History

THE WAR OF 1812 The nation went to war bitterly divided . While the South and West favored the conflict, New York and New England opposed it because it interfered with their commerce . The U .S . military was weak . The army had fewer than 7,000 regular soldiers, distributed in widely scat- tered […]

LOUISIANA AND BRITAIN One of Jefferson’s acts doubled the area of the country . At the end of the Seven Years’ War, France had ceded its territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain . Access to the port of New Orleans near its mouth was vital for the shipment of American products from the

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON Washington retired in 1797, firm- ly declining to serve for more than eight years as the nation’s head . Thomas Jefferson of Virginia (Re- publican) and John Adams (Federal- ist) vied to succeed him . Adams won a narrow election victory . From the beginning, however, he was at the head of

CITIZEN GENET AND FOREIGN POLICY Although one of the first tasks of the new government was to strengthen the domestic economy and make the nation financially secure, the United States could not ignore foreign affairs . The corner- stones of Washington’s foreign pol- icy were to preserve peace, to give the country time to recover

HAMILTON VS. JEFFERSON A conflict took shape in the 1790s between America’s first political parties . Indeed, the Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Republicans (also called Demo- cratic-Republicans), led by Thomas Jefferson, were the first political parties in the Western world . Un- like loose political groupings in the British House of Commons

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON One of the last acts of the Con- gress of the Confederation was to ar- range for the first presidential elec- tion, setting March 4, 1789, as the date that the new government would come into being . One name was on everyone’s lips for the new chief of state, George Washington .

RATIFICATION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS On September 17, 1787, after 16 weeks of deliberation, the finished Constitution was signed by 39 of the 42 delegates present . Franklin, pointing to the half-sun painted in brilliant gold on the back of Wash- ington’s chair, said: 76 I have often in the course of the session

DEBATE AND COMPROMISE The 18th-century statesmen who met in Philadelphia were adherents of Montesquieu’s concept of the balance of power in politics . This principle was supported by colo- nial experience and strengthened by the writings of John Locke, with which most of the delegates were fa- miliar . These influences led to the conviction

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION By the time the Northwest Ordi- nance was enacted, American leaders were in the midst of drafting a new and stronger constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation . Their presiding officer, George Washing- ton, had written accurately that the states were united only by a “rope of sand .” Disputes between Maryland

THE PROBLEM OF EXPANSION With the end of the Revolution, the United States again had to face the old unsolved Western ques- tion, the problem of expansion, with its complications of land, fur trade, Indians, settlement, and lo- cal government . Lured by the rich- est land yet found in the country, pioneers poured over