme Court struck down the section of the VRA that had been used to identify covered jurisdictions, effectively making the preclearance requirement unenforceable.

Chelsey Parrott-Sheffer The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Fifteenth Amendment | Definition, Significance, & Facts

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Fifteenth Amendment, amendment (1870) to the U.S. Constitution that guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on 'race, color, or previous condition of servitude.' Its ratification effectively enfranchised African American men while denying the right to vote to women of all colors.

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Granted African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law

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Required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state

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Fugitive Slave Acts, in U.S. history, statutes passed by Congress in 1793 and 1850 (and repealed in 1864) that provided for the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a federal territory. The 1793 law enforced Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution in authorizing any federal district judge or circuit court judge, or any state magistrate, to decide finally and without a jury trial the status of an alleged fugitive slave.

The measure met with strong opposition in the Northern states, some of which enacted personal-liberty laws to hamper the execution of the federal law; these laws provided that fugitives who appealed an original decision against them were entitled to a jury trial. As early as 1810 individual dissatisfaction with the law of 1793 had taken the form of systematic assistance rendered to Black slaves escaping from the South to New England or Canada-via the Underground Railroad.

The demand from the South for more effective legislation resulted in enactment of a second Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Under this law fugitives could not testify on their own behalf, nor were they permitted a trial by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive escaped; penalties were also imposed on individuals who helped slaves to escape. Finally, under the 1850 act, special commissioners were to have concurrent jurisdiction with the U.S. courts in enforcing the law. The severity of the 1850 measure led to abuses and defeated its purpose. The number of abolitionists increased, the operations of the Underground Railroad became more efficient, and new personal-liberty laws were enacted in many Northern states. These state laws were among the grievances officially referred to by South Carolina in December 1860 as justification for its secession from the Union. Attempts to carry into effect the law of 1850 aroused much bitterness and probably had as much to do with inciting sectional hostility as did the controversy over slavery in the territories.

For some time during the American Civil War, the Fugitive Slave Acts were considered to still hold in the case of Blacks fleeing from masters in border states that were loyal to the Union government. It was not until June 28, 1864, that the acts were repealed.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Adam Augustyn.

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Fugitive Slave Acts | Definition & History

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Fugitive Slave Acts, in U.S. history, statutes passed by Congress in 1793 and 1850 (repealed in 1864) that provided for the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escaped from one state into another or into federal territory. Learn more about the Fugitive Slave Acts in this article.

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Southern half of the country, a group of states trying to separate over the issue of slavery

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Confederate States of America, also called Confederacy, in the American Civil War, the government of 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61, carrying on all the affairs of a separate government and conducting a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865.

Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of Pres. Abraham Lincoln (November 1860), the seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) seceded from the Union during the following months. When the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), they were joined by four states of the upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia).

A provisional government, established in February 1861 at Montgomery, Alabama, was replaced by a permanent government at Richmond, Virginia, a year later. The Confederacy, operating under a structure similar to that of the United States, was headed by Pres. Jefferson Davis and Vice Pres. Alexander H. Stephens. (The president and the vice president of the Confederacy were to serve six-year terms, and the president could not be reelected.) The new nation soon acquired other symbols of sovereignty, such as its own stamps and a flag known as the Stars and Bars.

The main concern of the Confederate States was raising and equipping an army. The Southern Congress first voted to permit direct volunteering up to 400,000, but conscription was begun in April 1862. The total number of Confederate soldiers is estimated at 750,000, as opposed to twice that many Federal troops. (Confederate population stood at about 5,500,000 whites and 3,500,000 Black slaves, as against 22,000,000 Northerners.) In railroads, the South had only 9,000 miles, the industrial North 22,000.

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The Confederacy's early attempts to raise funds centred on printing money, which proved highly inflationary, and issuing bonds that could be paid for in kind. Because of the Federal blockade of Southern ports, tariff revenues proved inadequate. In 1863 a general tax bill was passed, imposing license and occupational taxes, a profits tax, and a 10 percent tax on farm products, collected in kind. Profitable private blockade running was put under strict supervision in 1864. Prices of farm products for the army were eventually fixed to check profiteering.

In foreign affairs, the South had been initially confident of the power and influence of " King Cotton," the crop that accounted for more than half the value of U.S. exports before the war. Confederates felt that the importance of cotton would force diplomatic recognition from the Federal government and European countries. Neither the commissioners sent abroad in 1861 nor the permanent envoys who replaced them were able to secure recognition from Great Britain, France, or any other European power. The South was able, however, to buy considerable war matériel and several fast ships that destroyed much Federal shipping on the high seas.

President Davis took an active part in dictating military policy and major strategy, but the great leader on the battlefield was Gen. Robert E. Lee. Heartened by a series of military victories in the first two years of fighting, the Confederacy was convinced of its ultimate success. But disillusionment set in with almost simultaneous Federal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg (July 1863). Not even the brilliant tactics of Lee in the East or of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in the West could indefinitely hold off the stronger Northern armies. After Lee surrendered his dwindling, half-starved army at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, the Confederacy soon collapsed.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Adam Augustyn, Managing Editor, Reference Content.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

Confederate States of America

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Confederate States of America | History, President, Map, Facts, & Flag

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Confederate States of America, the government of 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61, following the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president, prompting the American Civil War (1861-65). The Confederacy acted as a separate government until defeated in the spring of 1865.

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Loyalty or support of a particular region or section of the nation, rather than the United States as a whole

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secession, in U.S. history, the withdrawal of 11 slave states (states in which slaveholding was legal) from the Union during 1860-61 following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Secession precipitated the American Civil War.

Secession had a long history in the United States-but as a threat rather than as an actual dissolution of the Union. Pro-secessionists found philosophical justification for altering or abolishing a government and instituting a new one in the Declaration of Independence. More specifically, those who held that the Union was simply a compact among the states argued that states could secede from that compact just as they had earlier acceded to it.

While never counseling secession, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had clearly enunciated the states' rights-compact doctrine in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. Their political opponents, New England Federalists, briefly considered withdrawing from the Union at the Hartford Convention in 1814. The Mississippi question elicited hints of secession from proslavery states, but the famous Missouri Compromise (1820) temporarily quieted the agitation. South Carolinians, however, went to the very brink of secession in the 1830s over the tariff question.

From the 1840s to 1860, Southerners frequently threatened to withdraw from the Union as antislavery sentiment in the North grew stronger. The Compromise of 1850 eased some of the sectional strife, but the problem of permitting or prohibiting slavery in the western territories continued to inflame opinion on both sides throughout the 1850s.

The Republican Party formed during this decade around the idea that the territories should remain free; i.e., slaveholding should not be permitted in them. Southerners vowed that the election of a Republican president in 1860 would make secession a certainty. When the Democratic Party disintegrated in 1860 over the slavery-extension question, Lincoln was elected as the first Republican president.

On December 20, 1860, a special convention called in South Carolina unanimously passed an ordinance of secession. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed in January, and Texas voted to secede on February 1, 1861-still more than a month before Lincoln was actually inaugurated. Pres. James Buchanan denied the right of secession, but he also denied the right of the federal government to use force against the seceded states.

Lincoln waited a month after his inauguration before deciding to send provisions to Fort Sumter in the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, 1861, Confederate guns opened fire on the fort, and the Civil War began. Forced now to make a choice between the Union and the Confederacy, the states of the Upper South- Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee-voted to secede.

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Secession | History, Definition, Crisis, & Facts

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Secession, the withdrawal of 11 slave states (states in which slaveholding was legal) from the Union during 1860-61 following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. The secessionist states formed the Confederate States of America. Secession precipitated the American Civil War.

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Northern half of the country, a group of states that were generally anti-slavery

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A system of economic production based on the private ownership of property and the contractual exchange for profit of goods, labor, and money

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The railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical

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Cornelius Vanderbilt, byname Commodore Vanderbilt, (born May 27, 1794, Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York, U.S.-died January 4, 1877, New York, New York), American shipping and railroad magnate who acquired a personal fortune of more than $100 million.

The son of an impoverished farmer and boatman, Vanderbilt quit school at age 11 to work on the waterfront. In 1810 he purchased his first boat with money borrowed from his parents. He used the boat to ferry passengers between Staten Island and New York City. Then, during the War of 1812, he enlarged his operation to a small fleet, with which he supplied government outposts around the city.

Vanderbilt expanded his ferry operation still further following the war, but in 1818 he sold all his boats and went to work for Thomas Gibbons as steamship captain. While in Gibbons's employ (1818-29), Vanderbilt learned the steamship business and acquired the capital that he would use in 1829 to start his own steamship company.

During the next decade, Vanderbilt gained control of the traffic on the Hudson River by cutting fares and offering unprecedented luxury on his ships. His hard-pressed competitors finally paid him handsomely in return for Vanderbilt's agreement to move his operation. He then concentrated on the northeastern seaboard, offering transportation from Long Island to Providence and Boston. By 1846 the Commodore was a millionaire.

The following year, he formed a company to transport passengers and goods from New York City and New Orleans to San Francisco via Nicaragua. With the enormous demand for passage to the West Coast brought about by the 1849 gold rush, Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company proved a huge success. He quit the business only after his competitors-whom he had nearly ruined-agreed to pay him $40,000 (later it rose to $56,000) a month to abandon his operation.

By the 1850s he had turned his attention to railroads, buying up so much stock in the New York and Harlem Railroad that by 1863 he owned the line. He later acquired the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central Railroad and consolidated them in 1869. When he added the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad in 1873, Vanderbilt was able to offer the first rail service from New York City to Chicago.

During the last years of his life, Vanderbilt ordered the construction of Grand Central Depot (the forerunner of Grand Central Terminal) in New York City, a project that gave jobs to thousands who had become unemployed during the Panic of 1873. Although never interested in philanthropy while acquiring the bulk of his huge fortune, later in his life he did give $1 million to Central University in Nashville, Tennessee (later Vanderbilt University). In his will he left $90 million to his son William Henry, $7.5 million to William's four sons, and-consistent with his lifelong contempt for women-the relatively small remainder to his second wife and his eight daughters. The Vanderbilt family had become one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the United States.

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Cornelius Vanderbilt | Biography, Facts, & Robber Baron

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Cornelius Vanderbilt, American shipping and railroad magnate who acquired a personal fortune of more than $100 million. Vanderbilt began his transportation empire by operating a ferryboat between Staten Island and New York City. By the 1850s he had shifted his focus from steamships to railroads.

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Known as the steel king; he integrated every phase of his steel-making operation.He pioneered "Vertical Integration" to improve efficiency by controlling the quality of the product at all stages of production and eliminating the middleman

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Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was among the most famous and wealthy industrialists of his day. Through the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the innovative philanthropic foundation he established in 1911, his fortune has since supported everything from the discovery of insulin and the dismantling of nuclear weapons, to the creation of Sesame Street and the Common Core Standards.

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The idea that the wealthy and powerful were naturally superior and deserved their success

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Social Darwinism describes the various theories that emerged in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s which applied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics, and politics. Social Darwinism posits that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. Different social Darwinist groups have differing views about which groups of people are considered to be the strong and which groups of people are considered to be the weak, and they also hold different opinions about the precise mechanisms that should be used to reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others were used in support of authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism, fascism, Nazism, and struggle between national or racial groups.

Social Darwinism broadly declined in popularity as a purportedly scientific concept following the First World War and was largely discredited by the end of the Second World War, partially due to its association with Nazism and partially due to a growing scientific consensus that it was scientifically groundless. Later theories that were categorized as social Darwinism were generally described as such as a critique by their opponents; their proponents did not identify themselves by such a label. Creationists have frequently maintained that social Darwinism-leading to policies designed to reward the most competitive-is a logical consequence of "Darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology). Biologists and historians have stated that this is a fallacy of appeal to nature, since the theory of natural selection is merely intended as a description of a biological phenomenon and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon is good or that it ought to be used as a moral guide in human society. While most scholars recognize some historical links between the popularisation of Darwin's theory and forms of social Darwinism, they also maintain that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution.

Scholars debate the extent to which the various social Darwinist ideologies reflect Charles Darwin's own views on human social and economic issues. His writings have passages that can be interpreted as opposing aggressive individualism, while other passages appear to promote it. Darwin's early evolutionary views and his opposition to slavery ran counter to many of the claims that social Darwinists would eventually make about the mental capabilities of the poor and colonial indigenes. After the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, one strand of Darwins' followers, led by Sir John Lubbock, argued that natural selection ceased to have any noticeable effect on humans once organised societies had been formed. However, some scholars argue that Darwin's view gradually changed and came to incorporate views from other theorists such as Herbert Spencer. Spencer published his Lamarckian evolutionary ideas about society before Darwin first published his hypothesis in 1859, and both Spencer and Darwin promoted their own conceptions of moral values. Spencer supported laissez-faire capitalism on the basis of his Lamarckian belief that struggle for survival spurred self-improvement which could be inherited. An important proponent in Germany was Ernst Haeckel, who popularized Darwin's thought and his personal interpretation of it, and used it as well to contribute to a new creed, the monist movement.

The term Darwinism was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in his March 1861 review of On the Origin of Species, and by the 1870s it was used to describe a range of concepts of evolution or development, without any specific commitment to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

The first use of the phrase "social Darwinism" was in Joseph Fisher's 1877 article on The History of Landholding in Ireland which was published in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. Fisher was commenting on how a system for borrowing livestock which had been called "tenure" had led to the false impression that the early Irish had already evolved or developed land tenure;

These arrangements did not in any way affect that which we understand by the word " tenure", that is, a man's farm, but they related solely to cattle, which we consider a chattel. It has appeared necessary to devote some space to this subject, inasmuch as that usually acute writer Sir Henry Maine has accepted the word " tenure " in its modern interpretation and has built up a theory under which the Irish chief " developed " into a feudal baron. I can find nothing in the Brehon laws to warrant this theory of social Darwinism, and believe the further study will show that the Cáin Saerrath and the Cáin Aigillne relate solely to what we now call chattels, and did not in any way affect what we now call the freehold, the possession of the land.

Despite the fact that Social Darwinism bears Charles Darwin's name, it is also linked today with others, notably Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. In fact, Spencer was not described as a social Darwinist until the 1930s, long after his death. The social Darwinism term first appeared in Europe in 1880, and journalist Emilie Gautier had coined the term with reference to a health conference in Berlin 1877. Around 1900 it was used by sociologists, some being opposed to the concept. The term was popularized in the United States in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter who used it in the ideological war effort against fascism to denote a reactionary creed which promoted competitive strife, racism and chauvinism. Hofstadter later also recognized (what he saw as) the influence of Darwinist and other evolutionary ideas upon those with collectivist views, enough to devise a term for the phenomenon, "Darwinist collectivism". Before Hofstadter's work the use of the term "social Darwinism" in English academic journals was quite rare. In fact,

... there is considerable evidence that the entire concept of "social Darwinism" as we know it today was virtually invented by Richard Hofstadter. Eric Foner, in an introduction to a then-new edition of Hofstadter's book published in the early 1990s, declines to go quite that far. "Hofstadter did not invent the term Social Darwinism", Foner writes, "which originated in Europe in the 1860s and crossed the Atlantic in the early twentieth century. But before he wrote, it was used only on rare occasions; he made it a standard shorthand for a complex of late-nineteenth-century ideas, a familiar part of the lexicon of social thought."

Social Darwinism has many definitions, and some of them are incompatible with each other. As such, social Darwinism has been criticized for being an inconsistent philosophy, which does not lead to any clear political conclusions. For example, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics states:

Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to 'survival of the fittest' entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A 'social Darwinist' could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist.

The term "social Darwinism" has rarely been used by advocates of the supposed ideologies or ideas; instead it has almost always been used pejoratively by its opponents. The term draws upon the common meaning of , which includes a range of evolutionary views, but in the late 19th century was applied more specifically to natural selection as first advanced by Charles Darwin to explain speciation in populations of organisms. The process includes competition between individuals for limited resources, popularly but inaccurately described by the phrase " survival of the fittest", a term coined by sociologist Herbert Spencer.

Creationists have often maintained that social Darwinism-leading to policies designed to reward the most competitive-is a logical consequence of "Darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology). Biologists and historians have stated that this is a fallacy of appeal to nature and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon ought to be used as a moral guide in human society. While there are historical links between the popularization of Darwin's theory and forms of social Darwinism, social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution.

While the term has been applied to the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation or country, social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded eugenics towards the end of the 19th century.

The expansion of the British Empire fitted in with the broader notion of social Darwinism used from the 1870s onwards to account for the remarkable and universal phenomenon of "the Anglo-Saxon overflowing his boundaries", as phrased by the late-Victorian sociologist Benjamin Kidd in Social Evolution, published in 1894. The concept also proved useful to justify what was seen by some as the inevitable extermination of "the weaker races who disappear before the stronger" not so much "through the effects of ... our vices upon them" as "what may be called the virtues of our civilisation." Winston Churchill, a political proponent of eugenics, maintained that if fewer 'feebleminded' individuals were born, less crime would take place.

Herbert Spencer's ideas, like those of evolutionary progressivism, stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's major work, Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857), was released two years before the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and First Principles was printed in 1860.

In The Social Organism (1860), Spencer compares society to a living organism and argues that, just as biological organisms evolve through natural selection, society evolves and increases in complexity through analogous processes.

In many ways, Spencer's theory of cosmic evolution has much more in common with the works of Lamarck and Auguste Comte's positivism than with Darwin's.

Jeff Riggenbach argues that Spencer's view was that culture and education made a sort of Lamarckism possible and notes that Herbert Spencer was a proponent of private charity. However, the legacy of his social Darwinism was less than charitable.

Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as social Darwinism, his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, was incredibly popular and widely read by social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe.

According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus' famous Essay on a Principle of Population in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems.

Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, the same could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social morals needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision in order to avoid both the over-breeding by less fit members of society and the under-breeding of the more fit ones.

In Galton's view, social institutions such as welfare and insane asylums were allowing inferior humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors". Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies restricting reproduction, due to their Whiggish distrust of government.

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, yet Nietzsche's principles did not concur with Darwinian theories of natural selection. Nietzsche's point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation as forged by Spencer's "fitness". Nietzsche criticized Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner by maintaining that in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful. Thus, he wrote:

Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.

Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory was not Darwinism, but rather attempted to combine the ideas of Goethe, Lamarck and Darwin. It was adopted by emerging social sciences to support the concept that non-European societies were "primitive", in an early stage of development towards the European ideal, but since then it has been heavily refuted on many fronts. Haeckel's works led to the formation of the Monist League in 1904 with many prominent citizens among its members, including the Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald.

The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans, especially males, require competition in their lives in order to survive in the future. Further, the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid. However, amidst this climate, most social Darwinists of the early twentieth century actually supported better working conditions and salaries. Such measures would grant the poor a better chance to provide for themselves yet still distinguish those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority.[citation needed ]

"Social Darwinism" was first described by Eduard Oscar Schmidt of the University of Strasbourg, reporting at a scientific and medical conference held in Munich in 1877. He noted how socialists, although opponents of Darwin's theory, used it to add force to their political arguments. Schmidt's essay first appeared in English in Popular Science in March 1879. There followed an anarchist tract published in Paris in 1880 entitled "Le darwinisme social" by Émile Gautier. However, the use of the term was very rare-at least in the English-speaking world (Hodgson, 2004)-until the American historian Richard Hofstadter published his influential Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) during World War II.

Hypotheses of social evolution and cultural evolution were common in Europe. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel, often argued that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes's 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct from other theories of social change because of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas from the field of biology into social studies.

Darwin, unlike Hobbes, believed that this struggle for natural resources allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species.

However, Darwin felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and " moral sentiments" also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man:

The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable-namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.

Nazi Germany's justification for its aggression was regularly promoted in Nazi propaganda films depicting scenes such as beetles fighting in a lab setting to demonstrate the principles of "survival of the fittest" as depicted in Alles Leben ist Kampf (English translation: All Life is Struggle). Hitler often refused to intervene in the promotion of officers and staff members, preferring instead to have them fight amongst themselves to force the "stronger" person to prevail-"strength" referring to those social forces void of virtue or principle. Key proponents were Alfred Rosenberg, who was hanged later at Nuremberg. Such ideas also helped to advance euthanasia in Germany, especially Action T4, which led to the murder of mentally ill and disabled people in Germany.

The argument that Nazi ideology was strongly influenced by social Darwinist ideas is often found in historical and social science literature. For example, the philosopher and historian Hannah Arendt analysed the historical development from a politically indifferent scientific Darwinism via social Darwinist ethics to racist ideology.

By 1985, creationists were taking up the argument that Nazi ideology was directly influenced by Darwinian evolutionary theory. Such claims have been presented by creationists such as Jonathan Sarfati. Intelligent design creationism supporters have promoted this position as well. For example, it is a theme in the work of Richard Weikart, who is a historian at California State University, Stanislaus, and a senior fellow for the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute.[better source needed ] It is also a main argument in the 2008 intelligent-design/creationist movieExpelled: No Intelligence Allowed. These claims are widely criticized. The Anti-Defamation League has rejected such attempts to link Darwin's ideas with Nazi atrocities, and has stated that "Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry." Robert J. Richards describes the link as a myth that ignores far more obvious causes of Nazism - including the "pervasive anti-Semitic miasma created by Christian apologists" - and dismisses efforts to tie Darwin to Nazism as "crude lever" used by religious fundamentalists to try and reduce public support for Darwin's theories.

Similar criticisms are sometimes applied (or misapplied) to other political or scientific theories that resemble social Darwinism, for example criticisms leveled at evolutionary psychology. For example, a critical reviewer of Weikart's book writes that "(h)is historicization of the moral framework of evolutionary theory poses key issues for those in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, not to mention bioethicists, who have recycled many of the suppositions that Weikart has traced."

Another example is recent scholarship that portrays Ernst Haeckel's Monist League as a mystical progenitor of the Völkisch movement and, ultimately, of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. Scholars opposed to this interpretation, however, have pointed out that the Monists were freethinkers who opposed all forms of mysticism, and that their organizations were immediately banned following the Nazi takeover in 1933 because of their association with a wide variety of causes including feminism, pacifism, human rights, and early gay rights movements.

It was during the Gilded Age that social Darwinism festered most in American society, predominantly through the rationale of the late 19th-century industrial titans, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Nationwide monopolists of this type applied Darwin's theory, namely the concept of natural selection, to explain corporate dominance in their respective fields and thus justify their exorbitant accumulations of wealth. Rockefeller, for example, proclaimed: "The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest...the working out of a law of nature and a law of God." Robert Bork backed this notion of inherent characteristics being the sole determinant of survival, in the business-operations context, when he said: "In America, the rich are overwhelmingly people - entrepreneurs, small-business men, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, etc. - who have gained their higher incomes through intelligence, imagination, and hard work." Moreover, William Graham Sumner lauded this same cohort of magnates, and further extended the theory of 'corporate Darwinism'. Sumner argued that societal progress depended on the "fittest families" passing down wealth and genetic traits to their offspring, thus allegedly creating a lineage of superior citizens. However, contemporary social scientists repudiate such claims, and demand that economic status be considered not a direct function of one's inborn traits and moral worth.

In 1883, Sumner published a highly influential pamphlet entitled "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other", in which he insisted that the social classes owe each other nothing, synthesizing Darwin's findings with free enterprise Capitalism for his justification.[citation needed ] According to Sumner, those who feel an obligation to provide assistance to those unequipped or under-equipped to compete for resources, will lead to a country in which the weak and inferior are encouraged to breed more like them, eventually dragging the country down. Sumner also believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for existence was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival. This pamphlet makes no mention of Darwinism, and only refers to Darwin in a statement on the meaning of liberty, that "There never has been any man, from the primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt or a Darwin, who could do as he had a mind to."

Sumner never fully embraced Darwinian ideas, and some contemporary historians do not believe that Sumner ever actually believed in social Darwinism. The great majority of American businessmen rejected the anti-philanthropic implications of the theory. Instead they gave millions to build schools, colleges, hospitals, art institutes, parks and many other institutions. Andrew Carnegie, who admired Spencer, was the leading philanthropist in the world (1890-1920), and a major leader against imperialism and warfare.

H. G. Wells was heavily influenced by Darwinist thoughts, and novelist Jack London wrote stories of survival that incorporated his views on social Darwinism. Film director Stanley Kubrick has been described as having held social Darwinist opinions.

Social Darwinism has influenced political, public health and social movements in Japan since the late 19th and early 20th century. Social Darwinism was originally brought to Japan through the works of Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel as well as United States, British and French Lamarckian eugenic written studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Eugenism as a science was hotly debated at the beginning of the 20th century, in Jinsei-Der Mensch, the first eugenics journal in the empire. As Japan sought to close ranks with the west, this practice was adopted wholesale along with colonialism and its justifications.

Social Darwinism was formally introduced to China through the translation by Yan Fu of Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, in the course of an extensive series of translations of influential Western thought. Yan's translation strongly impacted Chinese scholars because he added national elements not found in the original. Yan Fu criticized Huxley from the perspective of Spencerian social Darwinism in his own annotations to the translation. He understood Spencer's sociology as "not merely analytical and descriptive, but prescriptive as well", and saw Spencer building on Darwin, whom Yan summarized thus:

Peoples and living things struggle for survival. At first, species struggle with species; they as [people] gradually progress, there is a struggle between one social group and another. The weak invariably become the prey of the strong, the stupid invariably become subservient to the clever."

By the 1920s, social Darwinism found expression in the promotion of eugenics by the Chinese sociologist Pan Guangdan. When Chiang Kai-shek started the New Life movement in 1934, he

. . . harked back to theories of Social Darwinism, writing that "only those who readapt themselves to new conditions, day by day, can live properly. When the life of a people is going through this process of readaptation, it has to remedy its own defects, and get rid of those elements which become useless. Then we call it new life."

In the 1860s and 1870s, social Darwinism began to take shape in interaction between Charles Darwin and his German advocates, namely August Schleicher, Max Müller and Ernst Haeckel. Evolutionary linguistics was taken as a platform to construe a Darwinian theory of mankind. Since it was thought at the time that the orangutan and human brain were roughly the same size, Darwin and his colleagues suspected that only the invention of language could account for differentiation between humans and other Great Apes. It was suggested that the evolution of language and the mind must go hand in hand. From this perspective, empirical evidence from languages from around the world was interpreted by Haeckel as supporting the idea that nations, despite having rather similar physiology, represented such distinct lines of 'evolution' that mankind should be divided into nine different species. Haeckel constructed an evolutionary and intellectual hierarchy of such species. In a similar vein, Schleicher regarded languages as different species and sub-species, adopting Darwin's concept of selection through competition to the study of the history and spread of nations. Some of their ideas, including the concept of living space were adopted to the Nazi ideology after their deaths.

Social evolution theories in Germany gained large popularity in the 1860s and had a strong antiestablishment connotation first. Social Darwinism allowed people to counter the connection of Thron und Altar, the intertwined establishment of clergy and nobility, and provided as well the idea of progressive change and evolution of society as a whole. Ernst Haeckel propagated both Darwinism as a part of natural history and as a suitable base for a modern Weltanschauung, a world view based on scientific reasoning in his Monist League. Friedrich von Hellwald had a strong role in popularizing it in Austria. Darwin's work served as a catalyst to popularize evolutionary thinking.

A sort of aristocratic turn, the use of the struggle for life as a base of social Darwinism sensu stricto came up after 1900 with Alexander Tille's 1895 work Entwicklungsethik (Ethics of Evolution) which asked to move from Darwin till Nietzsche. Further interpretations moved to ideologies propagating a racist and hierarchical society and provided ground for the later radical versions of social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism came to play a major role in the ideology of Nazism, where it was combined with a similarly pseudo-scientific theory of racial hierarchy in order to identify the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race. Nazi social Darwinist beliefs led them to retain business competition and private property as economic engines. Nazism likewise opposed social welfare based on a social Darwinist belief that the weak and feeble should perish. This association with Nazism, coupled with increasing recognition that it was scientifically unfounded, contributed to the broader rejection social Darwinism after the end of World War II.

Social Darwinism has many definitions, and some of them are incompatible with each other. As such, social Darwinism has been criticized for being an inconsistent philosophy, which does not lead to any clear political conclusions. For example, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics states:

Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to 'survival of the fittest' entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A 'social Darwinist' could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist.

Nazism, eugenics, fascism, imperialism

Social Darwinism was predominantly found in laissez-faire societies where the prevailing view was that of an individualist order to society. A different form of social Darwinism was part of the ideological foundations of Nazism and other fascist movements. This form did not envision survival of the fittest within an individualist order of society, but rather advocated a type of racial and national struggle where the state directed human breeding through eugenics. Names such as "Darwinian collectivism" or "Reform Darwinism" have been suggested to describe these views, in order to differentiate them from the individualist type of social Darwinism.

As mentioned above, social Darwinism has often been linked to nationalism and imperialism. During the age of New Imperialism, the concepts of evolution justified the exploitation of "lesser breeds without the law" by "superior races". To elitists, strong nations were composed of white people who were successful at expanding their empires, and as such, these strong nations would survive in the struggle for dominance. With this attitude, Europeans, except for Christian missionaries, seldom adopted the customs and languages of local people under their empires.

Peter Kropotkin argued in his 1902 book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution that Darwin did not define the fittest as the strongest, or most clever, but recognized that the fittest could be those who cooperated with each other. In many animal societies, "struggle is replaced by co-operation".

It may be that at the outset Darwin himself was not fully aware of the generality of the factor which he first invoked for explaining one series only of facts relative to the accumulation of individual variations in incipient species. But he foresaw that the term [evolution] which he was introducing into science would lose its philosophical and its only true meaning if it were to be used in its narrow sense only-that of a struggle between separate individuals for the sheer means of existence. And at the very beginning of his memorable work he insisted upon the term being taken in its "large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny." [Quoting Origin of Species, chap. iii, p. 62 of first edition.]

While he himself was chiefly using the term in its narrow sense for his own special purpose, he warned his followers against committing the error (which he seems once to have committed himself) of overrating its narrow meaning. In The Descent of Man he gave some powerful pages to illustrate its proper, wide sense. He pointed out how, in numberless animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation, and how that substitution results in the development of intellectual and moral faculties which secure to the species the best conditions for survival. He intimated that in such cases the fittest are not the physically strongest, nor the cunningest, but those who learn to combine so as mutually to support each other, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the community. "Those communities", he wrote, "which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring" (2nd edit., p. 163). The term, which originated from the narrow Malthusian conception of competition between each and all, thus lost its narrowness in the mind of one who knew Nature.

Noam Chomsky discussed briefly Kropotkin's views in an 8 July 2011 YouTube video from Renegade Economist, in which he said Kropotkin argued

... the exact opposite [of social Darwinism]. He argued that on Darwinian grounds, you would expect cooperation and mutual aid to develop leading towards community, workers' control and so on. Well, you know, he didn't prove his point. It's at least as well argued as Herbert Spencer is ...

Bannister, Robert C. Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought (1989)

Bannister, Robert C. Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 1880-1940 (1987)

Bernardini, J.-M. Le darwinisme social en France (1859-1918). Fascination et rejet d'une idéologie, Paris, CNRS Edition, 1997.

Boller, Paul F. Jr. American Thought in Transition: The Impact of Evolutionary Naturalism, 1865-1900 (1969)

Bowler, Peter J. (2003). Evolution: The History of an Idea (3rd ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23693-6.

Crook, D. Paul. Darwinism, War and History : The Debate over the Biology of War from the 'Origin of Species' to the First World War (1994)

Crook, Paul (1999). "Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945". The Australian Journal of Politics and History. 45.

Crook, Paul. Darwin's Coat-Tails: Essays on Social Darwinism (Peter Lang, 2007)

Degler, Carl N. In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (1992).

Desmond, Adrian; Moore, James (1991). Darwin. London: Michael Joseph, Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-7181-3430-3.

Dickens, Peter. Social Darwinism: Linking Evolutionary Thought to Social Theory (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000).

Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America (1999) ch 7

Hawkins, Mike (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860-1945: Nature and Model and Nature as Threat. London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57434-1.

Hodge, Jonathan and Gregory Radick. The Cambridge Companion to Darwin (2003)

Hodgson, Geoffrey M. (December 2004). "Social Darwinism in Anglophone Academic Journals: A Contribution to the History of the Term" (PDF). Journal of Historical Sociology. 17 (4): 428-63. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.524.4248. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6443.2004.00239.x. hdl:2299/406. Social Darwinism, as almost everyone knows, is a Bad Thing.

Hofstadter, Richard (1944). Social Darwinism in American Thought. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780807055038.
Hofstadter, Richard (1992). Eric Foner (ed.). Social Darwinism in American Thought (with a new introduction ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807055038.

Jones, Leslie, Social Darwinism Revisited History Today, Vol. 48, August 1998

Kaye, Howard L. The Social Meaning of Modern Biology: From Social Darwinism to Sociobiology (1997).

Versen, Christopher R. "What's Wrong with a Little Social Darwinism (In Our Historiography)" The History Teacher 42#4 (2009), pp. 403-423 online

Sammut-Bonnici, T. & Wensley, R. (2002), 'Darwinism, Probability and Complexity: Transformation and Change Explained through the Theories of Evolution', International Journal of Management Reviews, 4(3) pp. 291-315.

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Social Darwinism describes the various theories that emerged in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s which applied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics, and politics. Social Darwinism posits that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease.

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A man who started from meager beginnings and eventually created an oil empire. In Ohio in 1870 he organized the Standard Oil Company. By 1877 he controlled 95% of all of the refineries in the United States

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John D. Rockefeller, in full John Davison Rockefeller, (born July 8, 1839, Richford, New York, U.S.-died May 23, 1937, Ormond Beach, Florida), American industrialist and philanthropist, founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust.

Rockefeller was the eldest son and second of six children born to traveling physician and snake-oil salesman William ("Big Bill") Avery Rockefeller and Eliza Davison Rockefeller. He moved with his family to Moravia, New York, and, in 1851, to Oswego, New York, where he attended Oswego Academy. The family relocated to Strongsville, a town near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853, and six years later-after attending and later dropping out of Cleveland's Central High School, taking a single business class at Folsom Mercantile College, and working as a bookkeeper-Rockefeller established his first enterprise, a commission business dealing in hay, grain, meats, and other goods. Sensing the commercial potential of the expanding oil production in western Pennsylvania in the early 1860s, he built his first oil refinery, near Cleveland, in 1863. Within two years it was the largest refinery in the area, and thereafter Rockefeller devoted himself exclusively to the oil business.

In 1870 Rockefeller and a few associates, a group that included American financier Henry M. Flagler, incorporated the Standard Oil Company (Ohio). Because of Rockefeller's emphasis on economical operations, Standard prospered and began to buy out its competitors until, by 1872, it controlled nearly all the refineries in Cleveland. That fact enabled the company to negotiate with railroads for favoured rates on its shipments of oil. It acquired pipelines and terminal facilities, purchased competing refineries in other cities, and vigorously sought to expand its markets in the United States and abroad. In 1881 Rockefeller and his associates placed the stock of Standard of Ohio and its affiliates in other states under the control of a board of nine trustees, with Rockefeller at the head. They thus established the first major U.S. "trust" and set a pattern of organization for other monopolies. By 1882 Standard Oil had a near monopoly on the oil business in the United States.

The aggressive competitive practices of Standard Oil, which many regarded as ruthless, and the growing public hostility toward monopolies, of which Standard was the best-known, caused some industrialized states to enact antimonopoly laws and led to the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 ( see also antitrust law). In 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court held that the Standard Oil Trust was a monopoly in violation of an Ohio law prohibiting monopolies. Rockefeller evaded the decision by dissolving the trust and transferring its properties to companies in other states, with interlocking directorates so that the same nine men controlled the operations of the affiliated companies. In 1899 these companies were brought back together in a holding company, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), which existed until 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared it in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and therefore illegal. Standard Oil's questionable ethics were also taken to task by American journalist Ida Tarbell in her 19-part exposé and commentary called The History of the Standard Oil Company, which was released in installments by McClure's Magazine between 1902 and 1904.

A devout Baptist, Rockefeller turned his attention increasingly during the 1890s to charities and benevolence; after 1897 he devoted himself completely to philanthropy. He made possible the founding of the University of Chicago in 1892, and by the time of his death-from a heart attack in 1937, shortly before his 98th birthday-he had given it some $35 million. In association with his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., he created major philanthropic institutions, including the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (renamed Rockefeller University) in New York City (1901), the General Education Board (1902), and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). Rockefeller's benefactions during his lifetime totaled more than $500 million.

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John D. Rockefeller | Biography, Industry, Philanthropy, Facts, & Death

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John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist, founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Learn more about Standard Oil's reorganization in the face of antitrust actions and about Rockefeller's philanthropy.

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The age between the Civil War and WWI when the American economy grew rapidly and individuals were able to use monopolies to amass great wealth

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Gilded Age, period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in U.S. history during the 1870s that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism. The period takes its name from the earliest of these, The Gilded Age (1873), written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel gives a vivid and accurate description of Washington, D.C., and is peopled with caricatures of many leading figures of the day, including greedy industrialists and corrupt politicians.

The great burst of industrial activity and corporate growth that characterized the Gilded Age was presided over by a collection of colourful and energetic entrepreneurs who became known alternatively as "captains of industry" and " robber barons." They grew rich through the monopolies they created in the steel, petroleum, and transportation industries. Among the best known of them were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, and J.P. Morgan.

Twain's satire was followed in 1880 by Democracy, a political novel published anonymously by the historian Henry Adams. Adams's book deals with a dishonest Midwestern senator and suggests that the real source of corruption lies in the unprincipled attitudes of the wild and lawless West. An American Politician, by Francis Marion Crawford (1884), focuses upon the disputed election of Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, but its significance as a political novel is diluted by an overdose of popular romance.

The political novels of the Gilded Age represent the beginnings of a new strain in American literature, the novel as a vehicle of social protest, a trend that grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the works of the muckrakers and culminated in the proletarian novelists.

Jeff Wallenfeldt, Manager, Geography and History.

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Gilded Age | Definition, History, & Mark Twain

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Overview of the Gilded Age, the period of monopolistic industrial expansion, gross materialism, and blatant political corruption in the U.S. during the 1870s that gave rise to novels of social and political criticism. The period takes its name from a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.

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A banker who financed the reorganization of railroads, insurance companies, and banks. He bought out Carnegie and in 1901 he started the United States Steel Corporation

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John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 - March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as J.P. Morgan and Co., he was the driving force behind the wave of industrial consolidation in the United States spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Over the course of his career on Wall Street, Morgan spearheaded the formation of several prominent multinational corporations including U.S. Steel, International Harvester and General Electric which subsequently fell under his supervision. He and his partners also held controlling interests in numerous other American businesses including Aetna, Western Union, Pullman Car Company and 21 railroads. Due to the extent of his dominance over U.S. finance, Morgan exercised enormous influence over the nation's policies and the market forces underlying its economy. During the Panic of 1907, he organized a coalition of financiers that saved the American monetary system from collapse.

As the Progressive Era's leading financier, Morgan's dedication to efficiency and modernization helped transform the shape of the American economy. Adrian Wooldridge characterized Morgan as America's "greatest banker". Morgan died in Rome, Italy, in his sleep in 1913 at the age of 75, leaving his fortune and business to his son, John Pierpont Morgan Jr. Biographer Ron Chernow estimated his fortune at $80million (equivalent to $2.4billion in 2022).

His father Junius Spencer Morgan guided his son's early career and established the Morgan banking house with offices in London, New York, Philadelphia, and Paris.

Morgan was born on April 17, 1837, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-1890) and Juliet Pierpont (1816-1884) of the influential Morgan family. His father, Junius, was a partner at Howe Mather & Co., the largest dry goods wholesaler in Hartford. His mother Juliet was the daughter of the poet John Pierpont.

Morgan preferred to be called "Pierpont", as opposed to "John". He had a varied education due in part to his father's plans. In 1847, when Morgan was ten years old, his grandfather John Morgan died and left a large fortune to Junius Spencer Morgan, who soon became a senior partner at the rechristened Mather Morgan & Co. In the fall of 1848, the young Morgan transferred to the Hartford Public School, then to the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut, where he boarded with the principal.

In September 1851, he passed the entrance exam for The English High School of Boston, which specialized in mathematics for careers in commerce. In April 1852, rheumatic fever struck Morgan, an illness whose symptoms became more common as his life progressed and left him in such pain that he could not walk. Junius sent him to the Azores to recover. He convalesced there for almost a year, then returned to Boston to resume his studies.

After graduation, his father sent him to Bellerive, a school in the Swiss village of La Tour-de-Peilz, where he gained fluency in French. His father then sent him to the University of Göttingen to improve his German. He attained passable fluency and a degree in art history within six months, completing his studies in 1857.

J.S. Morgan & Co.: 1858-1871

Early view (c. 1855) of 229, 225 and 219 Madison Avenue before the street was paved

After studying at Göttingen and thus completing his education, Morgan went to London in August 1857 to join his father, now a partner in the merchant banking firm George Peabody & Co.. For the next fourteen years, he worked as his father's American representative in a series of affiliate banking houses, learning the trade and lifestyle of a bank partner: Duncan, Sherman & Company (1858-60), his own firm J. Pierpont Morgan & Co. (1860-64), and finally Dabney Morgan (1864-72).

Morgan quickly moved on to New York City to begin work at Duncan Sherman as a junior clerk. Through his father's reputation and his position as the obvious successor to the Peabody house, he was quickly among the most sought-after young men on Wall Street and enjoyed the company of many of New York's leading citizens.

Morgan had a great deal of independence in both his investment decisions and lifestyle, owing partly to his father's faith in Morgan's austere religious discipline. "Remember," J.S. Morgan wrote his son, "that there is an Eye above that is ever upon you and that for every act, word, and deed you will one day be called to give account." He adopted a serious, energetic approach to his work and was praised by his father's friends for his work ethic and capacity for business.

At the time Morgan entered the firm, Peabody & Co. was struggling in the wake of the Panic of 1857, a rash of business failures which dramatically hurt investor confidence in American securities. Peabody & Co., whose business was focused on American trade and enterprise, was particularly threatened; a few of its American correspondents were forced to suspend operations. The house's creditors, including Baring Brothers, demanded payment; Peabody defied them, daring his rivals to put him out of business, and turned to the Bank of England for a loan in November 1857. Morgan himself expressed surprise that the famed Barings house was not more accommodating. The loan secured the house's survival and the London office was stabilized, but Duncan Sherman came under criticism on Wall Street, and the Mercantile Agency recommended its dissolution. J. P. Morgan urged his father to stand by Duncan Sherman in the face of "outrageous" reports "of Browns & Barings getting the credit for what they never did."

While at Duncan Sherman, Morgan gained early experience in the financing and reorganization of railroads, including the major Ohio & Mississippi and Illinois Central lines, for which he personally negotiated the loans. Most of his work involved collecting and transmitting interest and dividend payments, executing orders on the New York Stock Exchange, and conducting credit checks on mercantile houses doing business with Peabody & Co.

Starting in early January 1859, Morgan spent several months in the South to visit the firm's correspondents in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana and to improve his knowledge of the cotton trade. He briefly visited Cuba, where he developed a lifelong taste for Cuban cigars. Most of his time in the South was spent in New Orleans, a leading cotton export hub. He received a stern warning from Duncan Sherman when he conducted an unauthorized trade of coffee at a profit, which he considered his first totally independent transaction. Later that summer, he visited his father in London. They discussed the prospects of Morgan going into business for himself, and Morgan courted Amelia Sturges, whom he later married.

As the American Civil War began, business slowed, delaying Morgan's efforts to open his own office. He opened J. Pierpont Morgan & Company some time between April and July 1861, conducting operations out of a one-room office at 53 Exchange Place. As he anticipated, most of his business was for his father and consistent with the work he had managed at Duncan Sherman. Morgan avoided serving during the war by paying a substitute $300 to take his place.

In 1862, Morgan made his cousin, James Goodwin, a partner. The firm received a serious boost when Morgan's father succeeded George Peabody as head of the London office. J.S. Morgan transferred all of the London office's remaining commercial credit and securities accounts from Duncan Sherman, and by the end of 1862, J. Pierpont Morgan & Co. was considered one of the stronger private banking houses on Wall Street.

The Civil War radically altered Morgan's focus by virtually eliminating his cotton business and drastically reducing iron imports for American railroads in favor of securities and foreign exchange operations. The Morgans, trading through J. P.'s New York office, made a large profit in the purchase and sale of Union bonds, especially after the Battle of Antietam turned the war in the Union's favor. Morgan also profited in gold after specie payments were suspended in 1862; its price was largely pegged to the possibility of a Union victory. In October 1863, he and Edward B. Ketchum transferred $1.15 million (equivalent to $20,287,000 in 2021) in gold to England, forcing a price spike and allowing both men to sell their holdings at a large profit. Critics have long considered the deal a speculative effort to corner the American gold market and evidence of Morgan's insensitivity to the nation's financial situation, although the economic consequences were ultimately minor.

Hall Carbine Affair

In August 1861, Morgan lent $20,000 (equivalent to $483,140 in 2021) to Simon Stevens, a well-connected New York City attorney and former secretary to Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens used the money to purchase five thousand carbines for resale to General John C. Frémont, commander of the Department of the West. The carbines in question were developed by John H. Hall and manufactured by Simeon North, purchased by the U.S. government, and resold to arms dealer Arthur M. Eastman for $3.50 apiece in June 1861 (equivalent to $114 in 2022). After the Union defeat at Bull Run placed a premium on arms, Stevens used the Morgan loan to purchase the rifles from Eastman at $11.50 apiece and immediately resold them to Frémont, a longtime acquaintance, at $22 each.

Morgan photographed c. 1870

During the loan's thirty-eight day duration, Morgan held title to the carbines and assumed responsibility for having their barrels replaced with spirally grooved ones before shipment to Frémont. Stevens approached Morgan for another loan, which Morgan refused, instead asking Stevens for the $20,000 on the original loan and attempting to remove himself from the transaction. On September 14, Morgan received $55,000 from the Army for the carbines, deducted the face value of the loan plus expenses and interest, and passed the remainder to Stevens.

By September, when Morgan received payment, the deal was already controversial. Military officials felt Frémont had overpaid, and an 1863 House of Representatives report indicted the profiteers as "worse than traitors in arms." Though Morgan was neither criticized nor censured during contemporary investigations, his name remained connected with the Hall Carbine Affair for many years.

Debate over Morgan's knowledge and involvement became a cause célèbre within his lifetime, attracting a wide range of commentary; debate over his involvement and knowledge has persisted long after his death. Interest in Morgan's role in the affair was rekindled in 1910 with the publication of Gustavus Myers' History of the Great American Fortunes. Myers claimed the rifles were more likely to blow the rifleman's thumb off than they were to cause any damage to the enemy. An earlier version of the carbine rifle was known to be subject to this problem. R. Gordon Wasson, later the head of public relations for J.P. Morgan & Co., argued that there was no evidence Morgan knew that he was participating in a scheme to profit. Vincent Carosso, author of an academic history of the Morgan house, concurs that Stevens "used Morgan's name" to cover his greed and that "none of the evidence suggested that Morgan himself had been a party to the shabby contract or had participated in its profits," though he "failed to exercise the care and caution that he had demonstrated two years earlier in the New Orleans coffee deal." Matthew Josephson, who popularized the term "robber baron," asserted that Morgan certainly did know of the scheme, because he had presented the government with a bill for $58,175 before he delivered the remaining rifles that were being held as collateral. Reviewing the evidence, Charles Morris also concluded that it was "implausible" that Morgan did not know about the source of his profits.

From 1864 to 1872, he was a member of the firm of Dabney, Morgan, & Co. In 1869, He wrested control of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad from Jay Gould and Jim Fisk.

Drexel Morgan & Co.: 1871-1895

In 1871, at the behest of J.S. Morgan, the Philadelphia financier Anthony Joseph Drexel became J. P.'s mentor. They formed Drexel Morgan & Co. This new merchant banking partnership, based in New York, served as an agent for European investment in the United States and assumed the leading role in financing America's railroads and stabilizing and revitalizing American securities markets. The firm created a national capital market for industrial companies, which had previously existed only for railroads and canals. Drexel Morgan also played an important role in government finance. To restore investor confidence, Drexel Morgan underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army in 1877 and bailed out the U.S. government during the Panic of 1895. The foundation of Drexel Morgan and their partnership with Anthony Drexel also established Morgan family offices in London (J.S. Morgan), Philadelphia, New York City (Dabney Morgan), and Paris (Drexel Harjes), which would subsequently become J.P. Morgan & Co.

After his father's death in 1890, Morgan took control of J. S. Morgan & Co.

Bond of the New Jersey Junction Railroad Company, issued 30. June 1886, reverse side with signatures of John Pierpont Morgan and Harris C. Fahnestock as trustees

In his ascent to power, Morgan focused on America's largest business enterprises: railroads. He led the syndicate that broke the government-financing privileges of Jay Cooke and developed and financed a national railroad empire by reorganization and consolidation. He raised large sums in Europe. Rather than participating solely as a financier, he actively managed and reorganized the railroad corporations, increasing efficiency and acting as an early pioneer in the practice of private equity investing, a process that became known as "Morganization".

In 1883, Morgan successfully marketed a large part of William H. Vanderbilt's New York Central holdings. In 1885, he reorganized the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railroad and leased it to the New York Central. In 1886, he reorganized the Philadelphia & Reading, and in 1888, the Chesapeake & Ohio.

In 1887, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act. Morgan set up industry conferences in 1889 and 1890 which paved the way for a wave of consolidations in the early 20th century. In an unprecedented move, he brought together railroad presidents to follow the new laws and write agreements for the maintenance of "public, reasonable, uniform and stable rates". The first of their kind, the conferences created a community of interest among competing lines, paving the way for the great consolidations of the early 20th century.

Morgan also financed street railways, especially in New York City.

J.P. Morgan & Company: 1895-1913

After the death of Anthony Drexel, the firm was renamed J. P. Morgan & Company in 1895, retaining close ties with Drexel & Company of Philadelphia; Morgan, Harjes & Company of Paris; and J.S. Morgan & Company (after 1910 Morgan, Grenfell & Company) of London. By 1900 it was one of the world's most powerful banking houses, focused primarily on reorganizations and consolidations.

Morgan had many partners over the years, such as George Walbridge Perkins, but always remained firmly in charge. His international reputation as a financier began to draw investors to the businesses that he took over.

At the depths of the Panic of 1893, around 1895, the U.S. Treasury nearly depleted its gold reserves. Morgan put forward a plan for the federal government to buy gold from his and European banks, but it was declined in favor of a plan to sell government bonds directly to the general public. Morgan demanded a meeting with President Grover Cleveland, where he claimed the United States government could default that day if action was not taken.

Morgan came up with a plan to use an old civil war statute that allowed Morgan and the Rothschilds to sell 3.5 million ounces of gold directly to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for a 30-year bond issue. The episode saved the Treasury but hurt Cleveland's standing with the populist agrarian wing of the Democratic Party, ensuring his political career was over. In the 1896 United States presidential election, bankers came under a withering attack from William Jennings Bryan, and Morgan was among many who donated heavily to Republican William McKinley.

In 1900, the inventor Nikola Tesla convinced Morgan he could build a trans-Atlantic wireless communication system based on his theories of Earth and atmospheric electrical conduction (eventually sited at Wardenclyffe) that would outperform the short range radio wave-based wireless telegraph system then being demonstrated by Guglielmo Marconi. In what may have been a philanthropic investment, Morgan gave Tesla $150,000 (equivalent to $5,276,400 in 2022) to build the system and Tesla offered him a 51% control of the patents. Almost as soon as the letter of agreement was signed Tesla decided to scale up the facility to include his ideas of terrestrial wireless power transmission to make what he thought was a more competitive system. Morgan refused to give Tesla any further money towards the project and, with Tesla unable to secure further investment capital, Wardenclyffe's development stalled and the site was abandoned by 1906.

Portrait of J. P. Morgan; Cutthroat Capitalist -Oil on canvas by Fedor Encke, 1903

The Northern Pacific Railway went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. The bankruptcy wiped out the railroad's bondholders, leaving it free of debt, and a complex financial battle for its control ensued. In 1901, a compromise was reached between Morgan, New York financier E. H. Harriman and Minnesota railroad builder James J. Hill. To reduce competition in the Midwest, they created the Northern Securities Company to merge three of the region's most important railways: the Northern Pacific Railway, the Great Northern Railway, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The parties ran into unexpected opposition from President Theodore Roosevelt, who considered the merger bad for consumers and a violation of the seldom-enforced Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. In 1902, Roosevelt ordered Attorney General Philander Knox to sue to break it up. In 1904, the Supreme Court dissolved the Northern Security company; though Morgan did not lose money, his all-powerful political reputation suffered.

In 1900, Morgan began talks to purchase Andrew Carnegie's steel business and merge it with several other steel, coal, mining and shipping firms. After financing the creation of the Federal Steel Company, Morgan merged it with the Carnegie Steel Company and several other steel and iron businesses (including William Edenbirn's Consolidated Steel and Wire Company) in 1901, forming the United States Steel Corporation. U.S. Steel was the world's first billion-dollar company, with an authorized capitalization of $1.4 billion, much larger than any other industrial firm and comparable in size to the largest railroads.

U.S. Steel's goals were to achieve greater economies of scale, reduce transportation and resource costs, expand product lines, and improve distribution to allow the United States to compete globally with the United Kingdom and Germany. U.S. Steel president Charles M. Schwab and others claimed the company's size would enable it to be more aggressive and effective in pursuing distant international markets. Critics regarded U.S. Steel as a monopoly, as it sought to dominate not only steel but the construction of bridges, ships, railroad cars, rails, wire, nails, and many other products. With U.S. Steel, Morgan captured two-thirds of the steel market, and Schwab was confident that the company would soon hold a 75% market share. However, its market share dropped. In 1903, Schwab resigned to form Bethlehem Steel, which became the second largest U.S. steel producer.

U.S. Steel also faced criticism for its labor policies. U.S. Steel was non-union and used aggressive tactics to identify and root out pro-union "troublemakers." The lawyers and bankers who had organized the merger, including Morgan, were more concerned with long-range profits, stability, good public relations, and avoiding trouble. His views generally prevailed, and the result was a "paternalistic" labor policy.

Morgan suffered a rare business defeat in 1902 when he attempted to build and operate a line on the London Underground. Transit magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes thwarted Morgan's effort to obtain parliamentary authority to build the Piccadilly, City and North East London Railway, a subway line that would have competed with "tube" lines controlled by Yerkes. Morgan called Yerkes' coup "the greatest rascality and conspiracy I ever heard of".

International Mercantile Marine and RMS Titanic: 1902-1913

In 1902, J.P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMMC), an Atlantic shipping company which absorbed several major American and British lines in an attempt to monopolize the shipping trade. Morgan hoped to dominate transatlantic shipping through interlocking directorates and contractual arrangements with the railroads, but that proved impossible because of the unscheduled nature of sea transport, American antitrust legislation, and an agreement with the British government.

Morgan had a private suite and promenade deck on the RMS Titanic and scheduled to sail on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the ship, which was owned by an IMMC subsidiary, White Star Line, but those plans were later changed. The ship's famous sinking was a financial disaster for IMMC. Analysis of financial records shows that IMMC was over-leveraged and suffered from inadequate cash flow causing it to default on bond interest payments.

In response to the sinking, Morgan purportedly said:

Monetary losses amount to nothing in life. It is the loss of life that counts. It is that frightful death.

Morgan's overpowering role in the American economy was demonstrated in this political cartoon

The Panic of 1907 was a financial crisis that almost crippled the American economy. Major New York banks were on the verge of bankruptcy and there was no mechanism to rescue them, until Morgan stepped in to help resolve the crisis. To ease the crisis, Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou earmarked $35 million of federal money to deposit in New York banks. Morgan then met with the nation's leading financiers in his New York mansion, where he forced them to devise a plan to meet the crisis. James Stillman, president of the National City Bank, also played a central role. Morgan organized a team of bank and trust executives which redirected money between banks, secured further international lines of credit, and bought up the plummeting stocks of healthy corporations.

A delicate issue arose regarding the brokerage firm of Moore and Schley, which was deeply invested in the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI). Moore and Schley had used over $6 million of TCI stock as collateral for loans to Wall Street banks, which the firm now could not pay. If Moore and Schley failed, it could precipitate a larger crisis. Thus, Morgan proposed merging the TCI with U.S. Steel, one of its chief competitors.

U.S. Steel president Elbert Gary agreed, but was concerned that antitrust implications could obstruct the merger. Morgan sent Gary to see President Theodore Roosevelt, who promised legal immunity for the deal. U.S. Steel thereupon paid $30 million for the TCI stock and Moore and Schley was saved. The announcement had an immediate effect; by November 7, 1907, the panic was over.

The crisis underscored the need for a powerful oversight mechanism, and in 1913, banking and political leaders, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich, devised a plan that resulted in the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

"I Like a Little Competition"-J. P. Morgan, pen and ink by Art Young, relating to the answer Morgan gave to the Pujo Committee in 1912, when asked whether he disliked competition.

While conservatives hailed Morgan for civic responsibility, strengthening the national economy, and devotion to the arts and religion, critics of banking and consolidation viewed him as one of the leading figures in the system they rejected. They attacked Morgan for the terms of his 1895 loan of gold to the U.S. Treasury. Many, including writer Upton Sinclair, attacked him for his handling of the Panic of 1907. They also blamed him for the financial ills of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

In December 1912, Morgan testified before the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency committee. The committee ultimately concluded that a small number of financial leaders was exercising considerable control over many industries. The partners of J.P. Morgan & Co. and directors of First National and National City Bank controlled aggregate resources of $22.245 billion, which Louis Brandeis compared to the value of all the property in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River.

Investigation by historian James Lide discovered that through parts of its business, JPMorgan Chase accepted thousands of slaves as collateral on loans made to plantation owners in the early 19th century, and that it ended up owning several hundred slaves. The banks in question, Citizens' Bank and Canal Bank, both now part of JPMorgan, served plantations from the 1830s until the American Civil War, and sometimes took ownership of slaves when the plantation owners defaulted on loans. JPMorgan estimated that between 1831 and 1865, the two banks accepted approximately 13,000 slaves as collateral and ended up owning about 1,250 slaves. An apology was made in compliance with a rule requiring companies to detail past dealings with the slave trade when doing business with the city of Chicago.

From 1890 to 1913, 42 major corporations were organized or their securities were underwritten, in whole or part, by J.P. Morgan and Company.

J. P. Morgan walking alongside his son in the last known photograph of the two together (ca. 1913)

In October 1861, Morgan married Amelia "Memi" Sturges (1835-1862) at her home on 5 East Fourteenth Street. He had courted her for two years, and when they married, Memi was already seriously ill with tuberculosis. Morgan had to carry her to the drawing room for a small private ceremony and afterwards to the carriage which took them to the pier. They travelled to Algiers, where he hoped the warm climate would restore their health, but it did not, and she died in Nice in February 1862, four months and ten days after their marriage.

He then married Frances Louisa "Fanny" Tracy (1842-1924), on May 31, 1865. They had four children:

Morgan was self-conscious about his rosacea and hated being photographed without permission.

Morgan often had a tremendous physical effect on people; one man said that a visit from Morgan left him feeling "as if a gale had blown through the house." He was physically large with massive shoulders, piercing eyes, and a purple nose. He was known to dislike publicity and hated being photographed without his permission; as a result of his self-consciousness of his rosacea, all of his professional portraits were retouched. His deformed nose was due to a disease called rhinophyma, which can result from rosacea. As the deformity worsens, pits, nodules, fissures, lobulations, and pedunculation contort the nose. This condition inspired the crude taunt "Johnny Morgan's nasal organ has a purple hue." Surgeons could have shaved away the rhinophymous growth of sebaceous tissue during Morgan's lifetime, but as a child he suffered from infantile seizures, and Morgan's son-in-law, Herbert L. Satterlee, has speculated that he did not seek surgery for his nose because he feared the seizures would return.

His social and professional self-confidence were too well established to be undermined by this affliction. It appeared as if he dared people to meet him squarely and not shrink from the sight, asserting the force of his character over the ugliness of his face.

Morgan smoked dozens of cigars per day and favored large Havana cigars dubbed Hercules' Clubs by observers.

Morgan was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church, and by 1890 was one of its most influential leaders. He was a founding member of the Church Club of New York, an Episcopal private member's club in Manhattan. Morgan was appointed as one of the first laymen on the committee that created the 1892 revision of the Book of Common Prayer, where he petitioned for the creation of a special limited collectible printing that he later financed. In 1910, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church established a commission, proposed by Bishop Charles Brent, to implement a world conference of churches to address their differences in their " faith and order." Morgan was so impressed by the proposal for such a conference that he contributed $100,000 (equivalent to $2,125,100 in 2021) to finance the commission's work.

The Morgan Library & Museum

His house at 219 Madison Avenue was originally built in 1853 by John Jay Phelps and purchased by Morgan in 1882. It became the first electrically lit private residence in New York. His interest in the new technology was a result of his financing Thomas Alva Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company in 1878. It was there that a reception of 1,000 people was held for the marriage of Juliet Morgan and William Pierson Hamilton on April 12, 1894, where they were given a favorite clock of Morgan's. Morgan also owned the "Cragston" estate, located in Highland Falls, New York. His son, of the same name, was the owner of East Island in Glen Cove, New York.

J. P. Morgan spent three months of every year in London and owned two houses there. His 'town' house, 13 Prince's Gate was inherited from his father and was later expanded by the acquisition of the neighbouring Number 14 to house his growing art collection. After his death the merged houses were offered to the US government for use as the residence of the US Ambassador, from 1929 to 1955. His other property was Dover House, Putney, which was later demolished and developed into the Dover House Estate.

Morgan was a member of the Union Club in New York City. When a friend, Erie Railroad president John King, was blackballed, Morgan resigned and organized the Metropolitan Club of New York. He donated the land on 5th Avenue and 60th Street at a cost of $125,000, and commanded Stanford White to "...build me a club fit for gentlemen, forget the expense..." He invited King in as a charter member and served as club president from 1891 to 1900.

Morgan was a benefactor of the Morgan Library and Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, Groton School, Harvard University (especially its medical school), Trinity College, the Lying-in Hospital of the City of New York, and the New York trade schools.

J. P. Morgan's yacht Corsair II, later bought by the U.S. Government and renamed the USS Gloucester to serve in the Spanish-American War. Photograph by J. S. Johnston

Morgan was the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) and was present at a board meeting on October 27, 1898, to discuss the construction of a new clubhouse. Morgan offered to acquire a 75-by-100-foot (23 by 30 m) plot on 44th Street in midtown Manhattan if the NYYC raised its annual membership dues from $25 to $50 and the new clubhouse occupied the entire site. The NYYC's board accepted his offer, and Morgan bought the lots the next day for $148,000 and donated to the club.

NYYC members hosted an informal housewarming party on January 29, 1901, giving Morgan a trophy in gratitude of his purchase of the site.

An avid yachtsman, Morgan owned several large yachts, the first being the Corsair, built by William Cramp & Sons for Charles J. Osborn (1837-1885) and launched on May 26, 1880. Charles J. Osborn was Jay Gould's private banker. Morgan bought the yacht in 1882. The well-known quote, "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it" is commonly attributed to Morgan in response to a question about the cost of maintaining a yacht, although the story is unconfirmed. A similarly unconfirmed legend attributes the quote to his son, J. P. Morgan Jr., in connection with the launching of the son's yacht Corsair IV at Bath Iron Works in 1930.

Morgan was a collector of books, pictures, paintings, clocks and other art objects, many loaned or given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (of which he was president and a major force in its establishment), and many housed in his London house and in his private library on 36th Street, near Madison Avenue in New York City.

For a number of years the British artist and art critic Roger Fry worked for the museum, and in effect for Morgan, as a collector.

His son, J. P. Morgan Jr., made the Pierpont Morgan Library a public institution in 1924 as a memorial to his father, and appointed Belle da Costa Greene, his father's private librarian, as its first director.

By the turn of the century, Morgan had become one of America's most important collectors of gems and had assembled the most important gem collection in the U.S. as well as of American gemstones (over 1,000 pieces). Tiffany & Co. assembled his first collection under their Chief Gemologist, George Frederick Kunz. The collection was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. The exhibit won two golden awards and drew the attention of important scholars, lapidaries, and the general public.

George Frederick Kunz continued to build a second, even finer, collection which was exhibited in Paris in 1900. These collections have been donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where they were known as the Morgan-Tiffany and the Morgan-Bement collections. In 1911 Kunz named a newly found gem after his best customer morganite.

Photography

U.S. gemstones from the Morgan collection

Morgan was a patron to photographer Edward S. Curtis, offering Curtis $75,000 in 1906 (equivalent to $1,730,560 in 2021) to create a series on the American Indians. Curtis eventually published a 20-volume work entitled The North American Indian. Curtis also produced a motion picture, In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which was restored in 1974 and re-released as In the Land of the War Canoes. Curtis was also famous for a 1911 magic lantern slide show The Indian Picture Opera which used his photos and original musical compositions by composer Henry F. Gilbert.

Morgan died while traveling abroad on March 31, 1913, in his sleep at the Grand Hotel Plaza in Rome, Italy. His body was brought back to America aboard the SS France, a French Line passenger ship. Flags on Wall Street flew at half-staff, and in an honor usually reserved for heads of state, the stock market closed for two hours when his body passed through New York City. His body was brought to lie in his home and adjacent library the first night of arrival in New York City. His remains were interred in the Cedar Hill Cemetery in his birthplace of Hartford, Connecticut. His son, John Pierpont "Jack" Morgan Jr., inherited the banking business. His estate was worth $68.3 million ($1.39 billion in today's dollars based on CPI, or $25.2 billion based on share of GDP), of which about $30 million represented his share in the New York and Philadelphia banks. The value of his art collection was estimated at $50 million.

His son, J. P. Morgan Jr., took over the business at his father's death, but he was never as influential. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act forced the dissolution of the House of Morgan into three entities:

The gemstone morganite was named in his honor.

The Cragston Dependencies, associated with his estate, Cragston (at Highlands, New York), was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

He bequeathed his mansion and large book collections to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

John Pierpont Morgan memorial in Cedar Hill Cemetery

A contemporary literary biography of Morgan is used as an allegory for the financial environment in America after World War I in the second volume, Nineteen Nineteen, of John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy.

Morgan appears as a character in Caleb Carr's novel The Alienist,[99] in E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime,[100] in Steven S. Drachman's novel The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh,[101] in Graham Moore's novel The Last Days of Night,[102] and in Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray's novel The Personal Librarian.[103]

Morgan is believed to have been the model for Walter Parks Thatcher (played by George Coulouris), guardian of the young Citizen Kane (film directed by Orson Welles) with whom he has a tense relationship-Kane blaming Thatcher for destroying his childhood.[104]

According to Phil Orbanes, former vice president of Parker Brothers, the Rich Uncle Pennybags of the American version of the board game Monopoly is modeled after J. P. Morgan.[105] The family of the illustrator Daniel Fox, who in 1936 created the mascot for the game, have credited J. P. Morgan as being the inspiration for the character.[106]

Morgan's career is highlighted in episodes three and four of the History Channel's The Men Who Built America.[107]

"My Name Is Morgan (But It Ain't J.P.)" - 1906 popular song released as an Edison cylinder recording, with words by Will A. Mahoney, music by Halsey K. Mohr, and sung by Bob Roberts. Originally released as a "coon song" but revised over the years, a poor man named Morgan tells his girlfriend not to mistake him for a rich man.[108][109]

The villain of Street Fighter 6 is an elderly upper-class banker that uses a variety of aliases, all of which have the initials "JP." He claims to have lived for over one hundred years, empowered by his business association with M. Bison

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2. ^ Myers, Gustavus (1910). History of the Great American Fortunes, V. 3. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr. pp. 146-176.

3. ^ Mall, Scott (October 21, 2021). "FreightWaves Classics/Leaders: J.P. Morgan controlled US railroads and industry policies". FreightWaves. Morgan's first target was the U.S. railroad industry, which will be the focus of this FreightWaves Classics article. He began by taking over small underfinanced companies, streamlined their management and operational efficiency, and then combined the companies into a dominant player.

4. ^ Timmons, Heather (November 18, 2002). "J.P. Morgan: Pierpont would not approve". BusinessWeek.

5. Albro Martin, Albro. "Crisis of Rugged Individualism: The West Shore-South Pennsylvania Railroad Affair, 1880-1885." ^ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 93.2 (1969): 218-243. online Archived November 14, 2022, at the Wayback Machine

6. The value of the gold would have been approximately $72 million at the official price of $20.67 per ounce (equal to $727 today) at the time. ^ "Historical Gold Prices - 1833 to Present"; National Mining Association; retrieved December 22, 2011.

7. ^ Gordon, John Steele (Winter 2010). "The Golden Touch" at the Wayback Machine (archived July 2, 2010), American Heritage.com; retrieved December 22, 2011; archived from the original on July 10, 2010.

8. Seifer, Marc J. (2006). "Nikola Tesla: The Lost Wizard". ExtraOrdinary Technology. 4 (1).

9. ^ Krass, Peter (May 2001). "He Did It! (creation of U.S. Steel by J.P. Morgan)". Across the Board (Professional Collection).

10. ^ Franch, John (2006). Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 298. ISBN 0-252-03099-0.

11. ^ Steven H. Gittelman, J.P. Morgan and the Transportation Kings: The Titanic and Other Disasters, University Press of America, 2012, pages 286-287

12. ^ Fridson, Martin S. (1998). It Was a Very Good Year: Extraordinary Moments in Stock Market History. John Wiley & Sons. p. 6. ISBN 9780471174004.

13. ^ Janssen, Claudia I. (January 2012). "Addressing Corporate Ties to Slavery: Corporate Apologia in a Discourse of Reconciliation". Communication Studies. 63 (1): 18-35. doi:10.1080/10510974.2011.627974. ISSN 1051-0974. S2CID 30404803.

14. ^ "Yachting: Commodore Morgan Gives the New-york Club a Site for a House to Race for the Canadian Cup Yacht Associations Meet". New-York Tribune. October 28, 1898. p. 4. ProQuest 574511646.

15. "Commodore Morgan's Gift; Presents Three Lots to the N.Y. Yacht Club for a New Home". The New York Times. October 28, 1898. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 26, 2022.

16. ^ "New Yacht Club House; Commodore Morgan Buys a 75-Foot Frontage in Forty-fourth Street for a Site". The New York Times. October 29, 1898. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 26, 2022.

17. ^ "Com Morgan Pays $148,000.: Loses No Time in Making Good His Offer to Provide Site for New Clubhouse for New York Yacht Club". Boston Daily Globe. October 29, 1898. p. 5. ProQuest 498954045.

18. ^ "N.Y.Y.C. Honors J.P. Morgan: Silver Loving Cup Presented to the Club's Ex-commodore". The New York Times. January 30, 1901. p. 7. ISSN 0362-4331. ProQuest 1013633831.

19. ^ "Harriman Gets Chicago Lines.: Terminal Transfer Company's Stock Reported in Control of Eastern Man. Details of the Deal. Charity Ball for Benefit of Nursery and Childs' Hospital a Success. General New York News". Chicago Tribune. January 30, 1901. p. 5. ProQuest 173095798.

20. ^ Morgan and His Gem Collection; George Frederick Kunz: Gems and Precious Stones of North America, New York, 1890, accessed online February 20, 2007.

21. ^ Morgan and His Gem Collections; donations to AMNH; in George Frederick Kunz: History of Gems Found in North Carolina, Raleigh, 1907, accessed online February 20, 2007.

22. ^ "Digital Collections - Libraries - Northwestern University". dc.library.northwestern.edu.

23. ^ "The Indian Picture Opera-A Vanishing Race". Archived from the original on March 11, 2007.

24. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.

25. ^ Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors Quarterly www.AGPC.ORG summer 2013 Vol.15 No. 2. Page 18. Meet Daniel Gidahlia Fox - The Artist Who Created "Mr. Monopoly" by Emily F.Clements.

26. ^ "The Men Who Built America > The History Channel Club". September 30, 2012. Archived from the original on September 30, 2012.

27. ^ Cass Canfield, The Incredible Pierpont Morgan: financier and art collector; Harper & Row (1974), p. 125

28. ^ David A. Jasen, A Century of American Popular Music, Routledge, October 15, 2013, page 142

Auchincloss, Louis (1990). J.P. Morgan: The Financier as Collector. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3610-0.

Bruner, Robert F.; Carr, Sean D. (2007). The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm.

Brandeis, Louis (1914). Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It. New York: Frederic A. Stokes Company.

Brands, H.W. (2010). American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900. New York: Anchor Books.

Burgan, Michael (2007). J. Pierpont Morgan: Industrialist and Financier. Capstone.

Carosso, Vincent P. (1987). The Morgans: Private International Bankers, 1854-1913. Harvard Univ. Press. p. 888. ISBN 978-0-674-58729-8.

Chernow, Ron (2001). The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. ISBN 0-8021-3829-2.

Clark, John J.; Clark, Margaret T. (1997). "The International Mercantile Marine Company: A Financial Analysis". American Neptune. 57 (2): 137-154.

Garraty, John A. (1960). "The United States Steel Corporation Versus Labor: the Early Years". Labor History. 1 (1): 3-38. doi:10.1080/00236566008583839.

Gross, Michael (2009). Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum. New York: Broadway Books. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-7679-2488-7. OCLC 244417339.

Hein, David; Shattuck, Gardiner H. Jr. (2005). The Episcopalians. Westport: Praeger.

Morris, Charles (2006). The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy. New York: Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-8050-8134-3.

Rottenberg, Dan (2006). The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 98. ISBN 9780812219661.

Satterlee, Herbert L. (1939). J. Pierpont Morgan. New York: The Macmillan Company., written by Morgan's son-in-law

Bryman, Jeremy. J. P. Morgan: Banker to a Growing Nation. Morgan Reynolds Publishing (2001) ISBN 1-883846-60-9, for middle schools

Wheeler, George, Pierpont Morgan and Friends: the Anatomy of a Myth, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1973. ISBN 0136761488

Carosso, Vincent P. Investment Banking in America: A History Harvard University Press (1970)

De Long, Bradford. "Did JP Morgan's Men Add Value?: An Economist's Perspective on Financial Capitalism," in Peter Temin, ed., Inside the Business Enterprise: Historical Perspectives on the Use of Information (1991) pp. 205-36; shows firms with a Morgan partner on their board had higher stock prices (relative to book value) than their competitors

Forbes, John Douglas. J. P. Morgan Jr. 1867-1943 (1981). 262 pp. biography of his son

Fraser, Steve. Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life HarperCollins (2005)

Garraty, John A. Right-Hand Man: The Life of George W. Perkins. (1960) ISBN 978-0-313-20186-8; Perkins was a top aide 1900-1910

Geisst; Charles R. Wall Street: A History from Its Beginnings to the Fall of Enron. Oxford University Press. 2004.

Giedeman, Daniel C. "J. P. Morgan, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and Industrial Finance-Constraints in the Early Twentieth Century", Essays in Economic and Business History, 2004 22: 111-126

Hannah, Leslie. "J. P. Morgan in London and New York before 1914," Business History Review 85 (Spring 2011) 113-50

Keys, C.M. (January 1908). "The Builders I: The House of Morgan". The World's Work. Vol. 15, no. 2. pp. 9779-9704.

Moody, John. The Masters of Capital: A Chronicle of Wall Street (1921)

Baker, Ray Stannard (October 1901). "J. Pierpont Morgan". McClure's Magazine. Vol. 17, no. 6. pp. 507-518., a biographical magazine article

Brands, H.W. (1999). Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor and J. P. Morgan to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey., including a short biography of Morgan

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John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 - March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as J.P.

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An organized group of workers that use collective bargaining to improve working conditions

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Unions are working people standing together. When working people stand together, we can bargain with our bosses for better pay, safer working conditions and decent benefits. When workers stand together, we have power. And that power makes the American Dream more possible for everyone.
Why join a union?
Have you ever had an idea on how to make your job and where you work better in some way? Throughout history, working people have stood together to have a voice where they work and a seat at the table to negotiate good wages and decent benefits for their families. This simple concept can apply to everyone, regardless of where you work or who your boss is.

People who work for a living know about the inequality of power between employers and employees. Workers want to form unions counter-balance the unchecked power of employers. With a union, working people win basic rights, like a say in their jobs, safety and security. Unions help remedy discrimination because union contracts ensure that all workers are treated fairly and equally. When there's a problem on the job, workers and management can work together as equals to solve it.
How do people form a union?
When workers decide they want to come together to improve their jobs, they work with a union to help them form their own local chapter. Once a majority of workers shows they want a union, sometimes employers honor the workers' choice. Often, the workers must ask the government to hold an election. If the workers win their union, they negotiate a contract with the employer that spells out each party's rights and responsibilities in the workplace.
Does the law protect workers joining unions?
It's supposed to-but too often it doesn't. Under the law, employers are not allowed to discriminate against or fire workers for choosing to join a union. For example, it's illegal for employers to threaten to shut down their businesses or to fire employees or take away benefits if workers form a union. However, employers routinely violate these laws, and the penalties are weak or nonexistent.
What kinds of workers are forming unions today?
A wider range of people than ever before, including many women and immigrants, are joining unions-digital news staff, doctors and nurses, poultry workers and graduate employees, home health care aides, auto parts workers and engineers, to name a few.
How do unions help working families today?
Through unions, workers win better wages, benefits and a voice on the job-and good union jobs mean stronger communities. Union workers earn 25 percent more than nonunion workers and are more likely to receive health care and pension benefits than those without a union. Unions continue to lead the fight today for better lives for working people, such as through expanded family and medical leave, improved safety and health protections, and fighting for fair-trade agreements that lift the standard of living for workers all over the world.
What have unions accomplished for all workers?
Unions are continuing the fight today to improve life for all working families in America.

Check out what working people standing together have won for our country:

Family & Medical Leave ACT

Pregnancy & Parental LEAVE

All Breaks at Work (including Lunch Breaks)

Weekends & Paid Vacation

Sick Leave

Minimum Wage

Social Security

Overtime & Holiday Pay

Child Labor Laws

Privacy Rights

Civil Rights

Homeowners' Bill of Rights

40 Hour Work Week

Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)

8-Hour Work Day

Military Leave

Protections for immigrant workers

Workers' Compensation

Unemployment Insurance

Wrongful Termination Laws

Sexual Harassment Laws

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)

Employer Dental, Life, & Vision Insurance

Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 AND MORE!
What challenges do workers face today when they want to form unions?
Today, thousands of workers want to join unions. The wisest employers understand that when workers form unions, their companies also benefit. But most employers fight workers' efforts to come together by intimidating, harassing and threatening them. In response, workers are reaching out to their communities for help exercising their freedom to improve their lives.

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Unions 101 - California Labor Federation

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What is a union? Unions are working people standing together. When working people stand together, we can bargain with our bosses for better pay, safer working conditions and decent benefits. When workers stand together, we have power. And that power makes the American Dream more possible for everyone. Why join a union?

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Positive name for wealthy business owners during the Gilded Age, implying that they helped the United States become strong through their business pursuits

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The Men Who Built America: Traits of a Titan | History

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The idea that extremely wealthy Americans had a responsibility to spend their money in order to benefit the greater good.

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Negative term for wealthy business owners during the Gilded Age who made fortunes by monopolizing huge industries through unethical business practices

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Robber baron (industrialist) - Wikipedia

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The term robber baron derives from the Raubritter ( robber knights), the medieval German lords who charged nominally illegal tolls (unauthorized by the Holy Roman Emperor) on the primitive roads crossing their lands or larger tolls along the Rhine river - all without adding anything of value, but instead lining their pockets at the cost of the common good ( rent seeking).

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When writers sought to expose corruption in big business and government

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Muckraker, any of a group of American writers identified with pre- World War I reform and exposé literature. The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing United States. The name muckraker was pejorative when used by U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in his speech of April 14, 1906; he borrowed a passage from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress that referred to "the Man with the Muckrake...who could look no way but downward." But muckraker also came to take on favourable connotations of social concern and courageous exposition.

Where does the term muckraker come from?

What does the term muckraker mean?

Who was the first muckraker?

The muckrakers' work grew out of the yellow journalism of the 1890s, which whetted the public appetite for news arrestingly presented, and out of popular magazines, especially those established by S.S. McClure, Frank A. Munsey, and Peter F. Collier. The emergence of muckraking was heralded in the January 1903 issue of McClure's Magazine by articles on municipal government, labour, and trusts, written by Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, and Ida M. Tarbell.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The intense public interest aroused by articles critical of political corruption, industrial monopolies, and fraudulent business practices rallied journalists, novelists, and reformers of all sorts to sharpen their criticism of American society. Charles Edward Russell led the reform writers with exposés ranging from The Greatest Trust in the World (1905) to The Uprising of the Many (1907), the latter of which reported on methods being tried to extend democracy in other countries. Lincoln Steffens wrote about corrupt city and state politics in The Shame of the Cities (1904). Brand Whitlock, who wrote The Turn of the Balance (1907), a novel opposing capital punishment, was also a reform mayor of Toledo, Ohio. Thomas W. Lawson, a Boston financier, provided in "Frenzied Finance" ( Everybody's, 1904-05) a major exposé of stock-market abuses and insurance fraud. Tarbell's The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) exposed the corrupt practices used to form a great industrial monopoly. Edwin Markham's Children in Bondage was a major attack on child labour. Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle (1906) and Samuel Hopkins Adams's The Great American Fraud (1906), combined with the work of Harvey W. Wiley and U.S. Sen. Albert J. Beveridge, brought about passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. David Graham Phillips's series "The Treason of the Senate" (Cosmopolitan, 1906), which inspired Pres. Roosevelt's speech in 1906, was influential in leading to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, which provided for popular senatorial elections. Muckraking as a movement largely disappeared between 1910 and 1912.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan, Senior Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

key people

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muckraker | Definition, History, Examples, & Facts

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Muckraker, any of a group of American writers identified with pre-World War I reform and expose literature. The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing United States.

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Patterns of movement across the country, including waves of new immigrants and formerly enslaved people moving toward urban centers

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The traditional belief that the United States should refrain from involvement in overseas politics, alliances, or wars, and confine its national security interest to its own borders

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The political orientation of a people or a government to maintain a strong military force and to be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

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The movement of African Americans from the South to the industrial centers of the Northeast and the Midwest.

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The practice of allowing investors to purchase a stock for only a fraction of its price and borrow the rest at high interest rates

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The campaign to allow female voters

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Political ideology that stresses people's membership in a nation

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The resolution to WWI that squarely blamed Germany by demanding billions in reparations and destroying German military infrastructure

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The prevention by law of the manufacture and sale of alcohol between 1920 and 1933

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American military strategy in WWII to slowly claim territory across the Pacific, leading to the eventual defeat of Japan

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A captain and admiral in the Navy who was a prominent supporter of Imperialism

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A message from Germany to Mexico—decoded and shared by the British—that urged Mexico to invade the US to keep the US occupied in exchange for German support for Mexico taking back parts of the Mexican Cession

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A popular way to describe the New Deal, referring to relief, recovery, and reform

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The principle that all countries should have equal access to any of the ports open to trade in China

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International organization founded in 1919 to promote world peace and cooperation but greatly weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. Sometimes considered a precursor to the modern UN.

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Tax on imports

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A policy in which a strong nation seeks to dominate other countries politically, socially, and economically

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Belief that if one country becomes Communist its neighbors would also become communist.

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Military alliance between countries in Eastern Europe and the USSR.

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Successor to the League of Nations. Exists to solve the world’s political problems.

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Military alliance primarily between the USA and Western Europe.

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The death and destruction of six million jews and five million other people by the Nazis during WWII.

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Globally centered groups that try to solve world problems.

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Named by Winston Churchill. This is the metaphorical demarcation between communism and democracy in Europe.

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Supreme Court Case that ended the segregation of schools.

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Theory that if one country uses nuclear weapons other countries will use them as well effectively ending the world as we know it.

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Created by President LBJ to improve the social welfare safety net in the USA.

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Significantly more powerful than past weapons. First used in Hiroshima.

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Created the World Bank and IMF to solve the world’s economic problems.

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Theory that communism must be prevented from spreading to other countries and that the USA must use military force to stop it if necessary.

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Vastly more powerful than atomic bombs. Capable of destroying entire cities and permanently irradiating countries.

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a political movement in the 1980s, led by religious conservatives, advocating for socially conservative policies and seeking to influence American politics based on moral and religious principles.

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From Vashti McCollum to Billy Graham, scroll to read about certain individuals who lived during this era and their beliefs (or lack thereof).

Vashti McCollum and her son, Jim.

Vashti McCollum

Vashti McCollum challenged the constitutionality of religious instruction in America's public schools. In the 1940s, students enrolled in Champaign, Ill., schools could receive voluntary religious education from Protestant, Catholic or Jewish instructors. Despite the voluntary nature of the religious classes, students and teachers ostracized McCollum's son Jim for not participating. "I ran into a great deal of hostility at that school," he recalled. McCollum sued the school district on her son's behalf, but lost at the local and state level. Her family suffered public harassment for its views. "We had a cat that was lynched," says Jim. "My mother answered the door one time and was deluged in a shower of garbage."

The case eventually reached the Supreme Court in 1948, and the high court ruled in favor of McCollum and her son. The case made McCollum one of the most prominent atheists in the country; she served two terms as the president of the American Humanist Association.

W. Deen Mohammed

W. Deen Mohammed was the son of Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he served the church under his father. In 1961, he refused the draft and was sent to prison where he spent time soul-searching. Reading the Quran for himself, he began to question some of the doctrines and the theology of the NOI. His father excommunicated him three times; each time they eventually reconciled. W. Deen Mohammed ultimately rejected many tenets of the Nation of Islam, like the divinity of Wallace Fard Muhammad, the movement's founder.

Despite his skepticism and their many disagreements, Mohammed assumed leadership of the NOI when his father died. He quickly began to make sweeping changes to the organization, moving it toward mainstream Sunni Islam. He changed the name to the Muslim American Community, and changed his given name of Wallace F. Muhammad to Warith Deen Mohammed. Mohammed encouraged followers to study Arabic and the Quran, and to follow the five pillars of Islam: faith, charity, prayer five times a day, fasting during Ramadan and pilgrimage to Mecca.

In an effort to bring Sunni Islam's emphasis on unity to the forefront instead of continuing the NOI's prior emphasis on racial separation, Mohammed abolished the NOI's paramilitary organization and moved away from its reputation as a black supremacist organization it gained in the early 1960s. He retained much of its original intent to fight for social justice, but sought to make this fight more unifying and conciliatory. Active in interfaith initiatives, Mohammed sought cooperation with other religious communities, especially Christians and Jews. As the imam of the American Muslim Society, in 1992, he was the first Muslim to deliver an invocation at the U.S. Senate, and he led prayers, reading from the Quran, at both inaugural celebrations of President Bill Clinton. Mohammed died in September 2008.

Billy Graham

In the 1940s, Billy Graham emerged as the public face of a movement anchored in the National Evangelistic Association. These new evangelicals separated themselves from the abrasive sectarianism of fundamentalists, articulating a new evangelical theology. Graham became the first full-time preacher for Youth for Christ, an initiative to appeal to a new generation of evangelicals. Graham and his colleagues dressed in flamboyant outfits. Revivals featured Bible quizzes, ventriloquists and singing quartets. Thousands of young people responded. The revivals became the springboard for Graham's independent ministry. In 1949, Graham took his crusade to Los Angeles. He set down three stringent conditions: The sponsors must include as many churches and denominations as possible; they must increase the budget from $7,000 to $25,000 in order to invest more in advertising and promotion; they must erect a much larger tent than originally planned.

Two days before the start of the rally, the Soviet Union had successfully tested an atomic bomb. With the specter of "godless communism" looming, Graham capitalized on his time in the spotlight to proclaim: "Communism has decided against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion." Scheduled for three weeks, the revivals stretched to more than eight weeks.

The newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst instructed his editors to cover this crusade favorably and often. Graham made banner headlines and soon landed on the cover of Time magazine. The popularity of his Los Angeles crusade and the positive media treatment propelled him into the American mainstream. In the years that followed, Graham crisscrossed the country, packing football stadiums, convention centers and civil auditoriums. He preached a straightforward message of sin and salvation, urging his listeners to "make a decision for Christ." Graham moved farther away from traditional fundamentalism by reaching out to mainline Protestant denominations and forming friendships with Catholics and Jews. His decision to eliminate the ropes separating blacks and whites at one of his revivals illustrated his commitment to reaching out to every soul.

Graham transformed evangelism in America and opened the door for the re-entry of conservative Christians into the political arena.

Francis Schaeffer

A Presbyterian minister, maverick theologian and prolific author, Francis Schaeffer is credited with providing American evangelicals the intellectual framework that encouraged them to enter the political arena in the 1970s. Schaeffer disdained secular humanism, the worldview that cast aside the core message of the Christian faith in favor of one devoid of Christian values. He stated: "...the consensus of our society no longer rests upon a Christian basis, but upon a humanistic one." The result, Schaeffer argued, was a society that had lost its moral foundation and threatened to shipwreck itself on the shoals of Western civilization.

Schaeffer produced and appeared on-camera in two film series: How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture and Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, a powerful indictment of abortion, euthanasia and indifference to life. Thousands of evangelicals heard Schaeffer's message and became persuaded that they had a duty -- indeed, a moral obligation -- to set aside their long-standing aversion to politics and step into the political arena. Buttressed by Schaeffer's thinking and philosophy, evangelicals marched to the polling booths and voted overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2004. While evangelicals did not achieve their ultimate goal of reforming American culture, they decisively and permanently changed the political and religious landscape of the country.

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell was a fundamentalist preacher who co-founded the Moral Majority and reacquainted disaffected religious conservatives with politics during the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Lynchburg, Va., in 1933, Falwell experienced spiritual rebirth and was baptized at age 18. By 22 he had established the Thomas Road Baptist Church in his hometown. He soon began to broadcast his weekly sermons as The Old-Time Gospel Hour. Like many of his fellow fundamentalists, Falwell had firmly believed that politics and religion didn't mix. Following the Scopes trial, fundamentalists had retreated from active participation in public life.

Influenced by Francis Schaeffer and dismayed by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, Falwell changed his mind. He began to speak out against the ruling and urge Christians to end their self-imposed exile and enter the political arena. He staged "I Love America" rallies, a potent mix of religion and patriotism that attacked what he believed were evils threatening to bring down the country: the Equal Rights Amendment, homosexuality, pornography and women's liberation.

In 1979 Falwell was recruited by several conservative and Republican operatives to co-found an organization known as the Moral Majority. Leading up to the 1980 presidential election, Falwell himself barnstormed the country in his private jet, giving speeches, appearing at conferences, delivering sermons and overseeing a sprawling media empire. The Moral Majority was widely credited with delivering the White House to Ronald Reagan.

Falwell's outspoken and flamboyant rhetoric inflamed detractors and eroded his credibility, and he never became popular with the majority. In 1989 Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority, announcing, "Our mission is accomplished." He remained a controversial figure. In the aftermath of 9/11 he suggested that the terrorist attacks were God's punishment for America's sinful behavior, including support for abortion and gay rights. He later retracted his remarks. Jerry Falwell died in September 2007.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an outspoken advocate of atheism and the founder of the organization American Atheists who gained notoriety when she sued Baltimore public schools for requiring students to read from the Bible and to recite the Lord's Prayer at school exercises. Children were excused from the practice if they supplied a note from their parents. But O'Hair argued that the practice violated the First Amendment rights of her and her son as professed atheists "in that it threatens their religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority; it pronounces belief in God as the source of all moral and spiritual values, equating these values with religious values, and thereby renders sinister, alien and suspect the beliefs and ideals of your Petitioners, promoting doubt and question of their morality, good citizenship and good faith."

The case reached the Supreme Court where it was joined to another similar case and tried as Abington School District v. Schempp. In 1963, the court ruled 8-1 in favor of the plaintiffs. The decision effectively ended Bible reading and prayer recitation in public schools. The case also shifted the debate about the meaning of religious freedom, which had before been defined as the freedom to choose a religion. Schempp introduced a new option: the freedom to choose no religion.

The case catapulted O'Hair to national prominence. She became an outspoken, aggressive and even abrasive champion of atheism, quick to condemn those who did not subscribe to her views. In 1964, Life magazine reported that O'Hair was the most hated woman in America. Vilified, she relished the role of provocateur as the public voice of atheism. Her abrasive style seemed to some to misrepresent the principles of atheism that she had laid out in her lawsuit and on which she founded the organization American Atheists: "An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist accepts that heaven is something for which we should work now -- here on earth -- for all men together to enjoy. An Atheist accepts that he can get no help through prayer, but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and to enjoy it. An Atheist accepts that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help lead to a life of fulfillment."

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People and Ideas: Cold War and Modern Era | American Experience | PBS

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How religious ideas and individuals' spiritual experiences during the Cold War/Modern era of the 20th Century have impacted American social, political and cultural life.

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the general increase in the prices of goods and services over time, reducing the purchasing power of currency.

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actions by a central bank to control the money supply and interest rates, influencing economic activity by managing inflation, employment, and overall economic stability

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Monetary Policy Meaning, Types, and Tools

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Monetary policy is a set of actions available to a nation’s central bank to achieve sustainable economic growth by adjusting the money supply.

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government actions related to taxation and spending to influence the economy, aiming to achieve economic goals such as full employment and stable prices.

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In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (mainly taxes) and expenditure (spending) to influence the economy. According to Keynesian economics, when the government changes the levels of taxation and government spending, it influences aggregate demand and the level of economic activity.

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refers to the economic policies of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, emphasizing tax cuts, reduced government regulation, and a belief that stimulating economic growth among the wealthy would benefit the entire economy.

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reducing or eliminating government restrictions and regulations on industries, with the goal of fostering competition and economic efficiency.